A Northern Nevada Garden

All of the yard waste was shredded and added to. And now we have this:

Today we made a small dent in the pile by mulching in the part of the yard known as the “former dog run area”–I am trying to make it into a garden. My better half went out and dug out all of the grass this week. We raked through it today and composted all of the grass clumps. We added about 7 cubic feet of new soil and then a whole lot of mulch.

I am going to try to propagator some vinca for ground cover. Other planting suggestions welcome. The glider is for the happy gardener.

Well, all of the tomato seedlings are planted at last. I put the last three in big plastic pots on the deck (the heavy kind that trees come in). I put 6 ft bamboo stakes in the pots which look ridiculous next to the small plants. But last year I ran into problems by not getting my stakes in early BEFORE the plants turned Little Shop of Horrors on me.

We also did a lot of trimming along the paths. Several plants were encroaching and we had to turn sideways to get by in a few places. We are definitely going to have to hire someone to do chipping and shredding of our clippings. I am determined to keep yard waste out of the landfill. Plus, I could really use the mulch! Doing a little cleanup in the side garden out back I noticed flowers on one of the raspberries.

The plants all look good–lots of new growth. The eight days of rain were good for the garden!

Inside, I transplanted basil seedlings and starts of interesting plant called pumpkin on a stick. Last year, my seedlings didn’t get past the initial stage. This year I am happy to report that, although small, they have true leaves. Patience has been rewarded! Hopefully, there is still enough time for them to mature to their full size. I was much more patient with seed starting this year. It takes a long time–much longer that you think to grow certain plants from seed. I think that the reason I am so good with squash is that I am rewarded early. Not much patience is needed to start squash.*

Most of the time, patience is rewarded in the garden. I guess it is one of those life lessons that follows you around until you learn it.

(*Most of the time squash is sown directly into the garden from seed. The reason that I don’t direct sow is that I lose the battle against the dry climate with most direct sowing. With a seedling, I know exactly what to water and how much is needed.)

Well, I didn’t think I would last very long outside this morning but I actually got quite a bit done. It’s a soft gentle rain, great for new transplants. I transplanted more tomato seedlings, cilantro and chive starts, and a yucca and two agaves that arrived this week from my best friend, a master propagator and gardener in Arizona.

I transplanted the dwarf lime–hopefully without damaging it! It was so small –a three inch pot maybe? — when it arrived last year, I put it in an eight inch pot. Obviously, I needed to have more faith! The root ball was huge! It has more room to spread out now–hopefully it is no worse for the experience.

The plants in the replanted garden by the driveway all seem to be thriving. The rain has probably helped their transition. It’s rained for eight days straight — not a lot in inches but it’s kept things from drying out and the cooler temps have certainly helped. The coreopsis looks great! What a great plant. Prolific, long-lasting yellow flowers and low water needs add up to a good plant for our arid climate.

A year of firsts

I already mentioned that I successfully grew tomato plants from seed this year. I was a little *too* successful and wound up with an excess of plants. I even gave some away! I never thought that would happen. Well, today marks another first: I had an eggplant seedling big enough to put in the garden. Will it catch up to its store bought brothers? Time will tell. It seems like a small miracle in any case.

Spotted in the garden

• I have fruit on the dwarf lime, one of the tomato plants, and a tiny eggplant.
• There’s significant growth on the scented geranium transplants that came from cuttings off last year’s plant. It wasn’t there the last time I looked…
• Lots of flowers on the clematis. It’s especially beautiful this year.
• Yellow iris flowers. This is slightly humorous considering I have never purchased yellow irises. A reminder that what comes out of the ground does not always match the photo on the package. They are beautiful in spite of being a surprise.
• The yarrow container garden is filled with yellow flowers.

Pond update

We added a “home brew” pond treatment concocted by Oasis Water Gardens. The algae is still pretty minimal and I hope the home brew helps. The lilies all have multiple pads now. Hopefully they will take off soon and provide some much need coverage for the fish. The other plants are still on the small side but growing. I wish I had purchased more floating plants than I did. Blanche and Ellison have been munching them like a hoard of vegetarians at a salad bar.

Just when I braced myself for no rain until the fall, it started to rain. And then it rained again. And again. It has rained all week! And today was downright cold.

But is it good plant growing weather?

I am going to say yes. Plants all look good from what I can tell. I see new growth on several plants (I haven’t had much time to spend outside this week).

So you never know what you will get from the weather gods in Reno.

My friend Jean is a master of tomato germination. I have been lucky to be the beneficiary of this talent for the past two years. Here’s what I have growing in the garden thanks to her:

• Bush Early Girl, compact determinate, 54 days
• Red Rocket, determinate, 60 days
• Fireworks, indeterminate, 60 days
• Applause, determinate, 66 days
• Sun Gold, indeterminate, 57 days
• Sweet Million, indeterminate, 65 days
• Sprite, determinate, 60 days
• Bush Celebrity, determinate, 67 days

I also have eight Sweet 100 plants that I grew myself. They look somewhat pathetic next to Jean’s seedlings but it’s nothing short of a miracle that I have anything even resembling a tomato plant that I started from seed!

They are all out in the garden protected by walls of water or plastic bottle cloches. I got the idea from my propagation book, Making More Plants, by Ken Druse. This is an excellent reference book and how-to guide on plant propagation. Gardening catalogs sell fancy cloches–mine are juice and soda bottles with the bottoms cut off. You can check out the blog, You Grow Girl, for more ideas, http://www.yougrowgirl.com/garden/pop_cloche.php. I’ll leave the walls and cloches up for a couple of weeks until the plants adapt to being outside and grow a bit.

…and for homework, but that’s another post.

Yesterday was the day for junking the junipers. There were three in the side garden out front. I didn’t really DISLIKE them exactly…they were the creeping kind, pretty color and they smell nice. But they had created a monoculture and they are a fire hazard (just a tad too close to the house and a parked car for my comfort). I had tried a couple times to remove them but only made a dent each time. It’s a little like wrestling an octopus. But yesterday we were victorious! It took about 90 minutes first thing in the morning to remove the plants. We couldn’t get the stumps out but honestly, it’s hard to tell and might not be necessary. One of the things that complicated removal was the weed cloth that was put in the bed when it was created. Weed cloth seems like a good idea until you have to remove something–like weeds! (Yes, they are inevitable!) It’s much better to use a movable mulch.

This is a shot of the space after the removal (above). This garden runs the whole length of the front yard and this is the view looking toward the street. It’s about 4 x 16 feet, most of it covered in juniper. There was one small plant in addition to the juniper. Not sure what it is. That was allowed to stay. It has yellow, lily-like flowers but it’s much smaller than a daylily–at least the varieties that I am familiar with. The whole bed looked much better with the junipers cleared out. The junipers had covered the rocks and masked the contours of the bed.

Last night we went out and planted. I wasn’t sure that the five plants that I bought would fill in the space but it actually worked out just fine. We planted four xeric plants: coreopsis, artemesia, blue salvia and Mexican primrose and an orange rose bush. Roses are somewhat controversial in a desert garden but I think they are pretty hardy without heroic efforts–or water.

The soil was remarkably good but we mixed in some amendments. We also found GIANT earthworms! Yeah! We added organic mulch (small wood chips) around each planting. I may add some small groundcover plants, too.

Last year, we planted new plants in the top part of the bed including a dwarf pine and a Rose of Sharon. The sea pinks shown in the picture (left) were already there and they look especially good this year. We also put in daffodil bulbs against the fence. All returned this year and are doing well. I plant to spread snapdragon seed along the fence to fill in after the daffodils fade. (I planted snapdragons in a container in the back and was pleasantly surprised to see them return this year! Snapdragons self-sow easily in the Phoenix area–I wasn’t sure what to expect in Reno.)

Today: vegetable gardening! More on that later.

The first set of tomato plants are happily growing in their Walls of Water. It’s been warm enough to remove them but I have discovered that the Walls also keep the plants from drying out AND protect them from the sun, so I am leaving them up a bit longer. I have some new transplants that will go in the garden this week and I plan to transfer the walls to the newcomers.

Last week I was starting to worry that some of my bog plants in the pond weren’t going to come up and this week they made an appearance! It’s good to be patient and keep records!

My blueberry plants look good–much better than last year. One raspberry cane thrived and has about 20 shoots around the mother cane so I am trying my hand at division propagation. The honeyberries are much larger than the blueberries so it will be interesting to see what happens with them. The gooseberry remains the star of the fruit garden.

The hydrangea finally peeked through the soil and so did the cape honeysuckle and all the hostas. Gotta love perennials. The houseplants are all loving the outdoors and my previously bare plumeria has new leaves, too–it survived a spider mite infestation.

Time for photos soon…stay tuned!

I bought eight water hyacinths for the pond. The look so small floating in the pond. I had to look at my pictures from last year to remind myself that plants GROW. The garden–including the water garden– leaps between May and June.

I bought a couple of tomato plants to get an early start. Most of my starts last year came from my friend Jean–she has a way with seed starting!

Did a little more clean-up in the veggie garden. Spread compost and mixed in some Dr. Earth organic veggie fertilizer to rejuvenate the soil. We planted 3 Ichiban eggplants and 1 Jalapeño pepper (all to be protected by wall o’ waters until the danger of frost is passed).

At the end of last season, I took cuttings of ivy and scented geranium and potted them up in pumice with the help of my good friend Darrel. Today, they came out of the pumice and it was roots city! I planted the ivy in big planters I have outside and moved the geraniums into the 4 one-gallon pots of the blend (pumice, peat moss and potting soil). Woo hoo! I made more plants!

I trimmed back my rose bush-gone-wild (a little late but my pruners were in hiding–Tax Day is pruning time for Northern Nevada). It lost it’s hybrid-ness but I like the wild flowers, too. And it’s really low maintenance.

Yesterday I purchased new plants for the garden next to the driveway–the no man’s land known as juniper alley. Junipers are a fire hazard here and I feel lucky to have only two (the other is next to the pond). Well, the juniper out front is outta here! It will be replaced gradually by xeric-friendly perennials.

I transplanted little seedlings. They all look so fragile (except for the squash!) but we;ll see. Maybe this is my year.

Good news in the garden:

• One of my pond lilies has sprung to life
• Looks like the cape honeysuckle that I abused last year is making a return
• The Virginia creeper volunteer that I discovered last year has also made a return. It’s amazing to me that what looks like a dead stick one week, can come to life the next. It’s a good lesson in patience before pruning!
• My gooseberry has doubled–maybe tripled–in size. I bought it as a one-gallon plant last year and now it owns the barrel that we planted it in.
• All 3 Echinacea (coneflowers) have come back–yeah! One of them I planted kinda late in the season so I wasn’t sure what would happen.
• The Yarrow and May Salvia (I have lots of each) are reliable as always.
• The irises in the dog run garden look great. The ones in in the driveway garden are unfortunately, a no-show. Better dirt in the dog run garden and more protection. Maybe that was the difference?
• The container blueberries all look surprisingly good. They were soooooo small last year–I just didn’t know if they would make it through the winter (each is in an 18-20″ pot).
• Berries forming on the Honey Berries! Woo hoo!

My advice is to go out and get dirty. Happy gardening!