Mailbox Garden

I made a very feeble attempt to create some sort of mailbox planting three years ago, and it has become less spectacular and more overgrown with weeds with each year.



I decided to just bite the bullet and invest some time into digging this area out, edging it and applying a nice deep layer of mulch. It took me over three hours to dig all this sod! Sod is evil.



I'm planning a pink/red motif in this bed. So far I have planted beardtongue and purple fountain grass. The beardtongue blooms pink, but the foliage is a lovely burgundy that will complement the burning bush in the Fall. I have some lovely gaillardia starters about ready for planting, but I haven't decided what else I want to put in this bed.

The neighborhood cats have decided to seed the bed with tootsie rolls. At this point, I think there are more cat droppings than soil in this bed! Too bad they won't grow ... Then again I'm afraid to consider what flower could come of a tootsie roll.

On another note, the clematis is finally pulling its weight in the yard this year! It probably helps that I remembered to fertilize it this Spring!



I like having this unfinished bed waiting for new plants, since I often see plants I want to purchase but no where to put them. Now I have an open-ended home for all my impulse buys, as long as they fit the color scheme, of course!

The Clematis Awakens!

I was pleasantly surprised last week to see that the clematis I planted in April 2006 is finally growing! I had honestly written it off as a failure after it sent up only one tiny little sprig last year. I still watered and fertilized it throughout the summer, but I didn't expect anything more from it. So I'm pretty excited to see it growing and to find the beginnings of blossoms on the ends of the vines! I'm trying to train it to grow up those poles, but it has other ideas that involve sprawling on the ground instead. I think I'm going to win this fight though. I would ultimately like it to grow up the mailbox, but I'll settle for the poles for now.



Here is a blurry photo of the clematis from April 2006. All I had at that time for taking photos was the camera phone - sorry! You can see its pretty little lavender bloom behind the daisies. It never grew any bigger than that until this year.



I protected the clematis from the low temperatures and potential frost with a trash bag, and he made it through the night just fine. I can't wait to enjoy those gorgeous blooms later this month! Maybe it will bloom for my birthday on the 27th. That would be a great gift.

One of our neighbors has a gorgeous lavender clematis that is so lush and full that it must be close to 10 years old. I will get some photos when / if it comes into bloom this year. I think it was badly damaged last year by the late freeze. I hope it comes back up this year.

Blushing Susie Vine

The first blooms on our Black-Eyed Susan Blushing Susie Vine from Park Seeds finally opened this past week. Although the seeds were sown indoors in March, the plants are just now blooming. I haven't had the best luck with ornamental seeds this year! This vine is an annual, so it should bloom until frost and maybe I'll get lucky and it will reseed itself next year!



I think these cute little flowers were worth the wait. The mailbox looks so nice with beautiful vines climbing on branches next to it. The branches are from an unidentified tree/shrub that we removed from the backyard earlier in the year. They make fine poles for vines to climb.



The area around the mailbox is very hot and dry, so I planted portulaca, because it thrives in hot dry areas, and I hate lugging the watering can down there. The portulaca did very well, but I wanted to add more interest to this area. I have tried clematis, but I can't seem to keep it moist enough, so I figured I would give the blushing susie vine a try. The portulaca provides a good shelter for the blushing susie's roots. I think I will use this strategy again next year in this spot. I water these vines once a week at the most, and we are currently experiencing an awful drought in our area.



If you give these seeds a try, keep in mind that it took mine five months from seed to bloom. I also had a very low (30%) germination rate with the seeds. The young vines are very delicate and break easily, so transplant them with care. Once they establish themselves, the one vine turns into many vines, so you don't need to plant many to fill in an area.

The Transplant Was a Failure

Well, it's official ... the shrub we transplanted by the mailbox is dead. We dug it up this weekend and replaced it with a cute little burning bush from Lowe's. Looking back, I see now why it died ... right after we transplanted it, a harsh cold front came through and brought freezing winds that whipped right through the poor thing for days. I'm sure it suffered severe shock from the winds since it was used to the shelter provided by its brother and sister shrubs. In retrospect, we should have covered it until it became better acclimated.

Along with the new shrub, we bought some daisies, a purple clematis and silver mountain something or other to adorn the mailbox area. I thought I was going to have to fight some lady at Lowe's for the yellow daisies, as she was giving me the serious creep eye while I was looking through them. When I finished, she swooped in to claim hers, nearly knocking me over to get to them. The clematis was pretty weak and mal-nourished, but for $5, I had to give it a shot. I am trying to train it to wrap around the mailbox, but I think I need to secure it somehow to get it started.