How does your garden grow?

[StraightForward]

Those of you who frequented the UDBB gardening forum might remember the xeriscaping project I embarked upon a few years ago. It is still a work in progress, but things are starting to mature, so I thought I'd share some photos. We've been getting great moisture this spring and I have not watered anything yet. The vegetable garden and fruit trees are also starting to come into their own. How are your gardens doing this spring?

Apache plume:


Mock orange and lavender:


Penstemon and sagebrush:


Hops, California poppies and Enigma climbing rose (sweet potatoes and okra planted where the straw mulch is):


First year the cherry tree is producing:


Gratuitous dog photo!:

[Canyon]

I'm glad you started a gardening thread! I was going to start one when I had more time.

Your plants look great! I'd love to see a pic of the entire xeriscape bed.

Are you going to make beer with your hops? My son-in-law makes beer and has a few vines that he harvests.

Are you still using raised beds with hugelkultur (?) logs?

I am sitting here plotting out how to plant the vegie garden. Yesterday I pounded in tee posts and wired on two cattle panels. I'm going to try tying tomato plants to that instead of using cages, which inevitably blow over when the plants get big and we get a straight line wind...We've had lots of rain, too; we've hardly had to irrigate at all!

[StraightForward]

You have a great memory! I need to get some more photos of the whole yard, but whenever I think of it, the sun's so bright that the photos come out way over exposed.

Not sure if I'll make beer this year or not. I have in the past, but last year I just didn't get around to it.

The hugelkultur beds are great, though I don't think the wood has broken down enough to act as a sponge yet. Mostly, I just love the tall raised beds that I can sit on the side of.

For tomatoes, I bought a 6'x150' roll of concrete remesh (wire with 6" holes) and made a ton of cages and other things out of it. They fit perfectly 2 wide in my 4' raised beds, then I zip tie them all together and lash a couple pieces of rebar pounded into the ground and the corners and it stays up all season despite the vines growing out the top and getting gargantuan. Way sturdier than store bought cages and more supportive too.

[Flight]

What's an xeriscape garden?
I love gardens, but dislike gardening so mine tend to be shabby or overgrown depending on if we've had any rain.
Your pics are lovely!

[StraightForward]

What's an xeriscape garden?

It's a low water use garden; xeric is a sciency way to say dry. We only get 10-12" of rain here annually, so keeping a green lawn is a PITA and a huge waste of water. So I've converted most of my front yard to heat and drought tolerant plants (many of them native species) with rock mulch. I'm not sure if it's less work or not though. There's still an up hill battle with the weeds, but the pollinators love it and I find flowers more rewarding than trying to emulate a golf course.

[Sue B]

Hey straightforward, have you tried artichoke? This is our 2nd year growing it and it is loving the cool wet spring we're having. The actual artichokes don't get as large as the ones in the store but boy are they delicious. (For the rest of you, I live about 175 miles east of straightforward and about 2,500ft higher, so we get only 6-10" of rain a year and a lot more cold weather.) I haven't yet planted the tomatoes (snowed last weekend, below freezing the last 2 nights) but my carrots are peaking out, as is the spinache and lettuce. The peas, spuds, broccoli and cabbage are delirious and I have yet to plant squash or cucumbers.

[Fatcat]

We're in the process of expanding our veggie garden and building a nice fence around it, (deer require everything you want to grow be behind a 6' fence). It's been too rainy to plant yet, as I need to get another till on it.

I am getting some lovely peony and clematis blooms right now from my landscaping, and before that the azaleas and rhododendrons were spectacular. The day lilies are getting ready to pop too.

Nice time of year to be in Oregon!

image.jpeg (129.51 KiB) Viewed 16367 times

[Flight]

Sounds like a great garden idea Straightforward. I should try and put more thought into mine, basically I put stuff in, if it dies I try something else.
My aim was to put in stuff that would grow a bit wild so there's no gaps for weeds to grow. Consequently it does the shabby or overgrown look.
I don't have any recent photos, and we had a long dry spell and now hit winter so it's looking particularly rough right now.
Here's the only decent photo I can find in the back.

abbeygarden.jpg (119.73 KiB) Viewed 16341 times

[StraightForward]

Hey straightforward, have you tried artichoke? This is our 2nd year growing it and it is loving the cool wet spring we're having. The actual artichokes don't get as large as the ones in the store but boy are they delicious. (For the rest of you, I live about 175 miles east of straightforward and about 2,500ft higher, so we get only 6-10" of rain a year and a lot more cold weather.) I haven't yet planted the tomatoes (snowed last weekend, below freezing the last 2 nights) but my carrots are peaking out, as is the spinache and lettuce. The peas, spuds, broccoli and cabbage are delirious and I have yet to plant squash or cucumbers.

Hmm, are you growing the artichokes as annuals? I've tried them once or twice in the past but they didn't really flourish. One was supposed to be hardy enough to overwinter here, but I think I didn't get enough straw mulch on it early enough. Don't remember what happened with the other one. Would love to grow them though!

[ThursdayNext]

Last year, I started an urban container vegetable garden with a Sungold, a Yellow Pear, and a Sweet 100. We're renting a house with a large patio but with small strips of bed that are already taken up with roses and other flowers, so I put out some Hummingbird feeders, got the fountain going and did some research online about growing vegetables in containers. The kids loved watering the plants (sometimes too much!) and eating tomatoes off the vine (I had no idea tomatoes grew so tall though!). Last year's Sungold produced all winter with complete neglect, so I cut it back in March, fertilized it, and now it has about 50 tomatoes on it.

I had so much fun, I started planting again in March. I'm growing strawberries, a dwarf Meyer lemon tree, Persian cucumbers, a yellow squash, zucchini, carrots, kitchen herbs, a baby watermelon, jalapeno peppers, beans, sugar snap peas (which I need to pull out because they haven't done all that well), and 10 tomato plants: 3 Sungolds, 1 Super Sweet 100, 1 Sweet 100, 1 Cherokee Purple, 1 Better Bush, 1 Early Girl, 1 Mr. Stripey and 1 Roma. I would get a few chickens if the HOA wouldn't freak out!!

[Niki]

I love garden threads i have 2 brown thumbs but have lots of plans for the garden im slowly doing at our new place. Its a very long slow road as im waiting for fill to be moved into the lower areas and my OH to build a long retaining wall. I have lots of plants in pots and was very excited last weekend to finally be able to put my first 2 in the ground lol.

Ill try and remember to take a photo today as it will be interesting to see where im at in another year.

[StraightForward]

Thursday, that sounds like a fantastic and very ambitious container garden! I'm a bit jealous of your Meyer lemon.

Niki, it takes forever to get a new place together; I feel your pain (as well as the fun of putting new plants in the ground!) But it's fun to plan and see it take shape!

Blanket flowers are starting to pop now, and the Greek yarrow is starting to fade out. We have cloud cover with a building storm tonight, so it was finally a good time to grab a couple pics:

Looking out to the street from the front step:


Lots of blanket flower and tickseed:


The whole yard - clearly I need to spread the color out!

[boots-aregard]

Such lovely photos!

Is anyone here a tree expert? I am worried about my jacaranda. It's quite a mature tree, but this year, it put out its blossoms and now is...dormant. It's supposed to be putting on its green leaves now, but seems not to be doing much of anything. Can't figure out if it is getting too much water, not enough water, not enough food (I thought you fed trees in winter, not summer). worried.

[texsuze]

Wow, Straight, I remember the "before" photos you posted. Yard looks great! Is the small lawn area zoysia? or buffalograss? Also, what type of gravel did you use (the purple/gray material near the driveway and walkway)? What has been the response from the neighbors? And what do you have for fall/winter color in terms of either grasses or flowers? What a super job you've done!

[Canyon]

boots – I’ve never had a jacaranda a tree; our winters are too cold. But, this article says, “Jacarandas have a high tolerance for drought and suffer in wet soils; therefore, the soil must be fast draining.” So, I’d bet on too much water. Is that possible – too much water in California?

StraightForward – your landscaping in the front yard is really filling in. I like it a lot!

Our weather has turned to hot and dry. I turned on the irrigation water to the combo vegie/perennial bed and barely had enough pressure to run one of the four sprinklers. DH kindly dug up and replaced the 30 year old shutoff valve for that line to the pump. All is now good, except that I need to replant a few things that I removed that were in the way of the digging project!

I have a few plants, that I started from seed, yet to go in the ground. They are for a new little bed that needs some edging, and I haven’t found any edging yet that I’m in love with.

My lilies are blooming their hearts out right now. I’ll see if I can get a decent photo.

[StraightForward]

Wow, Straight, I remember the "before" photos you posted. Yard looks great! Is the small lawn area zoysia? or buffalograss? Also, what type of gravel did you use (the purple/gray material near the driveway and walkway)? What has been the response from the neighbors? And what do you have for fall/winter color in terms of either grasses or flowers? What a super job you've done!

Thanks! The grass is the low water/low mow fescue sold by High Country Gardens. I chose it because I could seed it in, but would like to put in blue grama plugs at some point

The gravel is just what our local rock yard refers to "tan and black", which is not too expensive and sold in three sizes. I need to put a couple more yards in, but kind of dread that particular task.

Neighbor response has been great. I've had people cross the street to tell me how much they like it when I'm out working in the yard. At least if people don't like it, they're polite enough not to complain. We don't have an HOA, so I don't have to put up with any BS about landscaping rules and whatnot.

[boots-aregard]

boots – I’ve never had a jacaranda a tree; our winters are too cold. But, this article says, “Jacarandas have a high tolerance for drought and suffer in wet soils; therefore, the soil must be fast draining.” So, I’d bet on too much water. Is that possible – too much water in California?

I'm gonna go with that as the possible explanation, too. We route our laundry water out to the landscaping, so it gets plenty of water. Perhaps too much. It *looks* terribly dry -- the bark is even cracking on the sunny side of the tree. But watering more hasn't seemed to help any in the last month, so we'll give it a good dry spell and see what happens.

Thanks!

[goldhorse]

I am so jealous that you have a jacaranda. There are a few places in Berkeley where they survive although they don't flourish like they do in LA. Unfortunately, I live in the hills and they don't like living here.

[PaulaO]

I have no garden because I have a black thumb. I bought 2 beautiful dark red begonia hanging baskets for my porch on Saturday. Today they look like they are covered in ash and are droopy. Unfortunately I bought them 50 miles from home so no chance to return them. I think will find a non-living decoration for the porch.

[Chisamba]

I finally got my raised beds in,. I do not have stupid town rules, so I mix veggies and flowers in my front yard. My back yard doubles as a showing own for the sheep and a poultry yards, so planting in the back does not work.

I simply freshened the strawberries, put in a daisy and a citronella in my round bed. I have infiltrating mint, so I attempted to restrict it once again.

I have my favourite marigolds and petunias. Then in have basil and rosemary and nasturtiums for herbs. Lettuce, squash, broccoli and watermelons, and if course the famous Jersey sweet corn.

My self seeding sunflowers are also showing up again.

[Niki]

Here's my recent photos a whole 2 jasmine plants in the ground which you might be able to see in the first pic along the closest short retaining wall in the shadows, next to stepping stones. Lattice will go along that wall for them to grow up. I have grapes to go along the next bit of wall and a boysenberry vine too.

Also ready go in in pots is some fig, quince, mulberries x2, heap of herbs, several frangipanis, a rose, and a few native trees. on the other side of the house is a stream line and i have some native peppermint trees to go along it

The retaining wall will be extended around to the car and then the plan is to put a vegie planter box along that long wall.





Oh and ill happily take any suggestions on plants that will grow in the rocky steps down. Thyme and oregano have both been suggested to me. my only preference is that they are perennials and hardy. Sprinklers will be there in summer for our 40 plus days.

[StraightForward]

Things are starting to happen now! Sweet corn is tasseling, the sweet potatoes have formed a carpet across their bed, winter squash and watermelons are reaching a good size, and I picked all of this and more yesterday:

[texsuze]

Veggies as art!

[Moutaineer]

Wow, I want to paint that.