My New Playground In The Garden

I have not been able to keep up my posting lately, but I have certainly been busy working in my garden!

For those who have been reading my blog for a while, you know my available gardening space is just the narrow strip of the grass land around my house. Ever since we moved in one year ago, I have been doing lots of digging to convert those lawn strips into the flower beds little by little.

This is one of those flower beds I converted and created from the scratch. 

With my frequent nursery trips, and pass-alongs from my friends, every flower bed I converted has been filled up rather quickly, and the extra plants have been waiting in their original containers for being put in the ground. 

I knew it was the time to open another piece of strip!

This time, I chose the west side of the house which is also fenced in, and connected to the backyard flowerbed shown above.  My guess is that the previous owner might have used this area as their dog's play area.  Since this area is between our house and the neighbour's two story houses, it only gets about three hours of sun when the sun is right over the head.  I figure I can use this place to grow those partial shade plants.

This is also a low point area that always forms water puddles after a heavy rain. Since we use this area to haul the soil and gardening material from the front to the back yard, the grass can not grow very well with high traffic. So the plan is opening a raised flower bed against the wall, and then converting the left over strip into a path way.

The below shows how it looked like right after we removed some grass along the wall.  At the farther end of this strip is the irrigation pump system that enables us to to use the backyard lake water as the gardening water source. 

I immediately planted the Datura (Devil's Trumpet) next to the rain barrel. This bush already has a handful buds on it, each one will open to a beautiful purple double flower.

After putting the border and dumping dozen bags of soils, finally here it is!   It is about 17 by 5 feet strip, not big, but it is certainly a new playground for me!

Those candidate containers were brought to the playground immediately by this excited gardener to see how they can fit together...

We finished the creation of this bed two weekends before.  My plan was using the weekday evenings to actually put the plants into the ground.  However, I woke up last Monday morning with very bad back pain.  I must have strained it somehow with all those digging and carrying the soil...  I had no choice but delaying the plan, and only planting those plants in my mind.  I felt like a kid who could not play the new toy she just received...itchy!

After patiently waiting for four days, I finally felt much better on my back last Thursday evening, and then immediately started to execute the plan that has been going over and over in my mind.

In addition to the Datura that was first put in, the Cornutia grandifolia (Troipical Lilac) bush (or a small tree) was put at the furthest end of the flower bed.  In the middle, another passalong Brugmansia (Angel's Trumpet) is planted.  I was told its flowers are Pink, different from the white one I have in another flower bed.

Neomarica caerulea 'Regina' (Giant Apostle's Iris) has been growing a lot in the container since I bought it in May, so I divided it into two sections and put them at the either side of the pink Brugmansia .

One Pachystachys lutea (yellow shrimp plant) is moved from the other bed, and planted next to the Datura.  I think the yellow flower against the purple flower and dark trunk of the Datura would look nice.

In front of the Giant Apostle's Iris and Brugmansia is the Spathoglottis (also know as Ground Orchids). This clump was originally divided from the two pots I purchased in February. Now itself is ready to be divided into two! Look all the flower heads on this plant!

Other plants that don't show well in the picture are: Orthosiphon stamenis (Cat's Whiskers), Schefflera arboricola 'Variegata', Augusta rivalis (Needle Flower), two Kalanchoes.

With our recent rainy days, my already limited gardening time has been interrupted frequently.  I still have the Coleus, Canna lily and Torenia fournieri (Wishbone plant) waiting for me to put into the ground, and may be also some begonias if space permits. 

Oh boy, seems this flower bed is filled up already!

Even it is still a work in progress, I just can not wait any longer to show you my new playground and what I have put into it (and hope this explains why no new posts recently?  :)  

There are still a lot more to do with this project: mulching the bed, building the path way.... 

Too many to-dos, too little time.   But at the end of the day, looking my rather boring grass strip is slowly being converted to the beautiful flower bed piece by piece, I felt the great satisfaction knowing I am one step closer to my goal, even with sore muscles all over my body  :)

I will show you the update of this area when I finish its look!  Have a great week ahead!

**I still plan to write more posts about my China trip.  Just it is not on the top of my to-do list at this moment.  Thanks all of you who loved my China posts for the nice comments, and I promise I will share with you more later.  **