badgardeningadvice

[badgardeningadvice]

Deep dirt thoughts:

Oh little pumpkin plant. May you grow big, may you flower, may you bring forth large fruits.

So that in October I may disembowel them and carve whimsical faces in their flesh.

(Corse in this cold wet weather I’ll be happy if I can just get the damn thing to grow)

#bad advice #gardening #pumpkin

[badgardeningadvice]

Landscaping: Mulching

Continuing with our Christmas tradition, the tree has been stripped and ready to become mulch.

Mulched in that I dump the cut up branches under the hedge.

And the doggo gets a big stick.

Also checked on my Halloween mulching job:

All that’s left of the pumpkin. Let it rot in place for a bit, whacked it with a shovel, threw some wood chip mulch on top. All that remains is the stem.

This post also doubles on how to hide a body.

#christmas tree #mulch #stick #gardening #bad advice #pumpkin

[badgardeningadvice]

Starting off the New Year with a bootie pic.

[badgardeningadvice]

Landscaping Services

Given the size of my extensive property (city lot), mowing (don’t bother), and carful pruning (ya right) I decided to bring in the services of a landscaper.

They determined that my back yard was overgrown and are very busy thinning things out. Unfortunately during this transition period the yards looking a bit ruff.

I also received a harassment complaint from our tenant, the squirrel, who resides in our snag. Not sure how to resolve this, getting a bit nuts.

Update: This horribly cheesy post is just a sad excuse to share a cute puppy pic. But let’s be real here, no reason or excuse needed to share a puppy pic.

Update 2: For real tho the squirrels are pissed off.

#bad advice #gardening #cute dog #muddy dog #digging #dogs garden

[badgardeningadvice]

Landscaping: Rain Garden

I just so happened to get my hands on a mini-excavator <evil laughter>.

Not physically, no one in their right mind would let me near a piece of heavy equipment. But I had the opportunity to use the service of one so I decided to build a rain garden. Would be an exemplary example of environmental responsibility to place it in front of the house for all to see (conveniently located where the previous homeowner installed the underground storm drainage system to dump onto the street).

Fist up, responsible adulting: City gave me the thumbs up to install in the right-of-way (they are pro rain garden) and utility locate came back clear (811 Call Before You Dig). Time to give myself a cookie.

Now, the most excellent instruction publication Rain Garden Handbook for Western Washington Homeowners by the experts at the Washington State University Extension carefully describe how to do proper placement, soil drainage tests, sizing calculations, and shaping. I went with the yea-ish technique. Make it about yea-ish deep, yea-ish wide and yea-ish long.

Unfortunately we couldn’t go yea-ish deep because we hit glacial till. About 20,000ish years ago a mile high-ish glacier sat over my yard and turned the ground concrete-ish.

Not going to let something like that discourage me. I threw in some dirt, smoothed it into a shallow bowl, then installed carefully selected plants: soft rush, Kelsey dogwoods, a Sitka willow, some type of sedge (Carex thingy var. yellowish), and because they’re driving me batshit crazy elsewhere I relocated a bunch of pink lipstick strawberries. Final touch, put some rocks around the storm drainage pipe.

And finally, ok a day later, it rained and I beheld my handy work in action. It promptly overfilled and went right back into the street like before. Oh joy of joys.

Update: Not a total failure, as the vegetation filled in it slowed the flow and infiltrated some water. It could even completely contain a small rainfall event. So, yeah-ish?

Update 2: thinking there is a responsible way to fix this - make it bigger (about another yea in size, but not as big as an nuh).

#bad advice #gardening #rain garden

[badgardeningadvice]

Redflower currant (Ribes sanguineum)

I purchased one of these local natives years ago through a specialty native plant nursery. Early spring I get these dainty small clusters of pale pink flowers.

Expected them to be a big humming bird attractor. But not so much action lately. That was puzzling since they were all over my earlier flowering osoberry.

Took a walk and, well well well. . . what have we here. . .

I present my neighbor’s Ribes sanguineum ‘King Edward the VII’ var. Pompous

Feeling so betrayed. I’m staying true here, I’ve got the native variants, but my hummers are going after this botanical bimbo.

Ptthh. Fine. I see how it is. I could go nuts, rip out natives and plant the pinkest of monardias, gaudiest salvias, and cover everything with trumpet creepers.

Or I can be very thankful and appreciative of my neighbor who just replaced their front lawn with a beautiful collection of flowering plants to the benefit of our urban ecosystem.

Update: My monardia got powdery mildew, my hot lips salvia decided to go all white, and the trumpet creeper died. The garden gods are smiting my ass here.

#bad advice #gardening #redflower currant #Ribes sanguineum #humming bird #native plants

[badgardeningadvice]

Common Snowberry, Symphoricarpos albus

Thinking it would make a lovely knee-highish boarder plant near the walk. Because of course I would maintain it and it would behave as such. Several years later it grew to four feet and ate the walk.

I can also attest from firsthand experience that the berries are not so much as toxic as they are inedible. Unless of course you like the taste and texture of styrofoam made from soap, in which case, have fun with that.

Update: Found out from the great interweb that snowberry berries contain saponins which is used to make soap all soapy. Confirmation that my tastebuds are, for the time being, still functioning as evolution intended.

Second Update: Snowberry also whacked to the ground, pondering what new unreasonable thing to replace it with. Don’t worry, it spread into the adjacent shrubbery, so not completely out of my life.

#gardening #snowberry #bad advice

[badgardeningadvice]

Landscaping Services

Introducing my new landscaper. Very neat pruner, fertilizes, zero regards to your landscaping needs.

Think I’ll name him Lloyd Christmas.

[badgardeningadvice]

Clueless adventures in gardening.

Slugs. Dirt. Deer. Dead plants. Wrong plants. If you want good advice, talk to a Master Gardner. If you want gardening mistakes like a bad train wreck, here ya go.