I have been remiss ... and gardening

I should be ashamed of myself for not having written in the past couple of weeks, but I have been doing my level best, in most of my waking hours, to get my garden ready. The weather has been inordinately mild, and I really had to get onto it before the job became insurmountable. (Dandelions are aggressive little you-know-whats.)

I live in a rented townhouse, with a 12' x 24' patio and full south exposure. My garden is a container garden: various planters and pots of various sizes, and automatic watering system around the edges to drip irrigate the pots. Spring clean up of my garden is quite a bit of work.

My yard is right next to the parking lot for the complex I live in, and people seem to think that my yard is just a second dumpster for the complex. This year was better than most ... only 1 1/2 large green garbage bags of Macdonalds' wrappers, Big Gulps, newspapers, candy wrappers, cigarette butts and packs, and so on. Garbage detail went pretty quickly this year.

The next thing is to survey the damage that winter wrought. The watering system is tested for leaks, and any components that did not make it through the winter are replaced. The perennials and shrubs (a dwarf lilac and a Tulip Magnolia) are checked for winter die back. (I lost 3 perennials this year: my 2 Purple Cone flowers and a white Campanula. The jury is still out on the bulbs: Siberian Iris and Liatris.) Pots and other garden accoutrements that show damage are tossed. (This year I lost my arbour to advanced rot. It was, however, 12 years old, and did not owe me anything.)


My poor ex-arbour in happier days.


Step three is removing the plants that died over the winter and cleaning out the dandelions and plantain, and about 8 other types of weeds that I do not recognize, from the cracks between the pavers in the patio. (Another 2 green garbage bags to the dumpster.) Crack cleaning will be an unending duty until the fall as I will not use Round-up or other herbicides.

Now we start onto the actual planters and pots.

Weed and loosen the soil around the perennials and shrubs, and throw out any peanuts that I find burried. (There is an elderly couple down at the far end of my unit that keeps the local squirrels well supplied with peanuts from late August to early May. These squirrels have decided that my garden is a wonderful place to cache their nuts, and every spring I come across between 50 and 70 peanuts that are starting the thrown out roots.) Then, a new layer of mulch (water retention is an issue with container gardening).

All the pots that held annuals, or plants that did not survive the winter, and that were not damaged in the winter are dug out and the soil mixed with organic fertilizers and organic matter for moisture retention. This year I am adding a new item to the soil rebuilding: a very interesting polymer crystal, about the size of kosher salt grains, which will absorb water and release it when required. I saw it on a P. Allen Smith gardening program, and it sounded very interesting. I'll let you know how well it worked at the end of the season.

Now, off to the garden center. Replace any pots, perennials and anything else that did not make it, and load up on mulch. I have used cocoa husks as mulch for the past couple of years and it has been working very well for moisture retention and weed suppression: besides they release a subtle aroma of chocolate when the sun falls on it. I found a couple of nice terracotta planters to add to the design, but I have been totally unable to find a replacement for my arbour. (sob) Then supplement the perennials in the garden with annuals and some herbs.

Finally, the furniture brought up from the basement, reassembled and prepped for the summer. This is the stage I am at now ... and with luck I will be finished this weekend.