Garden Report: Katherine's Water Drop Shaped Hugelkultur Bed

Daughter Katherine loves flowers. 

The Water Drop hugelkultur bed is dedicated to Katherine and will be covered in flowers.

The Water Drop is tucked in beside her sister's feather-shaped bed.

They are both partially under the canopy of a Douglas-fir and in the first spring, they were planted with their lower canopy trees. Katherine's is a white flowering pear tree.

Comfrey has been planted around the base to both build up the nutrients in the soil and to hold the soil in place.

Katherine's hugelkultur bed is water drop shaped because she studied fluid mechanics and works at managing the flow of water on the land.

A garden bed full of flowering plants can become a magnet for insects - an insectary.

"Not only will insectary plants improve your garden's health, but the flash  and shimmer of multicoloured buzzers and flutterers will both delight the eye and attract many varieties of birds to eat them, further increasing your yard's biodiversity." Gaia's Garden a Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway, p. 109.

Katherine's favourite flower colours are pinks and whites so I added that to the plant list criteria.

Almost any pollen or nectar producing flower will attract pollinating insects needed to set fruit and seeds. Predator insects are needed to gobble up unwanted bugs. I needed to find a variety of different types of plants to attract many different insects to this bed.

Another design goal was to have something flowering throughout the year.

These chives are pushing the colour scheme into purpley pinks and are something Katherine remembers helping to deadhead when she was very young. They are an early spring bloomer providing nectar when there is little else flowering in the garden.

A fall bloomer is this Autumn Joy Stonecrop Sedum that can be covered in different types of bees when the sunny days are getting shorter.

Behind the Liatris and Echinacea/Cone Flower is a Russian Tea (Camellia sinensis) plant forming the shrub layer in this ecosystem. It fits the criteria having masses of white flowers from September through to January as long as it gets enough hours of sun. This bed is south facing but our winters can have many cloudy rainy days so we will wait to see how much it flowers. 

It thrives in slightly acidic soil conditions which is a good thing with the bed being under the Douglas-fir. 

Bonus features are it is a nitrogen fixer to the benefit of plants around it and one can make tea from its leaves. 

It is the early stages of developing this Water Drop hugelkultur bed...

...while I have this picture in mind of Katherine with her wedding flowers.

Garden Report: Feather-Shaped Bird-Haven Bed

The feather-shaped, bird-haven Hugelkultur bed is inspired by and dedicated to our daughter Elizabeth. She has a special way with animals which is why this bed is feather-shaped. 

I needed a theme to guide my planting. When I asked her for suggestions she gave the obvious answer - 'Make it a place for the birds'

The plantings will include a full range of plants to create a complex ecosystem known as a guild.

The first layer of plants in a guild is the overhead large tree canopy. The Feather Bed has a Douglas-fir tree over its north end. It is a source of food for insect-eating birds and those that like the cone seeds. The falling litter of cones and needles continually adds to the soil below making it more on the acid side, something I have to keep in mind when making my plant selections.

At the edge of the Douglas-fir drip line, I planted a cherry tree to provide early spring food, perching sites and hopefully nesting sites when this tree matures.

A few flowers blossomed in the 2nd year then the fruit appeared and was eaten by the birds within a few weeks - a sign this tree is going to suit the birds' needs well.

At the south end of the bed, I planted a medlar tree to provide winter food for birds that stay around. The medlar fruit is edible after it has bletted, that is, turned soft and brown, usually by November. It will also provide perches and hopefully nesting sites.

On my sister's advice we have nipped off any fruit for the past 2 years but come next spring we will enjoy watching the fruit grow.

Each tree has 3 herb type plants under its canopy, plants to support a healthy soil -comfrey to provide minerals and biomass to the soil ...

...and lupines to support nitrogen-fixing organisms making nitrogen available to the trees. The 3rd plant, borage, attracts pollinating insects who may visit the trees' blossoms also.

While still building up the soil in the bed and before I had settled on what the shrub layer would include, I pushed squash seeds into the soil. Squash plants grow quickly to cover and protect the soil and provide it with a large biomass when they die back. Birds enjoy pecking at ripe squash too.

I placed a big bundle of left-over embroidery threads onto the bed thinking the birds could use them when nest building. However, I noticed they only picked up the straw mulch. After I read about how long threads can be a problem for birds because their feet and wings can easily get tangled in them, I took the thread bundle off and put it in the compost bin.

For the shrub layer, I have focused on berry producing plants - black currants, red currants and sea buckthorn. Hopefully, they will produce fruit next season and I will have pics to show you. 

The vine layer in the Feather Bed ecology is a kiwi vine. 

 It is being encouraged to climb up and over the Arbor. We have noticed the birds sit on top of the Arbor cross beams a lot already. At this stage they are vulnerable to raptors flying overhead so they don't stay long but once the kiwi has grown its leaves will provide the birds with protective shelter while resting on their lofty perch.

I researched the types of flowers attractive to hummingbirds because we are seeing more of them over the years and I would like to provide them with a more reliable food source. Hummingbirds like red flowers. I planted a number of them along the east side of the bed where I can see them through my studio windows as they visit the flowers. Flowers planted to date are red daylilies, deep red echinacea, liatris (also called gayfeather), and red crocosmia. I haven't cut back the stalks or lifted any of the bulbs because the stalks are full of seeds and are natural bird feeders over the winter. If a plant doesn't survive our winter then I will find another one to plant in its place. I am not interested in annuals.
The dried stalks also provide nest-building materials come spring.
With this mass of red flowering plants reaching their peak blooming in a sequence, we noticed early each evening our resident California quail family climbed up the mound to forage - a bonus I hadn't planned for.
A thriving Bird Haven attracting a greater variety of birds and more of them is of great benefit to the whole Backyard Garden.

For the Love of Hydrangeas

Next to the boulder retaining wall coming out from my studio, I have planted a Hydrangea hedge.

It began with an invitation from Barbara G to dig up and take cuttings from her bushes last fall.

I planted the 2 root balls and stuck stick cuttings in the ground and left them for the winter.

Early in the spring they sprouted, grew enormous leaves and flowered profusly throughout the summer into early fall.

Barabara's plants are called 'lace' hydrangeas because the petals come out a few at a time rather than all at once.

They are blue and are likely to stay blue because our native soil is acidic. Pine needles and pine cones from nearby Douglas-fir trees continually fall on the soil keeping it acidic. 

Closer to the Green Shed I want the bushes to be pinker. I have been buying pink flowering plants and after enjoying them inside I have cut them back and planted them filling in the remaining space right up to the Shed. I pour my leftover tea into their soil and have added eggshells to help make the soil more alkaline (and the stalks fo these hybrids stronger) which supports pink flowers. However, most pink plants are now bred to stay pink so these ones are likely to stay the colour I bought.

I'll take a picture next spring to show off how the pink bushes pop against the dark green shed. As the bushes are further away they transistion into blues. This is the plan but I will have wait until next spring to see how things turn out. 

I love hydrangeas as do many of the women in my family. My sisters, mother, aunts and cousins grow magnificent hydrangeas in their gardens wherever they can. Karen, who lives in the mountains of Colorado, can't but I know she would if she could.

I made a series of hydrangea works from thrift store silk blouses.

Earlier posts about making these works here and here.

I gave one to each of my sisters and our mother.

We all remember how our grandmother (our mother's mother) grew magnificent hydrangea bushes that we spend many happy hours playing around.

I have a memory of watching her put some powder into the soil under the plants. She explained to me she was making their colours. It was my first introduction to aluminium ions and soil ph and I have been fascinated ever since.

I think of the hydrangea connecting our different generations. When I see them in my sisters' gardens I think of how our grandmother passed on her love of working with plants. I see I have passed this love on to my daughters.

Backyard Project - Planting in the Gravel Bed Garden

Gravel Bed garden

The plants I planted a couple of months ago are thriving, confirming my design criteria for this bed will work.

All plants must be culinary and/or medicinal, able to thrive in full sun, suited to well-drained soil,  need only low levels of water, and have blue to purple flowers with the odd one having yellow flowers.

Confident my design will work I have visited several nearby nurseries to find plants that fit the spec.

Here I am making a path through the bed using low growing plants that can take light foot traffic. I have found many different types of thyme to begin the path.

The rosemary and sage I transplanted from other old beds are thriving. I will be able to take cuttings from the rosemary once the rains begin again.  I will propagate these cuttings for another project I have in mind.

I have marked the spots for the path plants with empty pots weighted down with stones. 

The thyme path meanders through the bed like a river. 

I have read lots of books and checked many websites to make a long list of suitable plants. I keep this list in my bag ready for when I am in the vicinity of a nursery. It is a list of plants for the spots either side of the path and between the stone wall.

I have found out I love reading about a plant, visualising how it would look in a particular spot, and checking on how well it would relate to the other plants around it. 

When I look at this Gravel Bed garden I see it full of mature plants and looking beautiful. I imagine walking slowly along the meandering paths smelling and tasting leaves and harvesting a few springs for the dish I am preparing in the kitchen. There is a spot for a bench which will slow me down even more. It is what I need.

Backyard Project: Flowers and Hot Mulch

The garden suddenly turned colourful.

In the Cut Flower bed lilies bloomed.

This is such a beautiful colour scheme.

The exquisite shape of another lily.

The nasturtiums are out in bud.

Insects are feasting on comfrey flowers.

The 3 fig trees' Breba crop is filling out.

The feijoa/pineapple guava is in flower.

Sammy brought around a load of spent hops from a local brewery. 

He mixed it in with the mulch.

I put in the thermometer - 80 degrees. Over the week the heat produced by the soil organisms moved the temperature up. I texted Sammy when it reached 160 degrees and he came back to turn the pile. Within a few days, the temperature started to rise again. Hundreds of mushrooms appeared and covered the whole pile when the temperature hit 130 degrees. They died off in a few days while the temperature rose again to 160 degrees. I opened up the steaming pile to let it cool down. It was too hot to hold my hand on the pile.

Once it has cooled down again we will spread this elixir on all the garden beds. 

Backyard Project: Working in Different Garden Beds

The cherry tree has fruit. 

My sister says to remove all the beginnings of the fruit forming on trees in their first year. I did as she said, except I left one on each tree. The birds soon found this cherry.

I threw a pile of tangled embroidery threads under the cherry tree for the birds to use in their nest building. But I think I need to cut them up into more manageable lengths.

I planted more culinary ground-cover plants for the path in the Gravel Bed garden.

The soil in this garden bed that I worked on a month ago has progressed enough to plant a cover crop.

I dug up the daylilies (Hemerocallis) growing up the driveway. With the nearby cedar tree now shading them out and the deer continually grazing on them they were struggling.

I dug a hole, filled it with water, and added a treat of crushed comfrey leaves before planting the divided up day lilies.

I cut them right back and left the cuttings around the plants to break down into the soil.

I added a thick layer of matured shredded prunings as  a mulch to keep the weeds at bay and the water in the soil.

These lilies with their extensive root system will do a good job holding the soil at the bottom of the slope. They will be in reach for me to pluck the edible flowers for a salad. The hummingbirds love to visit them too.

I was reluctant to add this extra row of pavers to make the dining area on the upper patio more useable. It meant greatly reducing the size of the garden bed nearest to the kitchen. But in the end, I agreed it was needed.

I filled the remaining gap with a compost soil mix then planted everbearing strawberries and chives dug up from other beds and supplemented with a few more from a nursery. I covered the soil with sawdust made when Sammy cut rounds of logs to make the gardener's path.

Strawberries and chives make good companions helping each other to grow well and to stay healthy. 

In the meantime, Ron put a new soil mix into these 2 planters and planted 2 different tomatoes, one determinate, and one indeterminate, one called Beefsteak and the other called 'Sweet 100.' They will like this warm sunny spot. With the concrete and stone walls holding in the heat they should do well if we can keep the water up to them.

Lots of little tasks completed in different beds will all come together at some stage to start looking like we are making progress in implementing 'The Plan'.