New Grass or New Garden?

After picking up all the oak leaves from our front yard this year, we discovered that yet, once again, all the St. Augustine had died.  Well, there is one small patch still growing just on the other side of the azaleas in this photo.  Innumerable pallets of sod and plugs have gone in over the 20 something years we've lived here.  Each time we replace grass I try to make the planting beds larger so we have less  grass to deal with. 

Yes, we have an irrigation system.  Yes, we have fertilized.  No, we don't spray insecticides.  Yes, I find this photo embarrassing. 

We began enlarging the front garden by bringing in a load of compost from the county recycling center.  More will be brought in later but for this project just one truck load was enough. 

My 'muscle' unloaded the truck and spread the compost for me.  I love him.  I removed the liriope border that had been behind the white caladiums and in front of the Asian jasmine to use for the new border.

One of the ilex schilling bushes was removed and replanted further down the driveway.  A swatch of Asian jasmine was removed and placed in the center of the new garden area.  The 'White Christmas' caladiums were the reason this project was not done earlier.  I was waiting for them to sprout so I could see where they were and could move them.  They were grouped together on one side of the new pathway. 

Eucalyptus mulch was applied between the stones of the path and oak leaf mulch was put down in the planting area.  Yes, we picked up the leaves and then put them right back in the same place.  But, NEXT year this area will self-mulch.  Yay!

Most of the plants were just relocated from other parts of the yard.  So, the only new purchases were the stones for the path and a gardenia tree which is blooming its head off and scenting the new entry path.  I did plant some caladium bulbs which had been purchased a few months ago and were already sprouting.  I hope to see them lending color to this area very soon. 

Just as I finished this project a rain storm began.  What perfect timing to water all the new plantings.

The bushes need to be trimmed, the windows need to be washed, and the front door needs fresh paint.  But I think I'm going to put  enlarging more front garden areas at the top of the list.  It's just so much fun!

Reworking the Sunny Corner

This corner in the backyard adjoins the bed along the chainlink fence.  It is an area that receives mid-day to afternoon sun.  There was a golden dewdrop, duranta repens planted in the back corner with a multi-color lantana, lantana camara, across the front.  The golden dewdrop was killed to the ground in January just as it was last winter.  It was decided that another butterfly and hummingbird attractor that could make it through cold weather was needed instead of the golden dewdrop which was relocated to a less prominent spot. 

 

A three feet tall red bottlebrush tree callistemon citrinus was planted where the dewdrop had been.  This specimen will be full of bristly red blooms very soon.  Butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds all love them.  Since this small tree will be green during winter as well as summer, it will provide some privacy screen to the chainlink fence area.  When it achieves its full height it will be around 12 feet tall.

 

Beautiful blooms are imminent.

Blue-eyed grass is a native plant that grows in damp open fields.  This corner should be a perfect spot for it.  Placed as a border grass in front of the bottlebrush its sweet little blue flowers add interest to its lush greenness.

The lantana was also killed to the ground but it was left to come back between the border of blue-eyed grass and the bottlebrush.  Should it not make it back to the land of living plants it will be replaced most likely with a mixture of red and white pentas. 

The sunny corner package.

Beautiful Weather for Plant Shopping & Planting

The Riverview Garden Club held a plant sale where I found plants donated by the Riverview Flower Farm.  What a wonderful surprise that was!  I'm not a member of this group just a happy, happy customer. The Sedum Florida Gold on the right is one of my greatly desired plants for this year's garden.  This is a cold hardy and heat tolerant ground cover for sunny areas.  I've been at my Home Depot garden center just about every other day waiting for their shipment to come.  I couldn't believe my good fortune to find it at this sale.  The Tampa Vervain on the left is a Florida native plant named after my hometown.  How could I resist?

It was a very good weekend at My Garden Path.

More Cold Hardy Planting

Bamboo Multiplex 'fernleaf' was planted against the neighbor's chainlink fence last fall.  This was with the view of giving privacy to the backyard.  The bamboo is cold hardy and made it through the January freeze just fine.  It is a clumping variety that is also referred to as hedge bamboo.  This spring it should thicken up some and by its third year in the ground it should reach its full potential.  This weekend I added to this bed:  1 pineapple guava (feijoa selowiana), 4 loropetalum, and 11 flax lilies that were divided into 35 for a border.

Can you see the little loropetalum with it's pink blooms to the forefront and just behind the flax lily border?  It tends to blend right into the mulch but the hope is that as it gets larger it will contrast nicely against the bright green bamboo.  There are four of them in the bed, two on each side of the pineapple guava.  The pineapple guava is the small bush to the back of the photo almost to the shadowed area. 

Here, you can see the loropetalum better.  It is the little bit of pink you see in the lower right corner.  I hope they grow fast!

A closer view of the pineapple guava.  This should add some interest to the front of this bed.  All of these plants are cold hardy and so should keep the privacy desired all year long.  I like my neighbors very much but there is a road just the other side of their property that anyone travelling on  can see straight through to my yard.  That is too much exposure for me.  I have no further plans for this area.  I'm just going to water, fertilize, weed and watch it grow.

I Pretty Much Stuck to the List (Sort of)

I am in full bore reconstruction mode.  I really am trying to focus on one area at a time, but I'm not being very successful at that.  I have taken out two huge 20 years+ old hibiscus bushes and am planning to replace with some Old Garden Roses.  I usually plant zinnias, cosmos, blanket flowers from seed in the area in front of the hibiscus.  I still plan to do that this year as well.  But the roses will be my backbone for this area.  Since they are cold hardy I will have something beautiful to look at even when the full effect of all the other flowers is gone.  I haven't purchased the roses yet.....

Still digging up the stump for the largest of the hibiscus bushes.

I have a very shady corner which is  planted with gingers, caladiums, alocasias, a red shrimp plant, forsythia sage and persian shield.  All but the red shrimp has gone dormant from the cold weather.  These plants always have come back but until about April that corner looks very bare.  It is under my twin grandfather oak  so oakleaf mulch is all you see from January until Aprilish.

Purchases for this area include: 2 Chamaedorea Cataractarum and  2 Shefflera Arboricola.  Also purchased were some Flax Lily I found on the half-price rack at Lowe's and a beautiful Camellia Sasanqua that I plan to put under my bedroom window which is dappled shade.  The Cat Palms will take the place of the Microspadix in my wishlist. They are not as cold hardy but are good to 20 degrees. And they were only $10 each. If I ever find a Microspadix I can still buy one. One.  Here's some info on my beautiful camellia.  Camellia Sasanqua Shishi Gashira


See how my one at a time plan is disintegrating?


A third area I have been working on is against my neighbors chainlink fence.  I planted some Bamboo last spring that is filling in nicely  and held up during the cold snap.  My banana trees however are toast.  I think they will come back from the corms but until then there is a gaping hole.  So, I bought a (Feijoa sellowiana) to put in that space.  Also purchased 2 Bulbine and 2 more Lorapetalum to plant in front of the sunny fence area.

I really got some good plant deals at my local nursery.  Really.  I did.

As I plant each area I will post updates.  My goal is to provide some more cold hardy "bones" for my garden while still keeping all the tropical and more cold sensitive perennials for spring and summer color.  That's the plan!