2011 Gardening Resolutions – Check-Up

December means it’s time to look back across the past 12 months to see how much progress has been made on integrating the inner gardener’s 2011 resolutions into the garden sanctuary. It’s a good way to stay on track with those gardening hopes and dreams and come up with some new resolutions next month.
  • The unfinished, or never-started, projects from 2010. The fallen cherry tree was removed from my rhododendron patch and sawn up into boards. While the tree cutters were here, we had them fell some dead trees and high-limb others.
  • Unplanned projects. When the tree-cutters dropped one on my rustic cedar fence, the undergardener repaired it, and added a new section that fulfilled a long-ago promise.
  • We added a 65-inch bass wind chime in early spring and have enjoyed listening to it hum the sound “Om” all year.
  • Our major project for this year, the expansion of the deer exclosure including a gate across the driveway, has been completed. We decided to leave the gate as-is, because it’s nearly invisible.
  • New plants installed this year. We replaced the blue globe thistles in front of the propane tank screen with sea holly in the fall. Their size should be more appropriate for the space. We planted ‘Lavendar Lassie’ climbing roses and Clematis ‘Cassis’ to sprawl over the pillars that flank either side of the screen.
  • For what seems like the hundredth time, I added two creamy-white Digitalis plants to the white and fern garden. They have survived so far, and their neat, compact whorls are ready to grow come spring.
  • The blue garden and the berm got ahead of me in mid-June and I never caught up. My   three-year-old gentian plants have weathered several hard frosts and are still blooming  valiantly. They’ve held their flowers for over two months, now.
  • The new "courtyard" seating area out front is in its winter mode and looks a little stark,  but without the deer being able to nibble the ferns, I’m expecting a thick, lush look once  spring arrives.
  • The mass bulb planting planned along the driveway was postponed until next year, due to exceptionally wet and warm weather this fall. 
  • We also put in some field-trial plants -- four 'North Pole' Arborvitae just inside the exclosure for privacy screening, together with four field-grown White Cedars -- plus two Oso Easy 'Honey Bun' landscape roses and two "Snow Day Surprise' Pearl Bush shrubs.
Each year, we generally set aside time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s to catch our breath, put our feet up, and start dreaming about what gardening resolutions we want to set for the coming year. I invite you to do the same.

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