yard B

I may have mentioned, that I have a new garden space. My boyfriend is happy to let me use his yard. I'll call this Garden B or Yard B, since it's the second one I've hard care of, and it does belong to my boyfriend although he's given me free rein to plant whatever I want. He loves plants too but personally doesn't have the time to do much beyond mowing the grass. It's pretty barren right now- just grass and trees in the backyard, a few bushes around the house foundation. (This is one I trimmed last week, I like the resulting new shape- I don't know its name- the leaves are oval shape and prickly)

Not sure if I can do much of a vegetable or herb garden- the best sun is on the deck because there are so many trees shading the yard. But I've got plans to put in a small raised garden bed near the house in a spot that gets full sun for at least half the day, and try growing more things in pots on the deck (tomatoes and peppers for starters).  Since it's not really suitable for veggie gardening, I'm content to apply myself to beautifying the yard instead. I'm not there every day either, and with a veggie plot I'd want to check on the plants and weed almost every day, but with bushes, flowers and other landscaping plants I'm fine to leave it alone days at a time... Here's my tentative plans:

First, I want to put a row of shrubs against the back fence, which boarders two neighbors' yards. Just as an experiment when I was pruning bushes last week I stuck a few cut branches, lower leaves stripped, into the ground.

To my surprise they seem to have taken- they're still pretty green and fresh looking. I don't know the name of this plant either, but it's very common around here, especially in public landscaping. Hardy stuff I think. If they take off, I'll put in more- and feel encouraged to try the same thing with forsythia and bamboo cuttings (bamboo in pots/containers over concrete only!)

I want to put in some daylily bunches around the front corners of the yard (pretty pinks and purples like I had before- not the standard wild-type orange ones). I'd like to try hardy cyclamen around the base of trees, and either that or bugleweed in the planter that surrounds his mailbox (just has gravel now). I want to grow clematis up the posts that support the deck, and have planters with nasturtiums, sweet potato vine and-who-knows-what-else up there. Would like to start several large pots or planters with bamboo, for corners of the lower deck to screen the big sliding glass door and provide steady supply of garden mulch (I know it grows quickly so whenever I need some can cut back, or knock out of the pots and divide). Pots of geraniums. A lilac bush. Crape myrtles. Ferns in planters on the front porch (which is full shade all the time). Sunflowers against the house or fence where the structure is tall- maybe peas on the fence. He has a bag of tulip bulbs sitting in the garage that never got planted- might put those under front windows in the fall.

Meanwhile, I take pleasure in the renewed growth of what is there. Periwinkle in one corner (maybe I'll just move some of this into the mailbox spot)

Rose sending up new shoots. This has always been a leggy plant, he never wanted to prune it (until I demonstrated with his big indoor schefflera that a plant cut back will respond with new fuller growth below) and it looked sickly last year, but his mom took clippers to it on a visit, and I fed it lots of compost in the fall. It seems to be coming back strong!

What I think is lamb's ears- growing in a crack on the small patio.

The liriope and some kind of flower in the daisy family he planted last year have been green for a while now, but I hadn't seen any signs of hosta- and I do love to watch those unfold. Brushed aside a bit of leaf mulch the other day and yes- they are coming back- new fat shoots!

I think I get a bit over enthusiastic with all this gardening stuff. I announce with delight every new bit of emerging greenery: "Look, the rose is growing! The hostas are emerging!" and my boyfriend says "Um yeah, that's normal- they do that every year" (I imagine he's thinking: why are you so excited?) I've got springtime fervor I guess. And I just love watching things grow.