A Tale of Two Trees; Or What the Dickens Happened to My Privacy Screen?

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."

No, on second thought, it was just the worst of times. (Caution: Ugliness ahead. Don't complain now, you've been warned!)

A few weeks ago, my neighbor knocked on my door. She wanted to replace the railroad ties that were holding up the raised bed on the edge of my front garden. It was right on the border between us, and according to her, they were infested with carpenter ants.

I don't have a picture of the railroad ties, but this was how that bed looked when we moved in three years ago. There's a two to three foot drop-off on the other side of it into my neighbor's driveway. The cherry tree on the right looks healthy. Don't let it fool ya!

To build the new wall, the workers were going to have to dig up some of my low-growing perennials that I had planted right on the edge, to drape prettily over the railroad ties and hide them. Yes, dig them up and replant them. In the middle of summer. They promised to be careful and get lots of roots, and replant them wherever I wanted them.

So I said OK, in the interests of neighborliness. But you know, in the height of summer (admittedly here in the PNW, not really hot at the time), but they hadn't been watered in weeks, so it's not the best of times to be digging up plants.

Ah well...several of them were Lithodoras. Have you ever tried to transplant Lithodora? It really resents being moved. So much so, that it just throws its hands up (much like me) and dies.

Crunchy dead Lithodora

Anyway, I spent a couple of days worrying, and then just went with a zen approach. Otherwise known as not caring any more.

The new wall, which is made out of those concrete blocks from Home Depot, looks much nicer than the old railroad ties.

But the bed ended up looking like crap. All the replanted plants got well watered, but they still sulked and drooped, and turned crunchy.

Droopy, crunchy, dying Rosemary (Hey, rosemary for cooking that is already dried, what a concept!)

Crunchy Lavender (with a floppy beebalm stalk right in the middle of it)

Seed-grown droopy, crunchy Dahlia

So. I decided to go with a Scorched Earth Policy. I pulled up the ailing replanted plants and tossed them in my yard waste bin. I even pulled out healthy plants that I didn't like. Like droopy shastas. And then I called a tree service, and had them take out two trees in that bed.

New wall. Two trees gone. My house.

One of them was a cherry that has never borne fruit. Every year, it would ooze gallons of sap, and drop immature fruit and leaves all over, until by the time fall came, it no longer had any leaves to fall. The other was a pear (I think, it too has never borne fruit), and it lost its top half in the ice storm back in January.

The pear tree that topped itself

I had been planning to take the trees out eventually, just not right then. I was surprised how quick and easy the tree felling was. It happened before I could say boo.

In order to accommodate the stump grinder, I had to remove several more plants. So when it was done, the bed looked even more like crap.

He has a stump to grind. Unlike me, all I have is an axe.

It's still the height of summer. So I won't be planting anything there any time soon.

Privacy? What privacy? (I'm sure my neighbor is saying the same thing)

But that means I have plenty of time to plan the now very sunny bed. Do I want drifts of flowers? Mixed shrubs and perennials?  OR OR OR Should I continue the gravel garden over here? Maybe I'll get it planted right this time, and will never have to fuss with it again.

Hahahahahahahahahaha

GBBD -- August 2012

I haven't been doing much posting this month. I've been wallowing in a case of the summer doldrums. Feeling like there is nothing interesting to show, nothing new appearing in the garden (except for ugliness, got plenty of that), and nothing interesting to say.

Well, maybe it's time to snap out of it! So, here are some pictures of my current beauties. I'll leave the ugliness for another post.

The Stargazer lilies have started flowering.

They look surprisingly good with this species Rudbeckia.

I don't know for certain what this cute little lily is, it's flowering profusely, but the blooms are really small. It must be shorter than I originally thought it would be, because it's hidden behind a big clump of Pennisetum. Black Beauty, maybe?

I showed some Dahlias and dayilies in July, and they continue to bloom, but are looking a bit ragged. Here are some new ones.

I call this 'Harlequin' because that was the name of the original that I took seeds from. This is its offspring, and is a bit different, but similar enough.

I have a file drawer somewhere full of plant tags. Some day maybe I'll sort through them. But not today. That's a winter chore, right?

Dahlia

Daylily

Daylily

Daylily

My coneflowers have finally started flowering. I'm going to save seeds from them this year. Now that I took out two trees, I'm going to have a large sunny area to plant.

This Echinacea 'After Midnight,' is a short coneflower with dark stems and darker than usual flowers.

The petals on 'After Midnight' recurve much like a species Echinacea.

I can't find a name for this one, but it has a pretty flower form. I'm going to try saving seeds from it. I think I actually started this from seed a few years ago.

This Gaillardia looks good with blue oat grass.

Rudbeckia 'Cherry Brandy' has a lot of variation in color from one plant to the next.

Rudbeckia fulgida has dainty little flowers.

Belamcanda chinensis/Blackberry lily, my only one. I'd like more, so I'll be saving seeds from it this year. You can see seedpods forming under the old, twisty flowers. They'll eventually break open to show a cluster of blackberry-like seeds

Despite being ravaged over and over by raccoons this summer, the plantings in my waterfall are thriving, and the canna has started flowering. Looking a bit ragged, though.

Morning sunlight actually seems to tone down the "in-your-face" red of Lobelia cardinalis.

Purple Angelica is looking good.

The blue Lobelia siphilitica has started flowering.

Blue is usually more of a spring color, but I have a few other blue flowers now.

'Rozanne' of course, keeps going and going.

This Caryopteris is a new plant in the gravel garden (still without gravel).

Russian sage is pumping out some airy flowers too.

Abelia grandiflora is flowering, and smells really good.

Clethra alnifolia has sweet-smelling flowers too, thus its common name summersweet.

Begonia grandis, a type of hardy Begonia that should withstand our Zone 7 (or is it 8?) winter, planted mostly for its leaves, is putting out flowers.

I have one Clematis flower, a very light lavender-pink.

The hummingbirds love my three patches of magenta Monarda. I don't remember the name of this, but it's doing much better than my bright red 'Jacob Cline.' I think I'll divide it and spread it into the front garden.

I've seen a hummer checking out this succulent flower.

It's part of this little group on my front porch.

Although technically it doesn't contain any flowers, this succulent dish is one of the best-looking pots in my garden.

It's set on top of the gabion tower in the gravel garden.

Well, that's it for now. You can see lots of other flowers from all around the world on Carol Michel's blog May Dreams Gardens. She hosts Garden Bloggers Bloom Day on the fifteenth of every month. Go there and check them out.

And now, I have some housework to do, before it gets hot this afternoon.

Some Remarkably Dreadful Pictures of My New Opuntia

I have two Opuntia plants, thanks to Loree at danger garden! She recently wrote a post about spreading Opuntia love, and offered to send some rooted Opuntia pads to a lucky winner -- which was me! Her post showed lots of different Opuntias around Portland, you can read it here.

Within about ten minutes of their arrival via U.S. Postal Service, I had planted them in one of the stock tanks in my gravel garden. I also managed to get some of its needles in my fingers, mistakenly thinking, Oh, they don't look that prickly.

The stock tank is a temporary spot, I just wanted to get them into the soil. They're sharing the tank with a Tetrapanax right now, which will probably eventually take over the tank. I may eventually move them into the culvert planters with the agaves and Mexican feather grass. But right now the grass is very floppy and frothing over the tops of the planters.

I am so behind on my blogging, there is a lot going on in the garden right now that I haven't even written about. We took two trees down, but that is a topic for a different post. I'm kind of in shock about it, it was unexpected, and I've been having a hard time wrapping my head around it. But now of course I have lots of room for new plants, in a large full-sun bed!

A couple of gratuitous shots.