I never knew I would be a gardener...

I went from being a little girl hating pulling weeds as a chore so much that I wanted to grow up and live in a condo.. to a girl who has a 1/4 acre of land that is out in it rain or shine everyday!

We got our house in November of 2011, and it was completely overgrown. I realized that pulling out things was like instant gratification making things more beautiful. Now, I have designed a retaining wall bed (we live on a slightly sloped property) for a vegetable garden, have designated an area for a shaded garden, an "orchard" in the front of our house where I planted a brown turkey fig, two 4 variety grafted apple trees, a 3 grafted variety cherry tree, a goji berry tree, and a desert king fig tree. There was a sale at a local nursery for arborvitaes, so we planted a living fence in front of a fence we had to install to keep the squaters out (our house and the one next door was abandoned for three years). I think I lost a few years in my life pulling out so much English Ivy... and replacing with less "devilish" plants for slope erosion. I even signed up to take a plant ecology class at WSU (I am a WSU online student). I realized that I kept coming to this website to look up information on plants when designing my garden, so I finally bit the bullet and got a subscription.

I don't know how it really happened, but since moving in, I slowly started doing more and more outside to make it more beautiful. Since it is such a large area (to me anyways) to revamp I just started looking for deals on plants I wanted as well - I put a cap price on plants for different size pots - so that I keep myself in check! I realized the other day just how much I have become obsessed with gardening, when somehow I ended up talking about plants at the eye dr. office.. and ended up giving the woman my number because she was wanting to ask me more questions.

What are some of your favorite plants you have in your gardens? I realized how much I personally like plants with interesting foilage (such as unique blues or even chartreuse) and year round interest, camellias, ferns. For flowering plants, I really have fallen in love with this climbing rose that came with the house, as it has almost year round blooms. I also really like peonies. Even though they don't stay in bloom very long (at least the one that was at our house when we moved in). I like peonies in particular because it sort of was a surprise beauty that came out of the ground that I had no idea existed in our overgrown landscape!

Some things for the future in my garden - a tropical bed for by the lake, pruning this flowering quince into a really unique shape, and a unique wild grass bed.

Plants I realized I don't like - ENGLISH IVY SUCKS, I think laural hedges take over too much, and I am not a use fan of rhododendrons (just because they are SO common around here).

I would love to hear suggestions for ideas of themes to make a new bed for, or just some great PNW plants that I should add to my garden.

Oh, and I have cats, so it has restricted me from planting anything inside beyond catnip! They have killed every house plant that anyone has ever given me as a gift besides a mother's-in-law tongue (which has been chewed on like crazy).. but now amount of spray bottle or anything has prevented them from eating plants! (Even ones that have made them throw up..). But that is ok, because it just keeps me focused on one area and not being completely taken over with gardening inside the house too!

Here are some before and after photos of my yard

Hard to believe how much has changed (including removing a old old cabin)

Welcome Poobear!
ENGLISH IVY SUCKS. laurel hedges take over. Cats are a pain but we love them (they do catch moles and voles though).
Oh what fun for you. I have a quarter acre, and it is a lot to keep up.
I lived by our lake and gardened in sand for several years, before moving to clay on a hill near the lake, only a mile away. The lake, being in a hole, stayed warm in the fall, was a few degrees warmer in winter, then took forever to warm up in the spring. Possibly for you it is similar. There, I had Success With Penstemons, here they almost all die (P. pinifolius 'Mersea Yellow' does fine). There I did not have enough heat for Russian Sage, here it is OK. However, you have a bit of a hill, so if you are careful to plant at the edge, you might be able to keep some things that need drainage, like 'Arp' Rosemary.
With that, here are some ideas:
Choisya 'Sundance' has chartreuse foliage. Plant it in dry shade!!!! It will grow slowly, and be trouble free. I have never watered mine, or touched it with pruners. The ordinary ones splay out and are ugly. Near it Carex 'Ice Dance looks good. Or try Japanese Forest Grass.
Depending on the location, Lavenders can work, but must either be on sand or on a hill.
Try Grevillea 'Marshall Olbrich'.
Geraniums (the perennial kind) are good but not the G cinerium which is a rock garden plant.
Hostas but bait for slugs when emerging, after that not necessary.
Heaths and Heathers.
Veronicas
To cover ground in a new bed cheaply, annual dusty miller in 6-packs turns into a 30" shrub and might overwinter, then it is totally easy to cut back almost to the ground for regrowth, or easy to pull out.
Aster laevis
Digitalis- they have naturalized around here but are not invasive.
Sedums, big and small.
Liatris 'kobold'
daylillies
I love my Ceanothus 'Victoria', has survived in clay on hill here for probably 25 years. I have planted more.
Japanese Snowbell tree.
Clematis (I only plant one pruning group so I can remember what to do), and I pick the more drought tolerant ones.
Baptisia is pretty but only blooms for 10 days, but with peony ring it is ok all summer.
Most Hebe die but 'Southerlandii' survives, nice ball shaped, flowers seem insignificant. gets way bigger than they say. I have read it can be pruned.
Japanese Skimmia (need male and female for the berries).
Peonies.
Aquilegia of course. Pick your color.
Dicentra.
Rosy Pussytoes to spill over the edges. Armeria, Iberis too. Lambs Ears
Cobea scandens annual vine
Caryopteris
Dwarf Alberta Spruce 'conica' or Jean's Dilly'
Ground covers- Potentilla neumannianna is 1" tall bright green and evergreen tiny bright yellow flowers. Veronica 'Georgia blue' survives and slowly spreads in dry shade, without invading. Hardly ever flowers there.
Erigeron grew in sand but not clay.
Sidalcea 'Party Girl'

Things I have trouble with:
I think need heat- Artemisia, Oregano, Convolvulus cneorum, Dierama, Phygelius, Kniphofia,
Slug Bait- Brunnera,Corydalis the blue ones. Primula, Helianthus, Heliopsis, Pulmonaria.
Needs sand? Maybe get eaten? Ornamental Alliums never come back either place but I grew onions, shallots and garlic in the sand. A lot of the newer crocosmia. Sisyrinchium, Verbascum.

Let us know what works for you.

Hi poobear and welcome. You have done a amazing job on that place.

Maybe you could satisfy your cats desire for salad by growing a few bowls of "cat grass".

Buy a few ounces or half pound of oats, wheat, rye or barley. No need to buy little seed packets from an online catalog - a feed store or health food store or the bulk bins at Fred Meyers ought to be really cheap. Just ask if you can sprout them.

A shallow bowl or plastic margarine tub or a milk jug cut down to 3-4" are good. You don't even need drainage holes: just don't overwater.

Add moist seed-starting mix or potting mix to about 1 1/2" from the rim. Scatter seeds densely on the surface. Cover with more moist potting mix, say 3/4" to 1". Cover with plastic film or put it in na plastic bag to keep it humid until a few grass tips emerge. Then remove the plastic film and give it as much light as you can.

Ideally, let them get 3-4" tall before giving it to the cats. This might train som eone else's cats that it is OK to eat houseplants, but I guess that's not a danger for you.

My cat could TELL that I wanted him to eat it, so he refuses, and only eats grass outdoors.

I found "Hard Red Spring Wheat Berries" (Triticum aestivum) at Fred Meyers.
I already had pounds of fall Rye from a five pound bag of cover crop seeds from a feed store.

I always stretch out any seed-starting mix that I buy with plenty of screened pine bark. This makes the mix m ore "open" and better aerated. As a 100-year-old farming text said, soil should be "well ventilated".

I'm hoping that once you find a place to start cat grass seeds protected from your cats, you'll get in terested in indoor seed starting. You can get MUCH greater variety of seeds than of plants, and it costs 20 times less. And you can grow out 1/4 of each packet that you buy, then trade the rest of the seeds for four times as much variety. And still give away seedlings.

P.S. You can attract slugs to one corner by growing chinese cabbage or Bok Choy, or young Delphiniums. Then drown them in beer!

Thanks for all the advice guys! I actually realized I never responded back to this thread, but I DID write down some of the advice you gave me (I keep a little book that I write all my plant stuff in so I can remember!).

rickcorey - I did end up planting some things in little containers around the house to see if it keeps the cats away recently.. nothing is big enough yet.. but I think it might work as they are starting to look at it curiously.

How do you drown them with beer? I have a whole bunch of delphinium seeds I am going to plant today or tomorrow!

willow - thank you! Many hours .. and hours.. and hours.. of working in my garden!

mlstevens - ha, I have been responding to you about ivy.. but I have REALLY taken your suggestions to heart! Many of the plants you suggested I have gotten some when they are on sale or at an affordable price (or else I wouldn't have any money left!). I planted some peonies, dwarf alberta spruce, heaths/heathers, ceanthus, am trying Arp rosemary, and am keeping my eye out for the choisya sundance. I want to plant some hosta bulbs, but I had planted some trilliums bulbs before I read your post in April, and they have not shown yet.. am a little worried I planted them wrong!

Here are some updated photos

Great pictures. FYI Hostas are not bulbs they just look like it. They have roots you have to chop apart with an axe or saw. very hardy. Your trillumns will probably show next year. They are very hardy also. This is a picture of a pineapple lily. It is a bulb and comes in a few different varities.

>> How do you drown them with beer?

If you don't mind getting slimy, you can grab them with borth hands (because they are slippery), then dive head-first into a big vat of cold beer. You have to hold the slug under long enough for it to drown, even if this means getting your mouth full of beer over and over.

:-)

Alternatively, put the beer in shallow saucers and leave them around the garden. Probably around the border, not right in amongst your favorite plants. Beer does attract slugs from some tens of feet away, so try to lure them AWAY FROM the plants, rather than lead them right TO the plants.

Some people scoop soil out from under the saucers so the slugs don't have to climb up over the lip. I don't bother with that: they like beer as much as I do, so they'll climb for it.

I don't know whether the inner rim keeps them from climbing back out, or if they just drink until they drown.

I cut the bottom 2-3 inches off a soda bottle instead of using saucers,. They are pretty inconspicuous.


This message was edited May 21, 2013 2:29 PM

Funny, Rick! I use ceramic bowlz that probably are intended for French onion soup. And the slugz seem to prefer the cheap stuff.