Working around an oil tank

We presumably have an oil tank buried alongside our driveway. I say presumably because this is there.

It is located in the place where I'd most like to have an herb garden, as it's right across from the kitchen. Sadly, oil tanks tend to leak and deposit toxic substances, so planting edibles there doesn't seem like the best idea. My herbs currently live in the backyard in the raised beds. Every time I need rosemary for our potatoes or sage for our squash I have to trudge out in the dark backyard and get it. It's as far from the kitchen as you can get.

Guys, I'm a little embarrassed to say that it took me two years to figure out that I could throw a planter here, plant it with herbs, and have my kitchen garden close at hand. No oil residue required!

 

I think it softens the entrance a little, which I like a lot. A Korean lilac will flank it in the foreground and then I'm thinking of a sweet low evergreen groundcover. And then maybe a Marjorie clematis to climb the fence, since the hops have a hard time with it. And then the jasmine will climb that trellis and soften the left side. And then . . . and then . . . and then . . .

Guess which Simon & Garfunkel song is stuck in my head?

Side note: do you have any idea how hard it is to find a wine barrel planter in November? I finally found this one at Bamboo Craftsman, where they only had two left. The guy even rolled it out to the truck for me. I probably should have bought the other one too; I'll want it eventually.

Home Depot does me a solid.

Cracked sink wants to hug you.

Remember when I listened to the Internet and poured very hot water down my bathroom sink and cracked it? I called two sink refinishers in town and asked about repairing the crack and refinishing the sink. They both told me that the cracking would only continue to get worse and that repairing it "wasn't worth it."

I visited Home Depot yesterday to ask for their help in locating a replacement sink. I bought the sink as a combination; it included the vanity, the sink, and the mirror. A very nice guy called and found out that it's a Home Depot brand, which means they manufacture it. And my only option is to buy the whole kit again. The kit is $399.00.

I emailed Frank Black, the CEO of Home Depot (contact info here), and Craig Menear, their VP of Merchandising and told them how frustrated I was that I can't purchase a replacement sink. I asked for help in locating a sink, since they manufacture it and all. I got a phone call within five minutes from Greg Stanford who told me they were shipping me a new combination.

I'm still shocked that they can't hunt down a sink for me, as I don't need a new vanity or mirror, but I'm very happy with the customer service. I have always gone to Home Depot over Lowe's (which is closer to my house) because their customer service is better and their return policy is fantastic. I think their associates are totally hit-or-miss. I've had some amazing bend-over-backwards help in the lighting and electrical departments . . . and then there was Gary in equipment who suggested I use a pressure-washer on my kitchen floor. To remove thinset. And then he was a dick about it.

Man, I am still mad at Gary.

But I love you again, Home Depot. Thanks for doing me a solid, even though I'm not excited about putting together another sink.

Things I learned while I was planting 160 tulip bulbs last night

• An hour and a half before sundown is not an early enough start time, especially when we're still in huge-ass-spiders-in-the-garden season. Digging in the near-dark is scary.What was that? Did I just walk through a web? Do I feel something on my neck?
• Laying them out first, based on color and height is a better approach than what I did last year, where I dug as I went and ended up with clumps of colors and bald spots galore.
• I tried to sprinkle the bulbs like Jacqueline van der Kloet recommends (so everything looks more natural) but I suspect the whole thing will look kind of stiff anyway.

• You have to wear gloves when you plant hyacinths because they will irritate your skin. Thanks for the heads up, Brett and Becky's!
• It doesn't matter how perfect I think my angle is, I will end up tossing the bulb in top-down or on its side.
• Somehow I didn't run into any of the 75 bulbs I planted last year, which is impossible, right? I must have bulb-stealing critters.
• Being really hungry while you plant does not make things go faster. 
• Elizabeth over at Garden Rant says that the process of planting the bulbs is the best part--I'm not so sure I agree. I *do* love the anticipation of waiting for them to come up. It's exciting when they start to emerge from the ground and again when they actually open. I wanted to be more zen about the whole process but the sun was sinking so fast.
• Man, doing anything 160 times right in a row is boring.
• Goddamn it, I didn't order any crocuses. Again. Someone remind me next year?
• I'm going to have to spend some time getting to know this new camera--the colors and white balance in my photos are all off.

I finally bought Rosalie bulbs in honor of my grandma on my mom's side; now I'd like to find a Marjorie flower for my dad's mom. It looks like there's a variety of clematis (C. montana var. rubens 'Marjorie') that might fit the bill. It's pretty and pink and I'm obsessed with incorporating vines into my garden right now, so everyone wins!

In addition to getting the bulbs in the ground I also replaced (FOR THE THIRD TIME) the birdbath top. You'd think I'd get smart and glue it to the top, but it was cold and I didn't feel like it. I went for a red one this time.

 

I'm totally tempting fate to knock it over again, aren't I?

Just one more plant sale and then I'll stop

This area under the hose in the backyard tends to stay sort of damp from the dripping of the hose. This summer that worked in my favor because a bunch of baby ferns popped up.

If ever you ask yourself, "Do I have enough ferns in my yard?" the answer is always NO.

I threw them in the side yard where I have a lot of lady ferns. I love lady ferns but come July they tend to look like this, especially when your neighbor aggressively trims back her trees along the fence line so your side yard is no longer in shade.

Not so lady-like.

They also disappear in the winter, so I want to work more evergreen ferns into this area. I was looking at this list of evergreen ferns for the Pacific NW and I read about the Mexican male fern, which can reach five feet! Do I need a five foot fern in my side yard? Um, YES.

Image source: Plant Lust

Alternately I could get a giant chain fern (Woodwardia fimbriata) which is native and gets just as big, but it needs soil that never dries out, so it might fare better in the rain garden in back. I transplanted all of the little ferns from under the hose and gave them a good soaking. I tried to move them in large chunks of two or three ferns, even if they were really close together. I love the way ferns look in the wild, all piled on top of each other. Hopefully it will make this area look less manufactured.

I should have placed a quarter for reference

I figure by the time these get big enough to be seen without a microscope, the sarcocca I planted should also be big enough to remove some of the lady ferns in this area. In the meantime I put in a tassel fern and an autumn fern. And my most recent Columbia Land Trust plants arrived!

I ordered a native, Ceanothus thyrsiflorus, or blueblossom to replace this sad looking mock orange.

It's evergreen, a fast grower, and it's loved by pollinators. And come April it should be loaded with blue flowers. Supposedly they don't live much longer than 15 years unless you deprive them of water after the first couple of summers. I can give that a shot.

I'd show you a picture but the ceanothus is so small it really doesn't show up. I really do hope it's as fast growing as they say.

I planted more Oregon iris (Iris tenax) in front of the crocosmia. I'm hoping this area will fill in with them and then I can get rid of the iron wheelbarrow that I'm officially over. It's too precious, though I am going to give it a shot somewhere else, with sedums.

We also weeded and mulched the roses out front. This summer, during the height of my neighbor thinking I wanted her Doug fir removed, her landscaper said he could clean out under the roses and mulch and it would make my neighbor happier, so I said yes (whatever she wants!). His guys cut away more of the lawn in some freakshow pattern and, oops!, ran out out of mulch. So it filled it with weeds. Please tell me, in what universe does this kind of curvature look good?

Whither the parabola?

It's like they let a kid with ADHD loose with a sod cutter. Good thing I have a plan for this area and it doesn't involve grass (it does involve a Korean lilac!). I'm also trying to convince Greg that we can fit a Japanese maple here. IT'LL FIT, shut up.

To rain garden or not to rain garden

I've been waffling on big garden projects, excited to get going but unsure if I have the free weekends to put in the work. If I rush home from work I have about an hour and a half where I can work on things before the sun goes down. That will get cut down to 30 minutes once Daylight Savings hits. That's if it's not pouring rain. My big project contemplation right now is the rain garden. I want to put one in front and one in back. 

For anybody not familiar with rain gardens, this is how they work: instead of having your rain gutters empty into the storm drain you treat your storm water on your property. Water from your storm drain ultimately gets dumped into the river, where it's warmer than normal (which means it has less oxygen) and it's full of pollutants. All the critters in the river get stressed because they can't breathe and they're dealing with oil and chemicals that come off of our streets and roofs.

When you treat water on your property it gets slowly filtered into the ground water supply, the pollutants are reduced, and the rivers don't get inundated by water from all of our impervious surfaces (roofs, driveways, streets, patio slabs, etc).So you dig a pit where water can collect, plant it with native species, and mulch the hell out of it. Did you know that microbial activity in mulch helps break down some of the common pollutants in stormwater? TAKE THIS INFORMATION AND GO BE INSUFFERABLE AT DINNER PARTIES. Then you divert your gutters to drain into this instead of your storm drain.

Before you start planning your garden you need to do a percolation test, to see if your soil drains quickly enough to withstand one.

So you dig a hole. I thought I heard somewhere that it should be 12x12x12, so that's what I dug. It turns out I can't find any documentation saying that 12x12x12 is the way to go. So maybe I dug a larger hole than necessary? Ideally you're supposed to do your perc test in the spring when the ground is really water logged, but I can't be counted on to follow directions, obviously.

Then you fill your hole and let it drain completely. Then you fill it a second time and let it drain. Then you fill it a third time and set your timer for an hour. At that time you look at how inches of water drained and *that's* a pretty good indicator of your drainage. Anything over 2 inches per hour is good. 

Mine drained 8 inches in an hour. After two hours all but the smallest puddle was gone.

So now I'm worried that my property is *too* well draining and that I'm actually living atop a giant sandpit that will collapse once I install my rain garden. Worrying is what I do and, damn it, I'm good at it.

If your property won't accommodate a rain garden, don't worry, you can still be insufferable at dinner parties! You can plant a tree instead. They are super good at sucking up water on your property. True story.

Has anyone built one of these before? Should I wait until spring? Would you like to help me dig? (I'll bake bread and cookies!)

Or would you like to help me plant the 150 bulbs I ordered? I swear I don't remember ordering half of these which is why you should never, ever drink wine when there are plant catalogs in the house.

I love this

"The Zen master speaks of chopping wood, carrying water. The gardener will know what it is to really be in the moment when she does her most rote, insistent chores. Knowing that, I garden this way: I practice a blend of horticultural how-to and woo-woo, and the view both outside and inward and far better for the fact. I practiced increasing horticultural excess, yes, those back and forth weekender years, but I also practiced communion and some moments of peace. In short: My garden saved me."

--from And I shall Have Some Peace There by Margaret Roach

I love this woman even if she can tend a bit toward hyperbole. Heaven knows, I do too.

Where do you hide your trashcans?

We currently keep our trashcan and recycling bins next to the garage, where all the ferns and shade lovers live. It makes the most sense, since it's nearest to the kitchen. Oh, but it looks really bad.

There was already a random fence post at the entrance to the side yard, so I slapped on a trellis and planted an evergreen jasmine to climb it. LeAnn assured me that it will take over and cover the trellis in no time.

Though I don't know why I'd want to cover up such craftsmanship.

Why would I use a smaller piece of 2x4 when I could choose one that can be seen from space?

What's the latest and greatest way to conceal trashcans? Is anybody doing anything creative to accomplish this? Even if this manages to hide them from the street, this is the only entrance to the garden and we have to walk past them to get into the yard. Maybe I should just paint some ferns on them? There's no way that would look bad.