Fibermania

Starting Early

Instead of staying in bed and blogging, I got up and out to start my new watering routine. There is a lot to water. We need rain, and it is coming tonight, maybe, but in the meantime I have to pay attention to the new plantings. Yesterday I finished the main shade garden (she says), with 30 more hosta, 3 astilbe, and three more ferns: ostrich, cinnamon and sensitive. I transplanted some large fern colonies from the woods too. We set mousebait, traps and moth balls for the voles and caught one in a trap, so we know for sure what we are up against. New hosta are already being eaten from the ground up. Grrrr. Today I am shopping for stronger remedies. And we have ants in the kitchen, no surprise, so there is ant control on my list too. It never ends.

We finished the trench digging and filled the hole with 12 inches of composted cow manure. Ripe!
And then planted three clematis, Nelly Moser, Henrii, and a light purple one, who's name escapes me. For shade I placed three peonies in front of the clematis, as they like cool roots. To fill out the bed, six Autumn Joy sedum and one Artemsia. Dave will make a landscape timber surround for this area so the rains don't wash out the sloping sides.

My romance with hostas, and liriope is in full swing here. I am hoping for the look of the hosta beds at Boerner Botanical Gardens in Hales Corners WI, a place we often visited when we lived in IL.

Still looking a bit scanty, but just wait til next year. Look out voles. I mean business.

The broken off tree on the left is going to be the support of a vine, Scarlet Runner Bean. At its base is a cow spine section. And at the wall edge is the cow's skull. The rest of the bones are yet to be 'placed'.