FEBRUARY

No sooner than I’m back from Iceland on January 1st, I leave for South Africa on February 8th. It’s just the way it turned out. As such, I will only be in the Bee Better Naturally Teaching Garden half-time this February, and not even that since I will spend half of that time on Emerald Isle. That works for me, though, since I had no major winter projects. Returning on the 24th to dig in for spring will be fun!

And it would seem I brought back Icelandic weather with me! The second week of January was rebelliously cold, waking up to the mid-teens! But the days were sunny, so working outside in the low to mid-40s was OK…once you got going!

Garden Maintenance…

Here’s a picture of my personal nemesis invasive plant. When I moved into my home in 1997, it was EVERYWHERE. I slowly focused on eradicating it—Porcelain vine, *Ampelopsis brevipedunculata.* The porcelain vine was Introduced to North America as an ornamental plant. Habit: Deciduous, woody, perennial vine; climbs up to 20 ft or greater; twines with the help of non-adhesive tendrils that occur opposite the leaves. Birds love it and spread the seeds far and wide!

In the Bee Better Naturally with Helen Yoest, we aren't all native! Over the 25 years I've gardened there, I've eradicated several of the worst invasive. It was a challenge, but I was determined! Hopefully, you don't grow any of these intentionally!

There's not much hands-on maintenance this month since I’m spending 2.5 weeks away in a short month as it is!

My List of Winter Clean Up!

1) Take down vermiculture, built from 12 cinder blocks. Funny, it was a lot easier making this box by carrying each block to the far end of the property and it was to remove them half distance to where they are now being stored. One and Done.

2) Cleaned out lean-to. This area has a roof that extends off the shed. We don’t have a garage, so this area comes in handy. And just like a garage, it becomes a place for junk! Done until junk piles up again! But hopefully this winter clean up, with the kids mostly gone, particularly Aster, this is a One and Done!

3) Removed eight pallets from this area. My son dropped them of for what ever reason, and I became stuck with it. At first when it was one or two, I could cut them up for fire wood, but I now don’t have that many winters left. Ha! One and Done! We are not a no pallet zone. At one time, I didn’t mind having them because I used them as firewood. But they started piling up faster than I could use! One and Done!

4) Painted the Family Room a sunflower yellow. One and Done! at least until the next 20 years!

5) Move bricks stored on one side of the house to an area where I store stuff. This is the same area where the cinder blocks landed. One and Done!

6) There was a lot of erosion from the storm. Worked on that cleanup. Who knows if I’m done!

7) Weeded Mixed Border to ready for mulch. Ongoing.

8) Added composted leaf mulch to the Mixed Border. Yearly. My friend Nathalie helped me get the last of it down.

9) Cut back acanthus leaves after the hard freeze. Yearly. See pics below.

10) Finally, I laid the last two pine straw bales from October. They were added to the Back 40 ft. where the acanthus leaves were composted in place. One and Done!

11) Added a ‘Budd’s Yellow’ dogwood to the south side and a ‘Soft Caress’ mahonia to the mixed border. One and Done!

12) Photographed the Mixed Border from a ladder so I have a better vantage point to make a design drawing. One and Done!

13) I worked on a mixed border design drawing. One and Done!

14) Cleaned accumulated junk from the back porch—coolers from Christmas, five-gallon buckets from godknowswhy, and just stuff. One and Done until more junk accumulates…see lean-to above.

15) Greatly removed Acorus along the Mixed Border steps. Maybe more. It likes to spread.

16) Filled in areas where the Acorus was with ‘Nana” dwarf mondo. One and Done!

17) Five one-man stones were added to the south side of the mixed border. There was a lot of washout from the storm. The Bee Better Teaching Garden has never seen such a mess. One and Done!

18) Cleaned out the coop, a twice-a-month duty.

19) Transplanted a Camellia sasanqua 'Shishi Gashira’ from the front to the Mixed Border. One and Done!

20) Coiled up electrical cords that were used for Christmas Lights. One and Done…until Christmas next year, maybe.

21) Slowly weeding front of the hen bit to feed my girls. A spring delight!

22) Staining the Tobacco Stick fence. Every couple of years.

23) Worked on drainage.

24) Nathalie also helped me with the edging. this wasn’t the first time she helped with this.

25) Dug up acanthus in the raspberry patch. I’m unsure how they got there, but I removed about 50 usable roots!

26) I gathered bagged leaves from the street to use as cover in the Back 40 (ft.) insitu compost area.

I even moved the kitchen sink! Literally! An old cast iron sink, really cool, actually, was stored in our crawl space. We moved it over from when we lived in Oakwood. I pulled it out to use. I hoped we could have used it when we needed a new sink, but the backsplash was higher than the window. One and Done!

Back (40 ft) —As designed, the back 40 ft. is a mellow gardening spot, especially in the winter. The design is such that no maintenance is required, not even any pruning or cutting back of herbaceous plants. For mulch, I added leaves collected from other homes where they left bags of leaves curbside. As I get older, I find my 1/2 acre garden is getting larger ;) Having a landscaped bed to care for itself is beneficial.

Gazebo Corner—Formally the home of a vermiculture bed, I took it down during the pre-South Africa travels. I wasn’t using it, but more importantly, when I first installed it, kitchen scrapes were added to feed the little buggers. But since I got chickens in 2010, all of our chicken scraps go to the girls!

Epimedium Patch—My rabbits favor epimediums, this is a plant touted as rabbit-resistant! It’s not! Ugh!

The buds hang unopened, but when the do, it’s worth the waste. You can see the yellow showing, so sweet smells will follow.

Wildflower Patch—

Wildflower Patch Extension—

Mixed Border—I’ve continued to work this Border. I had a setback with a major storm in early January. The Mixed Border was hit with erosion, which has never happened before. There is a lot of wash in the front garden, too, but that’s a different story. The Joslin Garden lost a couple of big trees, causing all sorts of problems; I’m still cleaning up all that!