In article , Shez
wrote:

I think you people think to small, If I have a moat, I want a sea
monster in it, a Kraken at least,
I guess their are no Texans posting, they always think big..

I saw a garter snake swimming in ditchwater, & wished I could make it live
near my tiny garden pond.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

In article , paghat
writes

Hard landscaping is very expensive, fortunately most of our hard
landscaping is done, and very little more needs doing..
I don't have the room for many Rhododendrons though I have a couple of
miniatures, though that is really not true, Garden centres sell them as
miniatures, because they are so slow growing that they take years to get
to any size.

I like shade plants myself, but I made an effort when we first planted a
tree in the garden to find a tree that was very late leafing, it allowed
under planting to get well started before the ground underneath was
heavily shaded Its a Japanese, Tree of Heaven, and over thirty years old
now. And still growing.

Gardeners learn a lot of patience, because all the work you put in needs
years to come to fruition, you have to be able to see your garden ten
years ahead and know how big various shrubs and bushes are going to
grow, or you end up with some very mature plants that take over half the
garden. A mistake all gardeners make when they are just starting out.

I see so many things I want to put in my garden buts it already crammed
to the edges, and there is little room for more. My fingers get itchy
though every time I pass a garden centre in spring,
However I have my containers and hanging baskets so I do have a chance
to plant anew every year. I will start planting them up soon,
Spring is here. What more could a gardener ask for

Shez



I've been planting very little this spring because Granny Artemis & I
sprang for the cost of pallets of flagstones & stacking stones, to build a
flagstone patio alongside a raised garden. The price of those stones ate
up all the garden funds, though on April 2 we'll show up at the
Rhododendron Species Foundation for some dwarf rhodies I want to get to
plant in front of some big shrubs, if all I get is those it shouldn't bust
the bank, though it will be painfully hard to bypass some of the odder
shadeplants that'll be available & in past years I've not been able to
control myself.

I'm still in the midst of shifting dirt & laying flagstones, it's already
looking great. There's plenty of new area for planting as a result, where
a previously sloped area of lawn is now a raised flat area for
perennials. I moved a ton of dirt from the slope bottom that's becoming
the patio, to behind the stacking-stone wall, but can't afford to plant
that area just now. I did transplant a few things to there so it isn't all
empty, like a black-flowering hellebore that was almost invisible in its
previous location dark flower in dark spot, & it is now in the new raised
garden showing itself to spectacular effect.

I planted some rugosa roses in a new streetside garden, but that new
garden is also going to look pretty empty for the time being, & most
that's in it now had been sitting around in containers for quite a while
cuz there's no funds for new plants. Someone I last year helped
re-landscape an old garden (which he believed to be too crowded with
shrubs for his taste) hired me back this month to do some more labor, &
I'm working for pretty cheap but get additional payment in hundreds of
dollars worth of big old rhodies & other shrubs that I'm removing from his
garden to mine. It is horrible labor to get those shrubs out of the
ground & down a stone stairway that seems like a mile, but at least when
I'm done busting my back the shrubs are MINE. This morning I was digging a
big hole for the next shrub to be brought over, it'll go next to a biggish
serviceberry also recently installed. One of the smaller rhodies I brought
home from last year's landscaping for this guy, I've no idea what it is,
it is very old but only four feet tall, a small-leaf evergreen & I didn't
see it in flower last year because it bloomed so early. That one right now
has buds beginning to burst, & it so far looks creamy white. What
small-leaf evergreen rhody has creamy white flowers? I hope I can figure
it out.

I brought home a five-foot twinberry shrub I can't for the life of me
figure out where it should go so it may end up a container plant for a
while. I've a big lovely & presently empty pottery planter, because a
Portuguese evergreen cherry that had been growing in it for a couple years
got put in the new rugosa garden, so maybe the twinberry will go in that
pot for a year or however long.

Tons of bulbs are gussying up the place. As the crocus season winds down
the kaufmannias burst upward in amazingly dense drifts of waterlily-like
blooms, & every day another variety of miniature daffodil is opening up,
plus a dozen kinds of muscaris, scillas, & bellevalia getting flowerier
each day. Two species of fritillary are already blooming too. I thought
I'd "lost" the snow-white Muscari pallens, but they popped up in a
roadside location where I now realize they accidentally got lifted along
with some old daffodils; they're too tiny for the roadside garden, so when
they begin to die back some weeks from now I'll get them back into the
main yard, probably along a ledge of the new patio-side raised garden. I
think of the beginning of the year as having three parts: the crocus
season, then the daffodil/muscari season, closing with the botanical
tulips season -- with obvious overlaps. Today also I noticed that
virtually every one of our corydalises have at least their first few
blooms opened, including the Dutchman's Britches which is so damned cute
with those white undies hanging there.

It's also nearly time to lift a bunch of autumn crocuses like Crocus
speciosus, to move them before their grass vanishes & I can't find them.
I'm pondering digging up another autumn crocus, C. kotschyanus, & just
giving them a good cleaning in order to EAT them, because they didn't
bloom last year, but i may let them go one more year before deciding
whether or not they become dinner.

Early-blooming rhodies & azaleas are looking great. In full flower are
Crater's Edge, Sesame, Milestone, & PJM Elite, some others showing color
in their buds, & the star magnolia bursting into bloom too. I'm going to
hit "post" then go back outside right now & noodle around the plants some
more!

-paghat the ratgirl


--
Shez
Shez's Garden at http://www.oldcity.f2s.com/shez/

In article , paghat
writes

Hard landscaping is very expensive, fortunately most of our hard
landscaping is done, and very little more needs doing..
I don't have the room for many Rhododendrons though I have a couple of
miniatures, though that is really not true, Garden centres sell them as
miniatures, because they are so slow growing that they take years to get
to any size.

I like shade plants myself, but I made an effort when we first planted a
tree in the garden to find a tree that was very late leafing, it allowed
under planting to get well started before the ground underneath was
heavily shaded Its a Japanese, Tree of Heaven, and over thirty years old
now. And still growing.

Gardeners learn a lot of patience, because all the work you put in needs
years to come to fruition, you have to be able to see your garden ten
years ahead and know how big various shrubs and bushes are going to
grow, or you end up with some very mature plants that take over half the
garden. A mistake all gardeners make when they are just starting out.

I see so many things I want to put in my garden buts it already crammed
to the edges, and there is little room for more. My fingers get itchy
though every time I pass a garden centre in spring,
However I have my containers and hanging baskets so I do have a chance
to plant anew every year. I will start planting them up soon,
Spring is here. What more could a gardener ask for

Shez



I've been planting very little this spring because Granny Artemis & I
sprang for the cost of pallets of flagstones & stacking stones, to build a
flagstone patio alongside a raised garden. The price of those stones ate
up all the garden funds, though on April 2 we'll show up at the
Rhododendron Species Foundation for some dwarf rhodies I want to get to
plant in front of some big shrubs, if all I get is those it shouldn't bust
the bank, though it will be painfully hard to bypass some of the odder
shadeplants that'll be available & in past years I've not been able to
control myself.

I'm still in the midst of shifting dirt & laying flagstones, it's already
looking great. There's plenty of new area for planting as a result, where
a previously sloped area of lawn is now a raised flat area for
perennials. I moved a ton of dirt from the slope bottom that's becoming
the patio, to behind the stacking-stone wall, but can't afford to plant
that area just now. I did transplant a few things to there so it isn't all
empty, like a black-flowering hellebore that was almost invisible in its
previous location dark flower in dark spot, & it is now in the new raised
garden showing itself to spectacular effect.

I planted some rugosa roses in a new streetside garden, but that new
garden is also going to look pretty empty for the time being, & most
that's in it now had been sitting around in containers for quite a while
cuz there's no funds for new plants. Someone I last year helped
re-landscape an old garden (which he believed to be too crowded with
shrubs for his taste) hired me back this month to do some more labor, &
I'm working for pretty cheap but get additional payment in hundreds of
dollars worth of big old rhodies & other shrubs that I'm removing from his
garden to mine. It is horrible labor to get those shrubs out of the
ground & down a stone stairway that seems like a mile, but at least when
I'm done busting my back the shrubs are MINE. This morning I was digging a
big hole for the next shrub to be brought over, it'll go next to a biggish
serviceberry also recently installed. One of the smaller rhodies I brought
home from last year's landscaping for this guy, I've no idea what it is,
it is very old but only four feet tall, a small-leaf evergreen & I didn't
see it in flower last year because it bloomed so early. That one right now
has buds beginning to burst, & it so far looks creamy white. What
small-leaf evergreen rhody has creamy white flowers? I hope I can figure
it out.

I brought home a five-foot twinberry shrub I can't for the life of me
figure out where it should go so it may end up a container plant for a
while. I've a big lovely & presently empty pottery planter, because a
Portuguese evergreen cherry that had been growing in it for a couple years
got put in the new rugosa garden, so maybe the twinberry will go in that
pot for a year or however long.

Tons of bulbs are gussying up the place. As the crocus season winds down
the kaufmannias burst upward in amazingly dense drifts of waterlily-like
blooms, & every day another variety of miniature daffodil is opening up,
plus a dozen kinds of muscaris, scillas, & bellevalia getting flowerier
each day. Two species of fritillary are already blooming too. I thought
I'd "lost" the snow-white Muscari pallens, but they popped up in a
roadside location where I now realize they accidentally got lifted along
with some old daffodils; they're too tiny for the roadside garden, so when
they begin to die back some weeks from now I'll get them back into the
main yard, probably along a ledge of the new patio-side raised garden. I
think of the beginning of the year as having three parts: the crocus
season, then the daffodil/muscari season, closing with the botanical
tulips season -- with obvious overlaps. Today also I noticed that
virtually every one of our corydalises have at least their first few
blooms opened, including the Dutchman's Britches which is so damned cute
with those white undies hanging there.

It's also nearly time to lift a bunch of autumn crocuses like Crocus
speciosus, to move them before their grass vanishes & I can't find them.
I'm pondering digging up another autumn crocus, C. kotschyanus, & just
giving them a good cleaning in order to EAT them, because they didn't
bloom last year, but i may let them go one more year before deciding
whether or not they become dinner.

Early-blooming rhodies & azaleas are looking great. In full flower are
Crater's Edge, Sesame, Milestone, & PJM Elite, some others showing color
in their buds, & the star magnolia bursting into bloom too. I'm going to
hit "post" then go back outside right now & noodle around the plants some
more!

-paghat the ratgirl


--
Shez
Shez's Garden at http://www.oldcity.f2s.com/shez/

In article , paghat
writes

Hard landscaping is very expensive, fortunately most of our hard
landscaping is done, and very little more needs doing..
I don't have the room for many Rhododendrons though I have a couple of
miniatures, though that is really not true, Garden centres sell them as
miniatures, because they are so slow growing that they take years to get
to any size.

I like shade plants myself, but I made an effort when we first planted a
tree in the garden to find a tree that was very late leafing, it allowed
under planting to get well started before the ground underneath was
heavily shaded Its a Japanese, Tree of Heaven, and over thirty years old
now. And still growing.

Gardeners learn a lot of patience, because all the work you put in needs
years to come to fruition, you have to be able to see your garden ten
years ahead and know how big various shrubs and bushes are going to
grow, or you end up with some very mature plants that take over half the
garden. A mistake all gardeners make when they are just starting out.

I see so many things I want to put in my garden buts it already crammed
to the edges, and there is little room for more. My fingers get itchy
though every time I pass a garden centre in spring,
However I have my containers and hanging baskets so I do have a chance
to plant anew every year. I will start planting them up soon,
Spring is here. What more could a gardener ask for

Shez



I've been planting very little this spring because Granny Artemis & I
sprang for the cost of pallets of flagstones & stacking stones, to build a
flagstone patio alongside a raised garden. The price of those stones ate
up all the garden funds, though on April 2 we'll show up at the
Rhododendron Species Foundation for some dwarf rhodies I want to get to
plant in front of some big shrubs, if all I get is those it shouldn't bust
the bank, though it will be painfully hard to bypass some of the odder
shadeplants that'll be available & in past years I've not been able to
control myself.

I'm still in the midst of shifting dirt & laying flagstones, it's already
looking great. There's plenty of new area for planting as a result, where
a previously sloped area of lawn is now a raised flat area for
perennials. I moved a ton of dirt from the slope bottom that's becoming
the patio, to behind the stacking-stone wall, but can't afford to plant
that area just now. I did transplant a few things to there so it isn't all
empty, like a black-flowering hellebore that was almost invisible in its
previous location dark flower in dark spot, & it is now in the new raised
garden showing itself to spectacular effect.

I planted some rugosa roses in a new streetside garden, but that new
garden is also going to look pretty empty for the time being, & most
that's in it now had been sitting around in containers for quite a while
cuz there's no funds for new plants. Someone I last year helped
re-landscape an old garden (which he believed to be too crowded with
shrubs for his taste) hired me back this month to do some more labor, &
I'm working for pretty cheap but get additional payment in hundreds of
dollars worth of big old rhodies & other shrubs that I'm removing from his
garden to mine. It is horrible labor to get those shrubs out of the
ground & down a stone stairway that seems like a mile, but at least when
I'm done busting my back the shrubs are MINE. This morning I was digging a
big hole for the next shrub to be brought over, it'll go next to a biggish
serviceberry also recently installed. One of the smaller rhodies I brought
home from last year's landscaping for this guy, I've no idea what it is,
it is very old but only four feet tall, a small-leaf evergreen & I didn't
see it in flower last year because it bloomed so early. That one right now
has buds beginning to burst, & it so far looks creamy white. What
small-leaf evergreen rhody has creamy white flowers? I hope I can figure
it out.

I brought home a five-foot twinberry shrub I can't for the life of me
figure out where it should go so it may end up a container plant for a
while. I've a big lovely & presently empty pottery planter, because a
Portuguese evergreen cherry that had been growing in it for a couple years
got put in the new rugosa garden, so maybe the twinberry will go in that
pot for a year or however long.

Tons of bulbs are gussying up the place. As the crocus season winds down
the kaufmannias burst upward in amazingly dense drifts of waterlily-like
blooms, & every day another variety of miniature daffodil is opening up,
plus a dozen kinds of muscaris, scillas, & bellevalia getting flowerier
each day. Two species of fritillary are already blooming too. I thought
I'd "lost" the snow-white Muscari pallens, but they popped up in a
roadside location where I now realize they accidentally got lifted along
with some old daffodils; they're too tiny for the roadside garden, so when
they begin to die back some weeks from now I'll get them back into the
main yard, probably along a ledge of the new patio-side raised garden. I
think of the beginning of the year as having three parts: the crocus
season, then the daffodil/muscari season, closing with the botanical
tulips season -- with obvious overlaps. Today also I noticed that
virtually every one of our corydalises have at least their first few
blooms opened, including the Dutchman's Britches which is so damned cute
with those white undies hanging there.

It's also nearly time to lift a bunch of autumn crocuses like Crocus
speciosus, to move them before their grass vanishes & I can't find them.
I'm pondering digging up another autumn crocus, C. kotschyanus, & just
giving them a good cleaning in order to EAT them, because they didn't
bloom last year, but i may let them go one more year before deciding
whether or not they become dinner.

Early-blooming rhodies & azaleas are looking great. In full flower are
Crater's Edge, Sesame, Milestone, & PJM Elite, some others showing color
in their buds, & the star magnolia bursting into bloom too. I'm going to
hit "post" then go back outside right now & noodle around the plants some
more!

-paghat the ratgirl


--
Shez
Shez's Garden at http://www.oldcity.f2s.com/shez/

In article ,
"gurdjieff 0f gormorrah" iiiiii@iiiii wrote:

Shez wrote in message
...
In article , gurdjieff 0f gormorrah
iiiiii@iiiii.? writes

theoneflasehaddock wrote in message
. com...
"Phoenix" wrote in message
r.com...
"theoneflasehaddock" ****off wrote in
message
...
Subject: So what all are people planting this spring?

Squirrels got every single crocus bulb I planted within 24 hours
from
when I
planted them. *******s.

Just a thought, flace, but you might try planting some Garlic cloves
on
top of the Crocus. The little buggers might not smell them with
Garlic
on top. :-)
P

That's a great idea, Phoenix, thanks.

I've got a bunch of garlic cloves to plant anyways. Perhaps I will do
that with the rest of my bulbs. Or at least some...

7 out of 10 Squirrels like garlic for an appetitzer pleasure before they
partake of crocus.I would suggest the use of land or trip mines
especially
very tiny bounching bettys.Then again , you might want to think in terms
of
constructing a medieval like moat around your garden. I do not think
that
catapults will be
nessecary especially if said moats are stocked with crocodiles or
piranha..
Just be sure to raise your draw-bridge immediately after leaving your
garden.

you're welcome [ in advance ]
The green gardener,
gurdjieff 0f gormorrah

-
theoneflasehaddock



You don't think this is a tiny bit over the top... Mostly moats were
built to keep humans out not Squirrels, and the cost involved would be
such that stocking your whole garden with bulbs for squirrels to eat for
the next hundred years might be slightly cheaper...
not that I want to put you down or anything, your ideas are very
imaginative... if somewhat insane...

insane? You want effective or you want to skimp on money , penny pincher?
We are talking crocus here ! This is the best cash crop since Zappa's
Montana dental floss ranch !!!

I bet you have a potato in a jelly jar growing a vine in ya
window, don't ya? Yeah, thought so. Leave the aricultural
advice to us experts and you amatrues stick to raising sea
monkeys and mildew.


If you give the squirrels other things to eat will they leave your bulbs
and vegetables alone? Of course, I have a cat, so that might be
enough...

In article ,
"gurdjieff 0f gormorrah" iiiiii@iiiii wrote:

Shez wrote in message
...
In article , gurdjieff 0f gormorrah
iiiiii@iiiii.? writes

theoneflasehaddock wrote in message
. com...
"Phoenix" wrote in message
r.com...
"theoneflasehaddock" ****off wrote in
message
...
Subject: So what all are people planting this spring?

Squirrels got every single crocus bulb I planted within 24 hours
from
when I
planted them. *******s.

Just a thought, flace, but you might try planting some Garlic cloves
on
top of the Crocus. The little buggers might not smell them with
Garlic
on top. :-)
P

That's a great idea, Phoenix, thanks.

I've got a bunch of garlic cloves to plant anyways. Perhaps I will do
that with the rest of my bulbs. Or at least some...

7 out of 10 Squirrels like garlic for an appetitzer pleasure before they
partake of crocus.I would suggest the use of land or trip mines
especially
very tiny bounching bettys.Then again , you might want to think in terms
of
constructing a medieval like moat around your garden. I do not think
that
catapults will be
nessecary especially if said moats are stocked with crocodiles or
piranha..
Just be sure to raise your draw-bridge immediately after leaving your
garden.

you're welcome [ in advance ]
The green gardener,
gurdjieff 0f gormorrah

-
theoneflasehaddock



You don't think this is a tiny bit over the top... Mostly moats were
built to keep humans out not Squirrels, and the cost involved would be
such that stocking your whole garden with bulbs for squirrels to eat for
the next hundred years might be slightly cheaper...
not that I want to put you down or anything, your ideas are very
imaginative... if somewhat insane...

insane? You want effective or you want to skimp on money , penny pincher?
We are talking crocus here ! This is the best cash crop since Zappa's
Montana dental floss ranch !!!

I bet you have a potato in a jelly jar growing a vine in ya
window, don't ya? Yeah, thought so. Leave the aricultural
advice to us experts and you amatrues stick to raising sea
monkeys and mildew.


If you give the squirrels other things to eat will they leave your bulbs
and vegetables alone? Of course, I have a cat, so that might be
enough...

2 x Mt Airy Fothergilla
Several Hyacinths
Lonicera Dropmore Scarlet (red honeysuckle)
Oxydendrum arboreum (Sourwood tree)

I bought all of that today and I am going to pick up a corkscrew
willow and dawn redwood tomorrow, along with a few odds and ends. I
am planting vines along my chain link fence on the areas that does not
border my roundup using neighbors and I am going to get another
clematis or two, a goldflame honeysuckle and maybe some Star Showers
virginia creeper... not sure about that one, it is very expensive and
probably not superior to "variegata" which is still offered online
much cheaper. Assuming it is at all different. Was looking at some
small evergreen shrubs, mostly expensive but unique enough to stand
out if i plant them near the sidewalk in front maybe with some small
boulders in the area.

I bought a bunch of stuff from Bulbmeister and a few other places,
that stuff is not here yet but I will be planting it later this
spring, so I guess it kinda counts.

I am terracing two hillsides and moving lots of buddleia and althea,
probably going to buy some more butterfly bushes as I get the
terracing of the larger hill finished. I want to get 'bicolor'
buddleia lindleyana, and buddleia alternifolia (if I can find one for
a reasonable price online, nobody here has it and places like park
want fifteen bucks or something for a tiny one).

The terraces will probably end up with a bunch of creeping phlox as
well.

2 x Mt Airy Fothergilla
Several Hyacinths
Lonicera Dropmore Scarlet (red honeysuckle)
Oxydendrum arboreum (Sourwood tree)

I bought all of that today and I am going to pick up a corkscrew
willow and dawn redwood tomorrow, along with a few odds and ends. I
am planting vines along my chain link fence on the areas that does not
border my roundup using neighbors and I am going to get another
clematis or two, a goldflame honeysuckle and maybe some Star Showers
virginia creeper... not sure about that one, it is very expensive and
probably not superior to "variegata" which is still offered online
much cheaper. Assuming it is at all different. Was looking at some
small evergreen shrubs, mostly expensive but unique enough to stand
out if i plant them near the sidewalk in front maybe with some small
boulders in the area.

I bought a bunch of stuff from Bulbmeister and a few other places,
that stuff is not here yet but I will be planting it later this
spring, so I guess it kinda counts.

I am terracing two hillsides and moving lots of buddleia and althea,
probably going to buy some more butterfly bushes as I get the
terracing of the larger hill finished. I want to get 'bicolor'
buddleia lindleyana, and buddleia alternifolia (if I can find one for
a reasonable price online, nobody here has it and places like park
want fifteen bucks or something for a tiny one).

The terraces will probably end up with a bunch of creeping phlox as
well.