It's Spring Chat and Pictures

It is Spring so I think we needed a new chat and pictures thread as the old one was getting really long and was for winter. Winter is truely over around here!

The bloom in my garden is mostly the daffodils that have been fabulous this year. But the daylilies are coming on. All have started growing, some taller than others. Last fall I really piled on the mulch of fall leaves so my gardenbeds are a sea of thick mulch with plants showing in many places.

Daffs are strong now as I have been planting daffs and tulips in and around the daylily beds to give them an extra season of blooms. I love to get extra color from my daylily beds!

Rita, I also like that split daff. So unusual.

I have gotten so many compliments on the picture of the split corona daff. People really, really seem to like it. My idea of daffs is that they should have trumpets. Can be small ones or flaired ones as well as the long trumpets commenly seen on the traditional daffodil. But the wide flairing broken inside part just doesn't fit into my idea of what a daff should look like. Guess I am just weird. I don't know why I bought those split coronas. But they are here and here they will stay.

My daffs were pretty sparce as I just divided and moved them, but this is my little tulip bed next to my driveway.

Oh, that is very pretty.

That is real nice Crit.

I have been working on my spring cleanups around the garden this past week and a half as it has been so warm. Unseasonably warm for mid late March. I finially got all the roses prunned back for the major spring prunning but I was really annoyed with myself because the roses were already leafed out by the time I was finished. I have a lot of roses. Honestly, this is exactly when I do the rose spring prunning each year, mid late March and they have never been leafed out in years before. So this is unusual but it seems to be a very early spring this year after a warm winter with no snow.

I takes me long enough to get all the roses done but while I was spring prunning I was also chopping back and trimming some shrubs around here plus all my butterfly bushes and my honeysuckle. And now I will have to start spraying the roses with fungicide already this week. Which is an annoyance as it is early in the year. But once the leaves come, they need spraying every two weeks all season.

At least I don't have to spray the daylilies!

Well, I have both my small 35 gallon ponds cleaned out and new water in. It is always a stinky mess. The fall leaves blow in all winter and start to decompse in the water and when they are dregged out in the spring they really smell. But I dump them both each year. First I bail out the water and leaves with a bucket. Then I pick them up and scrub them out and after that I put them back and fill with water. I put feeder fish in them that I buy el cheapo from the pet shop to take care of any mosquito problem. Can't get fish quite yet as that water was COLD! One is in ground with these paver blocks that it rests on so that it can be lifted and put back in ground. The other is one of these patio ponds which means it stands above ground. Not on my patio though but in the shrub border.

I haven't done anything about my big 350 gallon in ground pond as that has fish in it which overwintered from last summer. I don't want to mess with it yet as I figgure I will have to add some water after scooping bottom sediment and putting in the pond filter to clear the water. Will wait for warmer weather.

Rita it sounds like you have your hands full. Switching to spring chats and pics was a good move.

I got lots and lots acomplished during the exceptionally warm weather. It needs to be done each spring and this year needed to be done earlier than usual. Not that there is nothing left to do! It is a garden after all, always something needs doing.

Boy thats for sure Rita. Never ending work in the garden.

Daffodils are really blooming up a storm in my front yard.

Very nice Rita. I had some with the pink trumpets but they only lasted about 2 seasons. None have come up this year.

Those shots are all in the front yard but the first three are in the belgium block mini terraces. I bought 200 of the scheepers long trumpet mixed daffs and planted them along in there. I am so very, very pleased with that mix. It goes from early blooming daffs to late bloomers and all sorts of colors. And waves of new daffs open so that it has a fabulous look of blooms.

Rita, thanks for the new thread. Your daffs are looking great. Mine are coming one really well, too. Will have to post some pics soon.

Love the tulips, Crit. I don't have many. I have one small red one in bloom now.

Ugh! I will have to start spraying my roses, too, and clean out my 2 small ponds. Yes, a stinky mess, but they look so nice once they get done. I also have some large areas that will be getting hit with tough brush killer this year to get rid of tradescantia, mint, Jerusalem artichoke, artemesia, raspberries and blackberries, which are hellish to deal with. These areas are just too big to dig up, and will have to wait a year before I can begin planting there. So much to do, and I've been doing a lot of cleaning and clearing already. It's looking good, I must say, and I'm loving the unseasonably warm days for getting a jump start on all the work, even if it means a little extra work as well.

Rita, when I clean out my ponds I attach a hose to my pump and pump the water out. So much easier than bailing it, which I've done in the past.

Karen

Karen these small ponds are under tons of tress and shrubs. Too many leaves fall in during the winter for anything but hand bailing. But if I need to empty my big 350 pond I do use the pump and let it just empty most of the water for me that way.

Oh, I see. My bigger pond is only 6'x4' and about 15" deep, but it does get a lot of leaves in it. I hate cleaning it out. The smaller one is much easier to clean. It's a round, tub pond.

Karen

That small one I cleaned out is only 35 gallons. In fact both small ones I cleaned out are only 35 gallons. My other pond, the "big" pond is the 350 gallon stocktank that I have in ground. That one I pump out rather than bail. Also it doesn't ever get as many leaves in it as those other two being in another different area of the yard.

This message was edited Mar 28, 2012 11:05 PM

I remember when you put in that stock tank pond. I followed your thread on your progress on that. Quite and accomplishment.

Karen

It was a big project but one I am really, really pleased with. That pond looks so good what with the rocks around it.

First pic is the small round pond in the backyard. It is 35 gallons, 36 inches round and 12 inches deep.

The others are of the "big" pond that is the stocktank in ground. I wanted it too look as natural as possible that is why all the rockwork around it.

Standing in the driveway looking at the slope uphill were the daylilies are planted in the straw mulch. As they grow you can't even really see the straw between them as the daylily leaves just cover it all up. I want to add some daffs along in there at the very bottom of the rows of daylilies along the driveway. I am thinking of doing a trench at the feet of the daylily rows at the very bottom and putting lots and lots of daffs along the driveway. Then I will have more spring bloom and they will be gone by the time summer comes and the daylilies bloom.

To give you an idea of how the gardens all tie together here I am standing looking at the top garden. The daffs you see are the ones you can see part of in the very first picture. Then that all wraps around looking more left towards the front yard pond. Daylily slope would be right from this area, especially right towards the first of those two pictures.

Very nice, Rita, and you really save yourself a lot of work by leaving all the leaves down. I'm such a neat and tidy freak, I have to rake up all the leaves. Not only that, but I have invasive quack grass growing in many of my beds, and it's more troublesome to get at if all those leaves were there.

I do put down a mulch of composted cow manure when I can get to it, but often many beds never get mulched, as there's just too many other things to do. I usually don't fertilize or give extra water to my daylilies during dry spells, and they still do exceptionally well. I'm sure they'd do even better with fertilizer and extra water when needed. The beds that I get around to mulching with the cow manure also are receiving fertilizer from that as well.

Karen

Donna Dietsch was here visiting her seedlings today. She has introduced several daffodils, including Jasper Mills (pictured), which is a terrific plant. We have some if it - a great bloomer and a great show flower. She plants some of her seedlings here as she has limited space in her city garden. Lucky us.

Oh, yes, you are lucky!

Karen

Karen, I don't just leave the leaves that have fallen. I go around each falll and collect leaves to put around my gardens so that they are heavily mulched. It works great here and I never would be able to manage otherwise as I am sure the weeds would take over. This way almost no weeds.

poplarcreek, that is a lovely bunch of daffs. Lucky you indeed!

Here is the other one of my two 35 gallon small ponds. This one stands above ground in my shrub border.

Rita, my smaller pond is the same size as yours, and round as well.

I can imagine that the leaves really do keep down the weeds.

Karen

newyorkrita, I've always loved looking at pictures of your gardens. They look terrific in every season. You're such an inspiration to me.

I have 3 of the round 35 gallon ponds. I keep 2 of them on my deck because like to see my waterlilies up close. This makes my deck pretty crowded, but it also keeps the grass clipping from getting in the water when they mow the lawn. I have a third pond out in the yard and it always gets the grass clippings floating on the surface. I am renting the house, so I can't dig a hole for a real pond.

This has not stopped me, however, from putting in three 4'x8' raised beds for herbs and vegetables, and two 3'x30' borders along the fences in the backyard.

One of the 30 foot borders is supposed to be a daylily bed, but I think my English cottage garden may overflow into it a bit.
I planted a few things last year, but I will really be planting out into the beds for the first time this year. It has taken 2 years to get rid of the thistles.

Thank you lily-bud. I have been hard at work on my garden for more than ten years now and I am very pleased with the way it has all come together.

I know what you mean about the grass clippings. I end up with grass clippings in my back small in ground pond each time the grass is mowed. In spite of that, I do like that it is in ground.

These past two years I really have made a big effort to add spring bulbs each fall. This fall I intend to add even more and it will be by far my biggest addition yet in one year. I plan on large amounts of crocus, then daffs and tulips and some others. Adding daffs and tulips in and around the daylily beds really makes a very big diffence in spring color. The more I add, the more I want to keep adding more bulbs.

Front yard views from yesterday. Today everything is soaked from the rain overnight. I wanted to show this section so that people can see how I use the spring bulbs as part of the overall plan to have someting blooming in sucession from early spring till fall.

You can see the daffs along there and for the summer as the daffs die back I put in zinnias for summer color. Below the daff section there are two rows of daylilies growing with tulips that are just going to open. Plus one end has a stand of oriental lilies with roses in back and the other end has some asiatic lilies with tall beared iris in back. There are also some daylily plants at each end of the daff section.


Third pic is a closeup of the daylilies at the ends of those belgium block mini terraces.

A row of Maria daffs blooming in the backyard along the path in the daylily bed.

I would also love to add more bulbs, but I spend so much on daylilies that there's little left for bulbs.

Here's a pic from last May of the round tub pond sunk in the ground. Also some pics of the bigger pond from last May and June.

Karen

Oh Karen, those ponds are both so beautiful. I wish I had more room here. If I did I would have a much much bigger pond than what I do. But no room and I have what fits here. Another thing I would truely love to have is a stream. But definately no room for any such thing here.

Thanks! I would love to have a small stream going into the large pond, and I could do it if I really wanted to. I would also like to make the big pong bigger, but would be so much work and more money. I would like to make it so a bridge could go across it. Would love to have a Koi pond someday, too. Well, all in good time, I suppose, and with more money I could do more, and more time, too. Hello, lottery!

Karen

That is the way it always goes. A long wish list of what to get done in the garden. All any of us can do is work on it as money and time permit.

Karen, I adore your ponds. I love the way you have the hostas incorporated around the larger one. It looks like a very calming retreat.
What are the rocks with the little rectangular black screens that are placed around the edge of the pond?

The tub pond looks great sunken into the ground. You've done a really good job making it look natural.

Julie

Thanks, Julie. Those 'rocks' are solar lights facing the pond.

Karen

Nice layout Karen.