Gotta love it!

I'm pleased that I spent much effort in my fall cleanup. I'm about halfaway done with my spring cleanup, and I only started it today. Gotta deal with some ground squirrels and find somebody to help me with the brook that's decided to run thru my front yard--I gotta plan, though--a dry brook..

I gotta go charge up my brush cutter.

I think it's gonna be a very good year, if it doesn't rain as much as it did last year. All my ebay purchases of perennials (dirt cheap, and unusual--and prolific) seem to be paying off--much spreadage! Yay!

It's not easy dealing with a (very) wet landscape, but I think I'm managing!

When we started this project, there was nothing, to speak of. Now it's pretty much paradise.

What did you buy and from which vendor?

We are starting our clean-up today. Trimming the boxwood a bit late but the weather has been so bad until this week.

I think it takes about three years to get a good stand of almost any perennial. I've got stella doros coming out the wazoo this year. I like them because they bloom more than once and they don't get untidy like a lot of perennials. They may be more disease resistant than the fancy lilies. Also have a lot of black eyed Susans and purple coneflowers. They love it here!

I'm interested in your brook problem. No doubt inspired by the wet weather?

Peachy

The wet weather of last year did our front yard and one of the side yards in. The side yard is kind of a wild place, anyhow, full of brambles that hide part of an old stone wall. I cleaned that area up--I have plumed grassed and the start of a border garden. It's on a moderately steep slope, and in season, or anytime it rains, we have a small flow. I've controlled the erosion with rocks I found in the woods. Needs more! Also a couple small trees I'd like to take down--there's a nice pine sapling that was just a twig when we moved here, but it's getting a nice fullness and shape, and it shelters birds far better than the skinny maples ever could.

The front yard, oy! Our water table is right at the surface in the front, draining out of the well, so last year, it had some standing pools. We tried trenching and backfilling with pea gravel, but that all got washed out with each rain. Around the pond, we used red stone, which fared better, but the ground is so soft, everything we put down just sinks, eventually. We need to get serious about drainage, and I have a pretty good idea how to do it. First, we have to control the water flow and make it look nice--a dry brook about 3.5-4 ft wide by half as deep, lined with garden cloth, then sand, pea gravel, with crushed stone then river rock on top..Meandering. then after that settles down, we'll make the pond bigger at the wetter end, and deeper. I don't want any more lawn out there! It's fruitless!

I don;t know what vendors I used, right offhand. I had good luck with them last year. Cheap plants, usually dug right out of someone's own garden, bare root, well-packaged. Small, but healthy. I had bloomage of some last year! I hope it wasn't too cold for them here.

The ajuga I didn't think would make it last year is looking real nice. It's too early here to tell with most of the stuff, though. We're still bare here, pretty much. Lilies coming up. gotta pre-treat for the nasty, horrid red beetles!

The lilies you have had so much trouble with are hybrid or Asian ones correct? I've never known daylilies to have a pest and we live in pestville because of the heat and humidity in summer and because things don't get fully killed off in the winters. (They may this year). I only mention this because a good stand of daylilies can hold up a creek bank. Their roots form webs. You would have to divide them every three or four years to keep them from dying out.

I'm still not picturing your problem but at least it's not affecting the structure of your home and that is critical. Is the water originating from a wet weather spring in your front yard or is runoff from higher ground or a combo of the two?

It's amazing the damage that what appears to be just a little bit of water can do.

Peachy

Yes, Asiatic lilies. They are soooo beautiful. The bugs came from a shipment in the 50's to a florist in Massachusetts. They started showing up here a few years ago, and get nastier every year.

The bugs eat the foliage and lay these slimy eggs that turn into black slimy pods with an orange "yoke." Then the fetus starts eating the plant, and within a few days, everything is a wreck. I've actually thought about getting rid of them, but that would mean getting rid of half the plantings in the back yard!

If you go to my facebook profile, there's a short video of a visitor to our yard yesterday. At the very end, you can catch a glimpse of part of our water issue.

Winkin...

Somewhere we discussed the early blooming spirea. I have a white one that looks like this and is one of the first shrubs to bloom:

http://www.donnan.com/images/SpireaBridalWreath.jpg

You mentioned you had a pink and I wasn't familiar with it. Well silly me. Saturday I went toWilkerson Mill Gardens south of Atlanta in Palmetto Ga. They specialize in hydrangeas and the owners are neat, wonderful people as most of their ilk are.

In their personal garden they had this pink spirea blooming as a backdrop to their perennial bed in front of their old farm cottage. They didn't have any cultivated and ready for sale but I found a few in Franklin NC today and I'm wondering if it's the one you have....It looks so different from my white Spirea but for the leaf and has different habits as well.

http://www.youcanlearnseries.c...GoldFlameSpirea2.jpg

I don't know if hydrangeas are hardy in your neck of the woods. They can take extreme cold here but suffer with late freezes after the blossoms have set....but not often. I believe they are indigenous to France and they like wet shade.

Peachy

Yes! that's the spirea I have. I have 4 of them. One has been overtaken by ferns, though. I moved it before the ferns came up. It did well in the move, though, and might look pretty peeking from amongst the ferns.

I started one from a cutting. One of them had low branches along the ground that had sprouted roots. When I moved it to its new location, those rootlings broke off, so I stuck them in the ground and they took off quite nicely. Maybe you can get a cutting from your garden center?

Hydrangeas of all sorts do well here, though I can't get my varigated one to bloom. It's right next to the non-varigated one, that looks like it'll have a nice bloom this year. The varigated one has never bloomed for me. I think it might prefer more sun, alothough the one in the back yard has more sun and is even less likely to bloom. I'm thinking of pulling it up altogether.

I'd like a tree hydrangea--white.

quote:

Originally posted by winkin noddin:
Yes! that's the spirea I have. I have 4 of them. One has been overtaken by ferns, though. I moved it before the ferns came up. It did well in the move, though, and might look pretty peeking from amongst the ferns.

I started one from a cutting. One of them had low branches along the ground that had sprouted roots. When I moved it to its new location, those rootlings broke off, so I stuck them in the ground and they took off quite nicely. Maybe you can get a cutting from your garden center?

Hydrangeas of all sorts do well here, though I can't get my varigated one to bloom. It's right next to the non-varigated one, that looks like it'll have a nice bloom this year. The varigated one has never bloomed for me. I think it might prefer more sun, alothough the one in the back yard has more sun and is even less likely to bloom. I'm thinking of pulling it up altogether.

I'd like a tree hydrangea--white.

You can order all varieties from Wilkerson Mill. I like the Oak Leaf if that's what you are thinking of. They grow taller and more upright if not pruned and are quite showy in clumps. The blooms are white and pretty in all stages. Great cut flower. The leaves turn a gorgeous color in the fall. I bought a double-floweringone last week.

As you probably know, hydrangeas grow easily from cuttings or I just layer them on the ground with a stone or brick.

We had a variegated blue lace cap in our Atlanta home that did wonderfully well. Can't find another anywhere. Asked the people at Wilkerson and they said they stopped growing and selling them because people had little luck with them. At our house I guess it just loved its spot. Plants are funny that way.

Thanks for your info about the pink spirea! Mine will be growing with ferns also and also near a butterfly bush. I have a butterfly box nearby and it looks like the type of plant that will attract them. I heard if you dead head them they will bloom again later in the season.

Peachy