Happy Friday! My dirt is coming! My dirt is coming!

LOL! Oxborrow is delivering my garden soil and decomposed granite today ~ asked them to give me a call here at work before they deliver so I can get home by the time they get there.

Am getting 3 cubic yards of Double Mix (topsoil and grape compost) and 3 cubic yards of D.G. 5/16″ (coarse). Have my wheelborrow and shovel ready!

Well have to go shopping for seeds and some plants afterwards. List has been made:

Here’s a picture of where it’s all going ~

Soil in the boxes ~ decomposed granite all around the boxes where the dirt is now. It’s going to be nice not having dirt all over the patio when the wind blows. Tired of sweeping out there all the time! I was going to get the fine D.G., but the lady at the counter asked what it was going to be used for. Told her and she suggested the coarse as the fine is like sand. She said that the coarse D.G. is what everyone uses in their xeri-scape landscaping. Small pebble size, like your pinky finger nail. I plan on using it in the front yard where I’ve been re-landscaping too.

ALSO! Wanted to remind everyone in the Reno/Sparks area that the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension office will be holding their:

ANNUAL MASTER GARDENER PLANT FAIRE next Saturday, May 17th, 2008 at 7:00 am to 11:30 am. 5305 Mill Street, Reno, NV. 784-4848.

From our gardens to your’s at great savings! Wide variety of annuals, perennials, vegetables, herbs, grasses, shrubs, grapes and more. 4-inch and 1-gallon plants.

Here is a link to their Calendar of Events.

Front & Back Yard Gardening ~ Roses are in!

I took yesterday off work to work in my yard…wanted to finish up the front side-yard and my FIL came over to help me ro-do the raised garden beds.

THE ROSES ~ almost didn’t get my English Roses! G&G Nursery had a run on them over the weekend and there were only two Hansa’s left and a few David Austin Roses.

I bought a Weeks Roses Hansa ~ bred in 1905. Medium-tall/bushy round shrub that is suitable for growing in pots and hedges. Tolerant of poorer soils. Ornamental value of hips/large fruit. Very fragrant ~ spicy cloves. Large, full reddish-violet blooms. Very hardy and disease free.

In the ground ~ and a stock photo.

The Squire ~ a David Austin English Rose. The large double blooms of this rose are a deep rich dard red. The attractive strong fragrance of this wonderful cutting rose is a welcome addtion to your garden or bouquets. These roses are a wonderful combination of old world charm and new advancements in rose culture. They will help create a wonderful English Garden feel in your landscape and are excellent for bedding and hedges. Superb border plants.

They look great! Can’t wait for them to grow, grow, GROW! I did a jig out there on the lawn after mulching and watering!

Now onto backyard ~ I decided to take the top boards off of the raised bed as it was just way too deep. My FIL came over yesterday morning and we whacked the crap out the top boards (5 nails each side into a treated 4×4 ~ OY!)…took us a while but we were able to pry them off. We then made a 6×6 box and a small 18″x18″ for a tomato box. We left a nice walk way in between the raised garden beds and will put DG around the beds. Now I have to call Oxborrow and order the double or triple mix of topsoil/grape compost/organic lite.

Now the beds are 5′x12′x1′ and 6′x6′x1′ ~ Soon to be planted ~ tomatoes, peppers, sugar peas, bush beans, potatoes, onions, garlic, corn, zucchini, yellow squash, pumpkin, lettuce. Near the corn I’m going to plant a couple of rhubarb plants and maybe some asparagus.

Someone Planted Rocks In My Yard!!! Landscaping in Sparks, NV.

Big sigh. I found out the hard way that the Truckee River used to meander through my property before the Corp of Engineers made it straight.

I took Friday off to do many things…but mainly to start back in killing the Junipers in the southeast corner of the lot. Started off at 7 am at Lowes ~ picked up a mini torch for metalsmithing. Then to mom’s house to write a bunch of kids names (and the two coaches) with puff paint on a soccer flag banner my sister and mom made earlier in the week (my niece is on a school soccer team for 2nd graders). Then mom and I went to Michael’s so I can buy some hemp for those beach glass necklaces. Over to G&G Nursery & Landscaping to pick out a Lilac and Weeping Cherry for the yard. I bought a beautiful Sensation Lilac (Syringa vulgaris ‘Sensation’) that will grow to about 15′ in height. It has single reddish buds that open to deep purple edged in white.

The weeping cherry is a Snow Fountain with white flowers and will grow only to about 12′-15′ high.

Picked my sister up for all of us to have lunch at The Sup. Was back home by 1pm to start in on the Junipers. After a while I got to the point that I couldn’t go on with the tools I had…pruning shears, hand saw and shovel. So I turned my sights on the two conifers on the side where I wanted to plant the weeping cherry tree.

Took the trimmer to the trees so I could get a better area to saw them in half. When I grabbed the one tree it sorta leaned…so I pushed…and it started to fall over! Gave it a good kick and tree with rootball plopped over. So I karate kicked the other one and it too fell over. ME STRONG WOMAN! HEAR ME ROAR! LOL! That was the easy part. Started digging and 4″ down ran into river cobbles…big river cobbles…small river cobbles…medium river cobbles. Lots and lots of bloody river cobbles. It took me an hour to dig a 2′ wide circle 18″ deep. That pretty little tree is planted and staked (just in time I might add…we’re supposed to have 40-60 mph winds hit the valley floor today ~ Bloody Nevada Spring Weather! 80 degrees one day - 58 the next). I still need to pull up the weed sheet thing that someone placed down and then plant some columbine and lavender around the tree area…then lay redwood mulch down.

This is what the conifers looked like from the backside, very nice looking ~ in the front…they were all dead as some idiot sawed off two others in front of them and left these two standing, very dead looking.

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Some of the river cobbles…they are now in a ring around the tree.

I dug these up with the river cobbles…there was a bunch of glass and a broken tea cup too.

My husband took pity on me on Saturday…after our morning yard sale ritual he helped me get out the main stumps and roots. With the Chevy and chain no less! I think he became obsessed with getting them out, more so than me at that point. He was taking it very personally that they were putting up such a great fight. We worked all day on those bloody things.

Reposting this picture from the previous weekend.

And it continued into Sunday after church. He wanted to go to the El Rancho Swap Meet after the last stump and root system was pulled out…so while he was gone I started to plant the lilac bush and spruce up the corner.

I got the lilac in, re-planted an iris near the fence; planted a sage (can’t remember what type); made a rock stack out of some of the dug up river cobbles; put my obsidian rock between the lilac and sage; put the three metal quail in front of the lilac; put Rufus, the gargoyle, in front of the wee rock stack; and watered. I still need to buy two Old English Roses for the right side…where the dirt piles are still at. And plant more smaller flowers of something that catches my fancy…perferably yellow or white as I realized I will have A LOT OF PURPLE blooming in that corner!

Oh…here are some of my yard sale finds! A free, very large wooden pumpkin; a very cool 12″ copper owl; lots of beads.