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Landscaping
After several extremely soggy weeks, it stopped raining long enough for us to get our topsoil delivered. And long enough for the grass to grow in the swales without washing away. But it has stayed dry ever since, so dry that all our new grass is drying up. I wouldn't care if it were established enough to survive going dormant, but we are still trying to establish it, so we are having to water it. I am dreading the water bill. And the city is starting up water restrictions. In our neighborhood of older houses, watering isn't as common as it is in the new subs with their golf course lawns. No one in our neighborhood has a sprinkler system. It seems weird to be doing this here. But the soil erosion inspector is due for their bi-monthly visit, very soon. I hope we can keep the grass from drying up and blowing away, until they sign off on us. If so I expect we will pass; we no longer have any bare dirt or eroding patches.
We are also having to water our new tree like mad. It is droopy and some leaves are turning brown.
The rest of the landscaping is turning out well. We have planted more lilacs, roses of sharon, hydrangeas, and a climbing rose. Also, wintergeen, astilbe, iris, primrose, and toad lily. A few areas that are getting more sun due to the trees we took out, are awash in orange day lilies, the kind that grow wild here. We discovered a couple honeysuckles overgrown in the jungle, cut back their competition, and they bloomed. The flowerbed areas are mostly shady and we have them heavily mulched, so they don't suffer like the front lawn and the poor new tree. For all it's been dry, we haven't had sustained hot days, so far, and that helps the shady areas too.
It's looking much less bare these days. I still want to put in some redbud trees but other than that I think we are over the biggest hurdles. From here on out we are fine tuning an existing garden, instead of starting from nothing.
We are also having to water our new tree like mad. It is droopy and some leaves are turning brown.
The rest of the landscaping is turning out well. We have planted more lilacs, roses of sharon, hydrangeas, and a climbing rose. Also, wintergeen, astilbe, iris, primrose, and toad lily. A few areas that are getting more sun due to the trees we took out, are awash in orange day lilies, the kind that grow wild here. We discovered a couple honeysuckles overgrown in the jungle, cut back their competition, and they bloomed. The flowerbed areas are mostly shady and we have them heavily mulched, so they don't suffer like the front lawn and the poor new tree. For all it's been dry, we haven't had sustained hot days, so far, and that helps the shady areas too.
It's looking much less bare these days. I still want to put in some redbud trees but other than that I think we are over the biggest hurdles. From here on out we are fine tuning an existing garden, instead of starting from nothing.