#meadowvibes

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Ok, a LOT has happened. This post is going to be super unfocused because I just want to get it all out. I basically spent the last month preparing my garden for Fall. What I’ve pretty much learned is that gardeners focus on two seasons the most: fall plantings and spring plantings. There are some winter & summer plants, but not as much. So, like I said in the last post, I splurged on a bunch of seeds, and then all these fall bulbs that I totally forgot about ordering showed up at my door too. So, there was a lot of stuff to do preparing everything. 

I’m splitting this up into two posts because so much has happened. This will be the front yard post. And, well, I basically have no pictures, so....suck it up? The next post will have more pics. I promise!

The front yard does not look so much like the deathscape of doom anymore. I spent a few days actually sitting down and planning everything out. Like a proper gardening plan. Ok, so I changed things like constantly, but at least it’s more organized and I’ve paired fall plantings with things I’m planning to plant in the spring, so that there’s a constant rotating array of plants going on. I’ve been deep-watering the lawn out front once a week for the past month, and some of the grass has definitely been reviving. Where the grass is definitely dead (still brown or straight up just dirt), I’ve decided to plant things directly into the lawn. 

I’ve been thinking for a long time as to whether to revive the lawn as a lawn for my kid to play on, or to basically let it revert to wilderness (or death). I’ve decided to compromise between the two and go for a natural meadow look. My front lawn is split into two sections, with a path running through it to the sidewalk out front. The left side has a tree, and around the tree, I’ve decided to plant Purple Clover and Paperwhites (Ziva and Ariel varieties). The crazy clover from last year is also popping back up due to all my watering. Also, there are random plants popping up a well, and I have no idea what they are....I’m guessing maybe seeds I tossed a long time ago that never grew because I stopped watering my lawn... I’m also going to plant Love in a Mist seeds (isn’t that a wonderful name for a flower?), a portion every week for three weeks. My kid is already trampling through it, but whatever....if the plants aren’t hardy enough for that, then it’s not a true meadow. I find that I actually prefer bulbs to seeds (though I deliberately pick seeds that promise flowers that reseed themselves). I find the hefty nature of it seems more....I don’t know...real to me? I like its solid nature vs. the ephemeral nature of seeds. Seeds somehow...baffle me. 

For the right side of the lawn, I’m planning on putting in some ground cover plants: Creeping Thyme and Alyssum. Those are apparently tromp-hardy and pretty and they spread by themselves (*cross fingers*). I’m also planning on basically covering it with poppies, because I love poppies and planting them is essentially: throw seeds on ground, toss dirt over it, wait and see what happens... Even I can’t screw that up. In front of my kid’s window, where the irises have languished for an entire year without doing anything but drooping, I’ve added some Hyacinth and Freesia bulbs. I need to finish planting all the Freesia bulbs because it gets tiring digging holes in my dirt (and by digging....I mean hacking at the incredibly hard soil to get maybe a couple inches down). 

I was gonna do the Poppies in a side yard but we’re planning on getting a dog eventually, and I figured the dog should have some place to run without trampling my flowers, so I’m leaving it as bare dirt for now with the exception of two raised bed areas that I’m planning on putting all plants that are possibly invasive or will do better in a raised bed (Chinese Lanterns, Foxtail Lily, Milkweed and Foxgloves). I’m putting off on planting them because dang those raised beds need a lot of dirt!

My technique for planting these bulbs is something I randomly came up with to deal with the crappy clay soil that my yard apparently has. I hack a hole, then I toss in a little of the Miracle-Gro Moisture Control Potting Soil, then I put the bulb in, then I fill up the hole with more of the Miracle-Gro soil, then put the dirt I dug up on top. The reason I’m doing this is that I’m “amending” the soil without actually doing all the work, the bulbs start off in decent soil and then as it grows and becomes stronger, it can deal with my crappy soil. I also like putting my crappy soil back on top because I feel like, when I water it, some of the “feel” of my soil will leak into the fancy soil and the plant will start getting used to it before it has to somehow shove its roots through it. I have no idea if this is true....but it makes me feel better. 

I did order some live plants online as well. The Wild Ginger roots were planted beneath some larger tree-plants (I have no idea what they are...they’re like trees, but smaller and more tropical looking?) so that they can have shade and have the once-a-week watering that the tree-plants get instead of the daily watering all the other plants are getting until they become more established. The instructions say not to expect anything until Spring, so I’m whatever that it’s just dirt right now. The Vinca Minor I ordered basically arrive DOA...just brown-black and brittle and wrapped around each other, so I planted a few to see if they would revive, and when they didn’t, I threw them in the compost. I was a bit bummed by that, but they did go across the entire country to get to me, and well, it is what it is. Also, there was NO way, I would be able to hack 100 holes to get them all planted before whatever was barely holding on to life would make it into the ground. And now I know never to buy 100 of any kind of plant unless they’re poppy seeds and I can literally just throw them on the dirt.

So, that’s what’s happening out front through the next month or so. There are a few winter plants as well that I’ll eventually get in the ground. We’re lucky it doesn’t freeze at all in our climate zone so I never have to worry about digging bulbs out of the ground or thinking about when the “frost” time is for plantings. 

Once there is more happening than random mounds of dirt in my half-dead lawn that look like a groundhog family moved in, I’ll put more pictures up.