I suppose I will write two section in each blog. The first will be about my business as a Gardener, Turned Leaf Gardens Ltd. And the other will be about my personal gardening.
First the business. The business has a bigger picture goal then just gardening. It is to create sustainability in the urban garden. First there will be no fuel powered equipment used. I will be using reel mowers, hand trimmers and manual edgers just for a start. I will design gardens to use all available resources like maximizing natural rainfall water and not do as little external watering as possible. I'll give more details as I do the work.
Today I finished the last of the business registration process, except for opening the bank account. I also have my first maintenance contract although its not much of a stretch, as it is for my landlord, looking after the lawns at my home. Up until now he has had a different company looking after it. They didn't do much in the way of actual maintenance. They cut, trim and edge. Nothing more. I won't do much more but I imagine we should see the lawn do better as I will be grasscycling, mulching, most of the time.
Tomorrow I meet with my first install client. I think it is a small job at their home and a install at a rental property that I hope will become a maintenance contract. More to follow.
And now for my personal garden. Heres the back story.
We moved into this house in Kits mid Sept 2008. We brought with use a Rosemary Plant and a Hydrangea. The south facing backyard has a lane way and a fence running down both sides. There is a large cedar tree in the South East corner, a thick Laurel hedge and Cherry border the alley way on the south and two more tall trees, a cedar and hemlock, share the west. A long garden runs along the east fence. Before we moved in the Landlord had the garden made up of weeds, hacked to the ground, covered with landscaping Fabric and 4 inches of mulch. Both Mulch and the fabric should let plenty of moisture into the soil but this mixture seems to create a dam. The soil turned grey by mid summer 2008. I had added plenty of plants and they all lived but didn't seem to do much as far as growth. I experimented with a four foot section, removing the fabric and turning the soil and mulch together, leaving enough mulch to still cover the top. The annuals that I had planted in this section finally grew, almost over night.
I added two other gardens that I will write about in future blogs.
That is the past in a nut shell. I will share the first part of what I have done so far this year.
I started at the south end of the garden. I removed the mulch and then the fabric from the car port to a small Plum Tree. I then turned the soil to loosen and air it out. Well doing this I keep my eyes open for Blue Bell. Many of these invasive little bulbs had found their way through or around the fabric last season, and more survived under the fabric and even now where sprouting in early February. Sneaky little guys. I do like them, so I won't be to disappoint when the ones that I missed pop through in another few weeks.
I then added half the mulch and turned the soil again, then covered the garden with the rest. I removed last years annuals and deposited them into the compost. I had to replace my typewriter. Last year my wife, Suzanne, found a picture of a typewriter in a garden. I thought it looked interesting and we had a typewriter sitting in the basement, so out it went. I found that the soil could retain much water and the plants I put into the typewriter dried up easy. So this year and made a mount of the new soil/mulch mix and placed the typewriter on top to try and hold the moisture in. Their is a green and white leaf ground cover, who's name I can't remember, growing threw the keys and the Blue Bell that grew out the top last year, not only survived the lack of water, but this year, it is two Blue Bells sprouting out the top.
At this point I opened up the cold area under my house to check on the mixed daffodils bulbs I got from my mother-in-law last fall. They didn't make it into the ground so I left them out in the cold. They all appeared to be fine and sprouting, so I planted them around the typewriter and around the base of the Plum Tree. I used the tried and tested method of plant them where they fall.
That sums up that weekend. I will continue another day. I will probably only blog once a week, but I will do it more often until we are caught up.
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