Gardening Through the Year

Sweet-Smelling Confederate Jasmine

Photo: Flickr/Elvissa

See that beautiful little white flower? It is a confederate jasmine plant, and the smell is nothing short of heavenly! It grows by vine, and when I say "grows" I do not use the term lightly - this baby will take over if you let it! It is an evergreen and blooms in late spring/early summer.

On our recent trip to New Orleans, we rode the streetcar down the entire length of St. Charles Avenue, one of the loveliest streets in the New Orleans area. The street is lined with huge mossy oak trees and mansions with incredible variety of architecture and stunning gardens. I kept seeing this vine that also bushed out with these pretty white flowers. It smelled so sweet and so strong, and I thought (from a distance) that maybe it was honeysuckle.

When we returned home I called my mother right away to find out what these plants were and where I could get some for the yard! Turns out, it is confederate jasmine. The sad news is that they don't like temperatures colder than 40 degrees and we usually get winter temps in the teens. But I was determined so I started researching and found the Madison confederate jasmine. It comes from Georgia and is a confederate jasmine version that can be grown in colder winter temps. Yippee!

I have a trellis in my front garden just waiting for something to be planted under it, and I think I have finally chosen what I will put there!

A few notes on confederate jasmines:

• Also known as the star jasmine, the confederate jasmine can grow to 20 feet! It is an invasive plant and needs to be trimmed and trained. It does not have grabbers, so you need to train it around a trellis or fence yourself.

• Trim leggy, sparse branches to create plants with thicker greenery. You can trim after blooming or after winter, but keep in mind that blossoms grow on old growth.

• You can propagate new plants by dipping cuttings in rooting hormone. Cuttings release a milky white substance that can be an irritant, so you may want to wear gloves.

• Some say the entire plant is poisonous if eaten, others such as the University of California say it is not. So I am not sure at this point.

• It likes full sun to part shade, moderate water with good drainage. It can be trained up trellises and fences, in hanging baskets, and even as a tight ground cover that will smother out weeds.

• Now I am off to search for some at my local nursery! If nothing else, you can buy a gallon-sized plant from Amazon for $24.

Battle of the Weeds

The battle is on between me and the weeds, and at the end of the summer only one of us will be left standing, my friend.

As I've said too many times by now, we've lived in this house for three and a half years. But during those years, we weren't sure that we were here to stay. Now we know that we are, so I am finally making the place our own - painting & remodeling inside, gardening & landscaping outside.

I've made gardens and planted things during our time here, but I haven't put my all into them, knowing that we could move at any time. But now I want my gardens to be wonderful, and that means these strong, determined, enemy weeds must go!

 

{Ignore the dead tree - that was for a Halloween project.} Here is my little triangle garden by the house. You can see that its not too bad, but that crabgrass and catnip just will not stop coming back. Dandelions and some other weeds also keep trying to take up residence in there.

During the Spring Spruce Up series, I found "5 Easy Steps for Organic Weed Control for Your Garden" over at An Oregan Cottage. Aha - newspaper!

 

I weeded the garden by hand, then followed the tip on covering the garden with newspaper and hosing it down. Just tear the pieces to go around existing plants, and layer the edges so there are no gaps.

I then took a roll of black garden cover (from Wally World, since the home improvement stores only sell it in cuttings) and covered the newspaper. Oh yeah, baby - a one, two block punch for those evil weeds! Alas, I neglected to photograph this step. =(

Then I put garden soil on top of everything. I need another bag, since its not completely covered, but look, zero weeds!:

 

B-E-A-Utiful! Oh, I planted three pretty bleeding heart plants in the back of the garden to fill in that space (just $7.98 each for a good sized plant at Lowe's!) I'll update you on how this really helps the battle of the weeds this summer, and how the garden fills in.

 

The next day I made a garden around the mailbox the same way. It was just grass with the bushes planted right into the grass (thanks to the builder). Now its a starter garden!

As for today, I have two words to leave you with: sore body.

From the Weed-Free Zone,

Gardening With Kids: Keeping a Journal

Having your children keep a garden journal is great for language, science, math, and fun! You can use anything for the journal itself. I like the art notebooks that are sold in craft stores. They are thick and sturdy and the unlined pages lend to drawing, keeping photos, etc. Spiral binding makes it easy to use.

When your child plants something, (s)he can start a record in the journal, keeping jots of what was planted (maybe paste in the empty seed packet or a picture of the plant from a garden magazine, or have your child draw it.) Make note of the date planted, the date sprouted, when it was transplanted, fertilized, appearance of blooms, harvest dates, observations. Making a growth chart is fun and great for math. You may also want to record where you got the seeds/plants and how much they cost.

 

As for general notes, your child can make a monthly weather graph. Have your child paste in seed packets, photos, or drawings of plants. You can record recipes for the types of produce you grow. Have your child draw a garden plan in the book when you're getting started. You can add a wish list for future gardening, pressed blooms, inspirational notes/quotes on gardening, and gardening websites you like. 

Let your child make the garden journal his/her own, but also help him/her to keep it neat and organized.

Keeping a gardening journal each year will improve your gardening, because it allows you to look back and see what worked and what didn't, how the weather affected things and what typical weather seems to be for your area. It is also a great way to bring in extra math, science, language, and even art into your child's gardening endeavors!

 

How to Force Tree Branches to Bloom

I read in last month's Garden Gate magazine that you can force cut branches to bloom by putting them in a vase of water and wrapping the branches sticking out of the vase in plastic wrap. This provides a warm, moist environment, and they will open sooner or later, depending on the temperature in the room. Forsythia is popular for forcing but the tip didn't mention that it only worked with specific branches. Plus forsythia is already blooming here anyway.

So I decided to try it with my Bradford pear tree, which was in desperate need of a good trimming, and has had tight little buds for about a month. I cut off a bunch of lower branches, brought them in, and put them in a vase of water. Then the kids and I ran out the door for the day. I decided I would wrap the branches in plastic when I got a chance.

Well we didn't get home until bedtime, so I put off wrapping the branches until morning. I keep our home toasty and apparently the branches liked it because the buds were already starting to open by morning! So I have left it alone and they open a little more each day (it's been three days).

So if you need to trim any branches, don't just throw them out! Bring them in and put them in water!

 

Branching Off Into New Things,

 

 

The Backyard Plan aka My Mini-Farm

 

Can a garden have a blueprint? Well mine does, though it isn't to scale or drawn with rulers. But that is just how planny of a person I am! I love writing down plans, drawing up plans, and climbing sideways on plans. Okay just kidding on that last one. Occasionally I even execute a plan - lol!

You're probably going to drop your jaw at my garden blueprint (if you can make any of it out). I know its a bit over the top. But I really do want to grow all of our own produce this year. So I am thinking of my "backyard project" as my little mini-farm. My little mini-farm in the middle of a regular ole neighborhood. I admit it kinda makes me feel special. You walk through this regular city-like neighborhood and peer over my fence and see a mini-farm! Woo-hoo!

So the non-gardeny things you see in the drawing: 

- My brother and sister and I are going to build a fence around my backyard. The reason I haven't done it yet is that I cannot for the life of me decide if I want to level the yard first. I was born and raised a flat-lander and I want an even backyard, by golly! But is it really worth several hundred dollars and lots of labor and reseeding all the grass to have an even backyard? I just don't know!

- My brother and I are building a clubhouse for my daughter's 12th birthday.

- I am giving my little one a swingset for his 7th birthday this summer.

-  I haven't decided for certain on the chickens yet, so I drew in the coop & run just in case. I really want to do it, but I must admit that I am a bit skeered.

- The pool. No biggie, just one of those above-the-ground vinyl pools from Sam's Club. 

As for the gardeny things you see in the drawing, I researched companion planting as well as how to alternate plants that take from the soil with plants that build up the soil. Okay. My name is Tanya Taylor and I am an obsessive planner. Its a problem. Anyway, just in case anyone is as into this as I am, I will post about companion planting and giver vs taker plants in another post.

Down on the farm,