The life and times of an eastern North Carolina garden.

December 4, 2000 Winter Bouquet The colors of my garden in late November.  December 19, 2000 Still Greening It has been a phenomenal year for my plants and I can't wait to see how much they take off this coming spring.  Even though this winter has been the most consistently cold winter since 1989, I still have a lot of stuff that is green that shouldn't be. All of it happens to be situated on the Southern side of the house.  My Alaska Daisy's have foliage about 6" in height and very full and green. My Cilantro is trying to cilantrocize and is struggling along and my Lamb's Ear has a good amount of foliage that is full and soft and beautiful.  December 27, 2000 Big Plans Wednesday Afternoon Sun Rise - 7:22 AM Set - 5:09 PM Current Temp: 37· Weather: They are calling for freezing rain, sleet and ice either starting tonight or sometime this weekend. It has been the consistently coldest winter since I've moved down here in 1991.  Winter time is a time for making big plans on what you expect to accomplish the coming year in the garden and I certainly, am no different than most. My plans are extravagant and elegant and wholly possible in my mind.  I love armchair gardening and the planning in the winter time. It gets me revved up for the coming work season.  Sometimes I get frustrated because Stuart hurries me to get things landscaped and I like piddlin' and taking my time. I get my best visions by not hurrying them or thinking about it actively. It just comes to me all of a sudden, seemingly out of the blue. My mind works on the problem in my subconscious though and gets solved. Maybe not that minute but at least it does.  I've solved two problems that we've been worrying over for the past two years and ever better, Stuart hasn't argued them down. He is coming to believe in what I see in my mind and how it will look because all my other stuff that he didn't think would be good, of course, it IS good. Like the Front Entryway garden. He argued and argued with me that a big bed like that at the front of the house would not look good.  He was wrong. ha!  One of the problems I've been worrying over is that I want a wall of green along one of the perimeters of my property but I've been worrying about doing just one side will make it look lopsided.  I have my decorative shrubs and trees that are going to line the southwest property line, the road runs along the north west direction. The back property line is easternly to southernly sort of.  The back property line would be good for what I want to do. Even though the Corner Garden and the Grape Arbor garden are situated with their back parts on the line, I'd do it anyhow.  We are going to run 'Green Giant' Thuja's down the back side and to wrap up and rim the entire corner garden and stop about 15' short of the Perennial Bed. We'll place them 6' apart and it will take about 20 of them.  A nice solid wall of green as a backdrop to the backyard. It will be lovely.  .... Last night after I rushed home from work, I jumped into my overalls and got outside into the fading daylight as quickly as I could.  I dug up and transplanted a rose bush and a small seedling from the Campion and put them both into the large kidney perennial bed.  Stuart was in the process of chopping up and pulling all of the ice out of our wee little pond and running in fresh water from the hose. We had a pump running a little waterfall into the pond but the pump quit working a few months ago and we haven't had the cash to replace it yet. Since there is no continuous moving of the water, it keeps freezing over and I'm worried about the five goldfish making it through the winter. We may have to spring (ha! i wish) for a new pump.  I learned that the ice isn't what kill the fish but rather the gases that decomposing plant matter give off and can't escape because of the ice cover end up suffocating the fish.  The huge pile of ice that he pulled out still sits in a mountain in the center of the Front Entryway garden. It is so cold here!   We bought four 'Stuart' Pecan trees for Stuart's Dad for Christmas since that is what he wanted. He has a few trees already but in the area behind our property line, he has a bunch of fruit trees and he wanted to add some Pecan'. So he went out to plant one tree and Stuart jumped at the chance to get them all in the ground since they are bare root and will freeze and die if not protected, and they planted all four.  I can't wait to have Pecan's!!! Well, it has started to rain and my fingers are frozen it is so cold up here, I'll end now. Hope you like the redesign!

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