Do You Have A Hired Gardener, Tatyana?

Click on the pictures to make them larger. Then click Back to return to the post.

I looked at my last posts - all of them are about trips, holidays, interesting places. What about my own garden? Is anything going on there? Who takes care of it? Do you have a gardener, Tatyana? Does anyone come and do all the weeding, pruning, trimming, afterstorm debris removal, etc., etc.? Nope. It's only us, mice. Let me look back and see what has been done in my garden during the sunny weekends in April. I usually have several projects going on at the same time. I heard that from my Mom - not to get bored with a job, switch to another and afterwhile get back.
First, I started destroying our lawn. It was laid in 2004, and the first two years it was almost perfect. Then, came moss, bare spots, yellow circles, weeds and craneflies. We aerated and overseeded it almost every spring. It helped for a while, but the winters would damage the grass again, moss will grow again... Maintaining a perfect lawn became a constant battle and as a result, I was allowed to convert a part of the lawn to flower and vegetable beds.
It's not so difficult to remove the turf. I use it in the vegetable/perennial part of the garden. I put pieces of turf, roots up, around small raised beds. It takes a couple of seasons for them to rotten and turn to fine soil. Meanwhile, those pieces of turf help to hold the soil in place without any frames.

Ocasionally, some grass will find a way up and start growing just in time to be removed or covered with another piece of turf.
On the picture below, after removing part of the lawn, I planted hydrangeas. Grasses and perennials will be soon be added.

Another project is converting a strip of land along the garage wall to a shady perennial bed.

Climbing hydrangeas, hostas, grasses plus baby helleborus moved from another part of the garden make this place more attractive.





Our kitchen garden is also getting expanded. My husband made another wooden frame/raised bed that hosts arugula and cabbage.
We put the frame directly on the lawn which was covered with several layers of newspapers. Around the frame, the turf has been removed, mulch laid and baby boxwoods will be added.

On the next picture, there are lettuce, peas, broccoli, cauliflower plus garlic and chives. I dug out melissa and put it in the container since it grows huge and takes a lot of space.

Lettuce grows on the raised beds and in pots. Around the pots, there is garlic and chives that spread on their own.

Well, not to forget 10 cubic yards of mulch that we spread in two days. The borders and beds certainly look dressed up with it.

A number of hours have been spent on weeding. Shotweed is aggressive as never before. Those tiny plants with cute round leaves and white flowers appear like mushrooms after the rain - fast and in big quantities. Hours have also been spent on shrubs that were damaged badly by winter winds and heavy snow. Trenches have been redone to separate borders from the lawn, thereby preventing grass crawling on mulch.

All in all, the garden is getting in shape. New plants include Phygelius croftway Purple Prince (never had it before), Nasturtium Cherry Rose, hosta Gold Standard, another Mister Lincoln rose, two types of climbing fuschias, salvia, blueberry Duke, etc.

Every year I tell myself not to buy new plants, and every year I fail. I like this type of failure.

Yesterday, it was Easter for Orthodox Christians. On the picture below, there are eggs that I colored using onion peel dye. I learned how to do it from my Grandma and Mom (my post Easter Eggs, Bunnies and Russian Paskha ).