Yard evaluation
Jun. 30th, 2009 12:21 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
gailmom.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
the_yardeningIt is summer here...100 or more degrees most days, and dry dry dry. Drought all around us, and burn bans for, as far as I can tell, most if not all of Texas.
In fact, we are having our first rain in MONTHS as I type this.
We dutifully went out in it naked to say thanks, of course. Honestly, it felt like my skin was soaking it in..... I can't bear to dry off, so I'm sitting here dripping as I type. :P
Our sprinkler system has a leak, and I can't fix it until the temperature drops to 80 degrees so the glue will set. What this means is that we have not been watering anything but the garden. It wasn't our intention, but it seems we are doing the "native and adapted stress test" on our yard. I did this with my overly-landscaped first house as well, for a year, I did not water. If it died, we pulled it out. This eliminated all the "baby me" plants from the yard. It wasn't a conscious choice to do so this time, as it was then, but since we are halfway through the summer...hey, why not carry it all the way?
We have also learned, as we deal with trees-leafed-out-for-summer shade, that while the side yard is excellent for winter crops, it does doodly in the summer...not enough sun. The trees committing this anti-garden shade crime are large and old, and make what will be the only remaining kid-play-space lawn area pleasant...so they stay. (Plus, they are trees! duh! not something to remove on a whim) This requires some small revamp of our plans.
Better to learn it now than later, huh? :)
And now, I go to enjoy the rain a bit more before we have to run our errands this afternoon...I wish we could delay them, I want to just lay around and be grateful for a while while I breath the ions deep into my lungs.
As a side note, it physically hurts me to see all the water flowing out of our gutters...rain barrels are definitely at the top of the "saving money toward" list.....
In fact, we are having our first rain in MONTHS as I type this.
We dutifully went out in it naked to say thanks, of course. Honestly, it felt like my skin was soaking it in..... I can't bear to dry off, so I'm sitting here dripping as I type. :P
Our sprinkler system has a leak, and I can't fix it until the temperature drops to 80 degrees so the glue will set. What this means is that we have not been watering anything but the garden. It wasn't our intention, but it seems we are doing the "native and adapted stress test" on our yard. I did this with my overly-landscaped first house as well, for a year, I did not water. If it died, we pulled it out. This eliminated all the "baby me" plants from the yard. It wasn't a conscious choice to do so this time, as it was then, but since we are halfway through the summer...hey, why not carry it all the way?
We have also learned, as we deal with trees-leafed-out-for-summer shade, that while the side yard is excellent for winter crops, it does doodly in the summer...not enough sun. The trees committing this anti-garden shade crime are large and old, and make what will be the only remaining kid-play-space lawn area pleasant...so they stay. (Plus, they are trees! duh! not something to remove on a whim) This requires some small revamp of our plans.
Better to learn it now than later, huh? :)
And now, I go to enjoy the rain a bit more before we have to run our errands this afternoon...I wish we could delay them, I want to just lay around and be grateful for a while while I breath the ions deep into my lungs.
As a side note, it physically hurts me to see all the water flowing out of our gutters...rain barrels are definitely at the top of the "saving money toward" list.....
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-30 07:16 pm (UTC)The barrels can all be hooked up to each other and spill over from one to the next. If they're lined up along the house you can put plants on, around and in the ground near them to cover and decorate. That's not even considering actually painting some for extra curb appeal. I promote the barrels...now if I could just finish setting mine up. :P
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Date: 2009-06-30 08:55 pm (UTC)So far almost all of my xeriscape plants are doing very well with the exception of the blue grama - it seems to need even more sunlight than it is getting, or something. I have two very nice patches of buffalo grass that are slowly spreading - the front yard patch has almost reached the limits of its sunny area. The coral honeysuckle and Confederate jasmine get some extra water, being close to the veggie garden, but I have not watered the grass, the agarita, or the Texas wisteria since early May and all are doing well (although the agarita is, again, not getting quite as much sun as it might prefer due to tall grasses - I plan to do something about that next week). The Immortal Turk's-cap has a few blooms, but seems more interested in conserving its energy for growth. I am actually having to water the live oak up front, which suffered some truncation of its root structure due to installation of a sewage line 18 months ago. It has been dying back steadily but seems to have stabilized after pruning and starting the watering. I have been using a soaker hose but have just obtained some DeepDrip stakes which will, hopefully, enable me to water the tree without having to spread water over the surface.
Hope your edibles are doing well!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-14 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-20 11:12 pm (UTC)