Spring 2009

With spring here and some free time on my hands before starting my new job, I am realizing it has been almost 2 years since I updated this gardening blog. I've already been busy this spring and have loved having time to work in the yard.

The biggest addition to the yard has been our privacy fence that includes a trellis over one of the gates. On the outsides of the trellis I planted a red climbing rose on one side and a trumpet vine on the other. On the insides, I planted Carolina Jessamine. First Fence of Georgia, located here in Cobb County, built the fence and I could not be more pleased. Here are some before and after photos:

Before on 2/25/09:




After as of 3/6/09:

trellis from the front

trellis from inside the backyard

from the back of the backyard
trumpet vine

climbing all ablaze, planted 3/7/09

I have already weeded and mulched the majority of the flower/garden beds in the front and backyard, including my climbing roses. There are also several things starting to bloom/bud.

forsythia, 3/12/09

Easter Lillies from my grandmother's funeral last year, 3/12/09

camellia in front yard, 3/12/09

me in front of my willow tree on my birthday :)

willow tree bean-shaped bed, 3/12/09

This year I sowed a bed full of wildflower seeds and added an additional blueberry bush to the two I already have from last year. I planted some sunflower seeds in peat pots to get them started last week; I left them out in the open on the patio and birds have eaten them! So, I planted some more and have them perched up on the sill of the screened-in porch. I also saw a member of the chipmunk family that lives in one of the railroad ties near the patio.

new blueberry bush

sunflowers that the birds atebasil

mr. chipmunk

I added an additional bird house in the backyard and potted several annuals for the patio. The "mailbox garden's" jasmine is growing nicely. Today I created a new flower bed I may turn into a "peace garden." The only two plants in the bed thus far are 2 "peace" climbing roses. I also ordered a rain barrel from Rain Barrels in Georgia, which is based here in Cobb County, due to water restrictions here in Cobb County. I ordered a brown one. I set up 4 cinder blocks today (using a level) to perch the rain barrel on in order to get water from the spigot.

watermelon

watermelon
planted approx 1 mo ago
this picture: 6-3-2007

flowers in the yard

camellia 4-29-2007magnolia 5-10-2007

rhododendron 4-29-2007

john gave me these last christmas - they glow at night from solar power

poem

The Red Wheelbarrow
From wikipedia

William Carlos Williams' 1923 poem The Red Wheelbarrow exemplifies the Imagist-influenced philosophy of “no ideas but in things”. The poem, written in two minutes or so, portrays the scene outside the window of one of Dr. Williams' patients, a very sick child he was attending. This provides another layer of meaning beneath the surface reading. The poem is intentionally plain and lucid. Williams was trying to veer away from what he saw as the “European” verbosity of his peers (T. S. Eliot, for example), to create a typical “American” image with his poem.

The subject matter of The Red Wheelbarrow is what makes it most unique and important. He lifts an ordinary scene to an artistic level, exemplifying the importance of the ordinary; as he says, a poem “must be real, not 'realism', but reality itself." In this way, it holds more in common with the haiku of Bashō than with the verse of T. S. Eliot. Bashō, a master of Japanese haiku, wrote poems that are somewhat similar to The Red Wheelbarrow (e.g., “Moonlight slants through/The vast bamboo grove:/A cuckoo cries”).

the red wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Wildflowers

Planted 4 large packets of wildflower seeds

3-29-2007

4-26-2007

6-3-2007 - blooming!

Climbing Rose & Clematis : North Wall of House

climbing blaze 1
4-26-07


nelly moser clematis
4-26-2007


climbing new year (orange)
4-26-2007


niobe clematis
4-26-2007


climbing gold glow
4-26-2007


dorota clematis
4-26-2007


climbing blaze 2
4-26-2007


6-2-2007

April 21-22 weekend

my own "mixed container"

4-22-2007

First: I do not recommend ordering plants from a mail order catalog. Some of the plants survived, but not the roses. I purchased 4 small container roses (2 red, 1 orange and 1 yellow) to plant in their place. I couldn't tell if two were completely dead, so I planted them in an inconspicuous location in the backyard to see if they will do anything. The hummingbird vines I ordered seem to be taking root as well as the two small clematis.

We went to a local store called Earth Products last weekend and bought enough stone to put around the mailbox garden. The black plastic liner just wasn't doing it for me. The stone was actually more affordable than I had imagined. We paid about $20 for enough to go around the mailbox. It was 8 cents per lb. If we had gone with the stone found at a home improvement store, it would have run us significantly more. We also bought a trellis for that area; I've planted 2 Bougainvillea plants, 2 Confederate Jasmine Plants and 2 Hummingbird Vines in the mailbox area to trail up the trellis.