hey hey Jjorge! I thought i saw hollyhocks at first in your post and got all tremulous. I planted one in the backyard two years ago as a sort of Crones tribute, and as a reminder of the old-fashioned kind of garden my earliest garden memories are of. The first year it just sort of sat there and glared at me - this year it went wild - over 7' tall! (the tag said it could grow to 3 1/2' if i treated it right.
A 'sheaf' of holly sounds like a lovely gift.
Sounds like a hollyhock on steroids!
A hollyhock on good compost - my mother says it was 'sehr dankbar' (very grateful/appreciative).
I'm feeling a bit nervous because I waited until all the leaves were down before I raked. Poor plants are going to take a beating this year.
Don't rake! Leave the leaves on and over the plants to protect them.
That's what I'm saying - I did rake. Because they are maple leaves, they aren't so good to leave down all wintyer. If I hade raked a week earlier (in the rain - yech), the leaf litter would have been more mixed.
I was on patiodog's thread earlier - i've been leaving the maple leaves down for the past 7 years - the loam is amazing and has enriched the soil tremendously.
last year I dumped a super rich compost over the beds just before winter really hit. Did wonders for this years growth. Too bad the cold-hot snaps were so rough on the flowers.
Oak leaves are particularly bad to leave on over winter. They are like cement and keep water and air from reaching the soil. What I used to do was use my mulching mower and then pour the mulched leave around the plants sensitive to the cold such as azalea and the rodos. The rest went in the compost heap. By using the mower I never had to rake and the lonly leaves in my yard blew over the the neighbors, ergh. But I did mow and rake for the overly over weight single mom next door - that gave my cussin rights for the neighbors that did not rake.
I have an acre and over 100 trees - mostly blackjack and live oak. The are monster producers, especially this year, wow! I will go over them with the riding mower, hopefully soon. And again in the spring. Then the residue settles into and under the grass for a good mulch. And I will keep saying that so I don't have to rake. Every 3 years or so I have to rake out the hedgerow and from secret corners. Basement gardening was for many years ago, sigh!
Scared me at first, BillW. A little bit of fatigue and no glasses meant i read that as 100 acres at first. I was thinking that would be a long time on the riding mower!
I'm definitely not a proponent of raking or unnecessary alteration of the surface - forests are only raked in Germany <wink>.
Where is your happy abode BillW? Liveoak, are you in Tejas?
Thanks, ehBeth! That's pretty much what we did, best we could. (Don't think we got every last one of the baddies.) I LOVE the mint idea, and periwinkle too. Haven't heard of bishop's grout, but will look into that.
All of those would be sown from seeds in the spring?
Whoa right smack in the middle of toronado alley. And the weather center is located there too. My mom was from Kansas and and many good toronado stores. So how did you get from Indonesia to OK. Quite a different landscape, no.
I went from Germany (born, D&M in Civil Service) to Weatherford, TX to Memphis, TN to Sherrill, NY to Norman, OK to VietNam, to Norman to Houston, TX to Jakarta, Indonesia to Houston and finally in 1989 back to Norman. Dad from Windom, Tx and Mom from Lubbock, Tx.
Yes, tornado alley - as a kid I use to watch them out the upstairs window. The big one a couple years ago passed within about 8 miles. It was suppose to make a turn to the right and head my way - thank goodness it didn't.
sozobe - i suspect all three of those should be available as trader roots from neighbours. I know there's a big sharing group in your area that posts in the taunton.com over the fence forum. I'll try to remember to go there (after your thanksgiving) and see if i can get a connection for you. They're a tremendous group.
Depending on where you live, there can be pool safety requirements for ponds deeper than, I think, twenty one inches....in order to keep toddlers walking down the lane from drowning...and to some extent, the toddlers of the property owners or renters...
