I have only myself to blame. The garden now covers almost an acre, with only a few small areas of lawn. So, until the perennials grow up to shade the ground there are weeds in abundance, too many to keep up with. Seedlings from the Golden Rain tree are popping up everywhere, even a hundred…
Category: water gardens
Green Day
Whenever there are a few moments between rainstorms this weekend I will need to spray the daylilies and a few other choice perennials with deer repellent. Many perennials will not have enough foliage until late in April, but the mixed border of daylilies along the lower side of the swimming pond has been nipped a…
Shelter from the storm
I’m happy to report that I live an uneventful life, perhaps boring by most standards. I’m not a hermit, but I don’t care to travel, and I visit friends and relations too infrequently. I’m quite content to spend my days planting, keeping up with pruning and weeding, or lounging about enjoying the buds and blooms,…
Not so wonderful
Readers occasionally inquire about visiting my garden, and I suppose no harm could come of it, but I fear that many would be disappointed that the garden is not so grand as they imagined. As gardens go, mine is larger than most. The property totals just under an acre and a quarter, and besides the…
Garden ponds are a delight
I have been gardening this plot for more than twenty years, and no tree or flower has brought me a measure of enjoyment to compare with the garden ponds. There are five ponds in the garden, and another rainy season, dirt bottomed pond that captures runoff from neighboring properties and stays damp enough throughout to…
Spring garden show
I have been occupied this week constructing Meadows Farms’ display garden for the Capital Home and Garden Show in Chantilly, Virginia. Apparently there is an art to building show gardens, and after many years I almost know what I’m doing. We finished building a day early, and while the other gardens are still works in…
A low maintenance garden?
I suppose that I could learn to love planting, just planting, and not having to bother with the untidy chores that follow. No doubt there are gardeners who will say that they love pruning, transplanting, deadheading, dividing, mulching, and composting, and even some who find weeding to be therapeutic. I prefer to plant and forget, to…
No more plants!
On a dreary January morning a thick fog has settled over this low lying garden nestled between foothills at the western edge of Virginia’s Piedmont. Today, temperatures will be slightly above the seasonal average, with the slight cover of snow and ice melting quickly in the relative warmth. My rambles through the garden are more…
Plants that seed themselves about
My annual budget for plants is not extravagant, though certainly my wife will disagree. Our property is somewhat over an acre, and much is covered in garden, but I am determined that there is ample space to continue planting for as long as I’m able. With a somewhat limited budget, and marginal enthusiasm on my…
Preparing the garden for winter
There are, at minimum, dozens of tasks that should be, or could be completed to prepare the garden for winter. I will perhaps get around to a few, possibly not even those that should be considered the most critical, but those are the ones that will be accomplished, like it or not. First and foremost…
This garden’s for the birds
The garden did not begin twenty years ago with the intention that it become a wildlife refuge, but intended or not, rabbits, squirrels, and chipmunks are sighted daily, signs of deer are seen everyday, with groups of five or more often seen at dusk. Raccoons, groundhogs, skunks, foxes, and possums are witnessed on occasion, along…
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 