Decisions, Decisions...

I am having a hard time deciding what to put in our front yard. Since our house has brick on one side, is all brick too much? Should rock be added to the mix? Would plants used in place of a wall be more street friendly? I've added the photo-shopped pictures I have so far. For the rest, use your imagination and HELP ME DECIDE!
RESULTS: Fairly even distribution among the pictures displayed! Thanks for voting!

Tomato Time! (Part 1)

If you look carefully you can see the tomato plant coming out of the bottom of this plant hanger! I had seen the containers for planting tomatoes upside down while looking on the web for tomato cages and decided I needed to try this. Not wanting to wait for an order to be delivered, I bought this planter at the local Wal-Mart store after dinner and finished planting before dark. The picture above was taken the next morning around 8 am. As you can see, the tomato plant had already started growing up!! That was about three weeks ago and this is what it looks like now... much bigger and with flowers...

To plant a tomato upside-down:

Items needed: 1) a small tomato plant in a 4 inch or less container, 2) a hanging planter with a coco mat liner, and 3) some potting mix.

Directions:

1) Cut a hole in the coco mat liner at the bottom of the planter in the middle (optional: reinforce the cut hole with duct tape),

2) Put the tomato plant on a flat surface

3) Turn the planter over the tomato plant,

4) Guide the plant through the hole,

5) Turn planter right-side up, remove tomato plant container, fill in with potting soil, hang and water. All done!!!

Second Annual Cottage Giveaway-Seeds

My friend told me that Kim from The Twice Remembered Cottage ~ One Woman's Cottage Life is having the Second Annual Cottage Charm Giveaway. Being new at blogging, I decided it would be a great way to have peope find out about my blog! I have put together some packets of seeds I collected last autum that I will send to you if you leave a comment and I draw your name from my raffle. I have made packets of 20 Pink Lemonaide Hollyhock seeds each that I will send to the 5 winners (the 5 names I draw). I will also send a package of Clematis seeds that I have never tried to grow. Everyone can enter by leaving a comment, but I can only send these seeds in the U.S. The drawing will be on Saturday, May 31st. You have until then to leave a comment and if you don't have a blog, please make sure you include your email address. Even if you've never left a comment before, you can still enter!

Confused with Asparagus

I am a little perplexed about the growth of my asparagus. I planted Purple Passion Asparagus and Jersey Knight Asparagus. Both seem to produce less than expected the first year. My first question is, "Will there be more shoots over the years?" I dug a hole about 12 inches deep, placed the asparagus with the tip up and the roots spread and covered with 6 inches of soil. Hopefully that was the correct way, since I also read that you should just lay the plants on their side... I was going to cover them with the remaining 6 inches of soil, but did not want to discourage the rest of the shoots. The next question is, "If the snails/slugs eat the tops of these plants, do they have any chance of surviving?"

Natives Plant Tour/Plant Sale in October

On May 4th, my husband and I went on a wonderful self-guided tour called "Bring Back the Natives Garden Tour(TM)." We had gone to the web site, http://www.bringingbackthenatives.net/, to view the open gardens and their plant lists. Taking the plant lists with us really helped us figure out what native plants we liked and which ones also fell on our list of drought tolerant plants provided by Santa Clara County. It was fantastic to see what others have done. Take a look at the gardens #15 and #17!!

On April 28th, we had attended a wonderful plant sale at Foothill College. I strongly recommend everyone attend their next sale (see below for info.)...Great plants at unbelievable prices:) ..too good to miss!
From the Website: Foothill's Environmental Horticulture & Design Program will hold its inventory sale Oct. 20 and 21 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the horticulture facilities that are adjacent to Parking Lot 4 at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills. Items are offered on a first-come, first-served basis. Admission is free; parking is $2. Items for sale include bamboo, succulents, cacti, grasses, tropicals, orchids, ornamental and fruit trees, shrubs, perennials and more. Price range for most items are $1.50 to $35. Payment must be cash or check. Credit cars are not accepted. Bring bags or boxes to transport purchased items. Sale proceeds are tax-deductible and benefit Foothill's Environmental Horticulture Program.

Good-bye Front Yard ( or what did we do?)

We started!!! Without any plans, we decided to level the yard. Our research told us that the cheapest and easiest way to do this was by renting a bobcat and a 5-yard dump truck. It took all day, but 3 dump loads later, our debris and dirt were gone. What was left was repairing all the sprinkler heads and the valve cover box. Looking at it afterwards, I heard myself say, “What did we do?”

On the brighter side, having any high-powered car or large equipment brought all the male neighbors outside to check it out!! I got a kick out of riding so high in the dump truck, but watching my husband’s smiling face in the bobcat, you would say it wasn't all work.

The Front Yard Project

Our front yard project started when the largest tree in our yard died and needed to be removed. It was our beloved olive tree, probably the largest olive tree I have ever seen. This tree was good for producing a lot of olives, for wrapping with xmas lights and for experienced tree climbers. We had a Tree Removal Service remove the tree, but elected to remove the stump ourselves. Did I mention that my husband and I are do-it-yourself-ers? Well, removing the 5-foot-wide stump may have been better left to the professionals! It wasn’t until the second stump grinder stayed at our house for 3 hours did that stump give up. If it hadn’t worked, we would have opted to let it decay naturally…it almost won. Now that the stump is sawdust (see picture above), we have decided to take the water-wise approach and landscape with drought tolerant plants--no lawn. There is actually a program in Santa Clara County that will rebate you $1.50 per square foot to plant selected drought tolerant plants. I had the paperwork done and have been qualified to participate. Next, I took my yard measurements to a local nursery to have their landscape architect design the yard with some input from us. I hope that for the small price of $150, which is credited back to you to buy plants and materials at their store, I will be given a great garden design and the names of the plants to plant. I cannot wait to see what they suggest!

Apple Tree Fence

Many years ago, I saw a picture of a place in France where they had a field surrounded by an apple tree fence. I always wanted one and finally, about 3 years ago, I put in the one you see above. This fence separates the lawn area from a small fruit orchard. The fence is composed of three Fuji apple trees growing laterally on two copper wires. One day, the wire and posts will be removed and the apple trees will form a living fence without them. What other fence will give you a crop of apples every fall?

Cherry Tree Espalier

Our latest project is a planting of cherry trees that will be used to break up the large expanse of fence outside the kitchen window. Since we only have about 16 inches of soil on the side of our driveway, we wanted the trees to only grow on a designated plane so that they would provide beauty and fruit without imposing on the driveway. We planted 5 cherry trees about 6 feet apart, about 8 inches from the fence. Since these trees were “whips,” they fit in the space fairly easily. Then we screwed 3/16 x 6 inch Lag Thread Screw Eyes into the posts every 12 inches starting about 26 inches high. Then we put wire through the Screw Eyes and twisted it at the end to hold the wire taught. The cherry trees are now fastened to the wire with twist ties so that they grow straight. They are planted in the following order: Bing, Rainier, Bing, Rainier and Bing. We still need to create the wire framework for the last tree. Add that to the list! Hopefully, there will be a lot of cherries in our future!!

Happy Gardening,

The Part-Time Gardener:)

2007 Blooms

Hi to those of you who have stumbled on to my site!

I have just started this blog with the help of my friend who has a blog on Romantic homes http://www.romantichome.blogspot.com/. Since I did not plan on doing this today, I do not have any current pictures of my garden, so I have displayed the one I took last year of my raised bed in the backyard. This year the seeds from these plants have rooted and are ready to grow. Since they will bloom the second year, I have started transplanting them to a prime setting for next year. This is the first time I have ever started planning ahead of time with annuals. We will see if I did it right next year!
Hope to add to my blog tomorrow!
Part-time Gardner