A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion Landscape trials and triumphs Gardening in the Shade Here's my second project . . .

I finished up one end of the lot - took me pretty well the whole of August. It's a shady area down at the end of our north lot.

The soil's hard, chock full of big ugly roots from the trees.

I forked and forked at it - took up about 2 inches of soil. Strained that same soil, mixed it with good black topsoil, peat moss and just plain leaf mulch when that ran out.

My neighbour took up about 6 feet of her periwinkle and planted it into that plot as she went along.

We had some pruning done, and I used some of the logs to section it off - that way I can just let the leaves sit on it for the winter, while the peri takes root and spreads underneath.

Here's a play by play discourse on the project . . .

July 26th . . .



The first layer - about 2 inches - is being forked up, the roots cut. Then soil is strained and mixed with peat moss, fresh black soil and whatever mulch is on hand . . .

July 31st . . .



Here I've also dug in along both fences, used wild plants from all over the lot. The only thing in there that isn't a wild plant is some . . . whaddyacallit . . . it'll come to me. Anyway, it's an all-wild garden. 'Cept the periwinkle - that was wild to begin with, but has since been cultivated.

Once a plant's been cultivated you can't very well call it 'wild' anymore. Ha ha!

Got it! Salvia!

I got 3 little pots of 'em for 50 cents each!

And they are STILL (as of today - Oct 1st) blooming out there!

Summer Storm

At dusk
unsated earth
rises toward summer rain,
a rich dark bosom arched in lust.

The hungry no more growls in the distance.

Morning; steam sizzles in deep pans,
already scorched bears torch,
recalls passion
at dusk.

Carly Svamvour - August 10th, 2k10

Anybody wanna' see some dirty pictures?

Awwwww! G'wan with ya' . . . I ain't got anything you haven't seen!

Seriously, folks - here are some pictures of the grunge I'm straining to mix with the soil being respread on the 'beside garden'.

The Mulching Square

This is where leaves, sticks and grunge get dumped. It doesn't hold the whole lot of leaves in fall, of course. But we let a certain amount of it 'mulch' and it makes fine soil come spring.

Thing is though, it has to be strained to get rid of the root bits, the stones, the twigs, etc.



Jeff and I made the square about 4 years ago - we used some old shutters somebody threw out.

Waste not, want not.




Strained Soil

This is what I take from that 2 inches of surface soil - I strain it with an old household sieve I have and swear by . . .





The mulch . . .



Then I strain that into the already strained soil and mix it.

That mighta' been more than you wanted to know, eh?

................

Just Lookin'

Here's Skitter, avidly looking on as we were doing whatever it was we were doing. I've forgotten now, but I remember how she sat there, peering through the rungs at us.

Sunday, August 22nd . . .

The rain, don't complain, falls
mainly on the plain and a large
portion of southern Ontario

For which we are happy.

Hopefully, it will fall on all those places that are on fire.

........................

The Front Lot

Very few of our pictures show the whole of the front lot. Well, this is it!

Almost . . . there's about half of the south island not showing . . .

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On with the show!



(that was Skitter on the 12th)

Beside Garden - August 21st, 2k10

We're getting there, eh?





I love doing these spots under trees . . .

Here's the new patch, all cleaned up - you can see where Pat's added some periwinkle around those stones . . .



BTW - this part of the process was being done AFTER the big pruning event that went on in September. To see that click here . . .

http://wildcity.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=gardening&action=display&thread=3571

That's pretty well it for this year's outdoor gardening; there will be leaf raking, of course.

I am in the midst of potting everything that's going to be spending the winter indoors. I'll be taking pictures of individual plantings and posting them.

Awesome, Carly. And a lot of work went into all of that. It looks good and I hope it perks up next spring for you.

Hope so too . . . periwinkle usually takes on this lot though. Doesn't spread as fast as I'd like it to, but it doesn't just fizzle out and die either.

It's been a good gardening season, Tina.

Carly, I jsut tried to post 2 differnt times & lost the posts both times--so just know that I am loving seeing your pictures & hearing about all that you have done.

Nice to see a pic of you as well--it is nice to be able to invision the person that one is talking to so thanks.

Looks good Carly, so nice to 'see' you as well

Wow, Carly, all your hard work has really paid off! I particularly like the log/branch edging you have done... it looks GREAT! Along w/ your periwinkle, another plant you might like to try is Johnny Jump Ups. They do spread well and are so cheerful although rather wee.

Thanks, Tina and Junie Girl . . . nice to be back here at GH, muckin' about with the posies!

BTW - we're gonna' be planting more hosta over the course of the next few days -about five of them, I think - the neighbour's taking up theirs.

So I'll probably start another thread on that one.

Darn nice weekend coming up for thanksgiving - high of 18 starting tomorrow, then it's 18, 19, 20 right through till Monday.

Gonna' be a good one.

Oh, and Merme & Tamara - thanks for being here!

Carly.