Mixson Triangle Survey

I originally posted this last year, but recently construction projects have started again and this area will soon be multi-family housing units.

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Chinese Wisteria

A saw a very different episode of "Naturscene" on SCETV a while ago.  Instead of hiking through a state park or nature preserve, naturalist Rudy Mancke took viewers to a vacant lot in the middle of Columbia, SC.  It was interesting what he was able to find there despite it being in a large city.  I've been eying a vacant area in our neighborhood with the idea of exploring it for a few years now.  It was the site of a WWII housing project until about 2006, when the houses were razed and part of the area was prepared for a large, new-urbanist development.  They built less than ten units with a vision of creating an Italian-style village, but it stalled with the economy, and the design was probably not the best fit for the area.  Every time I drive by this area I'm calling the Mixson Triangle, I look to see what's blooming, or I notice something that I hadn't seen before.  I've gotten a couple of day lilies and maybe a few other flowers from the triangle, but I wanted to go and traipse around and really see what was growing there.

Large Amaryllis

Despite being a very hot, sunny day, I decided to go exploring.  I parked at the north corner of the triangle and work my way south, coming back up near Mixson Avenue.  I knew some of the plants I would find - since it used to be a residential area I expected to see azaleas and other landscape plants, but I was surprised I didn't see as many cultivated plants that I knew were there.
I knew I should find at least one Gladiolus near where I started.  Ours have started to come up, but I couldn't find this one.  Knowing a lot of flowers weren't blooming now - too early for day lilies and possibly too late for narcissus - I was looking hard at all of the foliage, trying to identify anything I could.  The two things I couldn't miss were azaleas and Chinese wisteria.  The whole area was peppered with wisteria and azaleas were one of the last vestiges of this once-residential area.  One of the few cultivated plants I found was a single large Amaryllis, with multiple flowers.
I know I shouldn't be surprised by this, but there was a lot of what we call (Virginia) Spiderwort, or Tradescantia virginiana.  It's native to our area, growing wild all over the neighborhood, but I've never seen any that looked as good as these.  They looked very healthy and robust, unlike the ones on our street.

Virginia Spiderwort

Just off of Holmes Avenue near Durant Avenue, I came across a large patch of ferns, but not much of anything else.  As I worked my way through the brush over to Mixson Avenue, I found several large areas full of blackberries.  I imagine nearby residents probably get there fill once they start producing fruit.  Unfortunately, these people are probably the reason for the large amount of trash strewn along the fence line between Holmes and Durant.  Except for a few pine trees and lots of little oaks, there was not much of interest among the dead annual weeds and grasses in most of the lot.  I know there were lots of Narcissus bulbs scattered throughout the area, but I found few signs of them.  I thought there were more Yuccas, but I only saw a couple.
One of my last discoveries was a line of Narcissus foliage near a blooming azalea and a nice river birch tree.  I could imagine a house once being there, the flowers line the front with the bushes and trees.  I know one day it will be redeveloped, but, with a little imagination, it's a small window into the past.

For more photos, click here

Garden Update

I just thought I would mention a few things that I'm experimenting with right now.  I expect to write posts on them later, but after the final results are in.

I suggested to a friend, since she doesn't have much of a yard, that she should try growing potatoes in bags.  I wasn't sure how this worked until I read a little about it on the internet.  I did a little research and make some recommendations, but there's really nothing like trying it for yourself.  So, after watching a couple of videos, here and here, this is what I did:

I took a $2 bag of compost from Charleston County.
I emptied it to about 1/4 to 1/3 full, and rolled the sides down
Stabbed it several times - enough for drainage, but not enough to fall apart.
Planted one potato per bag, a couple inches below the surface.
Watered well.

As the plant grows, I'll roll the bag up, filling with more compost.  When it's ready to harvest, all I have to do is cut the bag open.  I'll let you know in late May/early June how it turned out.

I was at a neighbor's house last weekend.  He's really into permaculture - something I know very little about.  One of his garden projects is creating multiple mandala gardens - in this case, they are circular gardens with a "key" path to access the center of the circle.  It could look fairly formal when it's completed.  I've gone through so many ideas about the landscaping in our front yard, that I really couldn't decide on one thing.  After seeing his yard, I returned to a more formal design, but incorporating vegetables into the beds, as well as annuals and perennials.  I've been playing around in the yard with a couple of different designs and I hope to settle on one by the weekend and start planting.

I can't end this post without mentioning the chickens, right?  The past few weeks have seen a little rooster drama - our (unexpected) Rhode Island Red rooster, Maximus, figured out that he was 2-3 times the size of our little silkie rooster, who was the alpha male.  Once Maximus became alpha, there was no peace.  He would try to attack Silkie when he could.  I started letting Silkie out of the coop first thing in the morning, before he could get attacked.  Once all the birds were out in the yard, there was less drama - Maximus chased, but Silkie was able to run away.  We decided to get rid of Maximus, for the good of the flock.  It took a little effort on craigslist, but we had someone come get him the other day.

I''ve got a number of posts in the pipeline - I just have to finish writing them.  In the meantime, I hope these suffice.  Stay tuned.

Spring Landscaping

Besides October, I'm told that February is the time to plant shrubs and other landscaping.   Going along with that timetable, I've been slowly preparing our yard for new plants.

Last fall, I chopped down a large azalea hedge and planned to dig up the stumps and put in new landscaping, but have been procrastinating - I knew I had until February to get it done.  It's February now and I'm trying to finish up.  I'm planning for President's Day weekend - I will have two days off and I was going to put in the new plants then.  All I have to do is figure out what plants I'm going to use and dig up the rest of the stumps.

It's backbreaking work so I've been trying to get a little done every day.  Each day I spend a little longer working on it, but it hasn't been very consistent.  Depending on how much time I have, I may not even get out there some days.  Today I have all afternoon, so I plan to get a lot done - taking breaks to rest my back.

As far as the actual landscaping goes, I'm still working on that.  I'm leaning toward native plants fro the obvious reasons, but also to limit my choices - deciding what to plant can be daunting.  I'm looking for about three different types of plants, maybe a tall grass in the back and a shrub in the middle and a groundcover or low-profile plant for down front.  I'm trying to think of it along the lines of container planting - a thriller(back), a filler(middle) and a spiller(front).

This would be my foundation planting and I would fill in the empty spaces between the shrubs with flowering perennials like coneflowers or daisies.  I'm still mulling this over, but I don't have much more time.  I have to get to work.

PS - If anyone has a good idea, please let me know!

R.I.P. Dream Gardens

I was off work last Wednesday and decided I would visit Dream Gardens and take some photos - and maybe even buy something. If you have never heard of Dream Gardens, you missed a heck of a place. Cultivated over the years on what I'm told was a former car lot, it became an Eden in a world of pavement and just as elusive - its frontage on Rivers Avenue was the size of a storefront.

Once past the front gate, you felt like nature had reclaimed this part of town. You couldn't walk down the winding paths without brushing against every plant - especially in the late summer / early fall. I have to admit I didn't go there as often as I would have liked, so I was disappointed to find that they are moving their operation to Hollywood. Gone is the jungle that occupied that small part of Rivers Avenue. It will be missed.

Spring Cleaning

When I walked outside yesterday morning, the amount of spring gardening chores briefly overwhelmed me. I think I had gone out there to lay out the new landscaping - smother grass and mulch - but I saw weeds to pull and lantana to prune and a pond to clean. After a little weeding and pruning, I got to the mulching. I've been saving our newspapers during the past several months for just this purpose. I also had several bags of shredded leaves that I was saving for this as well.

I didn't plan to mulch the whole area that day, but I thought I would do as much as the leaves lasted. I spent an hour or so laying down newspaper - about four sheets thick - and then spreading leaves over it. I probably mulched half the area I needed to cover - one side being an arc near where I plan to put a stone path from the lawn to the gate. I've been planning to do this with broken concrete instead of for cost reasons. I hadn't looked for any recently, but there was a post on craigslist yesterday for someone to haul off broken concrete, so I plan to do that before the weekend.

We had plans for the mid afternoon, but I realized it was a good day to clean out the pond. I was going to have to get in it and clean all the dead leaves and plants out of it. When I was knee-deep, it wasn't bad - it was 65 degrees - but it took a little getting used to when I had to squat down to reach the bottom. I managed to finish and take a shower in time for our plans. Overall, it was a productive day.

The End of Procrastination

I actually did some yard work today. We haven't had the money for the concrete blocks that I'm going to use for our raised beds and no one responded to my postings on craigslist for some, so I thought I would continue to prepare that area as well as others for future plantings. More than a month ago I covered the vegetable garden area with a tarp. I pulled it up today in order to use it in other areas of the yard that need smothering. I had some plastic edging that I put down around the vegetable garden and I laid newspapers and mulched the area with my neighbor's grass clippings. I definitely underestimated the amount of newspaper and mulch I would need (I always do that). I had enough to cover about half the area. I'm going to lay some black plastic over the remaining part to keep the weeds at bay for now.

(My friend Joan did something similar recently. She writes about it on the Oak Terrace Preserve blog.)

When I laid out the bed along the edge of our front yard, it was quite large - ambitious, maybe. I didn't plan to fill it immediately - instead, I figured I would plant areas of it as I got a feel for the landscaping, and as I got plants. The area farthest from the street has been the most neglected and recently I've decided that I want to make it an extension of the vegetable garden. When I removed the tarp from the back yard, I laid it over the area in the front yard where I plan to plant vegetables at a later date. Whenever I remove it, I'll use it to smother some areas in the back yard around the pond. I plan to give that area a makeover during the winter - at least that's the plan.

The desert garden in the front yard experienced an unusually busy time this week. I've been meaning to cut back our lantana. It had gotten very overgrown and it doesn't grow extremely upright, so it was beginning to take over the bed. I really just tried to reduce its width and make it somewhat symmetrical in the process. I think I did just that. (I should've taken before and after pictures!) It had completely engulfed one of my cactuses - Cereus Peruvianus Monstrosus (this not my plant-mine is only a foot tall) - after getting a good look at it again, I'm thinking I may dig it up and put it a pot somewhere instead. Speaking of cactuses, I came home from work the other day to find that my prickly pear had nearly fallen over. It had gotten overgrown during the summer since planting it. I knew I might have this trouble in the future and planned to take cuttings and plant more of it around the original plant, to make a wider and hopefully stronger base to support greater height. I didn't get around to doing this, thus the problem at hand. I got out there with my heavy work gloves and heavily pruned it back and mounded rocks and dirt around the base to stabilize the cactus. (Why don't I have photos of any of this? I need someone in my family to document these things - hint, hint.) It seems like I've lost a lot of plant material to pruning this week, but there's a bright spot - I found a yucca on the side of the road this week. It was just cut down out of a neighbor's yard - no roots - so there's a chance it won't survive, but I have confidence. Robin has been wanting some height in that bed. I expected something I planted - the cactus, lantana, or (what turned out to be dwarf) echinacea - to get tall, but nothing has. So I was glad to find this yucca that was probably six to seven feet tall. I didn't need anything that tall, but I figured I could plant it in a deep hole and cut it off if needed. I did all of that - using post-hole diggers, I dug as deep as I could, maybe two feet, and cut off maybe a foot and a half of the yucca and planted it. I'm happy with how it looks and hopefully it will live. I just remembered another plant acquisition in the past week. It's some kind of succulent - a groundcover that has nice yellow flowers. If you can see in the photo, I planted it in front of the birdbath. I'm not totally sure that it is hardy, but the person I got it from, his seems to last from year to year, possible dying back in the winter. I'll just have to wait and see.