Gardening Thread- Show me your gardens!

I'm in zone 7 and just planted 5 hostas, 3 orange daylillies, five blue salvias, and 5 purple irises (that smell like grapes!), and six red cannas. I also had to transplant 5 butterfly bushes (no idea what kind-came with the house) and transplant 4 big evergreen type bushes (again, came with the house). I was tired of mostly grass, wanted some color and hope most if not all these plants survive. I want to get some more, like a climbing rose bush and some others but I think this will do for a while. Not to mention the 4 bags of compost and 10 bags of mulch just to get me started. I will be picking up some bulk mulch with the truck soon.

 

Finally got some seeds started. We've gone 3 nights in a row without a frost now, but it's also been raining the whole time, lol. I've got spinach poking thru in the cold frames, though.

 

Here's my garden in the off season and my hen house from when I first built it a few years ago. The size of the coop was dictated by how much lumber I had left over from a small pole barn I had just built. It ended up 8x10, I keep about 12 chickens and 12 Guinea hens. The 12x30 outside pen area was made with fence panels that were abandoned on a construction site at work. The pen is nice for those days when there's a fox around of I'm away and someone else is chicken sitting, otherwise they usually free range. Does anyone have a recommendation of what kind of wood to use for raised beds? Pine doesn't last long around here, I don't want to use pressure treated. I thought cedar maybe but I had used that for the fence posts and they rotted off at ground level. I was also thinking locust but I don't know if I can find anyone milling it.

 

I built my garden beds from Eastern White Cedar and they're still solid. They're just 1x6's and they're 4 years old with zero problems and zero treatments

Maybe find a local lumber dealer that stocks cedar decking and see if they've got a source for dimensional cedar like 2X8's or 2x10's.
Barring that, you can also use hardwood like Oak, but it won't last as long as cedar will.
Another option is to use concrete blocks or landscaping stone, if you want something really long term. I've seen that done before and it's expensive up front, but you'll NEVER have to rebuild them, lol.

 

Honestly, I've considered doing it with my beds, and just setting the blocks around the existing wood beds. That way when the wood eventually breaks down I've already got the new walls in place, and it would help dress up the yard a bit. On the other hand, the ones I have now work just fine, those blocks are damn expensive, and we're not planning on this being our permanent house. Wooden beds are a lot easier to remove if the next owners don't want them, lol.

 

Right. If the future buyer doesn't want the garden beds, it's a LOT easier to pull the boards and bucket the dirt into the '84 than it is to move all of those blocks.

 

Those look nice!^^^ Maybe I'll give the white cedar a try. Thanks

 

A quick picture of some of my azaleas blooming. These things are temperamental, but I started adding used coffee grounds around the base of them, so hopefully that will help them.

 

Here's my current white cedar boxes.


Still holding up in good shape, but they won't last as long as if they were solid 2x10's or 2x12's. But, I already had the 1x6 boards, so the price was right.

 

Nice. My daffodils are FINALLY starting to bloom.

 

Put in some raspberry canes to start a berry patch.

 

Over 6 inches of rain here in the last 48 hours. Thought my veggies were going to drown

km

 

What are these stalks? It's growing in Md about 30 min from DC. My 1yr old neice for height referance.

 

Cute kid. Not sure about those flowers though.

 

Thanks. My brother just relocated there for work. S-I-L, is sending me daily pics to ID all the new landscape plants.

 

Found a local source for blackberries, so expanded the new berry patch.

 

damn bamboo.

 

Got some wildflowers planted in the 'pretty plant' boxes yesterday. Soil's still too cold for anything vegetable-related, but these are all local wildflower seeds so they're hardy as hell. No sprouts poking through on my seeds I started last week; I'm starting to wonder if I made my soil blocks too dense.

 

Got late start to planting, (normally start seeds indoors in january)
Got some tomatoes, cucumbers,squash, green beans and sunflowers in the ground


Last of the winter greens

 

Chickens helped clean up



Chicken also wants the dogs toys