Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Brought to you by the letter G

The garden is looking lovely. I spotted some interesting insects while I was clearing vetch from a few of the irises (more on that in a sec). The past few days have been quite rainy, as a result we have many blooms in the irises, on the cotoneasters, and a fern that sprung up in one of the bushes. 


This is probably a Himmelman's Plume moth. This is an indication of caterpillars in the garden. I do not think we need to worry about this particular bug as it supposedly feeds on berry plants (see note 1). A few pests for irises we should be on the lookout for include mites, aphids, and iris borer caterpillars (which are 1.5 inches long with brown heads and pink bodies) (see note 2).  Using eggshell dust around the base of the plant should help ward off the caterpillars (see note 3). Prevention is key to ward off any pest. Always remove plant debris which would encourage many pests to lay eggs. 


So then 
neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. 
1 Corinthians 3:7


Notes:
1. insectidentification.org (2019) 
2. Kelsey, A. (n.d.) Insect Pests that eat Irises. 
3. White, C. (2020) How to Get Rid of Iris Borers. Dengarden.com. 

Friday, June 19, 2020

Final frosting leads to garden maintenance

Nearly one month after we started the project clearing garden one we are entering into the maintenance phase. There are still projects we want to do but those can wait until the end of summer or at least the end of Iris bloom time

One thing about working in this garden is learning about plants. This garden not only has Irises but also a Larch, two Birch trees and Cotoneasters ("kə-ˈtō-nē-ˌa-stər"). Many of the plants in Alaska are in acidic soils. The irises, and other plants in this garden, do well in this type of soil. The Larch and Birch are so lovely with the "frosting" laid down and we can now see the rocks scattered throughout the garden

My partner spotted two guys across the street removing gravel from an area; she quickly ran over to ask if we could have the gravel for our garden. God, or the universe, was listening when we were talking about putting down rock near the drain area.

A few minutes later they are laying it down for us. We not only managed to save some money and time for us but also for these fellows. 

The bushes are coming in nicely and the mulch looks awesome. 

Before we laid the mulch down, we had to dig out some stumps. In the fall there may be a few more to remove. 

The final look for the newest rocks but may have to spread them out a little more to blend with the rest of the design. 



A picture commemorating the start of the maintenance phase of the garden.



Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Groundhog day

I feel like today was a groundhog day. Why is that, do you say? Well, we did lots of the same things we did on previous days. We removed weeds and landscape fabric; laid down mulch; and watered. It felt like the "wash, rinse, dry, repeat" mantra. 😄
The reappearance of vetch really vexed me. I got to the point I wanted to make up a song about vetch and how it is the gardener's bain. When I got home I looked up the word vetch and poems. I discovered Sir Walter Scott and Ralph Waldo Emerson included this hardy flower in two of their poems. One of Emerson's poems is called "Blight".😊

The vetch plant will be a constant battle since it has ingrained itself into the rock drain.

The day started out with clouds but cleared to lovely sunshine.

Here is the vetch and grass battleground. It has been turned over by my hoe; I need to remove the materials. We are hoping for some gravel or rocks to cover the dirt. 

My partner is digging under the rock for those pesky grass roots

 time to spread the frosting

spreading the frosting

The irises are starting to bloom. They are lovely.

The drain area is slow going. There is still a grass patch. 

but the daisies and wild geranium look marvelous. 

Thursday, June 11, 2020

Garden frosting

We started putting mulch (also known as "frosting") in some areas of the garden to help with moisture control. Twenty bags of 2 cubic foot mulch did not go very far in the garden but it is a start. We will get another 20 bags next week. We still have a lot of landscape fabric to clear and areas of weeds.  We cleared 7 bags of weeds and such. We also identified some more bushes for removal. 

This is the far side of the garden near the stop sign. Lots of grass, vetch, wildflowers, and such growing here. 

We managed to get some of the rubbish/debris cleared and lay the mulch. This area has some of the daisies, irises, and wild geraniums.

See the mulch (aka, frosting) around some of the plants. This will be significant for the irises and bushes to retain moisture. You can see the second area that has daisy and wild geraniums planted. 

My partners for the day. They even have on the new club aprons.

Friday, June 5, 2020

Tough love in the garden

The end of the third week overhauling Garden one (aka, the Iris Garden).
Today we moved three bushes to different locations to prevent overcrowding and improve garden airflow. We also trimmed some to encourage bushes to "bush out" rather than grow in height. Several of the irises were divided and moved to other locations in the garden for aesthetics. While the garden has come far in the three weeks we have worked on it, there is still much to be done. Next week we may even get to lay down the mulch we bought.

The bush in the center was trimmed.  

You can see where the plants were removed or moved around the garden. Wow, the moves have made an impact on the garden's appearance. Remember to water transplants well to establish root growth and settle the plant firmly in the spot.

On the far side of the garden, we put some irises and daisies along the drain zone. This fall we may add mums or nasturtium to make this a multi-season garden. 

Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Rain or sun - we shall work in the garden

Today was a good day for gardening. We started with the sun in the early morning. We began taking out weeds and grass near the patch I stopped working last week. Three bags of rubbish and debris. We even pulled up some of the landscape fabric. The fabric was dangerous due to the "staples" used to keep the fabric down on the ground. Landscape fabric is supposed to prevent weeds or grass from establishing in a garden; unfortunately, this garden was so neglected there was no preventing growth.

We were able to remove many of the bushes that were dying or damaged. We still have a few to remove from the garden. We are ordering mulch to cover the dirt. We may even put in some daisies. 
 See how lovely the garden is now that we have cleared much of the weeds?! You can even tell the bushes have been removed on the left.