any gardeners?

“I only use the glazed ceramics for the house tree and plants that live on the deck in summer and inside the rest of the year.”

“When we finish the large glazed planter arrangement out front I'll post pictures of it to give you an idea of what we're doing.”

“I have a mental image and it's looking gorgeous so far. Nice work!”

“Yesterday i planted 3 blueberry bushes :) I cant wait for the berries now~!

I had to really dig and ammend the soil though, as all I have to work with is a thick sticky modeling clay for soil YUCK. I spent the afternoon forming little TT'ers out of my clay for latter use (think voodoo).”

“Ready or not our dog and log side extravaganza has started. Birch pulled up the old brick path yesterday. I didn't even get to take proper before pictures. I'll get some today.”

“Up here it's way too early for much green stuff...my spring flowers are only showing 3 inches above the ground...the adage, April showers bring May flowers is pretty true in these Northern climes...”

“My tulips are finially blooming, and so are some of my daffy's. Im really pleased with my hellebore though. there are like a million flowers on it. I've never grown them before. I want to collect more of them.
I have one hosta starting to poke up out of the ground. I plan on dividning and moving them this year. The person who lived here previously had planted them in a bad spot and they get sunburned in the summer, plus they have outgrown the narrow little bed they were planted in.”

“"THe general rule of thumb is if it freezes, empty the pots and store them in the garage stacked upside down, unless, you're bringing the pot and plant inside."

Exactly. Follow this tenet toward lessing shard output.

All of the Metro Detroit area has experienced a huge increase in rat population, due in part to the great "wild" foliage provided by some gardeners out there.

Some have taken a liking to the natural "wild flowers" look acquired at the local Home Depot/Lowe's over the years, which has facilitated this bumper crop in rats.

Keep it simple.
last edited: 4/17/07 11:09:59 PM”

“Which Home depot can I get wild flowers at? All I ever see are coneflowers and begonias and the like.

Was looking through a new greenhouse catalogue yesterday and found pitcherplants and lady's slippers, just $45 each and $115 each respectively. How'd you like to have a rat munch one of those down?!
I'd think they'd be much more attracted to the vegetables in our yard, not the flowers.”

“Now that our local greenhouse has closed up (they were open since 1839!), I have nothing left except highly priced English Gardens and the chain home improvement stores and mail order. So, I joined Home depot's garden club online. They email me some pretty good articles and COUPONS! Buy one shrub get one free type coupons. If you're interested sign up on their website.
I'm after some blue muffin viburnums today, or regular ones if I can't get blue muffins.”

“gosh sass, that sucks :(

We are having a midnight madness sale on may the 11th at Johnson's (thats the one next to remus) I'm going to load up then with some great deals for sure! Lowes rarely has anything to entice me to buy from them although I did buy a native magnolia tree for my garden last year for $10 and a few things on clearence that were extreamly good deals.”

“Thanks for reminding me we have one of those coupons too, sitting in HPM's email. I hope he didn't delete it. :P

I'm going to push my luck and do a little gardening today, after I'm done squirreling away all the stuff that might develop legs while several workmen are here. Call me paranoid... hopefully this time at least one of them will be somewhat fluent in the American English language.”

“"Which Home depot can I get wild flowers at? "

They come in the tall shaker cans for about five bucks, usually located near the seeds and little starter peat pots and such.

I used some once years ago and rode crop after returning crop. After spotting a monster of a rat (tail was around a foot and a half), I whacked everything last year. I see a lot of those bassturds while I make my grand tour of the Metro area twice a week for work (almost hit one on 13 mile and Rochester two nights ago. I would have had to cross the center line).”

“hey, at walgreens they have small boxes of wildflower seeds for $1.

Q, I used to have a tiny little cat who would hunt and kill those rats and drag them home. The rats were bigger then her, I have no idea how she managaed that LOL”

“"Q, I used to have a tiny little cat who would hunt and kill those rats and drag them home."

I'm carrying a pellet pistol when I work out side in the back yard. Haven't seen one around here yet, but things are just now gettin` warm 'round here.

Can't count on the cats in my 'hood. I think they're out numbered any way.”

“It amazes me that there are so many wild rabits and deer roaming my neighborhood and I haven't had to put a fence up around my garden yet. I see them on my lawn, in my yard, but they jsut seem to behave themselves! They tottaly ignore my yummy plants.

Although today I did have to put some bird scare tape where some doves were coming down and trying to eat my zinnia seeds I planteded yesterday!”

“Give 'em time, SC. Anyways, the previous owners may have put down some sort of "deer away" chemical in the past year.”

“tb, the previous owner didnt garden at all......

:)

All I get are a helluva lot of toads in my garden and they eat the slugs so I never have any slug damage to my plants either :)”

“Progress report:

Got the bricks all moved, except for the ones I'll reuse for edging around the verbena bed (vertical, trenched, and I did not end up with blue muffin variety but "doublefile" oh well), got that bed dug, the verbena's planted, and the grade started out by the gate. Birch and I made it the right level for about ten feet ( a tough ten with huge tree roots from an elm that planted itself maybe twelve years ago in the neighbor's yard). Birch got the pathway bricks moved to our veg garden and made a small patio out there for our park bench (less weeding is great!).
Sprayed out the perimeter of the new paths and patio, visited the landscaping yards and figured out there is just NO WAY we can (well, we could but it would take more than we set aside for this project and we're sticking to the budget dangit) afford four and a half tons of flagstone ($200/ton and only covers 80 cu ft instead of the 100 I was counting on), so we'll be going with prepoured....not such a big deal. I like the circle shaped ones. Couldn't look at them though as the landscaping place was pouring a new driveway yesterday. Will go back this afternoon.
Today, more digging. =)I'll take a break every once in awhile and muck out my pond too, get the pump in and maybe fish. Thankfully something (a ratcoon?) ate the floaters from last year.

Q, I thought you were buying plants not seeds.”

“send pics please............”

“Alright Chappy. I'll see what I can do. =)”

“I love looking at what folks are doing around their yards.......my wife likes to see too........”

““I love looking at what folks are doing around their yards.......my wife likes to see too........”
chappy
6:44:29 AM
4/20/07
ignore this user


.....must.....behave.......must........behave.....”

“"Q, I thought you were buying plants not seeds."

Nope. I don't buy "popped" annuals anymore, either.

Waste of money.

My established (day/tiger lilies, purple bearded iris, my hummingbird bushes, climbing roses) perennials have divided quite nicely in recent years that I don't need them.

I only go the seed route with stuff nowadays and strictly perennials.”

“hopefully this time at least one of them will be somewhat fluent in the American English language.”
treebait
8:46:59 AM
4/19/07

Tb - good luck with that.


SC - I thought the same thing.”

“I've never bought annuals either. Waste of moola up here. I do a few plants in the planters on my porch and that's it for annuals, ever.

Okay, here are the pictures of our dirt:


Not much to see. We do have nice soil though. =) And that large blue lump is the rabbit hutch under construction. Birch has been building it out of some of the wood he got from the chandelier crate in the same album. There should still be enough leftovers to roof Abby's treehouse and some of the new woodshed. The dolly on the left hand side is what was used to move the chandelier in it's crate. It will become a trash can cart soon. The casters on it are amazing...prolly cost about $40 each and the clients wanted to throw them away!
last edited: 4/20/07 8:01:06 AM”

“

I know I promised the trollius, but it has been a little cool the last couple weeks and they aren't quite ready to bloom yet, but very close. Next week...”

“I plowed a garden site last weekend and today was for setting posts in prep for a deer proof fence. As a lark, I found a piece of metal that looked suitable for dowsing and walked around the garden plot as if seeking water. Once bored with this form of entertainment, I picked up my post hole digger and proceeded to dig the first post hole. Unfortunately I struck water in 32 inches. Damn, I'm good! The garden site has now been moved a hundred yards east, just south of the pole barn, at a higher elevation. Weird, but true.”

“Can one dowse for beer?”

“Got a new shovel this weekend. Went with the RIDGID brand with groves on the blade to assist in cutting through the soil, etc. Definitely worth the extra $5.
Got two pink tea roses yesterday at a LAOH meeting. Promptly planted them. Should've cut all the roses off too so they can make themselves more comfortable instead of making pretty flowers.
Got promised six clumps of sweet wood ruff for the garden in progress. Have to trade half a daylily for it. If my Mom reneges I'll sneak over there and dig it up anyways. ;)
The rabbit hutch is almost finished (needs a roof and a door) so have to start trying to hunt down dutch rabbits.

Birch and I found our patio materials but are having a hard time deciding what color to go with. Basically we can choose between pinkish orange, grey and yellowish-tan. The house is tan, the trim is orangish brown, there are red bricks bordering the viburnum bed and there are tan and red lake Superior rocks everywhere. What would you choose? What isn't path and patio will be woodchips and plants. There will be some bigger rocks here and there too. Oh, and a copper firebowl (but it's pretty darkened now).”

“There are no groves on the shovel blade, but grooves. Somedays the edit feature disappears too quickly.”

“Pinkish-orange. Go with the warm shade for sure.

Sounds good, Sass. We're still trying to figure out where to put the koi pond, what shape/ volume, etc. We're tentatively chosen a fan shape, which looks nice but will be fun to compute the total volume on. I need that number for when I have to medicate, de-chlorinate, etc. THe one thing I'm not happy about right now is that the pond is in full view for the neighbors across the street and anyone going by. So, a fence has to go in before I can start on the pond.”

“I think I'd go about the calculation the (for me) easy way....fill it with five gallon buckets and keep count, lol.

One vote for pink.”

“We're looking at between 2500 and 3500 gallons here, Sass. ;P”

“Oh, hey, I just found this thread!

We put topsoil and peat down yesterday to create a little garden under the spruce tree. G cut a HUGE root, about 4" diameter, while he was laying the edging down. I have no idea what he was thinking. If he kills off even part of the tree, I'm going to kill him.

I planted a few hostas, and am waiting to get some more things from my mom's house to plant there. We also put grass seed down to fill in more of the lawn area under the tree. I'll go take some pics this morning if I can.

We finally got some mulch put down too, and our garden area looks manicured now. I still have to do some weeding to the other side of the house and get more mulch. I'm really happy with how it looks now!”

“I suppose I could invest in a flowmeter, for water measurement.

I already know I need to invest in additional equipment for this pond that I didn't have for the last one. Like a kick-a$$ air pump.”

“once again...Im dissapointed with box store bulbs....

I tell myself every year I won't bother spending my money on bulbs from box stores because every time I have, they arn't what I bought or the quality of the flowers suck

One year it was glads, which were supposed to be purple, 25 bulbs...turned out to be 2 white ones and a pink one that bloomed and none others bloomed.

another year it was dahlias...not the color they were supposed to be!

Last fall, I planted tulips from walmart and they were supposed to be shades of apricot and peach...

Now I tell you, do these look like shades of apricot???




”

“Well the first one did.

Treebait your pond is way out of my league. ;)”

“Spirit, nope, but they are pretty!

I've got a bunny eating all my flowers - I've only got two crocuses in bloom, out of ~20 plants out there. How disappointing!”

“the first one is a vivid red (my camera pciked it up as orange lol)”

“smiley....I have lettuce and all kinds of goodies unfenced with bunnies all over......they compleatly ignore my plants!! I have no idea why...........I dont have any deterents out there (cept maybe dog pee but that doesnt stop them from hopping around where Sasha goes potty.”

“You two neglected to vote! Grey, pink or tan?”

“Pink... :)

LOL”

“You know it's all because Chinese children can't go to school and learn their colors, they have to sort bulbs for WalMart. ;)”

“funny, I thought it was the DUTCH that did tulips? :D”

“Sass, Pink. Sorry I forgot, I get off track easily. :)”

“Hey, I voted!

Smiley, grow some daffodils. If the bunnies and squirrels eat those they die.”

“http://www.peoplepoweredmachines.com/composter/index.htm

This is too effing funny!”

“I planted a few daffodils last fall. They're not bloomin, but you're right, the bunnies haven't eaten them. Is it normal for them not to bloom the first year?”

“Aye.”