Jasmine on the Move

This is Asiatic Jasmine. This is a hardy evergreen vine-like woody plant. It is native to Japan and Korea, hence its common name. The vines create a thick, tangled blanket that chokes out other weeds. It makes a great ground cover. It isn't picky about soil. It survives drought. It survived our freezing temperatures. It seems to thrive in our relentless sun and heat. It doesn't seem to mind if the dogs curl up in it, where they are almost covered by the runners (although I do occasionally wonder if there are any snakes curled up in their as well!). I recently learned that in the spring you should actually mow it! This is supposed to encourage new growth. Judging by the looks of our jasmine patches, I'm not sure it needs much encouragement!  

We are putting a small patio between the pool area and the garage. The guys were here to begin the preparation a few days ago. I asked if they might be able to save some of the Jasmine as I wanted to move it to the other side of the house. They dug it out in large slabs and hauled it around the house with the tractor. The information on transplanting jasmine suggests handling the roots gently - ha! These hunks were dug out and partially dragged into place. The information about planting also suggests doing so in spring when temperatures are lower. I think it was 95° the day they moved it, with a heat index over 103°. Not exactly cool.  I needed the Mister on his tractor to push the heavy slabs; they were almost 10" thick and included the greenery and vines, the roots and a fair amount of dirt. As best as I could I jig-sawed the pieces together., filled the edges and cracks with soil, and watered the heck out of it. I'll see just how hardy this plant can be, given time! 

This is the bank that was previously planted in Cast Iron Plant.

I moved many of the plants to a shadier area in our garden in May.

Cast Iron Plants, according to what I've read, do not care to be moved. They don't like their roots to be disturbed. Well, it was either disturb their roots by moving them, or watch they struggle in the newly sunny area created when some trees had to be removed. 

I can't say that the Cast Iron Plants are now thriving, but they haven't died, and don't look like they are struggling. The newly moved Asiatic Jasmine is in the background of this picture. 

 

When the Right Place Becomes the Wrong Place

When we moved to Colorado in 2007 I made the decision to become a Master Gardener so that I could better understand how and what to plant at my new home, whose climate, soil and sunlight were so very different from South Carolina where I had resided for 34 years. One of the first things that was emphasized was, "Right plant, right place!" 

But, what does one do when the right place suddenly becomes the wrong place for a particular plant?

We had several trees removed last year that were overhanging the house and were a threat in the event of a hurricane. It was amazing to see the difference in light that would make in the garden. Suddenly, the shaded garden bank became a sunny garden bank. Quite a few of the plants in that area were not happy and were obviously in the wrong place.

 These are Cast Iron plants. Although formerly green and lush, they are now exhibiting browning leaf tips, partly from our cold winter and partly from being burned by the sun, (The red plants are Cordyline, recently purchased to occupy their new 'right' place - they don't mind the sun.)

I have begun moving those plants to the right place, a corner in the garden that receives less direct sunlight and is more apt to have dappled shade. 

Cast Iron plants to not like having their roots disturbed, so they may not appreciate their move. I keep telling them it's for their own good. Time will tell! 

May Showers Bring....

 Weeds!

I love the garden that the previous owners of the house installed and maintained. Between the weather and our removing some trees that changed the amount of light that the garden receives, it is not faring well. And yes, it could be that I don't give it the right amount of TLC, or perhaps don't spend enough time out there telling the plants how lovely they look! Oh, and yes, it could also be that it is only the beginning of May, and with the freeze we had, some plants have to come back to their glory from the roots. And, they are working on that! 

Our rain yesterday was lovely. And, no, the rain didn't mean that the weeds grew overnight. They have been there. However, the lovely rain means damp soil, which translates to it being a tad easier to get weeds out of the garden, along with their roots! 

I spent my morning kneeling and sitting amongst the emerging ferns, digging out, and pulling out baby palms, smilax, Virginia creeper and all manner of nasty, ugly, stubborn, prickly, deep rooted, obnoxious weeds. Look at my haul....and I only covered about 20 feet of the garden bank. 

Of course, I had help (???) from the dogs. One or the other would come over to see me periodically, when I had my face closest to the ground with my hands buried in the dirt, and thus in a vulnerable position, to give me a kiss. I'm sure you can tell from the picture that Vickie is rooting me on....yeah, go mom! You got this! ...whatever!

A Sew Sew Day

 I am ready to quilt my Lupine and Laughter quilt, but I didn't have a wide backing, or five yards of a coordinating fabric to make a backing, or even five yards of ugly fabric to use as backing. But, I have lots of leftovers from making Lupine & Laughter, and I have lots of other scraps, so I began sewing small pieces together to make larger pieces. 

My process has been to create 9 pieces that are roughly 30" square. Those will then be sewn together to make one piece larger than 80" X 80". It is almost relaxing to grab pieces, sew them, trim them and then find another that kinda fits that spot. 

Sew, I worked on that for a bit, then gathered pieces for the Desert Oasis quilt I've been working on, grabbed my smaller sewing machine and all the necessary sewing accessories (accept the ones I forgot and had to come back to house to get 😜), and trucked it all to the community center to sew with my friends. 

Did I take pictures while I was there? No....did you expect that of me? I was busy sewing, and trimming, and babbling, cackling, blabbing and simply chewing the fat. There were five of us. I found it interesting to hear what all we chatted about. Our conversations covered the gamut: what's for dinner/lunch, silly/stupid things we did as kids and didn't kill ourselves doing, what we are sewing next, what our husbands are doing while we are sewing, our pets, our health (or lack thereof), the wellbeing of our friends, when our next opportunity to sew will be, and sew on and sew forth! 

It was enjoyable. It was relaxing. And then it was time to pack up and head home. Once there I worked in the garden a bit, ran out to ALDI to pick up some veggies and bread (we love their sour dough and their Italian breads) and then back home to feed the wee beasties and water plants around our home as 'hand watering' is permissible after 6 PM.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

A Perfect Day Gardening

 Although we had a chilly (for central Florida) start to the day on Friday, it warmed up and we enjoyed a beautiful sunny day.  I did a little work in the garden. 

It's a bit of a challenge trying not to grip anything with my right hand!  I did manage to transplant three walking Iris. I planted them in a shady area of the garden last year, then we had trees removed and the area became too sunny for the Iris. They were quite unhappy.

The Mister, after having dug up an area for the Iris, planted a Leyland cypress we had purchased quite some time ago.  I added a few baubles for the season.

As I puttered around the yard I came across some prettiness I had to share:

Gerbera Daisy

Tractor Seat Plant

Azalea

Our first Camellia bloom of the season

All of the blooms were on plants we planted over the past year.

I Will Survive

 I had a nice spot next in the front of my house that just begged for a garden...so I thought. 

It faces SW, and is framed by the wall of the garage and the front of our home. The area is behind the variegated Liriope, lined by the landscape hedge - don't ask me what it is, I can never remember! This area is blazingly hot. It still begs for a garden...but maybe I need to rethink the sort of plants that would love to live there! 

One would think I had taken pictures of my garden area. But, alas, I did not. 

I planted a variety of flowers; some mums left over from last fall, a few gaillardia I picked up somewhere. I had some lovely snap dragons early on, but they finally succumbed to old age and the heat. There were a few others I tried that managed to survive...some others that didn't care for their location. For example, I adore Dahlias. Of course I planted some. Dahlias don't care for afternoon heat. (But, a few have begun to grow again as the heat recedes. I'll have to see how they fare!)

I also planted Zinnias. I love Zinnias. I picked up a packet of seeds early on and spread their seeds and waited.

I picked up another packet of seeds and waited.

My wait was rewarded with a few Zinnia plants. Nothing with glorious blooms. But Zinnias they were! They have blessed me with a flowers from mid summer....and they still stumble on, despite being leggy and displaying burned-out lower leaves with the others looking rather moth eaten and ragged.

I went to deadhead flowers a few days ago. Look what I found! Did you see it? At the base of "mama"?!

Here's another:

....and more:

 

Mama (and papa) Zinnia ought to be proud! 

They will live on!

You Are Not Welcome Here

I noticed a disturbance in my garden.

Upon closer inspection, it appears that we have an armadillo seeking refuge. 

You can see the "tail drag" in the dirt - it was more defined before we had a good rain.

The hole only extends about 6 inches under the rock. 

The armadillo hit a brick wall! 

Well, it ran into the sturdy weed cloth that blankets the ground. 

Go find another place for your home, 

you are not welcome here!

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

Well, maybe I'll just talk about Tigers. I saw one the other day. In my garden. I'm not kidding!! There I was, turning the raised garden beds. A painstaking chore. I had to step on the shovel, yank the handle down, pull out a wad of dirt, turn it, sift through it and pull out the weeds (roots and all) and start over again. I shoveled load after shovel load.

Boring! 

Back breaking! 

Bothersome! 

 I was on my second garden bed for the day. I estimated I had 5 more rows to dig up, when suddenly..... (cue "Jaws" music)

I dug up a Tiger! 

A Tiger Salamander, that is. Oh, and yes, this little lady gave out a little girly sort of squeal (and then ran to get the camera!)

This wasn't my first encounter with the species. I caught one in a trap when we lived in Black Forest. I was amazed that a critter I associate with moist, dank places actually lives in the arid area of Colorado. Both of the salamanders I encountered were in burrows. It seems that they move in when rodents move out. Hooray! This is great news! My voles may have already decided to move on!!!

And, I guess there are worse things than digging up a Tiger Salamander......

I placed the salamander near a hole in another part of the garden.
He happily slithered and slipped into the hole.
See his tail?

.... digging up half of a Tiger Salamander! 

Battle Lines are Mown

My vegetable garden has been overrun with voles. These mice-like critters tunnel through dirt and eat seeds and roots and plants. They showed up in one of my raised beds last fall. I tried a few traps, but gave up, figuring I would deal with them in the spring. That was a mistake. A HUGE mistake!

Source: Wikipedia

Wikipedia tells me:
"They can have five to 10 litters per year. Gestation lasts for three weeks and the young voles reach sexual maturity in a month. As a result of this biological exponential growth, vole populations can grow very large within a very short period of time."

So, here is a Math problem for you....

Dreaming noticed voles in her garden at the beginning of August, and for the sake of this problem let's say that at that time there was only Daddy Vole and Mommy Vole. If they had 8 cute little baby voles (litters range from 5-10), half of them were girls, and Mom and the girls subsequently had one litter of 8 more cute little baby voles every month...  and those babies joined in the baby vole production the next month, how many voles would be plaguing Dreaming by May 1st?

It makes my head hurt just thinking about it. It makes my head hurt just looking at the mess in the garden and thinking of the battles to come.

Look at the holes in my raised bed.
The dirt from the bed was moved outside of the bed,
I think to give them safer access to the garden.

Voles are active all year long. When snow is on the ground, they create "runnels" just under the snow.

I don't like to use poison, having dogs and a cat in residence. And, I like our hawks, and would hate to poison them or cause collateral damage to other wildlife. So, according to Mr. Google and the Colorado Extension information, my best plan of attack is to make the extended vole family uncomfortable in my garden, make them decide to move elsewhere. Voles don't like open spaces, knowing that Mr. Hawk may be around. So, I have to keep the grass trimmed very short around the gardens. I need to pick up all clippings, so the vole varmints can't hide or tunnel under them.

As I began to clean up the garden I started thinking about where the vole varmints might go once they decide this area is to exposed. Uh oh. Voles LOVE trees. They like eating the roots. They like eating through the bark and killing the cambium layer underneath. They kill trees. Trees fight hard to live in this area of Colorado. They are precious. We coddle them. I changed my focus and began cleaning a wide swath of grass around the trees closest to the garden.

Grass is cut short around the trees, and I have raked up all mulch.
I'll just have to water a bit more often this year.

My next attack plan is to "plant" traps if I find any new tunnels or burrows. My attempts at trapping failed last year, and in the past I have had little luck, but I'll try again.

Black Box trap that I used for Pocket Gophers.
I don't know if they'll work with Voles.
I guess I'll find out!

If I still encounter problems I can also block their access to the garden beds by burying 1/4" hardware cloth 4" in the ground and having it extend 18" in the air. It sounds like work to me! But... the battle lines are drawn. The battle lines are mown. I dare you Voles, to cross that open area to get to my vegetable. This is war!!

Awww Hail - Not Again

(Oh, and this flat was on the porch, next to the house!)

A-Maz-Ing

I had the opportunity to visit the Red Hills Desert Gardens, which overlook St. George, UT. The gardens have been open only a few months. They are truly amazing! What a pleasant way to spend a few hours!

Enjoy a walk in the garden with me....

Today's Post is Brought to you by the Color Purple

Storm moving in...

Ominous, purple clouds...

Baby's nursery with a purple mountain valence 

made by a happy Grandma....

Purple gardens...

Purple makes me smile.

 What about you?