Construction on Two Holt’s addition ended in the fall of 2016. Directly behind the addition was horrible! Well of course it was bad. We had just dug out a basement in that area. We’d look at that mess and say, “We’ll fix it up later.” Pedro did add a retaining wall for us, but it was a raggedy mess behind the wall. Next we bought a pallet of sod and laid it. Phil built fence sections and gates to enclose the area. It was still a raggedy mess behind the wall. We planted pots of perennials. We decided not to plant directly in the ground so Boots wouldn’t ‘water’ the plants. Behind the wall was still a raggedy mess. But now we can declare Boots’ Run officially finished! We filled in behind the wall with good soil and planted seven Lee’s Dark Purple hybrid rhodies, two Little Lime hydrangeas, and a Waterfall Japanese maple. We’ve still got a project or two left on the list for this area. Notice how the back door hasn’t been painted? And the deck landing needs staining. And we want to add a covered stoop over the landing. Geeze. Will the projects ever end?
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Our seventh year of gardening at Two Holt! Can you believe it? We had such a long winter and it feels like it’s taken forever to get going in the garden. We’re still busy and I’m sure more posts will follow, but let me show what we’ve done so far. Remember our shrub garden we started last year? Well, here’s a picture that shows this area in 2016, 2017, and now 2018. Everything is progressing nicely. We added four more Goldmound Spirea, three Creeping Phlox, seven Becky Shasta Daisies, one Gibraltar native azalea, six balloon flowers, and three Jacob Kline Bee Balm. Have you ever seen Balloon Flowers? The buds swell up like balloons before the flower bursts out. Here’s our newest native azalea, Gibraltar, nestled in the Lenten roses we brought from our Alabama garden. This is the far end of our Shrub Garden just before stepping into our Sitting Garden. Our hydrangeas took a beating when winter came back after a spring tease. The Endless Summer hydrangeas are emerging from the ground, but we lost all the early growth that had begun. So maybe the blank spots in the picture below will fill in soon. We added more creeping Phlox, lupines, and three additional Mt. Airy Fothergilla shrubs to our Garden Bell Garden. Phil dug up the native rhodies in our rhodie bed and we moved them to the back of our property on Wyanoak Road. We added one white, three pink, and three red hybrid rhodies in the rhodie bed. We added pink creeping Phlox to the edge of our Daylily Garden because I’m obsessed with the look of creeping Phlox hanging over the rock wall. I added a pot of snapdragons to the Daylily Garden. We added the clematis last year. This one is doing well, but I lost my Jackmanii clematis. I added annuals all around the garden. My grandmother’s old cast iron pot has been a wonderful host to these impatiens. A local store was throwing out flats of distressed impatiens and I sweet-talked the vendor into giving them to me. I always add fanflower to my garden. Isn’t it pretty in front of this iris? My neighbor gifted me with several of these irises from her garden about four or five years ago. Our chestnut & barbed wire planter is home to these pink impatiens. The blue bead flower at the base was purchased at the local garden club’s annual plant sale several years ago. This pot was filled with Japanese Painted Fern last year, but we lost them this past winter. I planted fanflower and will empty and store the pot this winter. We love to plant Torenia to mimic flowers spilling out of an overturned planter in the Birdbath Garden. Another pot of impatiens sits on a column surrounded by boxwood and fothergilla. The Sitting Garden just doesn’t seem to pop like it has in past years. Winter was tough on the garden this year. See the purple coral bells beside the chair? I planted that coral bell this year because Phil threw the old one away last winter thinking it was a weed. I had big blue liriope edging the Sitting Garden last year. The liriope was from my Alabama childhood home and it gave a finished look around the pot of hosta and all along that garden area. It was all killed this past winter. I need to find an edging plant for this area. I don’t like empty spots in the garden. I like it filled to the brim and overflowing with plants. We’re adding three Japanese maples to the gardens this year. Here’s an Autumn Moon Japanese maple on the north side of the house. We have stone steps and a Japanese maple... not enough to call that area a garden yet. But I’ll be working on it soon! Phil’s favorite Japanese maple is the Waterfall. I bought this one for his birthday. It’s waiting patiently for it’s perfect spot. my favorite is the Coral Bark Japanese maple. The bark is a lovely red and will be beautiful in winter, too. We have a spot picked out for this one, but we haven’t had time to plant it yet. Boots’ Run has had our gardening attention for the last few weeks. I didn’t want Boots ‘watering’ plants back there so I planted everything in pots and left a big grassy area for him. A variety of Hosta fill most of those pots. But here’s where we’ve been doing some hard gardening work. Look behind the Boots’ Run wall. Our plan is to fill in with good garden soil and add beautiful Tapestry (purple bloom) hybrid rhodies along the top of the wall. We got quotes from two companies to fill in with soil. The first quote was over $2000 and the second quote was over $1000. Eeek! So guess who’s doing the work... yep, Phil and me. We’re working on our fourth truckload of soil. It’s in an awkward location so we carry it up in buckets and dump it over behind the wall. Phil does three trips and then I do three trips. Lawd have mercy! And still waiting for our attention— finishing my potting bench. And, oh yeah, I’m trying to close a deal on adding stone steps to easily access our back property. Boy, oh boy, do I have plans for that space! But that’s a future post. Happy gardening!
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Phil & SharonMarried 40 years and hoping to enjoy many more! Archives
December 2019
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