I've been relocating some plants that have been in the ground but not doing so well. This azalea was one of the casualties. First off, it was a florist azalea that I tried to plant in the ground with another one. I didn't know at the time that there's a difference between florist plants and plants intended to go in the ground. The other one died, but this one held on for dear life for quite a while. The leaves on half the plant died off, but the others hung on. I always wondered why just half of them on one part of the plant died. When I dug it up today, I discovered why. A vole had made an nice little snack bar underneath the half that died! I decided to let the plant go to the yard waste and maybe get a fresh one, but not from the florist!

Great idea. I have tried a few times with the florist azaleas, never could get them to grow. I think they want to live in a greenhouse.
Have you discovered the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden? Watch out, you will want to move to California so you can grow the tropical rhodies!
http://rhodygarden.org/cms/pla...

I went to this site and was blown away. So envious of many of their plants. Being in Alaska doesn't prevent us from having azaleas and rhodys, just limited by hardiness. But still we have some beautiful species. Wish we could afford to make a rhody/azalea garden in our botanical garden. And I sent a link to the stumpery screen to my boss (I am a volunteer) who is in charge of such things. We have tree falls all the time. Seems like it would be an interesting experiment to plant some ferns there (we have many indigenous species) in the root masses for added visual enjoyment and interest along our nature trails.

My sister recently moved to a new house in the woods, they saved a few huge and tall cedar stumps, and have planted some of the epiphytic rhodies and blueberry relatives (mail ordered from this place) there. It will be fun to see how it develops. Some natives ferns and others have already sprouted, many of which she is leaving to grow.

The garden bed I dug in July as it looks now. Next up is tearing up the sod around the outside and planting grass, OMS (Oh Maybe Someday). My wife picked out some daffodil bulbs that will go in soon.

Very nice! What fun it will be next spring when it fills in.
I would probably just sprinkle some grass seed there myself.

Pistil said:Very nice! What fun it will be next spring when it fills in.
I would probably just sprinkle some grass seed there myself.

Thanks. These weeds are somewhat tenacious, plus I learned recently that they can harbor unwanted pests like aphids. For now I only plan to do a path about 2 or 3 ft out from the bed, starting with the back area next to the fence.

Any geologists out there? Originally I made the inner circle of the new garden bed with some of the smaller rocks that I found buried in the dirt. After about 2 months, they all crumbled. How long does it take for rocks like these to turn into dirt? These were buried just under the surface.

Brinybay said:The garden bed I dug in July as it looks now. Next up is tearing up the sod around the outside and planting grass, OMS (Oh Maybe Someday). My wife picked out some daffodil bulbs that will go in soon.

Gorgeous! I like the way you used the light and shadow in the photos, without anything washing out or being too dim to see.

Did you have to edit the photos to capture that much variation in brightness?

RickCorey said:

Gorgeous! I like the way you used the light and shadow in the photos, without anything washing out or being too dim to see.

Did you have to edit the photos to capture that much variation in brightness?

No editing other than resizing them. I just try to get a good shot from different angles. I used my cell phone camera for these. I dropped and damaged my regular digital camera. The cell phone camera seems to take sharper pictures if you use it right.

I finished with the plantings in the new garden bed. There are 3 varieties of narcissus (daffodils) that I planted in between the calla lilies and the rosemary plants. 8 Cool Flame, 10 Cyclamineus, 10 Trumpet. Plus Anita picked out some crocus bulbs; there are 15 of them in 3 groups of 5. When I got done with that, I ripped up the sod on the backside next to the fence, raked it out and threw some grass seed down. Normally I would have dug it out more, treated it with vinegar to kill the weeds, laid down some weed barrier, then a layer of top soil, followed by a layer of planting compost, then seed it. But this time I said to myself "Self, screw that, too much work!" and just scattered the grass seeds and some Molemax and watered it. Eventually the entire bed will surrounded with new grass, but it has to be done one section at a time for obvious reasons.

I ignored the household "To Do" list because they all bored me, I wanted to dig in the dirt or do something outside. I dug up more sod and planted more grass seed around the new garden bed. Ever since I discovered that growing grass isn't rocket science, I've been replacing our "weed garden" with actual grass, starting around the new garden bed. I didn't get started on it until mid-afternoon, but finished just as it was getting dark and dinner time. My method is simple. All I do is scrape up the sod with a regular shovel, sift out the dirt and any "keeper" rocks with a dirt sifter, then toss the sod. I ended up with a wheel barrow full of sifted dirt that I spread back on the bare patch, then seeded and watered it. Some weeds may get back in, but not anywhere near as many as there were before I started. Little by little, we will eventually get a real lawn.

Note: Reasons I sift the dirt.
Reduce the amount that goes into the yard waste (they don't want dirt).
Repurpose the clean dirt and save rocks for a dry creek bed we plan to make.
Save the worms for my wife to use in her pre-K class "wormery".
Look for artifacts.
Exercise. The sifter is placed crossways on the wheel barrow. I put a few shovel fulls of sod in it and shake it back and forth vigorously in a push-pull manner. The dirt goes into the wheel barrow and then I pick out the sod, rocks and worms left in the sifter. Time consuming, but for some reason I find it fun and interesting, kinda like panning for gold. May not be the most efficient way of doing things, but I'm my own boss so I do as I please! (With my wife's permission, of course. She's mostly content to just let me do my own thing when it comes to this.)

Patch that I prepared after I put the sifted dirt back down.


You can see how the other side is coming along well.


Seeds down and watered.


Artifacts found, nothing very interesting this time.

Looking good.
I "get it" about the interesting-exercise aspect of this- I have a few things I do the slow way, might drive someone else crazy but I get in a sort of Zen-like mode and find it relaxing. I find lots of gardening tasks like that. Plus, when we ourselves are the planner and doer of the garden tasks, a fair amount of time goes into thinking about it as a whole, both aesthetic aspects and practical what-next questions, so when better to think about it than when you are out there in the garden (that's what I tell myself anyway).

Pistil said:Looking good.
I "get it" about the interesting-exercise aspect of this- ... I get in a sort of Zen-like mode and find it relaxing. I find lots of gardening tasks like that. ..

That's pretty much what motivated me to get into gardening. Relaxing, having fun, fresh air, exercise, educational, under my own direction (except for occasional executive direction from my wife), being creative and productive all rolled into one.

That's it, in one sentence. The only thing I would add is what other hobby is there that increases the value of your home?

I have sifted more soil than I care to remember. Built my own sifter and do it much the same way unless I am right in a bed. Then I dug up a portion, put it in a cart, position my sifter (3x3) over the new hold and dig from the side into the sifter. As I get nice soil beneath, I move the sifter to the newly dug region. Last thing sifted is the stuff from the original hole. Only problem is the stuff you sift out that cannot be repurposed. I have a spot in the corner of the yard that is really low and in a corner of the yard by the fence. I dump it there. Filling in nicely.

What I did find is that I also sift out stuff that should stay. Those little pebbles and bits of wood are important to the soil to keep it from over compacting and the bits of wood break down nicely. Also as you mentioned the worms. Those I throw back in the ground as I find them. What I don't want are the clumps of weeds or grass clumps. Didn't figure this out til too late. Now I amend the newly sifted soil with some small rock chips and ground up wood chips and such from the fall clean up.

Oberon46 said:I have sifted more soil than I care to remember. Built my own sifter and do it much the same way unless I am right in a bed. Then I dug up a portion, put it in a cart, position my sifter (3x3) over the new hold and dig from the side into the sifter. As I get nice soil beneath, I move the sifter to the newly dug region. Last thing sifted is the stuff from the original hole. Only problem is the stuff you sift out that cannot be repurposed. I have a spot in the corner of the yard that is really low and in a corner of the yard by the fence. I dump it there. Filling in nicely.

What I did find is that I also sift out stuff that should stay. Those little pebbles and bits of wood are important to the soil to keep it from over compacting and the bits of wood break down nicely. Also as you mentioned the worms. Those I throw back in the ground as I find them. What I don't want are the clumps of weeds or grass clumps. Didn't figure this out til too late. Now I amend the newly sifted soil with some small rock chips and ground up wood chips and such from the fall clean up.

The worms were only for this time. My wife occasionally asks me to save some for her. There were plenty of rocks, only some of them were saved. I think this is because I'm digging in an old septic drain field. The old septic tank is only 10-15ft away from where I was digging, I found it one time when I was re-grassing another area. The stake on the right is where the cap to the tank is.

Interesting. Is it a septic or an old cesspool system. We had one when I was a child. Just a wooden crib my dad built with a soil pipe leading to it from a hole in the basement wall into the house. Dad and I would reroof it every two years. Some people were not so careful. I babysat a little boy who fell into one where the roof and rotted. He was very lucky. He was only about 3 years old but landed near the soil pipe so with the help of a neighbor lady we got him out. Ewwww. What a job cleaning him up. He went in face first.

Oberon46 said:Interesting. Is it a septic or an old cesspool system. We had one when I was a child. Just a wooden crib my dad built with a soil pipe leading to it from a hole in the basement wall into the house. Dad and I would reroof it every two years. Some people were not so careful. I babysat a little boy who fell into one where the roof and rotted. He was very lucky. He was only about 3 years old but landed near the soil pipe so with the help of a neighbor lady we got him out. Ewwww. What a job cleaning him up. He went in face first.

It's an old septic tank/drain field system. I thought I was hitting a rock, but when I pried it up, it was too round. It had a rebar handle on it and when I lifted it up, dirt fell in and I heard it hit water. I wiped away the dirt from the cap and replaced it firmly, buried it again and marked where it was at.

The cold freezing weather has finally subsided and I'm looking forward to getting back out into the great outdoors. The narcissus bed I planted around the dogwood tree seems to be doing ok. The sprouts are coming up everywhere. The 4 rosemary plants aren't doing well though. One died not long after I planted it. (I have to remember to start keeping the receipts because Molbak's gives refunds if the plant dies soon after planting, and every bit helps.) One of the remaining 3 appears to have succumbed to winter weather also, and the other 2 look iffy. Not to worry though, there's a more mature and established rosemary plant in the front yard that's doing well. That was one of the first plants I put in the ground, and I just chose a spot randomly. Turns out it's in a low spot and during a good Western Washington deluge, it's in a couple inches of water, but it seems to take it all in stride.

There's a good layer of pine needles and willow leaves on the creek side. Last year and the year before I raked them all up and they went into the yard waste. I'm not going to do that this year, too much work. What I think I'll do instead is rake up only enough to mix it with compost starter and put around the plants I have in that area, which are some ferns, Japanese Golden Forest grass (3), and a Sweet Box. I also plan to put in some sword ferns where the knotweeds used to be, and maybe some other native plants. Although I've been aggressively digging the knotweeds out and plucking the sprouts for the last couple of years, I still have to keep an eye on them because they lay dormant during the winter and will probably try to come back soon.

Other things. I've learned that I have spread myself out too thin with too many different plants. I intended to be a low-maintenance type of gardener. Instead of dealing with plants that look ratty over the winter and then have the nerve not to come back nice and showy, I may go with annuals this year. Also I'm beginning to think I made a mistake in trying to deal with a rose. The climbing rose is too slow, too high-maintenance for my tastes, and I've learned that roses in general need more care and attention that I'm willing to give. I'm inclined to put it up for sale or trade, but I'll have to check with my wife, she may want to keep it.