How are the gardens going?

[dr.girlfriend]

I took "don't plant until Mother's Day" a little too seriously and didn't get around to planting anything until yesterday!  I got a new shrub and I've already forgotten what it's called, but it's a perennial so I'm hoping it'll survive.  Anyone know what it is?




I also finally replaced the dead mums from last fall in my porch planters.  Looking a little straggly now but I'm hoping at the very least the ferns will grow okay in the shade:

Otherwise, my mock orange blossom bloomed which is my absolute favorite!


We've really been focused on the inside of the house for the last, oh, decade or so, because we're not really outdoor people and the previous owner was SUPER into gardening and had planted all these high-maintenance things I've slowly been killing off. Hoping to do better in the next decade!

[Susie]

We put in a huge amount of work this spring, but it doesn't look like much yet.  In the fall we removed the pool deck from the above ground pool that we removed last summer, and we finally were able to mulch there this spring.  Then all the beds had landscape fabric on them, but while some of the larger plants (e.g. arborvitae that we've since removed) were planted through holes in the plastic, a lot of stuff (coneflowers) were growing in several inches of organic matter on top of the plastic.  Still others were originally planted in holes below the plastic, but their roots crept above and/or they were girdled by the plastic over the years, and the roots ran horizontally in and around the layers of plastic.  It was abject misery to remove.  We aren't done yet, but we've done as many beds as we plan to tackle in 2022.  

We've planted a number of perennials that seem to mostly be doing ok:  day lilies, yarrow, bee balm, and lavender.  We have 5 limelight hydrangea cuttings and 2 mop head hydrangea cuttings that we took from our old house last year, that survived to this year.  We added a celestial shadow dogwood in the backyard, and my raised bed veggie gardens are coming along.  I'll try and take pics maybe tomorrow.  I have cherry tomatoes, big boy tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, jalapeño peppers, green onions, basil, cilantro, parsley, oregano, and thyme.  We transplanted 2 rhubarb from our old house last year, 1 survived.  The other I replaced with a bare root crown this spring, which has come up and is now growing, so that's good too.

[sadie]

Veggies, berries, and sunflowers are all growing!

My pallet wall is my favorite, though I need to grab a few more flowers/herbs to replace the ones that didn't make it.

[sadie]

Ignore the milk jugs...they have leftover seedlings from winter sowing.

[libbygrl109]

Sadly, I am so far behind this season. Between focusing on the inside for the last few months, and spending the last 2 weeks getting ready to sell my stuff at a festival, gardening has been way down on the list until now. Tomorrow and Monday will be my time to get things together.

I was happy to find out that the azalea bush I planted last year is actually coming back strong (it was looking kind of iffy a few weeks ago).

[heygrey]

We did some new bushes in our front garden and the ones we planted last year all survived and are growing well! I feel like it’s a respectable looking space and it’s easy to maintain.

I held off on planting our veggie garden because it has been so miserably cold this spring. Will be heading out for plants this morning and hope to have it done today!

Our backyard is still a disaster. I had high hopes of getting it to a usable space for H’s birthday next weekend, but between the weather and me recovering from a minor procedure, the last 3 weeks have been shot. Going to make our best effort today and tomorrow.

[macmars45]

I've planted zinnias, another flower I can't remember the name of and petunias so far. Today I'll be planting 3 strawberry plants. I can't find any geraniums that aren't already half dead or I'd buy 3-4 of those as well. That is the extent of my outside plants aside from 5 bushes the drip line waters.

This is my second time planting outside. I've never grown strawberries before.

Last summer bud worms decimated my petunias and some of my geraniums. That was annoying.

[sadie]

May 28, 2022 9:22:13 GMT -5 macmars45 said:

I've planted zinnias, another flower I can't remember the name of and petunias so far. Today I'll be planting 3 strawberry plants. I can't find any geraniums that aren't already half dead or I'd buy 3-4 of those as well. That is the extent of my outside plants aside from 5 bushes the drip line waters.

This is my second time planting outside. I've never grown strawberries before.

Last summer bud worms decimated my petunias and some of my geraniums. That was annoying.

Are you planting strawberries in the ground or pots? I had ok success in one of those stackable strawberry planters.

[sadie]

May 27, 2022 20:09:01 GMT -5 Susie said:

We put in a huge amount of work this spring, but it doesn't look like much yet.  In the fall we removed the pool deck from the above ground pool that we removed last summer, and we finally were able to mulch there this spring.  Then all the beds had landscape fabric on them, but while some of the larger plants (e.g. arborvitae that we've since removed) were planted through holes in the plastic, a lot of stuff (coneflowers) were growing in several inches of organic matter on top of the plastic.  Still others were originally planted in holes below the plastic, but their roots crept above and/or they were girdled by the plastic over the years, and the roots ran horizontally in and around the layers of plastic.  It was abject misery to remove.  We aren't done yet, but we've done as many beds as we plan to tackle in 2022.  

We've planted a number of perennials that seem to mostly be doing ok:  day lilies, yarrow, bee balm, and lavender.  We have 5 limelight hydrangea cuttings and 2 mop head hydrangea cuttings that we took from our old house last year, that survived to this year.  We added a celestial shadow dogwood in the backyard, and my raised bed veggie gardens are coming along.  I'll try and take pics maybe tomorrow.  I have cherry tomatoes, big boy tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, jalapeño peppers, green onions, basil, cilantro, parsley, oregano, and thyme.  We transplanted 2 rhubarb from our old house last year, 1 survived.  The other I replaced with a bare root crown this spring, which has come up and is now growing, so that's good too.

How did you plant the hydrangea cuttings? This is on my to do, probably for next year.

Does anyone know if you can plant a lilac bush using cuttings from a mature one?

[macmars45]

May 28, 2022 9:34:13 GMT -5 sadie said:

May 28, 2022 9:22:13 GMT -5 macmars45 said:

I've planted zinnias, another flower I can't remember the name of and petunias so far. Today I'll be planting 3 strawberry plants. I can't find any geraniums that aren't already half dead or I'd buy 3-4 of those as well. That is the extent of my outside plants aside from 5 bushes the drip line waters.

This is my second time planting outside. I've never grown strawberries before.

Last summer bud worms decimated my petunias and some of my geraniums. That was annoying.

Are you planting strawberries in the ground or pots? I had ok success in one of those stackable strawberry planters.

In a planter. I talked with a local lady who has grown strawberries in planters for years. She gave me some tips.

[Susie]

May 28, 2022 9:36:06 GMT -5 sadie said:

May 27, 2022 20:09:01 GMT -5 Susie said:

We put in a huge amount of work this spring, but it doesn't look like much yet.  In the fall we removed the pool deck from the above ground pool that we removed last summer, and we finally were able to mulch there this spring.  Then all the beds had landscape fabric on them, but while some of the larger plants (e.g. arborvitae that we've since removed) were planted through holes in the plastic, a lot of stuff (coneflowers) were growing in several inches of organic matter on top of the plastic.  Still others were originally planted in holes below the plastic, but their roots crept above and/or they were girdled by the plastic over the years, and the roots ran horizontally in and around the layers of plastic.  It was abject misery to remove.  We aren't done yet, but we've done as many beds as we plan to tackle in 2022.  

We've planted a number of perennials that seem to mostly be doing ok:  day lilies, yarrow, bee balm, and lavender.  We have 5 limelight hydrangea cuttings and 2 mop head hydrangea cuttings that we took from our old house last year, that survived to this year.  We added a celestial shadow dogwood in the backyard, and my raised bed veggie gardens are coming along.  I'll try and take pics maybe tomorrow.  I have cherry tomatoes, big boy tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, jalapeño peppers, green onions, basil, cilantro, parsley, oregano, and thyme.  We transplanted 2 rhubarb from our old house last year, 1 survived.  The other I replaced with a bare root crown this spring, which has come up and is now growing, so that's good too.

How did you plant the hydrangea cuttings? This is on my to do, probably for next year.

For the mop heads, at the old house, I laid one of the lower branches along the ground in contact with the soil, scattered some mulch over it, and put a rock or a brick on it to hold it down.  Then wait a while for roots to grow, on the order of months.  You can kind of leave it this way semi-indefinitely, so do it this year if you want to propagate next year.  Then when it has healthy roots, you can cut it off the main plant below the newly established root system and replant.  We were fortunate that when we decided to move, I already had 2 in progress, because otherwise, March to June wouldn't have been enough time at the right time of year to grow the roots we needed.  I'd been multiplying my hydrangeas this way for a while.

For the limelight hydrangea, the parent plant was pruned in tree form, so there were no branches near the ground.  We just took cuttings, applied root hormone, and potted in soil.  We put the pots in a plastic tote for the move, and misted them to keep them moist for a few weeks.  When they had grown some roots, we planted into the ground.  From roughly 8 originally, 5 seem to have made it.  

All of them are still pretty little, so we've been pinching off flowers to encourage the plants to devote resources to roots and branches rather than flowers.

[InBetweenDays]

May 27, 2022 19:31:42 GMT -5 dr.girlfriend said:

I took "don't plant until Mother's Day" a little too seriously and didn't get around to planting anything until yesterday!  I got a new shrub and I've already forgotten what it's called, but it's a perennial so I'm hoping it'll survive.  Anyone know what it is?

Looks like lupine.

[boiler717]

I still can’t PIP but my yard is looking the best ever this year! Our pollinator bed needs some work but we got some foxglove seeds from a friend that should help with the early blooms. My roses are doing amazing. We added 5 hydrangeas this year, but our establish limelight is enormous and I can’t wait for it to pop. The only thing that hasn’t turned out too well is our rhododendron; we planted it last year in early May so it may just need another year. It’s growing well but didn’t flower much at all. I still am trying to decide whether or not to rip up some leggy boxwoods or give them a little more time.

[heygrey]

We accomplished SO much this weekend. The backyard won’t be finished for h’s birthday next Sunday, but it’s not a mud pit either. There is one small section left to cover with weed barrier and then we need to figure out where to buy rocks for a pathway and a patio. I’m shocked we got this far in 2 days considering how bad it looked yesterday morning.

[simpsongal]

Really well. We’ll, not the vegetable garden. We made a tiny raised bed for tomatoes, herbs and plunked some peppers in another bed. I need a more permanent solution after we ripped out the giant garden.

But the yard is looking good. Im throwing dh a 40th bday party out there soon, so I’ve been tidying and planting annuals and containers like mad. Some of my groundcover has filled in beautifully. We’ve got some cicada damage from last year but Those things should bounce back. My borders I planted 3-4 years ago look lovely. So much seasonal interest in texture. I added some more interested species of Japanese maple, a variegated witch hazel, and a few more evergreens. I’ll plant more in the fall too. My alliums are up and look great. I put more bulbs in this spring.

[redheadk]

Ours is okay but getting too hot to do anything but water. It’s supposed to rain all week so I am going to try to get a few more things in the ground in between then call it good until it’s time to transition to fall color.

We had our first ripe tomato today! It was a Roma tomato that I fished out of my puppies mouth. Womp womp. She loves picking and eating from the garden. Here she is after stealing a blackberry and being caught.

[sadie]

May 30, 2022 18:30:32 GMT -5 redheadk said:

Ours is okay but getting too hot to do anything but water. It’s supposed to rain all week so I am going to try to get a few more things in the ground in between then call it good until it’s time to transition to fall color.

We had our first ripe tomato today! It was a Roma tomato that I fished out of my puppies mouth. Womp womp. She loves picking and eating from the garden. Here she is after stealing a blackberry and being caught.

Trouble puppy! I put up a fence around my beds because my dogs wouldn't stop eating all my veggies!

[mrsukyankee]

No pics yet (will take some this week). Have the raised bed garden and container garden up and running after a few issues with cats digging up my seeds/seedlings. Ugh. I'm a bit behind on everything this year but we're getting a bumper crop of lettuce, at least. Hoping other things will continue growing and I'll actually get some veg from it all. My wisteria was gorgeous - I've worked hard at it - and now it's growing like mad so had to do some trimming back this past weekend. I expect to do more in another month or so.

[ssmjlm]

I haven't planted more than a few annuals and trying yet another perennial in our front bed. 2 look great and one is dying, but they're all in the same spot? We had good rain last week, but were gone over the weekend and it got hot. Ugh, one plant should not be this much work.

[treedimensional]

My garden is a mess because I'm older and I've become increasingly disabled with the passage of time. My hip replacement went very well and now I'm able to walk again (YAY!) but my back surgery is in 3 days and I may not be able to bend at the waist for months, if ever (it's been painful for years). I'm glad I focused on planting trees back when I built my garden 10 yrs ago, so I can enjoy some shade now; but there's still weeding and routine maintenance to do and it kills me to let it go.

[lightbulbsun]

My garden is going well, but this time of year is crazy! I still need to fill my new raised bed with soil so I can finish planting. I planted tomatoes, eggplant, carrots, cucumbers, peas, beets, and hot peppers in my existing beds.

I'm trying to set up a permaculture food forest in my yard, too. Some of the perennials I planted last year are doing good. I planted 75 strawberry roots last year and now I'm picking 1-2lbs of strawberries every day. Blueberries look like they'll be ready in a few weeks, and gooseberries will probably be ready in early July. Some things aren't going well. The rhubarb didn't grow back this year, and last year the spotted lantern flies demolished my grapes and they also didn't come back this year.

I spent the spring ripping out all of the pachysandra from my front garden, and I'm working on filling it in with native plants.

I also bought two 55 gallon barrels last weekend which I'm going to hook up to my downspouts for rainwater catchment.

[sadie]

May 31, 2022 8:57:15 GMT -5 lightbulbsun said:

My garden is going well, but this time of year is crazy! I still need to fill my new raised bed with soil so I can finish planting. I planted tomatoes, eggplant, carrots, cucumbers, peas, beets, and hot peppers in my existing beds.

I'm trying to set up a permaculture food forest in my yard, too. Some of the perennials I planted last year are doing good. I planted 75 strawberry roots last year and now I'm picking 1-2lbs of strawberries every day. Blueberries look like they'll be ready in a few weeks, and gooseberries will probably be ready in early July. Some things aren't going well. The rhubarb didn't grow back this year, and last year the spotted lantern flies demolished my grapes and they also didn't come back this year.

I spent the spring ripping out all of the pachysandra from my front garden, and I'm working on filling it in with native plants.

I also bought two 55 gallon barrels last weekend which I'm going to hook up to my downspouts for rainwater catchment.

My dream is to have a productive strawberry patch. Nice work!

[definitelyO]

so far so good with the garden - we had a heavy snow the week after we planted and looks like everything survived. Our garlic is almost ready to pick!

We planted a new butterfly bush at the front of the house - it's needing ga lot of love - but hanging in there.

and my peony bush is finally giving me flowers! I have about 10 buds - may not sound like a lot, but last year there were only 4 and the year before 3...

[dutchgirl678]

I planted 5 different varieties of tomatoes around Mother's day. They come from a local farm who grows them in unheated glass houses so they can stand the cold. We had some frost the following weekend but they survived. This year in the PNW has been super wet and cold for us. The plants have started growing some and a few have some flowers already but I don't expect to have tomatoes until August. Our rose bush on the other hand is going bezerk. It has tons of flowers and so many buds! It really loves the rain. I also have a bleeding heart plant which bloomed already, some astilbes which are growing back from almost nothing and I planted another astilbe. I really love the flowers when it blooms. I also got some more monardas which the hummingbirds love and they are starting to grow.

One mystery this year is that we have a lovely dogwood in our front yard which only had a handful of flowers this year whereas other dogwoods in the neighborhood were full of flowers. It seems to be doing fine otherwise.

[libbygrl109]

May 30, 2022 18:30:32 GMT -5 redheadk said:

Ours is okay but getting too hot to do anything but water. It’s supposed to rain all week so I am going to try to get a few more things in the ground in between then call it good until it’s time to transition to fall color.

We had our first ripe tomato today! It was a Roma tomato that I fished out of my puppies mouth. Womp womp. She loves picking and eating from the garden. Here she is after stealing a blackberry and being caught.

I needed to design my newest raised bed to have a fence around it, otherwise my pup would want to “help” me dig out the garden!

So jealous you have tomatoes! I can only hope I have some a month from now.

[darby]

Since we sold our home a couple years ago, I don’t have much room on our very tiny deck. I just have a small catnip in a pot on the table & another larger pot of flowers. I love reading about what everyone here has, as I miss mine, so I can live vicariously through your gardens, lol! I wasn’t going to post, but woke up this morning to blooms all over my nasturtiums. I consider this a win, as I usually have terrible luck with them for some reason.

[mrsukyankee]

Things have begun in our new raised bed and in some containers. Very excited to see how it goes as I've never really done more than a few containers in the past (and most of them were garlic). We also have a new miniature cherry tree started in our upstairs porch along with some strawberries. 



It's about 1/3 longer than this but just took a quick pic.

[mrsukyankee]

p.s. treedimensional, hope your surgeries relieve you of pain, at the very least.

[rooster222]

We bought two cedar garden tables and I planted tomatoes, leeks, Brussels, jalapenos, green beans, basil. I wish I had room for more and may add two more tables next year. I love not bending over to garden!

I also planted two hydrangeas and a peony off the back of my screened porch. We have an unsightly area in the front near electrical boxes and a fire hydrant that I planted coneflowers, verbena and already had creeping thyme. All the neighbor dogs love to use the restroom here, so I'm not sure how this will go.

I really want to add some drift roses to my side landscaping. Anyone have them and love them?

[libbygrl109]

I finally have everything planted! I am a week or two behind where I like to be, but at least they are in. I put in a rhubarb plant - I grew up always having it in my dad's garden, so I'm excited to be growing it at my own home. I know I won't get anything from it this year, so I'm really hoping I put it in the right spot for it to come back next year.