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Garden projects
24 Jun 2023 04:13 pmSince we were both free yesterday, we finally got the two new dwarf rhododendrons in the ground in the enormous empty space in back of the house where we had to remove an unsalvageable dwarf mountain pine (pinus mugo) that was destroying a retaining wall, endangering traffic, and killing three rose bushes, a honeysuckle bush, a hackberry bush, a Virginia creeper, and what used to evidently be a row of beautiful and precious shrubby cinquefoils.
So like much of our garden, this bed was meticulously planned by an expert gardener and filled with mature, well-cared-for perennials before the bad owner who had it for the ten years before us and didn't touch the garden at all. The dwarf pine should've been kept well trimmed and would have been a nice complement to the others, all around the same size, but instead, because of the nature of the soil and the site, when the trimming stopped it took over the whole bed, covering a space the size of a small bedroom and spilling out into the street where it became a danger to traffic. The deadwood in the center of it became so dense and impassable that as well as strangling the desirable bushes, it provided cover for about four good-sized unwanted maples that we couldn't reach to cut down until Wax had sawed off all its branches.
The surviving desirable tenants of the bed should be large enough to cover most of it, but after so much privation they're all spindly, weak, and small, so we have decided to fill in the empty spaces with some new baby bushes. The soil itself is still quite acidic of course, and the whole bed is also in the shadow of our Siberian spruce and a fir tree of the neighbor's. Rhododendrons will happily share space with evergreens, so they're a good candidate, and the dwarf ones shouldn't spread the way rhododendrons sometimes do. The front is also pretty bare now, and I'm thinking I'd like some groundcover dwarf junipers to drape over the edge of the retaining wall a bit. Now that we've got the rhododendrons in the ground it's evident that we will likely need a couple more of those as well.
We only planted two baby bushes, but there was some mulch to spread and Wax worked on much-needed pruning of surrounding bushes, so when we came in we were very happy that we had leftovers to eat, because she made her signature creamy tomato roasted vegetable risotto on Thursday. In celebration of the holiday (Midsummer Eve, a bank holiday), though, we did make Eton Mess for dessert. We don't have any sherry just now, so Wax put in Southern Comfort. It's okay, but not as good as Eton Mess with Amontillado.
So like much of our garden, this bed was meticulously planned by an expert gardener and filled with mature, well-cared-for perennials before the bad owner who had it for the ten years before us and didn't touch the garden at all. The dwarf pine should've been kept well trimmed and would have been a nice complement to the others, all around the same size, but instead, because of the nature of the soil and the site, when the trimming stopped it took over the whole bed, covering a space the size of a small bedroom and spilling out into the street where it became a danger to traffic. The deadwood in the center of it became so dense and impassable that as well as strangling the desirable bushes, it provided cover for about four good-sized unwanted maples that we couldn't reach to cut down until Wax had sawed off all its branches.
The surviving desirable tenants of the bed should be large enough to cover most of it, but after so much privation they're all spindly, weak, and small, so we have decided to fill in the empty spaces with some new baby bushes. The soil itself is still quite acidic of course, and the whole bed is also in the shadow of our Siberian spruce and a fir tree of the neighbor's. Rhododendrons will happily share space with evergreens, so they're a good candidate, and the dwarf ones shouldn't spread the way rhododendrons sometimes do. The front is also pretty bare now, and I'm thinking I'd like some groundcover dwarf junipers to drape over the edge of the retaining wall a bit. Now that we've got the rhododendrons in the ground it's evident that we will likely need a couple more of those as well.
We only planted two baby bushes, but there was some mulch to spread and Wax worked on much-needed pruning of surrounding bushes, so when we came in we were very happy that we had leftovers to eat, because she made her signature creamy tomato roasted vegetable risotto on Thursday. In celebration of the holiday (Midsummer Eve, a bank holiday), though, we did make Eton Mess for dessert. We don't have any sherry just now, so Wax put in Southern Comfort. It's okay, but not as good as Eton Mess with Amontillado.
