Sovereignty Farms

Ready..Set...CHARGE IT!!!

Yesterday there was an "Orphan Plant Sale" at Autumn Hill Nursery. This nursery puts out all their one-off plants out and marks them down considerably. Then everyone lines up at the fence by 8am, and they hand out colored tape with your name on it. At 8, the fence is open and everyone runs to tag what they want. Amazing.

Well, I heard about this on Thursday at my gardening class. I thought they may be exaggerating, so I went, but I didn't get there until about 8:05am. WOW. I got some great stuff, but I missed some great stuff too. I will know better next year.

I did well though. I got the following for only $200:

A beautiful Japanes Maple that is about 6.5 ft tall (this alone was regularly $300 by itself)
A weeping pear tree about 5 ft tall
A weeping Yaupon Holly (about 4ft tall)
2 Tea Olives about 4 ft tall
A Cranberry Viburnum about 3 ft tall
A Camellia Sasanqua hybrid names 'Leslile'
2 Hakonai grasses
A beautiful Pieris 'Snowdrift'

I am so happy about that sale. These are nice healthy plants and worth much much more than I paid for them. The hard part is finding places for them now. I will have to keep them in pots for a while until I can prep the areas. The exceptions are the trees - they are balled and burlaped so I want to get them in the ground pretty quickly.

Planting Away

Lots of new plants have come into the picture and I planted them all today. Susan and Bill gave us 6 roses (Hydrid teas) that were not doing well in their shade. I hope they come back next year. I am not so sure that we were supposed to take all of them, but Bill dug them all up and left them for us. We will see. They also left some unknown plant - maybe a lily - some pink flowering sedum and a nice vine that I planted.

I put the blue muffin viburnum out in the back, a totally unknown plant near the lemon grass (it was mailed to me by someone but I had no record of it in eBay). I planted some new Asters (rabbits or something have been eating the other 5 that I planted - hope they come back...the flowers, not the rabbits), euonymous, and a hardy geranium. Also, Hakone grass - which is so expensive but I love it. Planted a new variety of artemesia, too.

I pulled 4 of the scented geraniums up to make room for the roses - and put them in a pot. After I trimmed them back they looked pretty nice.

The hydrangeas I planted in the far bed look so much more happy than they ever have. I thought about pulling everything out of there and putting the compost in the whole bed instead of planting holes, but not now that I see they look so happy. I will leave them. But I still need to pull out all the kudzu behind them and put down more pinestraw.

Yesterday I harvested an entire bag of peppers - so many that they almost don't fit all in the bag. The plan was to roast them today but we are having problems with the circut connected to the oven. Hope they will hold out until the electrician comes. We also got a few sweet potatoes, but I think they need more time. I spent more time than anything cleaning up the veggie bed -- pulling out old okra and tomatoes, pulling weeds, and working on the edges - cleaning them up so they are more defined. Something ate my sweet bell peppers before I harvested them - i hope to get another crop of them before it gets cold. The asparagus are almost 4 feet high - when do I cut them back? And the tea rose and butterfly bush look so amazing together, in full bloom. Such a strange thing to see by strawberries in a veggie garden, but I like it.

The lenten rose I planted in the back before vacation are doing well - as are the acuba and mahonia - thank goodness. Now I just need to pick up all the sticks back there that fell during the storm. I am pondering also moving the gardenia to the edge of the trees. There is never enough time (or energy or money) to do it all :(

First Fruit

OH MY GOODNESS! Tonight we harvested the first vegetable from the garden. It is a zucchini squash. Dan said maybe we should try to let future ones grow larger, but this is amazing - the first veggie of the 2004 garden!!!!

Playing Catch-up

With all sorts of chores and tons of rain we haven't been able to work in the yard much. Today we got quite a bit done. Dan mowed the yard and did weed wacking after his last weekend to coach baseball.

I put landscape fabric in the pathways of the veggie garden and then put pinestraw on the paths and the rows, too. Tomorrow I need to spread out the okra and rearrange the cages around the tomatoes. Also, I have a few more baby Roma tomatoes to put out...I grew them from seed. The roses around the veggie bed are looking wonderful. I get excited thinking about the climbing roses getting big and spreading out over the fence.

I pulled the pansies in the front bed, but left the Gaura (it is a perennial). I replaced the pansies with pretty white impatiens. I also got some sun coleus. It is - from outside to inside - lime green, yellow, hot pink. Very nice. This is the first year I have ever planted this annual, but I was inspired by my friend Lori. She is just getting the gardening bug and liked this plant. I put it in the yellow and pink bed - about 36 of them. In this same bed I planted some lilies (last night really). Creamy Yellow Asiatic Lilies - about 25 of them. I am excied about them. I had some Asiatic lilies at another house, and this guy, Joe, brought one into work last year and they just smell heavenly. Plus, a Phlox Paniculata Shortwood (pink). This and the lilies don't even have foliage yet, so I will show pictures to you later. OH YEAH. I love Creeping Jenny and just have never bought it. Well, I bought a little quart today. In that bed, in a pot, I put 3 cloeus and then took the Jenny and divided it into 3 pieces and put it in the pot so that it hangs over the edge. I am pleased with it - I just have to remember to water it.

At Lowe's was a new Hosta - Whorlwind. It was kinda small but I got it and planted it in the front walk bed on the other side of the Heuchera than the other hosta. This will kinda balance it out.

I am planning on working the back Hydrangea area tomorrow, but I worked on it a little today. I planted 3 tuberous begonia, 3 Peach Blossom Astilbe (these are more like pink than peach and I got them for the pink and yellow bed but I wanted so more color in the back), and Claridge Druce pink geranium. So, the other thing I worked on was re-arranging the Hydrangea. I took the largest of them (not as they are now, but those that will eventually be the largest) and in the back of the fence I planted them so that they frame a walkway into the main part of the garden. This included adding a few other Hydangea that I had gotten in the mail a ways back but not planted yet. H. paniculata 'Unique' went into the walkway area. And to fill the holes left when I dug up the other walkway ones, I planted H.m. 'Beaute Vendomoise' (which has HUGE flowers - some of tha largest), H. q. 'Snow Queen' and a dwarf H. m. 'Hornli'. There are a few more holes so tomorrow I will plant the other Hydangeas I got at Aldridge gardens. Also, the big project will be to put down some landscae fabric and then pinestraw a large part of the area and put pine bark mulch down in the path ways. There is no way I will get it all done tomorrow but I will work till I am out of materials.

OK, so then....I took a shower and then a 2 hour nap in the hammock. THAT WAS GREAT. Then dan and I went on a motorcycle ride for a few hours. It was so nice. And I came back and filled the bird-feeders up with seed. I got a new one that suctions to the window. I hope they come to it.

OK, more tomorrow. And I will take pictures of things then.