Saturday, June 12, 2010

Goings On In The Side Yard



The side garden is going along well. But I cannot continue without the bad news brought to me by the landlady this morning: "We're having the house painted." What? Thanks for mentioning that earlier. I can't even feel much other than irritation. The funniest part was after I had acquiesced, saying that gardening on someone else's property does have its consequences, she said "Payback's a bitch." What? Payback? I can only assume these were poorly chosen words. Our landlords have been decent to us, not raising the rent and allowing me to garden, but I can say with some confidence that if my landlady actually noticed a flower and went over to take in its scent, the flower would recoil from her face. Painting our rotting building, yeah -that might hold it up for another year.

The basil making minor strides to overcome the height of the borage.

The dead zone. All the seeds we planted here died -so I planted two coneflowers. Is it the heat from two sides of concrete or is it corner dog pee, or both? The soil here is dead, dry, no worms, no bugs, lifeless. I pulled up some poly that was about 8 inches down. Good luck echinacea.

The alyssum, literally an explosion, tolerates our mild foot traffic.

Gaura blooming well.

Dame's rocket, consistently deadheaded keeps providing flowers, motivation for more deadheading.

Lily yesterday.

Lily today.



5 comments:

  1. Hiya, sorry to hear about the landlord trouble. It annoys me when someone just comes along and throws a spanner in the works. My only suggestion is to introduce her to the 'Dead Zone'! You garden looks nice anyway so try not to let outside things spoil it for you.

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  2. Aw, hell. 'Payback'??? I'm sorry. Time to tuck in those pretty little poison ivy plants...

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  3. Your landlords sound like truly joyless people.

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  4. Ha! Payback's a BITCH now, isn't it! as I plant those poison ivy seedlings on my last day as a tenant....

    The thing is, I garden for me -not the landlord or landlady, or the neighbors, or the passersby. Its bound to get someone's panties up in a wad -but most people love it.

    Sarahh, Landlady smirks, doesn't smile. But they both love to get drunk!

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  5. Your garden looks great.
    We have a similar problem concerning landlords. Ours lives above us....
    When we moved to our railroad apartment many years ago, it was a shit heap (pardon my French).
    We worked hard to get it looking good.
    The garden is the main reason we don't move.
    However, he will strike without warning...cutting and hacking through grape vines right before they ripen, roses in full bloom and other assorted innocent victims.
    I plot his downfall daily.
    I really enjoy your blog (hate that term for some reason) so persevere and get that poison ivy planted.

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If I do not respond to your comment right away, it is only because I am busy pulling out buckthorn, creeping charlie, and garlic mustard...