Naked ladies & CLC #3

LOL "Follow me home"...you have a problem with strays too, eh?

~julie~

It's a good thing that most rocks belong to the leverite family... leave 'er right where ya found it.

:-D Good one, Blooms! Never heard that before!
~julie~

Julie, you suppose if we keep picking up rocks on our travels, that Wisc. will have something other than limestone and flint?

That all that I used to pick up in the fields prior to planting or right after a rain.

Maxine

Maxine...LOL...I don't know, but I'm willing to try it! Maybe we could some of our friends here at DG to send us some of theirs. :-D (I'm sure tired of broken rocks...you know...SAND! ;-)

~julie~

Oh yes, I sure do know what you mean. Good drainage, but no staying power.

Maxine

Me, too, throw almost anything in the mix that will slow the water a little and then in three years when it's time to split the perennials you find nothing but sand again... where's it all go? Yah, yah, yadda yadda, I know, 'biodegrades'

They don't call where I live Sand Springs for nothing i think my yard is like the ocean it turns over and all my $$$ worth of amendments end up in China . Some where their is some one growing 8 foot plants thanks to all my work .

Am I the only one trying to grow lilies in gray modeling clay????

No, you're not alone Brenda. I had giant "curls" of it coming out of the ground when I used my bulb auger!

My SIL said she could use some of my clay to throw pots. She's an artsy type and does pottery.

I kinda thought of that too, only mine would all end up being ash trays.....since I don't smoke what would I do with them? lol! How do you clean the dirt out of the clay so you can actually use it?

Dirt? I don't have dirt in my clay!!! Man I think I'm getting ripped off!

LOL @ Brenda! (If we all got together we could make great CONCRETE!)

~julie~

Hey, you think any weeds would grow in that mixture?

Maxine

Maxine...I doubt ANYTHING would grow in our 'concrete' :-O) I think I'll just consider myself in mighty good company...and tackle the 'challange' I have in my yard already. LOL

~julie~

I get to garden in both... my yard is totally sand, for the most part what we call blow sand. As it got here on the wind from elsewhere... In April we have at least three days that the wind fills the valley with airborne sand. I add stuff that will hold or slow down the water every time I plant.

Then I go to 'Spin's house in Orange County, Calif and get to garden in what was/is pure clay. We've added gypsum and sand and peat and whatever is reccommended to make it so that it drains from the surface down to wherever I stopped digging... And then they get the flooding rains like they've had recently and everything swims and some things that don't like wet feet die.

Brenda, the dirt I was talking about is the good soil that I have added to the clay. lol! When I dug up our grass to make a new bed I found that the people who planted it must have put down a layer of gravel and then a very shallow layer of soil and then planted the grass. I have a lot of rocks right on top of my clay.

I've done something similar to that in the long aisle bed at 'Spin's house.

2ft down ya come to something we call 'the floor' which would require more ooomph than either of us or both together to get.

And so I laid a six inch deep layer of gravel and rock pieces to create a sort of 'french drain' and then add back her clay soil mixed with bags and bags and buckets of addments. The beds end up raised about 4inches above the path up the aisle.

Which is good as the path then becomes a small stream headed for the street 'cause when it does: "rain in Southern California...man it pours!!"
Here's a pic of the finished aisle bed in the Spring of '03 The dirt hardly shows now... hmmm where would that pic be?

Last year when we first started trying to "cover" up the sand in our yard, we had a whole bunch of truckloads (dump truck) of "black dirt" brought in. The guy asked Eric whether he wanted the "good" stuff or the "cheap" stuff? Of course Eric said the cheap stuff. Well...they brought it in, dumped it...and proceeded to disperse the mounds over the yard. I thought it was nice of them to help me put it in my first flower bed. UNTIL it rained on it...turned it STONE hard and slippery! :-D What a mess that was...more like still *is* in some places.

Blooms...looks to me like you guys did a LOT of work in that garden and it's beautiful!

~julie~

I've been adding grass clippings to my flowerbeds as a mulch + chopped up leaves from my fall mowings that I then "dig in" in the spring. My older beds by the house are finally coming around. All the back beds will take a while. My clay is BLACK and makes great doggy prints on the kitchen floor. (Where does Walker find all the mud with 12 inches of snow still on the ground???)

My cat says walker Is in cahoots with another dog in Kansas, its dog version of plant swap .

Wanda...I know the problem! I have a husband and two grown kids (plus a rottie) that can do the same thing when there's snow on the ground. LOL I thought it was a WI kind of thing.

~julie~

Wanda ,Star. Mgh,Moby all you HP users were is my &**^%%&^# degree symbol on here I am embarrassed to keep using this % percent thing when I want symbol for temperature

Check out this thread, Dave was on NPR... there's a link and you can listen to it...

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/477787/

Cindy

Tazzy would 8* work? - it's what I use.

Hanging my head in shame.....my computer is not an HP even though DH works there. We do have an HP scanner and printer though.

Tazzy, I use my character map. Do you know if you have one on your computer? To get to it I go to the "start" button, then to "programs", then to "accessories", then to "system tools", and then to the character map. I don't know if yours is in the same place but you might look around for it. Once you find it you need to look through the different characters there till you find the degree symbol (you can usually change the fonts in there if you can't find one in the font you are using.) Once you find it you need to hit the select button then hit the copy button. Then go back to DG and paste it where ever you want it to be.

OK that sounds like work
i will use % sign and look dumb .
to bad cant use white out on screen and could
turn % sign into degree sign . LOL

This is what my character map looks like:

Tazzy, I just figured something else out. If you hold down the alternate key and type 0176 a degree symbol will appear....much easier!

No workie ,

Tazzy, you have mail.

Tazzy, it is much easier to use the * asterick (above the 8) if you don't have the degree symbol on your keyboard... I use it all the time because I am lazy.... ;)

Yeah, Starr that's what I meant when I typed 8* up above, clarity not being my strong suit some days. LOL

Blooms... HI there! I knew what you meant, I should have said so... lol... did you go see the thread on.. "What do you think?" ... I posted pics from your wonderful package a few minutes ago....

Oh, goody Starr, glad you enjoyed. Hope ya smiled.

Still smiling!

This is for all of you who "see things in things". I call this "They're coming to take me away!!" This is on my college campus and I pass by it everyday on my way to classes.

I have also been passing by these every day. I'll post again when they bloom.

Wow, very interesting picture, Mendy. It would almost be scary, except that the second one is trying to comfort the first one, and third is just following along... and then again, y'all may see something completely different...don't mind me, I am "eccentric" , I used to be nutso, but Blooms said I could be eccentric... ;)