Takoma Gardener

Where there once was lawn - a new fieldstone path

I've confessed to having second thoughts about the whole lawn removal project, but maybe it's just impatience with the work in progress, construction site look of the garden at the moment.  Compared with my neighbors' lovely green lawn, ya know.  But I'm over it (for now) and moving on.

When I last reported on this project I'd removed only the lower half of the lawn, which I was replacing with a variety of groundcovers, complaining all the while about it not looking good.  Well, I decided I wasn't ever going to like it because it  looked exactly like half a lawn had been removed; the design just didn't make sense.  So out came the rest of the lawn and the next step was to complete the fieldstone path across the whole space.  That meant a trip to the stoneyard.

Now here's my beef about stoneyards: They're NO PLACE for homeowners.  Even if you're not run down by a frontloader, it's really hard to find just a few of something, like the 13 fieldstones I needed.  The good ones are bundled up in pallet sizes and for small orders ya have to comb through what they call the "Loose Wall".  And some guy was already there doing the same thing, hunting for the largest and flattest from what would more appropriately be called the "Wall of Slim Pickings".  So rather than duke it out with him, I went in the office and asked if a new pallet could be opened up for us and it worked!  So I found 13 (barely) large enough fieldstones and completed the path.  And gardeners, you all agree that paths are fabulous, right?  Even when they're much narrower than the two-person width that we're always being told is the absolute minimum.

SLOW GARDENING
And this is a good opportunity to expound (again) on the topic of slowing down and getting it right, one of the advantages of DIY garden design.  Whether I'm creating a new border line or a path like this one, I always do it slowly and gradually, tweaking as I go, stepping back again and again to see if I like the look.  So what you see here is just one tweaking, with more adjustments to follow before they're dug into place.

October Bloom Day - Still Looking Good

I sure do appreciate these late-bloomers.  The deep purple of New England aster.  The cheery whiteness of Japanese anemone.  The dainty blossoms and cool foliage of hardy begonia, even the nothing-fancy look of common garden phlox.  And there's sedum 'Autumn Joy', at least the ones the deer didn't get.

In the shrub department, the Tardiva blooms are still out and naturally, the Knockout roses are going strong like EverReady bunnies. 

So once again, Garden Blogger Bloom Day  illustrates what common, common taste I have in plants.  Guilty as charged.  But when coachees come here for plant ideas, they go off to the nurseries and you know what happens?  They find what they're looking for, they don't have to pay a lot, and the plants do what they're supposed to do - survive.

Front Yard Off-Peak

Welcome to my mid-summer front entry garden. Just tuck under the English ivy-covered archway and head toward those Otto Luyken laurels (ubiquitous, I know - because they're do-ers) and take a left to reach the front porch.

DESIGN PRINCIPLES AT PLAY
Think this is going to get esoteric?  You know, form, repetition, blah-blah-blah?  Well, no; my plant choices were a lot more plebian - and practical:

• Do I love the ivy?  Hell, no.  Sick of it.  Sick of explaining to people that no, it's not harming anything where it's growing.  But it was there when I bought the house and was the easiest and cheapest way to hide the chain-link fence.  Twenty-two years later I just want to get rid of it and replace the fence, but paying for electric service and health insurance has to come first.
• I did splurge once here and I'm glad I did because the walkway  used to be concrete and it went right up to the foundation of the house, covering the area under the window where the laurels are now.  Ew! The teak archway wasn't cheap, either, but I love how in passing under it you know you're entering a garden.
• The 'Gold Coast' Juniper on the left of the walkway serves the special purpose of holding up to  the daily pounding that spot receives from the Washington Post deliveryman.(Someone once helpfully suggested I try something lighter - like USA Today.) Numerous perennials had failed in that vulnerable spot.
• About those Otto Luykens and their ubiquity. I don't care.  They look good every single day and when they're blooming people actually notice them.  No fussing required, just 5 minutes of pruning every year or so.  Not every plant can be a star, you know; something's gotta hide the damn foundation.
• To the right of the walkway is a modest little shade garden with absolutely nothing blooming and I love it anyway.  It holds pulmonaria, hostas, bishop's weed, heucheras, astilbes, bleeding hearts, hellebores, and some not-terrible-looking rhodos.  See what I mean?

Bloom Day here in the Takoma Garden

Now that I GET what the GardenBlogger Bloom Day is all about (finally), I'm enjoying photographing my garden monthly, and showing it off a bit.  But because I love seeing plants in their setting, I've taken mostly group shots and longer views.

The front garden has lots of color - purple coneflowers, Russian sage, and blue echinops, in addition to the hot-hot annuals in the pots (Wave petunias and sweet potato vine).

The curbside garden (called the "hell strip" by some) is looking happy with the commonest perennial there is, the generic garden phlox.  The sedum 'Autumn Joy' here is enjoying the one spot in the garden not reachable by deer (oh yeah, we have them this year).

And here's my sunniest border in the backyard, again with lots of purple coneflower in bloom. On the left is the fabulous spirea 'Ogon,' with chartreuse willow-like foliage. Several large hydrangeas still look good a full month after flowering.  In fact, they look good til the dead of winter, bless their hearts.

Front Yard Woodland Garden

Meet Nina's front garden.  Previous owners tried to grow grass here but between the northern exposure and the huge oak in the middle, their attempts were doomed.  Nina knew better and created instead this charming woodland retreat.  (Fitting, since it's located on Woodland Avenue, just a few houses down the street from me.)  She filled it with understory trees, like dogwords and serviceberries, that are just now coming into bloom, plus spring bulbs, pathways and some brand-new perennials.  So like any real garden, it keeps getting better. It just needs a load of leafmold mulch every spring.

The photo on the left was taken from the sidewalk and the one on the right from her house facing the street.

Now  since I've already dragged you down the street to see new Nina's garden, how about a quick look at her green roof?  It's actually one you may have even seen before, since pictures of it are all over the web.  This shot I found on the site of a local nonprofit.  Her green roof plant supplier, Ed Snodgrass, also uses this gorgeous example in his promotional materials.

Help me Landscape Dan's New Building

Meet Dan.  He's a tireless activist in the town of Takoma, most recently for sustainable city management. Yes, a liberal do-gooder and I say thank god someone will sit through all those meetings so the rest of us don't have to.  Seriously.

But to get right to my point, Dan's recently done some hands-on redevelopment in the rundown part of town by having built a most excellent commercial building - Voila the building.

Readers, here's your job if you choose to accept it:  Pick some plants that would go with these colors.  Beyond your basic green, what?  I'm thinking conifers and ornamental grasses but what about something flowering?  These look like Western colors to me and I'm a true-blue easterner.  I've thought of exactly one so far - sedum 'Autumn Joy'  - which I think would look good and be easy.  But what about the easy-care shrub roses I was thinking about for Dan, or the equally easy spireas?  I'm stuck.

(God, you should see the "dirt" that our chosen plants would be subjected to.  It's typical construction site clay&rubble and they usually just leave it there, with sod on top, but not this time. I suggested 6 inches of real topsoil - what do you think?)

The site consists of three smallish areas (sorry - I'll try to get some dimensions), all of which get afternoon sun, or will for the first 10 years or so until the new street trees he'll be planting really produce some shade.  So yes it'll be a slowly evolving garden, like all real ones.  The colors were chosen by local colorist Zoe Kyriacos, who's enlivening our little town one building at a time.  Here's a shot of Zoe and me on site.

And why are we helping Dan?  Well, you're helping him because he's such a good guy and you're all nice people.  Me, I'm helping Dan because he and I have a barter thing going and he's a computer expert.  YES!  Oh, and that part about him being a good guy. 

Reflections

Just back from Richmond, VA, where I saw the GardenFest of Lights at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.

The last time I visited the Ginter I complained about the full sun ruining most of my photos.  This time everything was perfect - warm enough to handle a camera easily, and a sunset to die for.  (More to come.)

Front Yard Make-Over

Hard-core gardening readers here at Takoma Gardener may want to click over to GardenRant for the plan, some photos and all the dirty details.

Photo taken from my front porch.

Urban Gardeners Rock

Walking down 16th Street toward the White House I spot one balcony that gives me a grin.  A plant-loving, color-loving, exuberant spirit lives here.

Border Conflicts

Here's another observation from walking a certain unnamed neighborhood, this time about the weird things people do at the borders of their property.  I don't know whose wall came first but here you see Brick Wall sandwiched between its Old Stone Wall neighbors.  Now designwise, do people suppose that our eyes stop along the legal property lines and don't see anything beyond it?  Or is it stubborn individualism run amok? The juxtaposition looks jarring to my eyes.  (But I could be judging too harshly, coming so soon after the heady success of my amazing combined border.)

Another border conflict I saw recently was in the front yard of a client who was struggling to fight the ivy encroaching from his neighbors' property and have the small space between the front walk and the property line be something else - anything but ivy.  So I was asked what could he plant that would cover the ground and look good all year and hold back the ivy from the other side of the property line?  Wrong question! Stop fighting the losing battle, I said.  Although liriope would have met all of his criteria, it would just look silly and contrived and would emphasize the arbitrary line running down the middle of this 10-foot-wide space, not to mention still be a royal pain to keep separate from the ivy.  If his neighbors had been willing to join him in the always-satisfying ivy removal project, fine.  But short of that, what's the fricking point, anyway?  (Just keep the damn stuff from climbing up shrubs and tree and low enough to prevent its maturing and making babies and it'll do no harm in a confined space like this.)