Remember me?

I'm back...

I’m not tired of gardening; I’m tired of creating in my garden. I’ve been fortunate to have a garden in one place for 28 years. I’ve tried everything, tested concepts, and grown the plants featured in the books I've written. I’ve tried permaculture, planted by season, and gone through a bulb phase, a vine phase, and a wintering-flowering phase.

Over the years, I have had other smaller renovations, and I'm glad I did, since if not, I would never have had what it took to do the final renovation. Even so, it took me a very long time to complete. I truly underestimated what was needed to complete my goal.

Starting in September, I thought I would be done by Thanksgiving. Then I thought I could finish by Christmas. That didn’t work either. As I continued with my holiday deadline goals, I finally made it to Easter, where I can stick a garden fork in it and call it done.

I’ve made a bullet list. No doubt, I left a few items out. During my upcoming Workshop and Open Garden, I will provide lists for visitors to get an idea of what work each garden bed received.

Why did I go to so much effort? I want to age in place. I want to write more, travel more, and read more.

It exhausts me just to review the list!

Here you go:

FRONT BEDS

ORCHID—Formerly, the Food Forest

• Removed oregano—too invasive

• Removed walking onions—too invasive

• Added more peonies along the walkway through the orchard

• Added rhubarb

• Added a celeste fig

• Added a pomegranate

• Added a stepping stone path within the orchard

• Moved beautyberry, Callicarpa americana, further back in the bed. I hope it makes it

• Removed Elaeagnus/goumi berry—It was a sucker to remove. Planted it when I was researching for my book, Good Berry Bad Berry

• Added several variegated boxwoods along the south side edge—from Jim Seagrave

• To the raised bed area, I added three ceramic pots for herbs

ASPARAGUS BED

• Expanded the asparagus growing area

• Added edging

• Backfilled with dirt removed from the driveway extension

PARTERRE BEDS

• Removed crabapple ‘Transcendent’ from the center of the Parterre Bed—it had aged out

• Added an antique English Black Tulip chimney to go over the stump

• Move most of the iris to the center Parterre Bed

• Removed creeping thyme from the Partere Bed quadrants and transplanted succulents there. I’ve tried everything I could think of to these beds. Let’s hope this satisfies me ;)

ENTRANCE BEDS

• Left Side—Added ninebark from Ms. Ann

• Added dwarf mondo (not ‘Nana’) as groundcover within the triangle

• Porch—Removed porch containers—needed clearance to use rails

• Right Side—Working to eradicate Alstroemeria spp.

• Severely trimmed Mahonia spp.

• Added more Echanciea spp.

• Added low-growing Monarda spp.

• Thinned out mondo edging

• Took out a ‘Natchez’ crape myrtle. Should have had the stump ground

• Moved Anenome spp. to Mixed Border

CHIMNEY SWIFT TOWER BED

• Cut down the guavas—Not fruiting & too big to manage

• Took down the apricot tree—Not fruiting

• Dug a new sloped-down spout—hard work!

• Added Corten edging along the edge and inside the fence line

• Transplanted all the blackberries to this bed, and others as I find them

• Added stakes from Jim for the blackberries

• Added more pipevine for the pipevine swallowtails

• The bed will primarily become a blackberry patch.

• Added a Monticello fig I propagated from Mordecai Garden

• Added potted plants

CHRYSALIS HOUSE BED

• Had Patrick edge the Chrysalis House bed with Corten, matching the River Bed curve, increasing the area, especially the Pollinator Bed area

• Mark Boone built the chrysalis for me in exchange for a garden design

• Added more raspberries

• Added VA sweetspire from Joslin sale

• Added an Italian fig from Rosemary York

• Looking to eradicate bear’s breeches, Acanthus mollis

RIVER BED

• Added edging to the River Bed

• Turned the area into a bed for bulbs

DRIVEWAY

• Marked out where the driveway extension would go—following the River Bed curve

• Remove soil built up from poor drainage to expose the full driveway

• Dug out dirt down 2 inches. This dirt went to the asparagus bed

• I widened the drive with thick flagstone from Jim Seagrove.

• It took me months, a little at a time. There was a LOT of dirt to remove, and those stones were heavy!

• Borrowed neighbors power washer to remove the remaining roots and soil from where the grass grew

POLLINATOR BED

• Extended the Christmas Tree trellis

• Added a native honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens, to the Christmas tree trellis

• Installed the blue saucer on a cedar post for bees and butterflies.

• Cemented in the post for the bluebird house—it kept shifting

• Move the bluebird feeder here

• Transplanted the blackberries from this area to the Chimney Swift tower bed

NORTH SIDE

• Removed all bear’s breeches—too much maintenance and invasive—bits are still popping up

• Moved two large sweet boxes from the house side to the opposite side

• Added several autumn ferns, Dryopteris erythrosora, rescued from Jim’s

• Added several native dwarf youpon hollies on each side—lost one; maybe another soon

• Added ferns to the side of the house—from Jim Seagraves

• Added LOTs of ‘Nana’—from Jim Seagraves

• Added stepping stones to the bench

BACK BEDS

ROCK GARDEN

• Limbed up dwarf Cryptomeria, Cryptomeria japonica 'Globosa Nana'

• Move a few of the small animal garden art pieces here

• Eradicating Wild comfrey, Andersonglossum virginianum

MIXED BORDER

• Removed sweet cherry, Prunus avium ‘Stella’—never fruited after 15 years

• The steps were lined with Acorus, Acorus gramineus ‘Ogon’; it became too much. Removed it all.

• Removed crape myrtle, Lagerstroemia indica x fauriei ‘Zuni’—wanted to showcase area with spring ephemerals

• Removed the rock edge along the right of the center path, and added Belgium blocks rescued from Jim’s garden

BACK 40 (ft.)

• Dug out 4 more inches of trench along the fence—all part of trying to fix drainage problems

• Added sod from the driveway extension to build up an edge

• Covered the new edge with pine straw to look nicer

• Hired a tree company to take down the Chinese/American hybrid chestnut, Castanea dentata x C. mollissima. Thank goodness. Talk about a maintenance headache!

• Hired a tree company to take down four loblolly pine trees, Pinus taeda. David hates pines, but also, they were so tall that if a storm were to take them out, they could reach the house.

• Patrick fixed the broken tobacco fence

• Added a dwarf Chinkapin oak whippet, Quercus prinoides

• Added a Camellia japonica ‘Governor Mouton’

• Added a yellow twig dogwood, Cornus sericea ‘Flaviramea’

• Transplanted several native fleabane, Erigeron philadelphicus, from the Rock Garden to several areas here

• Added three native azaleas, Rhododendron arborescens, R. Atlanticum, R. viscosum

• Added a hybrid azalea, ‘Gilbrata.’

• Added other azaleas, shared with me. Species unknown.

• Took out the spiketail, Stachyurus praecox—it was planted in a xeric zone and needed more water than that

• Hung two bat houses on trees. Not the best way to do it; it makes bats prone to predators.

• Transplanted crinkle root from Mixed Border to here, Cardamine diphylla

• Transplanted bee balm from Mixed Border to here, Monarda didyma ‘Jacob Cline’

• Moved swamp sunflower here, Helianthus angustifolius, from the front of the bed to the back. Don’t let the common name fool you. It does great with little water

• Moved the birdhouse from one side of the Back 40 (ft.) to the other

TO SHED AREA

• Added corten edging along the area leading to the shed

• Lined the front of the edging with dwarf mondo

• Lined the circle around the maple tree with dwarf mondo

• Moved four large boxwoods from Mixed Border to line the coop area, Buxus x ‘Conrowe‘ or ‘Gorda’

• Lined more dwarf mondo in front of transplanted boxwoods

• Redid the stick fence—So happy how it turned out

• Added camouflage cloth to cover up the storage area of the lean-to

• Organized areas

• Put a table and 2 chairs in the area

• Covered roots revealed by erosion

SOUTHSIDE

• Hired Patrick to make steps along the steep south side using Belgian block from Jim’s garden

• Transplanted green and gold eco spider to the dirt between the new steps

• With permission, I cut down a dead cedar from Jim’s yard to use as posts for the railing along the steps

• Hired Patrick to sink the posts since the clay was so hard; he had to bring a big hydraulic drill!

• Pruned large limbs from the crape myrtles needed to make hand- and siderails—My new fave

• Removed pyracantha—It was getting in the way of picking figs, and it was too much maintenance

• Removed split rail 2-section trellis to hold pyracantha

• Reconfigured the split rail to a single section and added whisky barrel rings as a trellis

• Heavily pruned azaleas

• Limbed up the banana shrub

• Added dwarf mondo (not ‘Nana’) as an edge on the Southside of the bed near the new steps

• Worked on the back Southside drainage

• Dug out a major section of clay from the back porch, about 15 feet, to improve flow. Moved all the dug clay to the back in the Back 40 (ft.) as a flow barrier

• Hired Patrick to fix my mistake, backfilled with good soil, and sloped it away

• Added an LSU purple fig

• Hired a tree company to remove the giant magnolia, Magnolia grandiflora. They ground the stump, but left a huge root that was difficult to remove and impeded drainage. Asked Mark Boone for a hand. Even with his Sawzall, we couldn’t get it. I finally burned and chipped enough away to create flow. Added a bridge from an antique fireplace screen

Until soon,
Naturally, Helen