PROGRESS ON THE CIRCLE GARDEN

There are so many things happening in the garden at this time of year that it's nearly impossible to report on it all here. But it is certainly blog-worthy when actual progress is made on a project!

Most of the weekend was dedicated to working in the circle garden, to the detriment, of course, of the rest of the garden, which is sorely in need of attention. But there is real pleasure in getting some actual gardening done in this area, which I've been renovating since last fall.

When we last left the circle garden, I had ripped out the existing paths and created new ones with metal edging and paver base, which will be topped with decorative gray gravel when all the planting is finished, weeded it like crazy and shared the design plan.

Somehow there was a lot of excessive soil after the path project last year but I left most of it in the beds assuming it would settle a bit. As it turned out, it didn't, and the better part of three hours was spent hauling very nice soil to a pile. I'm guessing it was about a yard and a half if not two yards just judging from the size of the pile.

Then I was able to get back to my beloved, if not quirky, chive hedge. I dug up everything that was already planted on the edges, just to inspect it and make sure it was weed free (a worthy effort judging by the pile of weeds I had), and then divided everything to outline every section of the garden in chives. I don't know that they'll grow together this year yet to form a proper hedge, but probably next year.

Rhubarb from grandma's garden that probably originally came from her parents' farm.

The next day I picked up four boxwood ('Baby Gem' which is a cultivar I've not used before and not the one I went to pick up—I had been planning to buy 'Winter Gem'), one for the center of each section. Then I laid out all my stakes and string again and created each planting area. I rehomed some rhubarb from my 100-year-old grandmother's house for the rhubarb area, but I'm sad that I won't be able to harvest any this year. And I also replanted the Egyptian walking onions I overwintered last year. I'm a little light on those so I'm hoping to find someone in my master gardeners group who can spare a few.

From here on out, it's really just planting left to do in that garden and I'll take on that project as I get plants or as things are ready to transplant. It's lovely to see progress though. And for a few precious moments I know that there is one weed-free spot in my yard.

A CHIVE CONVENTION

I didn't have much time to work in the yard last weekend, which is sad indeed. It has been raining here for days and days and there were other projects that took precedence (which you're about to hear about).

The few hours that I did have for garden time were dedicated to working on the oval circle garden update. Mr. Much More Patient and I spend almost two hours laying out the whole plan. Since it's meant to be symmetrical, being precise was important. But precision in an oval is difficult, especially when the original oval wasn't perfectly precise.

You can see the layout for one of the paths marked by yellow paint. It continues across the center of the garden. 

We spent hours with a tape measure, stake and landscape marking paint drawing lines and dots, to the point where we forget which dot was which. (Not to self, always have at least two colors of landscape paint for these projects).

We got it all laid out and later I came back to start moving things around. The first step was heeling in all the chives from the areas that will be changed. For the most part, the outer rim of chives can stay where it is, but those along the paths had to be moved. Since I knew where the new paths are going to be, I forked over a segment between them, doing my best to root out any weeds and then just heeled in chives from other areas. The soil in that segment of the garden, which was originally used for tomatoes, is so lovely to work in, it really wasn't difficult to do. Then I started popping out the cobblestones on the inner ring of each segment.

Chives moved and new paths marked. Good thing we also marked the grass or the lines would have been lost when I dug out the chives.

I'll be widening the paths from the existing 16 inches to a much more realistic 24 inches, so there's a fair amount of moving to be done.

As I took out some cobblestones I came across the dreaded landscape fabric. Yep, I put that nasty stuff down under the pea gravel paths and that was all well and good until weeds started growing in the paths a few years later. I'm wondering now if that fabric will make pulling up the pea gravel easier or more aggravating. I'll find out soon enough.

A funny little garden full of tufts of chives.

Still lots of cobblestones to move and then that nasty pea gravel to deal with. As usual this project is progressing a snail's pace, but there's nothing to be done but keep on plugging away.

THIS GARDEN'S NOT FINISHED, IT'S JUST GETTING STARTED ... AGAIN

I've mentioned before that the idea that a garden is ever "finished" is a fallacy. Because it is constantly growing and changing, gardens are in a state of evolution at all times. It's not like redoing a room in your house where you paint the walls, get new furniture and then stage it perfectly to take a bunch of photos because it's finished.

It's a lesson I wish I would have learned many years ago when I think I was rushing to get the garden finished. I think I made some poor design choices because of that rush, but even if I hadn't, I'm sure there would be decisions I regretted.

The circle garden from a few years ago before the chive hedge was complete and when I actually tended it a bit more.

And that's where I am now with the oval garden. You can always tell when I'm sick of an area of the garden, or at least when it's not holding my attention, because it will be the most unkempt area of the yard. And for a couple years now, that's what the oval garden (which I often call the circle garden because it has a better ring to it even though it is certainly not a circle) has been. I just haven't loved it enough to do any more than the basics, and it shows.

I'm embarrassed to show you this photo of what the circle garden looked like this weekend before I started ripping plants out of it. What a mess.

What really kicked my butt in gear was a really inspiring conversation I had with my friend Linda (who blogs at Each Little World) and her husband Mark when they stopped to see the garden in early July. They rattled off some ideas that finally got the creative juices flowing.

I've been thinking about the oval garden since then and have now committed to a complete redo next spring. First of all, I should mention, the oval garden was the first garden I made from complete scratch in my life. We had owned the house a couple years and I had reshaped and completely emptied the garden off the patio but I was anxious to get stuck into a project that was all mine. So I turned a derelict vegetable patch with random shrubs thrown in, into an oval garden. At this time I didn't have a real handle on my own garden style, and I was just getting my feet wet at learning about plants in general. In other words, I was pretty much winging it.

What has become most clear was the biggest mistake I made when I first designed it. I went with the oval shape for a handful of reasons, including that it was the most effective way to deal with the sort of rectangular leftovers of the garden that had been and because the space seemed to lend itself to something that length but didn't have room for the width that would be needed to make a circle. But I also was afraid of getting too formal and somehow I thought an oval was less formal than a circle.

This photo from Google gives the best view of the circle garden. Judging from how sparse the western most section is, I think this photo is from about two years ago when I combatted a horrible weed problem there. Just looking at those curvy paths makes me cringe. 

That's really flawed thinking of course. By it's very nature, a garden that is edged in cobblestones with center feature and self contained is going to be a more formal look. I tried to fight formality even more by dividing it into three sections of different sizes with curvy paths. Because a 6-foot long curvy path is super informal, right? And then I got greedy with planting space and made the paths very narrow, just 16 inches, because apparently at some point I thought I wouldn't have enough space for plants in my yard. Clearly I was wrong about that. Basically I did everything I could to fight formality.

Over the years I've come to terms with my divided loyalties to different gardening styles. I love a flowy, cottage-style garden, but gosh darn it, I like formal and structured too. And even though it seems odd to consider those two styles in the same place, I've also reached a point where I'm comfortable gardening for myself and have decided that if I love it, then that's what matter. It's funny: I've preached this approach dozens of times on this blog, but it has taken me a while to feel comfortable with that in my own garden.

So this fall and next spring I will be correcting some of the wrongs I made originally in the oval garden. First off, I'm going to embrace the formal nature of it, but I will be embracing some of the planting styles and choices I admire in other gardens. What exactly that will look like, I'm not sure, but here's a list of what's happening.

This is literally a picture of the quick sketch I was working that gives you an idea of what I was thinking for the paths on the redesigned "circle" garden. I'd adjust the angle of that X so that the path in the lower left would lead somewhat naturally off the patio. 

• The overall shape, center circle and exterior cobblestones will remain unchanged.
• The curvy paths will go, replaced by a much more formal X-shaped design for the paths. They will also get a bit wide to make them more comfortable to walk on and more in proportion with the garden. 
• The pea gravel used for the paths is going. I've decided I detest pea gravel. A lot of people love it and good for them, but I prefer the sharper edged gray gravel I used on the path to the garage.  Or I might consider something like a decomposed granite for the paths. 
• The chive hedge stays. I love that chive hedge even though it's a little quirky. I'll replant it to match the new paths so that each segment is outlined in chives. 
• The plan now is for the center obelisk to stay, along with the clematis that grows up it. The 'William Baffin' rose that also grows there could stay or go. 
• The rhubarb will probably stay only because I can't think of a better place for it and it's quite happy there.

Quirky as it may be, I love this chive hedge and it's staying.

I started the process of clearing out plants over the weekend. The sedum 'Autumn Joy', which I planted three of when I first made the garden and divided them over time was moved to a sunny corner of back/side yard garden. Amazingly there were at least 15 plants there. A few of the grasses were moved to the end of the driveway near the address sign to help ground that. I need to find homes for a few hydrangeas, a hosta and a handful of other plants, including a baptisia that will not appreciate the move at all. Everything else is either an annual or a plant deemed not worth saving. 

Once I get the plants attended to, I'll work on ripping up the paths and repositioning them. I'd like to get all of the structural parts finished this fall so that all that is left for spring is planting. As for the the planting plan, that's up in the air. My best garden inspiration tends to happen in the middle of winter so I'm not overly concerned about that bit yet. I do know that I'd like it to be very colorful, which will help carry the garden until mid-summer when things really start blooming in my yard.

It's sort of odd to be tackling an area of my garden for the second time, but I look at how much different my perspective and knowledge is this time and I'm really looking forward to the process and the result.

 Have you ever looked bad at a decision you made in your garden and wondered what you were thinking? Please tell me you have!

A WEEKEND IN THE GARDEN: IT'LL CURE WHAT AILS YOU

After one of the more challenging weeks of my working career, I was absolutely spent going into the weekend. I desperately needed to just stop thinking about everything for awhile.

Thank goodness Mother Nature cooperated and presented two nearly perfect spring days for me to get lost in the garden. And that's exactly what I did, getting caught up on some cleanup and a few small garden projects.

Right now they are just little clumps of chives around the perimeter of the circle garden, but soon they'll form a mini hedge.

The best thing I did in the garden was continue to work on the chive hedge in the circle garden. I started this as an experiment a couple years ago on just one section of the garden but was so thrilled with it, I've been slowly working toward extending it around the entire garden, including the interior borders. The lovely thing about chives is that they are so easy to grow and divide. The entire hedge has come from dividing the chives I had and dividing a few from my mother's garden. Because they grow quickly, I can sometimes divide them again at the end of the season.

I've made it almost all the way around the perimeter, and the one section is completed on the interior as well. I'm growing a few from seed as well and as soon as those plants are hardened off, I should only have a small amount left to do.

I love the hedge for a variety of reasons. For one, I think it lends structure to this garden that has always suffered a little bit from an identity crisis. I think that's a factor of having too many gardens; I spread my efforts across too many spaces so it can take a long time for one to be just right. But it also has the benefit of keeping out rabbits. I don't fool myself into thinking that the deer will give a rip about chives, but I think bunnies will. And lastly, they are so beautiful when they are in bloom and they are a huge draw to pollinators. Plus, why not have a hedge you can eat.

Unfortunately, in my much-needed Zen state of gardening, I failed to pause and take photos. If I had you might have seen an interesting development in the skinny patio garden. Things don't grow there like they should. The results of a soil test shed some light on that, but I've always felt like the inability of the climbing rose to thrive there was indicative of a larger problem. Turns out it probably was just the rose.

Since I'm completely redoing that bed—digging out everything and moving it or tossing it and replacing the soil—I dug up the climbing rose in order to move it. What I found was roots, in the perfect shape of gallon container, trapped in a circle. Although I purchased it in a two- or three-gallon container, clearly it had been grown in a gallon nursery pot for too long, then transplanted in a larger pot for sale, but remained rootbound. I'm irritated about it and frankly I'll be a little more careful about where I buy roses from now on. I trimmed up the roots to get rid of some of those that were strangling everything and moved it over by the veggie garden. Honestly, I don't give it a great chance of thriving there, but I'll continue to nurse it along.

While cleaning out the beds I unearthed the tiny purple tips of the Virginia bluebells popping up.

So many leaves fell last last fall that the gardens were really messy. I ended up just using the leaf blower (I detest leaf blowers because I find them obnoxious but I recognize that they have their place and I'm pretty sure this is it) to clean out the beds. Unfortunately I also blew away just about every plastic plant tag, so I made a mental note about being better to use my metal plant labels.

Of course there were little projects along the way as well. I divided a few perennials, pruned some clematis and swung by my mom's garden to give her some help digging all the plants out of a garden where a new deck will be situated.

In a couple months a weekend of this kind of hard-labor gardening (as opposed to plant shopping and planting) will seem dreary and monotonous, but for now it was glorious respite from the more serious bits of life. My hamstrings are sore and my fingernails are gross but I wouldn't have it any other way.

THE STATE OF THE GARDEN (AKA WHAT'S HAPPENING)

There are so many things happening in the garden at this time of year. Sometimes I feel like I mention something and then completely forget to give you an update on it. So today I'm tying up a few loose ends.

GARDEN CLEANUP
A couple weeks ago I mentioned my new strategy for getting the garden in shape: Take one garden area at a time and finish it completely before moving on to the next. It should come as no surprise that I grossly underestimated how long this would take, but I'm happy with the progress I've made.

I spent most of one day working on the circle garden which is now looking pretty good. The chive hedge I planted last year has just started blooming and I absolutely love it. So much, that I've decided to continue it around the entire perimeter of that segment of the circle garden. I need a few more chives to surround it (I'm hoping to take a few off my mom's hands or else it will have to wait until I can divide what is there), and eventually I would like hedge the other two segments of that garden.

There are a lot of bare spots in this garden (actually, all of my gardens, which is something I'm discovering as I free them from weeds), so filled them in with 75 kale seedlings. I planted Redbor kale seedlings in one segment and Lacinato in the other two. If they grow well, and I hope they do, I think it will be a really interesting look to the garden. Maybe by the end of summer I'll be able to call the circle garden (which is very much an oval) the kale garden.

See the vetch trying to eat that hosta? Edited: Upon further review, I don't think this actually is vetch. If you know what it is, let me know! I also see a maple seedling there and some jewelweed off to the right. So much weeding, so little time.

We've had a very wet and cool spring and the amount of weeds is astonishingly. Some kind of vetch (see note in caption) seems to have taken over the garden and I'm literally pulling it out by the handful.

POTATO TOWERS

The potato towers are finally starting to show some signs of life. As you can see, there are plenty of shoots popping out and up. I've been "hilling up" the compost on the top of towers as the shoots grow. Other than that, I've done very little with the towers since I planted them. I have occasionally taken the hose and made an attempt to water the entire thing, but that's about it. I'm starting to lose hope that the entire tower will be covered in green leaves, but there is a long summer of growing to go yet so we'll see.

COMPOST BIN

Although I still need to transfer in the unfinished compost from the previous location, I've started layering future compost. On top is nepeta trimmings and under it is shredded paper I picked up from work. Above, you can see the new location of the compost bin. I didn't meant to tuck it in so close to that tree, but I had already dug the trench for it and I didn't feel like redigging it, so that's where it's standing. I'll just trim the tree around it.

I successfully moved the compost bin and ended up going with the sunnier location by the vegetable gardens. I actually tucked it a little more under the tree than I intended to, but once I dug out the trench to level it, I wasn't going to dig it again, so that's where it ended up. There was some lovely finished compost lurking at the bottom of the bin that I've been happily using. I'm throwing all the unfinished bits back in and starting to make some new layers as well. Because its the time of year for lots of greens (plant trimmings and kitchen waste; I never put in weeds), I got a supply of newsprint trimmings from work to serve as "browns" in the pile until some fallen leaves are available in autumn.

TOMATO STAKING

A few brave tomatoes have made an appearance but I don't see them ripening any time soon.

It has not been very summerlike here so the tomatoes have done very little growing, but so far my new method of staking is working out pretty well. One of the jute strings broke off at ground level. I'm hoping this does not happen to the rest. I had some excess at the top so I lowered that and tucked the bottom back into the soil as firmly as I could.


GARAGE

The "before" shot of the garage taken last fall. Check out that mossy roof!

Hallelujah, I found someone to paint the garage and with luck it will be finished by the end of the week. With all the work there is to do in the garden as well as a very busy sailing schedule (pretty much every weekend from now through August), I knew I wouldn't have time to do all that scraping and painting and I didn't want to look at an unfinished garage all summer.

I ended up choosing Ozark Shadows for the siding color (the top right in these photos), which was a favorite of many people. The trim will be Simply White, which is the same color as on the deck.

RAIN BARREL

The rain barrel we put on the corner of the garage is already proving its value, even if I think it's pretty ugly. The garden by the garage is right on the edge of reach of both hoses, so it has been very nice to be able to water that area from it. There's not enough pressure in the hose to actually spray water, but it works great to just set by the base of new plants and give them a good soaking.

NEW BACK/SIDE GARDEN
It's finished. Well as finished as any first-year garden ever is. I keep waiting for a nice day to take some photos, and that never seems to happen. I'll show you soon and hope that the deer don't eat it in the meantime (they've already munched my Sweet Summer Love clematis to the ground).

That's what's been happening here. What's up in your garden?