Sara's Garden MarketSustainable Living, Gardening, Flowers, and Food

Thank you to the bird or rabbit that ate some honey suckle berries and then came to Maddie’s garden! We have had this bush/tree for a few years now and I am going to attempt to train it into a topiary shape this year!

The first year it was going to be a tree = one long stalk/trunk and one sprig of honey suckle at the top. I cut that down to the ground almost. It came back and it brought friends! A little scary at first and I considered pulling it out all together. But honey suckle is such a sweet bush and perfect for a little girl’s garden so I left it.

Each year I prune it aggressively and the next season it comes back fuller. It wants to be very tall so I just cut it down. I think I have enough growth and fullness this year to shape it. In this same garden I have another bush that we call the “monster” bush. It wants to take over the whole garden so we cut it back all the time. And there is a clematis. It is in soil that has not been prepared and used to have several evergreen bushes in it.

I have had the clematis in there for about three years now and it looks like it is finally going to really go!

We call this flower bed Madison Square Garden. She has a lot to contribute about what goes into this garden and always plants an annual border around it which she plants mostly herself and then cares for by watering and weeding herself.

Will post pics later!

Thanks for stopping by!

~Sara

So, as many of you have heard I tore out a large juniper bush and one other small bush in front of my house to extend my flower bed last season.

There is rock packed with mud in this area as the previous owners had a rock bed with evergreen bushes before. (Which I despise!!!!!) I thought I could pick the rock out like I did with my other beds I have created around my house. Not so. There is so much mud packed in this bed that it would take all summer to get it out by hand. So I am calling in a professional service.

I am going to have the landscapers come with a bobcat/back hoe and dig out 1-2 feet of soil and rock and just haul it away. Next I will order square feet of top soil from my *local* *small* 🙂 garden market down the road here. I will need to let that soil rest and then test the Ph level and maybe adjust it a bit before planting because evergreens are so acidic!

Once that is done I can put in my ornamental tree and more flowers!

I will post before and after and during pictures!!!

Thanks for stopping by!

~Sara

Hi everyone,

I figured this needs it’s own post so that people can search for it. 🙂

I have a chive plant (perennial) that I have had for about 4 years now. I love chives in dips and potatoes, but in a flower garden I am reconsidering my choice!

Chives can send out runners and their seeds take well and are very plentiful, and carry on the wind like dandelion seeds! So be careful where you plant one!

I am going to be constricting mine with a coffee can (surround the root ball by pushing the can into the ground around it.) as well as topping them off before the flowers turn t seed.

A flower bed should not smell like chives!!!

I got the majority of my outdoor weeding done yesterday!

The vegetable garden was full of thistles and other odd looking plants I didn’t want in there. I also found a whole patch of volunteer tomatoes! They will need thinning so now I have a serious amount of tomato plants! The two strawberry plants are very happy and already have several large flowers. The radishes are doing great and the peas are as well. The onions are just up and about 2 inches above the ground now.

I didn’t do anything to my “knock-out” roses over the winter to protect them and they did just great. I even have a few buds already! I had to prune them back in to shape, but they are a lot larger this year. Roses are very hardy. I recommend them to anyone looking for an easy to care for perennial.

I also have babies breath, mallow root, and pink yarrow perennials in the vegetable garden. I will try to get some pictures up later on!

In the flower bed there were also thistles, and I have discovered that chives are thriving through out the entire garden out there!!! I need to put a can around the root ball and make sure I pick the tops before they seed so they don’t spread further. If that doesn’t work I will need to get rid of it. Nothing like a flower bed that smells strongly of chives!

Stay tuned for my green house plans as they have changed dramatically!

Thanks for stopping by!