Garden Projects # 15

question, if I mulch with my compost will it make the weeds grow faster and worse?

Good question. My solution is to let the compost sit and then pull out the weeds before spreading. Did a lot of that this week. Eventually pine mulch goes on top. Nearly my entire back border, which aligns with fields of wild vines and garlic mustard, is covered by pizza boxes. I'm throwing the weeds there since the seeds are there anyway, then peat and dirt, then mulch. With 3 kids home from college who are working, the boxes are coming in fast and furious.

And thanks, Bill for the encouragement. First part of the front yard cost a reasonable amount, then 10 years later, the other side which is much less area cost the same. Now it's yet another 10 years later... Before, he said he was charging us less than he charges the McMansions with contractors. We hope loyalty counts.

There's a small spruce behind the pine stumps that I'm letting grow, Rosemary....the garden looks better now that it's mulched.

very pretty!!

I see it now. Our neighborhood and our friends all have Blue spruces because we gave out seedlings tied with Jordan almonds at our wedding. Seems something is missing when there isn't one.

That was a cool idea

Very cool.....my son & his wife gave jars of wildflower seeds.....I planted them & had some lovely blooms.

Rosemary. Chech out rl landscaping in Lexington grew up with the owner. Use my name he may give you a break or double the price

OK. Sure will. Thanks. I'll tell him you said that, Bill :) John Marquis who is nearly a neighbor and cuts all the trees for miles around has also recommended them.

Our guy today took one look and knew what we wanted, no measurements needed. Quote in two days. The bad news is he said he was busy and the names he dropped were all well known business owners. He recommended round NE stones, but he can still do the flat fieldstones like we have in front.. I know he can get round ones for free from the public works department. They can move plants that are in the way of the Bobcat and then reinstall them.

I'm asking for space in the terrace to install some dwarf JMs :)

I asked him if he wanted the privet and he said the local conservation commission is watching him and no privet, no burning bush, no forsythia, no barberry. But I still see new ones around town, so they must sneak it in.

I didn't realize privet was invasive....folksdown the end of my road have a privet hedge.....

Almost all of Nantucket has Privet Hedges except us. Way too much work to keep then trimmed and too many straight lines for our taste. I helped a friend to do the clean up after he had cut his MIL's. There was so much to clean up and the fact that he had a level out to do it correctly scared me to death, plus the noise of the power clippers totally sent me over the edge. We lent him our Little Giant ladder so he could make a scaffold to get up high enough, and I assume he will be doing it again this summer at least once and every summer she still has them. No Privet for me, though I still think there is a place for it, just not in our yard. Patti

I had no idea about privet ban.It would serve as a barrier on a really large estate lot.
Patti is right about care,too fussy.

Mine's coming out, but I need to ask for a quote for the Bobcat to tear it out when it digs (if it digs) the wall and water feature. I took out about 30 feet of it 10 years ago by hand to finish planting my front yard. A real pain.

Our house was a 1927 Arts and Crafts with Spirea and snowberry foundation plantings.3 feet from them there was a privet hedge that needed trimming every week or I couldnt see out the windows to the street.I had it ripped out and had a drystack stone retaining wall and new foundation plantings put in.
Its easy to understand why some areas ban privet.What a pain.

sounds like you really improved upon it.

Your plans are monumental.Hope there will be pix when its done.
Nothing improves your mood than to make something new to look at not to mention value added to the house.

Rosemary, quite a job you are doing. "Some dwarf Japanese Maples"? No such thing as some or a few. The are like a bag of peanuts, once you start, you can't stop. What kind of Water feature? Nothing that we have done in our garden gives us so much pleasure as our endless stream.

Off to Vt to see our real stream. Should be roaring with all the rain that we should be getting up there. We gave our Nantucket house to a gang that are having
a family reunion for the next few days. Poor folks are in for bad weather with Tropical Storm Andrea blowing through, and ironically one of the wives coming from Maine is named Andrea. Others are coming up from Florida, so they may not arrive as scheduled. I didn't bother to tell them where the beach towels were, but did leave out extra foul weather gear for them.

Garden will be happy with all the rain, though the high winds might take down a mess of tall bearded iris which looked speculating this morning before we left. Hope all are safe with no flooding or tree damage this weekend. DH is in a Rowing Regatta in Ct tomorrow which could be problematic. Patti



This message was edited Jun 7, 2013 2:25 PM

Rivers will be at flood stage by tomorrow, I would think......hopefully the reunion group will have indoor fun planned. Rosemary, I have a dwarf JM called kasagiyama...nice color in the summer, but not great in the fall.

Hmm. Well, space will determine how many JMs will fit there. I already can't pick among all of them. The slope we have in mind for work predates our ownership so we don't know how much ledge vs boulders and sand would be there already. We told Anthony, who is giving us our first estimate, that the contours of the stream depend upon the rock formation underneath and how they can lay the liner, so we hope our flexibility will aid the estimate. He promised us that Lexington has less than 50% ledge under most houses so he knew the odds. We know from his work that he has good taste and he says he can't count how many hundred he has done. I am not adding a fountain or a plant tower or arbour or any of the things I can imagine at this point, but yes to waterfalls down the slope perhaps ending in a small dog-sized pond (less than 5'), stone steps and two levels of terrace no more than 2' high, and extending the gravel path until meeting flagstone patio which unites our deck with the steps.

The way our house is built, it has been calling for this work for ages. Every visitor to the house suggests one without knowing we've thought so from day 1. Getting kids safely past early childhood, and giving them music, dance, ice skating, fast pitch, tennis, swimming, hockey lessons --on and on-- always took priority. Now we can finally say, "You want to go to California?--save your money once college loans are paid off."

Your water feature sound wonderful and a small dog sized pond is an amusing way to measure the size of your pond. What breed? We have exactly the size that works for our medium sized dogs, but the depth or ours is only about a foot as we didn't want fish or a real pond, just a reflecting pool. Our dogs do go into it all the time to cool off so it is very much their personal pool. But ours is modest compared with what I think you are building. Ours was a homemade job with me doing the digging, though we certainly didn't have any ledge or boulders to deal with so we could do the work ourselves. Laying the liner was the tricky part as we had to piece it in the middle. I can't wait to see your transformed slope. Post lots of pictures. It sounds more than ideal and worth the wait. Patti

It sounds like a wonderful project, Rosemary. No easy digging here as it is ledge......many lightning strikes over the years......

Clifford is a 100 lb. labradoodle. We let him run free in the back yard, contained by a horse fence. He likes to excavate rocks whenever he feels like it, so we suspect the water portion has to allow him to get in or he will rearrange it. Otherwise, I don't want it to be large, and I don't want the trouble of fish. I am afraid to give many specs to a contractor because we do want the project to look pretty organic.

Today I toured seven gardens in the Garden Club tour. After seeing these wonderful gardens, it is clear to me that a water feature makes an important contribution. I was so amazed at the first one I forgot to take pics, but look at the stone here. It is called Goshen Stone and it is shiny in the sun. I think it's stunning in this grand application.

Want. Really Want. Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed that bench. OMG it is Wha worthy. Thanks for the posting. Patti

that is a $$ money bench - you better have before you stand.

Very nice....I should show that to my son...no, wait...he has enough projects for the next 30 years!

Ha ha! I figure it costs nothing to dream.

Wow that is NICE!!!!

The bench is beautiful.All the stonework is very professional.
We have a group of Bosnian 's here in the area who are in demand for their stonework.Very artful projects.
wha knows "its more than just staking rocks"

True.....it's really a gift!

Rosemay is soooooooo right. Dreaming is good for me and way cheaper than reality. DH just recently had to lay all the stones in the path near our endless stream to set them higher and to make the path level with the falls. I think he did a great job, but his efforts don't match the work done in those garden shots, nor do we have stones that are so beautiful or so flat. But they are what we had and I love what he did. Patti

Patti,It sure means more than just an impersonal bunch of stonemasons following directions.

I like to dream big too, and then I have to remember to appreciate what I actually have. Years ago there was a cartoon about a couple sitting in garden chairs on a giant house foundation with a little tiny house behind them. They were telling a passerby, "Oh yeah, we had some different ideas for this house when we started." My mother kept it posted for all to see, because designing and building my family house was their project throughout my childhood.

Thats a great story Rosemary.
I also lived with a compulsive remodler. My dad rehabbed housed in the 40's to support an insurance business.We lived close to our neighbors so the only garden was a VictoryGarden below us.
When they moved to the suburbs there was much landscaping.He had studied Landscape architecture at Cornell.
He loved nothing more than altering any environment we lived in.

Here's some more eye candy from the same estate. It was all built brand new two years ago. Fire pit. This sugar house was built from lumber milled out of the many Norway Maples on the two acre lot. Then they planted a bunch of sugar maples. The owner is borrowing the other local maples and then gives free syrup. These steps were cantilevered from the wall. My DH says no way for that one since we have trouble doing the maintenance we have. Their water feature was the only relatively modest thing, except, look at the trough! Oh, yeah, the plants were nice too, done by a different firm.

I like your story too, Jo. Cornell for landscaping must have been extraordinary.

I hope these skills don't get lost. My dad learned drafting long ago as an extra skill that he used to make blueprints. My DS still has the family's visual skills, but he insists on using his computer all the time. Sadly, although he has done some plans for us, we have to keep showing him the improbabilities of his preliminary versions. For our latest project, we think he's too busy trying to earn money in the fast food business.

Here's a dumb question that I think is fun. If you close your eyes or you are in a dark room, what do you see after the immediate afterimages are gone? I'll tell you later what I see, and my DS sees the same way, but other family members don't. I've studied this in school, and DS just learned about it himself, so I know this observation has seeped into the general culture.

The above stone works: I need #1 what a tour'de force. I cant believe they didnt use some sort of template.

We have 3 bamboo benches which fold & can be stored for the winter. Gardens do need a place to sit down, even if stone can't be done.

Even if they are rarely sat on,a seating area makes people feel welcome.These chairs face the street where dog walkers often slow down to look at the Tree Peony garden

Didn't know your Dad studied landscape architecture, Jo......Living with my son isn't easy, he's into many projects. When his wife complained, my DH & I said to her..."We warned you"! Would love that trough in my yard!