Hello everyone~
Who would have thought this segment still would have stuff going on? Honestly, you all keep me accountable. This year, I want to transform my garden as much as I can and really expand and landscape as I’d have been thinking about over the last year or two. A lot of times ,its just easier to just take action.
I looked back at the previous update 2 weeks ago and I’m happy to say that I did accomplish almost everything I wanted to, except one thing which I didn’t do because I still haven’t figured out what to do with it. Migrating plants in the garden is a little tricky and I want to make sure to only have to do it once and leave it there for a good while. Some plots are still causing me a lot of headache, so as I brainstorm, there should be further changes.
For now, lets take a look at what’s happened over the last two weeks. Most of it happened this weekend….if I’m being incredibly honest!
First Task: Planting Clematis & DIY Landscaping
A few tasks accomplished in this first part! One of the most important things was to plant the clematis. I kept thinking about it and the best place for it was where I had planted it two times before and it failed. Now, I believe that the failure was because the grass and weed took over. With that assumption, I decided to just dig up the grass and create an entire new patch. We had bricks from the previous owners stored under the patio so we took that to line it up. Under the bricks is a deep trench which I read could stop the grass from moving back in. The plant to the complete right was already there.
Next to it is my poor lilies that was in the raspberry patch and I keep wanting to move it and always being too late. I actually bit the bullet and ignored the thorny raspberry bushes and just dug in. Its not looking too hot right now. But I’m going to cut it a little so that it can strengthen, at least I think that could be the solution.
After that is the clematis from the last haul which hadn’t gotten into the ground yet. This was my top task so here we go! I’m hoping that this spot will work, especially since the one year it was successful was also with this white variety.
And at the far left is another migration from the front yard that I talked about last update: the poor little coneflower that was being overshadowed by the hydrangea last year.
Second Task: Second Garden Center Haul
From left to right:
Top Row: Purple/Coral/Red Salvia, Petunia
Middle: Green Bell Pepper, Peppermint Swiss Chard
Bottom: Hosta, Salvia
For the record, I changed the garden center from the last time to see if there was some other variety that I wanted to find so I went to the greenhouse called Les Serres Dauphinais St-Hubert. Its right here.
Third Task: Current Updates & Ready for First Harvests
Before the garden haul gets planted in ground, I wanted to do a quick update on everything from last time. Everything is grown quite a bit with the few heavy rainfalls over the last two weeks. The lettuce and kale are ready for first harvest which I will do in the coming week. However, the first thing to harvest is a harsh lesson from inexperience from planting bok choy for the first time. Apparently, Bok Choy doesn’t regrow like lettuce but you could cut the harvest leaves except with the heavy fluctuation in weather, the shock has caused all of them to flower so they have to be harvested completely at soil level. With that said, its why I have more veggies in this garden centre haul above.
I think I want to talk a little about the watering systems that I integrated in the containers. They are doing some great help especially seeing how the plants have grown a lot faster than they did last year. I’m sure the rainfall is a main factor but its kept the soil more moist for longer. Plus, the soil mixture of black, garden top and moisture control soil seems to have helped also.
Fourth Task: Planting the Haul
Petunias and Salvia Container
I know its a bit crowded here but I have planted them fairly close together before and it did relatively well. I’m just hoping that it will work out for the summer.
Salvia
The flower box should have been for petunias instead but of course, I forgot to look at the tag so well, it should still be okay. They look beautiful, mostly because they are my favorite annuals. I usually get the bright red ones but my husband wanted these ones for a change so I thought it would actually match with the current colors in the garden.
Green Bell Pepper – Container Gardening Trial
We haven’t planted peppers before in this current garden. I’m not sure how it’ll turn out. There was a lot of plants so I used one by itself to grow in a container and see how it goes and planted the rest of them in the vegetable garden below.
Replacing Bok Choy row with Bell Pepper & Swiss Chards
Here are the peppers replacing the harvested bok choy. Swiss Chards are the far end. I’m not sure how Swiss Chards are going to work out but it was just a fun experiment and we’ll see how it goes.
Purple Salvia in the new plot
Finally the purple salvia in the new plot. I’m hoping it won’t take up too much space and also end up having a restriction from growing too much with the limited space. Some observations for this place. I did try to give everything the space they need to grow so this spot won’t be going any further until I see the progress.
The only plant not in ground and taken care of is the hosta from the haul. I’m working on it right now.
Fifth Task: The Other Bits and Pieces
In case you all didn’t see the Avenue of Daydreams post, I actually had a surprise growth in my rosemary container and it turned out to be the ground cherry. It actually has unpollinated fruit. So I’m going to be moving this out soon since my ground cherry didn’t come back from last year.
Next thing was to move the little lettuce into the container. It has a decent amount of roots now so I wanted to get it into the soil. It might be a mistake since as I’m typing this up, its looking like it wasn’t strong enough. Chances of it not making it is fairly high.
That’s it for this gardening update!
Overall, there’s been a good deal of progress.
For next time, the hosta has to be plants and one of my plants need to be moved.
Aside from that, I do want to start opening up the side plot to start up the butterfly/bee garden that I had been thinking of.
Tranquil Dreams 