Final Resting Place
If you’ve been reading here for long, you know about my love of boxwood hedges. If you’ve been reading here since I moved from Ohio, you’ll know I planted a box hedge in Ohio the year before we moved. You’ll also know that the new owners of our home didn’t want the hedge and I brought it with me. They were moved in December of 2012, planted in my main vegetable garden here in Maine, then they were moved the following spring to a nursery area where they have been patiently waiting.
This week I’ve been moving to their new location, their final location where they can finally rest peacefully. They won’t all go in this space, I now have twenty shrubs, each about two feet around (both in width and height). I’m debating on placement for the remainder, I may be able to move them yet this fall if the weather continues to cooperate. These are the variety ‘Wintergreen’.
I planted the boxwood 34 inches apart and 26 inches in from the garden edge. At the moment, I’m thinking I want to prune into loose balls that are about three feet around in all directions. They will barely touch and should provide a semi formal hedge, not the crisp angular edge of a square hedge. I may or may not keep this look when it’s mature, if I decide I want a clipped hedge, I’ll simply root cuttings between these plants to fill in the gaps.
On the end of the hedge there’s a ‘Green Mountain’ boxwood that will be allowed to grow taller, in more of an oval shape to form an end cap to the hedge. I have already tied it up for winter because it was a little misshapen from the 12 feet of snow we got last winter.
The garden area behind this new hedge is a new space, it was grass last season. It has wonderful southern exposure and it fairly hot during the summer. I’m thinking of planting hardy figs against the rock wall and filling the remainder of the bed with masses of globe alliums and ‘Walker’s Low’ catmint, this photo from Pinterest is what gave me the idea. I’ll propagate the catmint this coming spring and buy the alliums next fall, the following year should be garden perfection!
Have you ever taken plants with you when you moved?
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Gardening Skills
If you’re an avid gardening, learning to propagate plants through a variety of methods is an important skill to cultivate. Not only will you be able to get plants for free, you can also obtain plants that can be difficult to find in nurseries and greenhouses. By far the easiest way to propagate is through cuttings rooted in water. Some plants root very easily with this method, ivy is a great one to start with.
I had Kenilworth Ivy growing in my garden in Ohio and really loved it. It’s a valuable plant to have if you have rock walls, it scrambles along the walls filling in the pockets between the stones, blooming beautifully with tiny purple blooms.
My first sighting of this ivy was at Longwood Gardens many years ago. At that time, I didn’t know what it was called, but I remembered it for years. One day I spotted it at a local greenhouse and purchased a plant. When we moved from Ohio, I didn’t bring a cutting with me and I’ve been missing it in my garden ever since.
Lucky me, I got a cutting about a month ago and rooted it in water. I planted it in the potager under a cloche for winter protection. I’m looking forwarding to propagating more plants next summer and tucking them in the nooks and crannies of all of my rock walls. I’m so thankful I found this beauty again, and even more thankful I didn’t have to pay a penny for it!
Have you learned how to propagate plants? What’s your favorite propagation method?
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Still Going Strong
A little forethought in July/August can keep your garden producing well into November. While you won’t be eating fresh tomatoes and peppers, you can still enjoy a wide variety of vegetables right from your garden. I’m currently harvesting friseé, radicchio, and broccoli.
The beets, which were planted way back in the spring, are still going strong as well. I’ve been enjoying these lovelies on top of salads with feta cheese, pickled red onions, and pumpkin seeds.
The lettuce is starting to dwindle, most of it has been eaten, there’s probably a week of salads left. This variety isn’t even a really cold tolerant type and I’ve given it no protection whatsoever. Next year I might try to grow more cold hardy types in a low tunnel. There’s also tons of kale, spinach, and chard in the garden, our plates are still filled with loads of healthy green goodness.
I’m also harvesting these little things called crosnes or Chinese artichokes. A blog reader sent me a few little tubers three years ago and now I have a small patch. We don’t harvest and eat a ton, but they’re a fun little vegetable to harvest this time of year. They’re a little like sunchokes or potatoes.
What are you harvesting this week?
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Warming Ourselves
Now that the basement is full of wood to keep us warm this winter, it’s time to start getting our wood put up for next year. That means we spend a few weekends cutting, splitting, and stacking our firewood. This year we’re cutting an area by the main garden in the back, the trees are big enough to shade part of the garden for a decent part of the day. The roots are also most likely starting to steal nutrients from the crops. It’s always nice when one chore helps something else, killing two birds with one stone so to speak. It’s not technically working in the garden, but the work will help the garden.
It will be really interesting to see how different the garden looks without all the shade from this patch of woods. Hopefully in the future I’ll have a small orchard in the spot we’re clearing, though that will definitely take a few years of work to accomplish!
What garden chores did you work on this weekend?
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Winter Spinach
I’m currently writing an article for Grit magazine about growing spinach. For the article, I’ve been growing a few different varieties and taking photos of them.
One of the things I love most about spinach is its winter hardiness. Not only will it withstand the cold nights of late fall and early spring, it’s actually better because of it.
Spinach is such a useful crop for those of us that live in the colder climates. They extend the season and allow us to harvest food from our gardens for a much longer season. It can be seeded fairly late in the fall and very early in spring, thus not taking up garden space during the prime growing season.
What are you harvesting from the garden right now?
