First Mowing

Lawns have greened up quickly in the last week or so with the warmer weather. So I got out and mowed for the first time of the season yesterday. Although most of the lawn didn't need it yet, I mowed the front lawn anyway to mulch up some leaves from the oak that fall and gather on the lawn during the winter.

Here are some photos of the front yard (after mowing):

Most of this grass didn't need mowing

Lots of weeds

Note the patch of the dubbed "new invader" on the left (patch of lighter colored grass).

Not much growth here

Overall, not looking too great. Lots of weeds again due to thinned turf. And it seems like the new grass planted in the fall of 2011 is again being slow to green up. This lead to the fungus problems last year. I'm not about to let that happen again, so I decided to be more proactive this year and applied a generous portion of fertilizer along with a pre-emergent crabgrass application (which also contains fertilizer). I ended up putting down about 4 lbs of Endure Crabgrass Preventer Plus and about 6 lbs of Espoma Organic Lawn Food which in total comes to roughly 1.15 lbs N/1000 sq. ft. (0.475 from the Endure and 0.675 from the Espoma). I applied more liberally to the younger grass. In addition the Espoma also contains some Phosphate and Potash (8% and 6% respectively). Lots of rain is in the forecast, so we shall see how this turns out.

On to the backyard:

Still a sad sight in the backyard considering how nice it was last spring and early summer, but I have hope that I can get it back, even if I have to plant more seed this fall. It's knowing when to fertilize that's the tricky part.

In other news...

The phlox is sprouting:

I trimmed back the hydrangea tree again:

The hybrid tea rose bush is growing:

The hydrangea bushes are growing:

The Sedums are sprouting:

And it appears that the Boxwoods are doing just fine after last years drought as I see new growth on most of them (and flowering on some):

The second from the right is the most iffy.

I guess I haven't mentioned this before, but I lost one Holly bush due to the drought last summer (despite watering them). It's visible in the last two photos above (the middle Holly in the upper right of both photos). I'll have to replace it this year. I don't think I lost anything else due to the drought, thankfully.

That's all for now.

Blue Hollies planted

Last weekend I planted the Blue Holly bushes (yes, I am behind!):

Blue Holly bushes planted

I really struggled with the placement if them as I wanted to block as much of the irrigation valves as possible, but also I wanted it to look orderly. It seemed like the bushes should line up with the window, so that's what I ended up doing (approximately) and I'm hoping that the bushes will grow and fill in more. They still seem kinda crammed in there, but it works for me.

I followed the instructions given by the nursery for planting them. In a nutshell they are:

1. Dig a hole 2-3 times the width and no deeper than the root ball with the edges sloping downward
2. Remove any girdling roots, which are roots that circle the plant instead of spreading out radially from the plant (these can eventually choke the plant)
3. Create a mixture of 2/3 original soil and 1/3 peat moss
4. Place the plant in the center and fill in with the soil
5. Use water to settle the soil around the plant
6. Mulch 2-4 inches with hardwood bark mulch
7. Water thoroughly

I didn't end up mixing in the ammonium sulfate with the soil, but I did mix in peat humus and topsoil like I did with the Hydrangeas.

They are still alive after one week, so that's good. With the heat and drought conditions that we've had lately, I've watered them a few times with the hose on a trickle at the base of the plant.

Here goes nothing

Today I purchased some shrubs in continuation of our landscaping project. Three Blue Holly's for under the window and five Boxwood 'Green Velvet's for under the tree. I have decided to go out on my own and do a hybrid of the two designs. The first design had seven boxwoods under the tree and in a line toward the window, and the second had eight hostas under the tree and the three Blue Holly's under the window. I think it's a good compromise, but good design? I don't know, but this is our home and we are going to be the ones seeing it the most, so ultimately what matters is that we like it - that's how I see it anyway. My plan is to put Sedum 'Autumn Joy' in front of the holly bushes as per the second design, but beyond that the rest of the design still has yet to be finalized.

I dug up the Gayfeather and Astilbe that I planted under the tree last year (but I'm not sure where their new home will be). Then I put all of the new shrubs in their relative places to get an idea of how it will look. I have not planted them yet (that is my plan for tomorrow). Here's a shot of the Blue Holly bushes:

New Blue Holly bushes, unplanted.

Blue Holly is an interesting plant in that there are male (Blue Prince Holly) and female (Blue Princess Holly) plants and the female will only produce berries when a male is in the vicinity. The technical term for this is dioecious. I think that is fascinating. So, of course, I had to buy one of each, despite the prince not being as thick (which is apparently just how it is according to the nursery). I purchased two Princesses and one Prince; in the photo the prince is on the right. I'm hoping that those will grow and fill in the area so that the irrigation valves won't be as visible. I also purchased some ammonium sulfate to mix in the soil since they prefer the soil to be acidic (I'll use this on the Boxwoods as well, and I plan to use it to try to turn the Hydrangeas blossoms blue - can't wait to see that!). I paid full price at the nursery to get the hollys, but not so with the Boxwoods:

Fix unplanted boxwoods.

I found the Boxwoods on sale at Lowes for $10 each (which is nearly 1/5 of the cost of the nursery!). Like the Hydrangeas, I just couldn't pass that up even though I'm sure the nursery has provided much better care of them. They looked good enough to me, though.

Here's another angle of it all:

It's starting to come together (very sloooowly...)!

Landscaping progress

This weekend I continued work on our little landscape redo. With the hydrangeas planted, I was thinking that I would rip out the overgrown bush in front of the window and possibly plant some blue holly bushes. I didn't quite get to the bush purchasing/planting, however, I did rip out the existing bushes, making for a very clean slate look to our landscape.

Old bushes removed

Here's a shot that shows what it looked like earlier this year:

Before: a view from May of this year

At the time I was considering removing these very bushes.

After that I teetered on going out to purchase the holly bushes as per the design, however, I decided to hold off for now as I'm just not sure about the holly bush idea. The biggest concern I have is the limited space in the area because Blue Holly bushes can grow to over 10 feet tall (if not pruned)! An about.com page on the bush states:

"While it's possible for Blue Princess and Blue Prince holly to top 12' in height at maturity, these shrubs, even with just minimal pruning, are easily kept at a fraction of that height."

So perhaps that fact isn't too big of a deal, but also while browsing at the store one day I noticed that it said to plant them at least 5 feet apart! There is no way I could do that - 3 feet at most, maybe. This random Q&A posting also confirms my fear:

"I planted a blue holly several years ago and now realize that it is too big for the location. I don't want to spend the rest of my days severely pruning this plant back, just to keep it inbounds."

I think I may ask the designer to see what he has to say about this.

So, I decided to move on to something else instead, but I wasn't sure what. The design isn't quite final in my mind, particularly for the front of the house, so I have been struggling with trying to get it to a more finalized state. I decided that it would be helpful for my very visual-aided brain to have the brick edging in place, so I went to work on that and ended up with this:

Brick edging in place

Unfortunately, I was so exhausted from doing this that I never went back to see if that actually helped me visualize anything. I'll have to save that for another day.