new plants and new garden design

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In the first week of March, this year, I went out and got two new tomatoes (sweet cherry and green zebra) to put in my Earthbox. Around that time, I also picked up a bronze fennel, and a meyer lemon tree that was full of blooms and several fruit. My dream was to be overflowing with lemons at any given time of the year.

I’ve been taking photos of the garden regularly, and I’ll try to blog about all of them in order. It’ll be helpful to me, keeping track and being organized, while allowing me to go back and compare how things have failed or flourished.

I planted 3 small Mexican feather grass, one of which died promptly. I potted up the Meyer lemon so that I could move him in during the winter. It was covered in fragrant blooms and several baby lemons when I purchased it, but I wasn’t gentle enough when repotting because he dropped all blooms, the fruit, and a large percentage of leaves. It took several weeks of me worrying before new leaves start growing again.

Nothing had quite woken up yet, in the garden, so it was time to get to work. Inspired by garden design portfolios I found online, and with all of the free/found rocks that I had gathered over time (minus the one bag or two of marble chips that I bought), I started creating more shapes and structure to the garden. I picked up some elfin thyme to put between the flat stones (some died, one piece lived, need to keep trying).

The garden bees that I created out of bowling balls were happy, placed in their new surroundings. I added some lanterns on shepherd’s hooks for height. The Buddha statues sits on top of the birdbath now, the birdbath that had developed a crack and I never saw any birds using it, even when there was any water in there. I picked up two lovely Buddha busts and placed them around the herbs, for now.

Whenever I drag David to the nurseries with me I feel guilty and encourage him to pick out some plants that he thinks look interesting. He usually only likes succulents or things he can eat. But this time, he picked out two ‘Blackie’ Sweet Potato Vine, that we put up on the fence. They look great and have already put out violet flowers. Speaking of things to eat, the mint that I got back in 2008 looked pitiful, unrecognizable, and smelled bland. I was afraid to really taste it, worried that there was something horribly wrong with it. Or what if another plant had started to grow in that same spot. Once upon a time I had dreams of being able to use tons of fresh and dried mint in the kitchen… I bought another plant and placed it in a large pot, hoping that it will do better this time. Also not doing great, the catnip that I placed in the same sized pot as the new mint. I haven’t figured out what I’m doing wrong.

Related posts:

1. garden oaf
2. tomatoes in may
3. learning to garden part 1
4. bowling ball garden bees
5. bowling ball garden bees finished

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 23rd, 2010 at 10:22 pm and is filed under garden, MrDavidPoe, our house, photos, tina illustrates.