Engineer at work

(before) Our shade garden.

(after) Our terraced raised bed shade garden.

When it’s all said and done, I think we clocked in six hours on this endeavor. Shockingly, we didn’t use a single measuring tape for this project. My husband measured everything by walking it out and staking it and as he built the wall, we both paused periodically to eye it to make sure the line was straight. He did, of course, use a level to make sure every block was even. We ran into a snag with one side wall, finding it was just slightly off when we just had a few more blocks to place. As an engineer does, my husband took the wall completely apart and rebuilt it so it was done right.

We filled the bed with four layers of materials. The base is our entire compost bin’s contents (which was basically filled to capacity) followed by a layer of leaves from our leaf pile, then soil from our catchall soil pile (where all soil ends up when we plant or clear/create flower beds). The final layer was the remainder of our good topsoil that we had delivered in March. I did get a few bags of raised bed soil, just to add a bit more goodness to the mix, which will hopefully all get worked through over time by the earthworms. I actually planned to add that today and start planting out the bed, but the forecast for Thursday and Friday is looking iffy. Freezing temps may be on the way again and I don’t want to risk it, so everything is staying in the greenhouse until this weekend.

I should add that this is phase 1 of what I anticipate will be a multiple year endeavor to address erosion on the hillside in our backyard. We currently plan to do a second terraced bed, but likely won’t tackle that project until the autumn. We have other projects that need addressed before we can revisit that, but I’m thrilled to have the first bed finished and I can’t wait to fill it with plants and get our greenhouse emptied.

Chores

On top of that, we did a bunch of weeding and laid new steppingstones through our lantana bed so we stop compressing the mulch when accessing our garden hose. We also decided to stop using a closed compost system and will be using pallets to create a new open-air system. We had to move a mulch pile to give us space for the new compost setup but ran out of time to get that project finished. I also got our bare root Red Falling Stars in pots and potted all ten of the dormant Hens & Chicks we got in our last order from Gilbert H. Wild and Sons. Once they come back to life, they’ll be added to our flagstone rock wall.

Seed trays & direct sowing

Zinnias are doing awesome, but everything else is either okay or not in a good way. My coleus don’t appear to be growing at all. Salvias aren’t doing much. Phlox is doing better than anything else, but not by much. The grass is hard to even see. Is it the growing medium? If it was, it’s odd that the zinnias are doing great, because everything was sown in the same seed starting medium. Everything is getting at least eight hours of direct sunlight (on sunny days), so I’m a bit perplexed. Are they just slow growing? I’ve never tried growing anything besides the zinnias from seed, so I don’t really know what is going on with all my tiny seedlings. They really haven’t done much at all and I’m truly baffled. I plan to carefully transplant a few into potting soil and see if that helps.

For some good news, the forget-me-nots and alyssum that we direct sowed in the pear tree bed have germinated, so we’ve got dozens of tiny seedlings coming up out there.

What’s ready to bloom?

I don’t have much to add to the bloom list right now, since I haven’t changed our flower pots yet even though the tulips are finished. I’ve been holding out for annuals until May, because of this variable weather and because I recall how difficult it was dealing with slugs last April. That being said, our chives, knockout rose, and trumpet vine are all covered in buds and our redtip trees are full of white blooms. One of our bleeding hearts is also flowering and getting gigantic. No doubt, it will be much happier when I plant it out in the new terraced bed this weekend.

What else is doing?

Several of my bare-root hostas have produced shoots—Hooray! Our bonfire dahlia (also a new purchase for this year) has produced shoots as well. We have it in a pot for now and it will get transplanted out in May with a vole/mole cage wrapped around the tuber. I plan to put it in the lantana bed.

We discovered that a mysterious weed in the pear tree bed is actually our spiderwort, which we thought had died last year.

The creeping phlox is already losing its flowers.

The crepe myrtle and willow oak are late to the party, but have started to leaf out. It is spring green everywhere right now.

I stopped feeding our wild birds yesterday. I’m happy to take a break until winter, but I will miss hosting all our wonderful, feathered friends every morning and evening, especially the doves. Hopefully though it will signal the return of the catbirds and hummingbirds.

An exciting bird sighting: we had a pileated woodpecker in our woods yesterday! They are the neatest birds. It’s the only second time in my life that I have seen one in person.

My plant acquisitions this week include a Trader Joe’s impulse buy Boston Fern (it’s living in the greenhouse) and a gifted plant of perennial Blue Eyed Grass from my thoughtful neighbor (she knows I’m going to jump into grasses this year).

Dragonflies and butterflies are out and about.

Clover and lilies are flowering in Colonial Williamsburg, but the highlight for me is seeing swaths of buttercups in the fields. Summer is nearly here.

Buttercups at Colonial Williamsburg.

I’ll be back next Tuesday night with another update to let you all know how we got on with the late cold snap.

Take care and happy gardening!

~Kate