I guess there's always next year

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 11:19 pm

Watering the garden for two hours every other night is all I can do out there until sometime in Sept, with water rationing and the cost of water going up and the ground is hard as a rock.
So I spent this afternoon going thru gardening books, a couple of websites planning some new garden areas for next year.
If Frank's rain dances work for my yard that would be ideal, otherwise I will get up around 5 to start the sprinkler and maybe by 6 the ground will be workable, at least until the sun dries it out again.

My daughter has a lot of bricks she wants gone from behind their shed and I have plans to make a wishing well from them. The top part that holds the bucket and the roof are going to be made from an old fence panel we have. I want to make the well big enough to stand two or three cinder blocks on their end inside, then I can set a large pot on top of them to hold flowers. I am thinking some blue Wave Petunias with a couple of Sweet Alyssum or other small white flower in there...that should give it the look of water flowing over the sides.

Around the well will be a circle, approx 10' in diameter and divided into quarters. Each quarter will have a different color palette and some plants will have to be shade tolerant and some sun tolerant because of where I plan on putting it. The yellow quadrant will have Patchouly, Snapdragons, Coreopsis and Blanketflower. The Blue/purple section will have
Tansy, Thyme, Hardy Plumbago, Blue Phlox and purple Verbena. The Red section will include Pennyroyal, Sweet Woodruff, Wine Cups, Red Sedum. White/Silver section will have Mint, Parsley, Lambs Ear, Dragon Lily.

And since I have read in several places that ants hate Tansy, it will be planted all around the yard next year.

And I am going to create a truly secret/hidden garden under the large hackberry tree in the back corner of the yard. I need to clear our almost all the wild plants growing there and some things I planted a few years ago will be moved. Leatherleaf Mahonias for one wall, Oakleaf Hydrangeas for another wall, an arbor at the entrance and assorted ground covers, hostas and mints in the full shade and some shade grasses along the fence on two sides to block the view from the alley and the neighbors yard.

And behind my long wood bench, between my makeshift potting shed and the picket fence I am going to clear out the wild strawberry and move a honeysuckle I found there the other day. Then scatter seeds for shade loving wildflowers to hopefully bloom next spring.

We still need to take down the 30 year old peach tree and someday, I hope I hope I hope, I will have collected enough old exterior doors to build me a hideaway shed out there.

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glendann wrote on Fri Jul 14, 2006 4:37 am:

That sounds like you have a great plan .Now we all have to wait and wait to view the results.:)

toni wrote on Fri Jul 14, 2006 5:44 am:

I have to wait until Sept to even start on these plans. But, Randy is going to take me over to Weston Gardens in south Ft. Worth and a couple of other nurseries in a couple of weeks to pick up some of the plants I want for the new garden areas.

I can move them to larger pots as needed until I get the new areas ready, that way I will have them on hand when I am ready to plant instead of having to wait until March or April of next year for them.

Gardenstew wrote on Fri Jul 14, 2006 10:54 am:

Sounds like a lot of work but it is all planned so it shouldn't take as long. I like your ideas Toni, particularily simulating the water of the wishing well with the petunias :D