Thyme Management

Greetings!

I hope you all had a terrific holiday weekend. Memorial Day weekend is kind of a mixed bag. For some, it's very recreational, and for most it would seem -- signals the "unofficial beginning of Summer," as I keep hearing the newscasters say. And for others, it's very personal and somewhat introspective, I suppose. Ideally it's a time when we remember all who have served our country and respect what sacrifices they made for the citizens of our country. We should respect the freedoms they have fought for and have afforded us. Freedom has never been free. I know that's kind of a worn-out phrase now, but true none-the-less. I for one, am very grateful to all who have served our country. I am thankful for all my freedoms. Thank you!

So how did I spend my time over the holiday weekend? Well I didn't get enough done, but it will still be there next weekend too! This weekend I spent doing mostly some landscaping and gardening in my yard. It's been a multi-layered plan of attack . . . It just takes time! Lots more work to do, but I'm chipping away at it. A few more trips to Home Depot &/or Lowe's, should help. I have (and have had all along) a series of plans that I want to accomplish each year for the yard. Eventually it will be "done" the way I want it. But due to time and expense, it will take a couple more years. At some point this year, I'll make it over to "Plants of the Southwest" and choose a tree for my back yard. On Sunday, I did manage to relax a bit. I was back at landscaping on Monday. So nice to have that extra day off. More time please!! I came to the conclusion that ALL weekends should be 3 days . . . and holiday weekends should be at least 4 days! haha Let's vote on that, shall we?

When I bought my house in December of 2003, the backyard was very desolate. I saw it as the proverbial "blank slate" on which to paint my gardening & landscaping aspirations! It didn't appear that there was anything alive in the yard. There was one small tree (or large bush) that was in question. I had to give that some time and wait until Spring 2004 to ascertain it's condition and variety. Oh . . . yeah, there were two pyracantha bushes in each back corner. Wouldn't you know -- THOSE had to be alive and well! I intensely dislike pyracantha bushes -- it comes from a bad childhood experience. But they are banned from all my yards. So my Dad & I wasted no time and took those out right away, in January 2004!! Other than that, my back yard appeared to have no other life. It was all rock . . . that gray, medium-size stuff, and the questionable tree/bush in an oval-shaped, brick-outlined, sandy-dirt area. Since the property had been abandoned for about a year and a half before I ever bought it, there were a lot of dead weeds to deal with.

Come Spring of 2004, I was mostly done with the house interior cleaning and painting. But I still had a lot of work to do -- in the yard. Such is life buying a HUD repo, but Oh-so worth it! Then, I discovered the questionable tree/bush was indeed very alive and it was a Desert Paradise tree. Seen here, is the little tree in it's first bloom as my tree. At the time of this photo, I had also just planted my little butterfly bush (only about 8" high) opposite end of the brick bed, and some garlic chives and some Greek Oregano in that same bed. Also here, a close-up photo of the tree's blooms, complete with a cooperative bee.
I also discovered a wonderful little surprise rose bush (in the back there, very small, near the fence) that struggled through and made it. It has yellow roses. So that was it for life in my backyard initially. Then I set to work on it. I started with what I could initially afford that first year and began planting various herbs (thyme, rosemary, oregano, basil, feverfew, sage, curly parsley, garlic chives, bee balm, yarrow, chamomile, & tarragon) and flowers along the back edge and the sides . . . making flower beds as I went. But the edging had to wait. That's when I planted the little butterfly bush that I had been nurturing in a pot for a year. It was in a 8 inch pot and only about 8 to 10 inches high at that time. It is now almost 7 feet tall!

My second Spring there (2005), I started working to build two raised, brick flower beds. One in each back corner, both of them three-tiered, quarter circle. I had never tackled anything quite like that before. Except for hauling the castle-bricks from the store to my back yard, I did all of it myself. My trusty friend Carol helped me haul the bricks for that project. Then I was on my own. I smashed one of my index fingers in the process. OUCH! That will never look right again! Since it was my first attempt at building a raised brick flowerbed, I would do a few things differently now. I have since learned a lot, but all-in-all, the flowerbeds turned out fairly nice. I also began edging the side flowerbeds with matching castle bricks. A pointer for any aspiring landscapers out there: Don't wait until next year to finish getting "the rest of the materials" for the project you began this year. I did that with the castle bricks and now two of the colors I was working with I can no longer find. Oh well! Punt! That year, I also ordered three Fairy Rose bushes from a catalog. Of course when they arrived, they were not much more than sticks with a little bit of root system. But they were guaranteed so I had nothing to loose. I planted those next to the wood fence on the south side of my yard. Now, each of them is about 3 or 4 feet around! Amazing what a little time will do!

Once I finished my nice, pretty, brick, raised flowerbeds that I was SO proud of . . . Well, then wallboy entered the picture. A new next door neighbor arbitrarily decided to cram an ugly, 6-foot, cinder block wall (down my throat) into the picture. It replaced the old 5-foot, wood fence. Sure, it had needed a little bit of maintenance work, but the wood fence had character, it breathed better, it didn't radiate heat, it was more colorful, and just looked better. Oh . . . and I could see my beloved Sandia Mountains and the city over that fence. But the new, ugly wall has since blocked that view, and has added about 10 degrees of reflected heat to my yard in the Spring, Summer and Autumn. The installation of his almighty, holy wall left a mess in my yard, his workers trampled two of my newly planted bushes, and left part of one of my raised flowerbeds damaged on one side. It also left my back fence unattached, flopping, and leaning -- for the wind to tear down. I had to set about repairing all the damage and mess that he allowed his workers to leave behind. I had just been injured in a car accident the week prior, so I couldn't do it myself at that point. I had to recruit a wonderful friend of mine to help. And my Dad & one of his friends fixed my flopping fence. But that raised flowerbed has never been quite right or quite the same since. :-( So all that set me back a little on what I wanted to accomplish on the yard that year. That's all I'll say here about wallboy. I have a collection of photos and a story about that experience on my Flickr page, if you're so inclined to peruse it. Be my guest. It's mostly just a "vent" story. You know -- everyone has one of those neighbors at least one time in their life. It's aggravating, but . . . Oh well. Eventually, in time, one of us will move to another house.

Last Summer, I began my irrigation project. But I ran into trouble when the person who was helping me with that couldn't finish the project right then. We got as far as trenching, laying in the pvc piping, designating where the risers would go & getting those put in, and then filling in the trenches. Connecting the pvc piping to the works - and connecting that to the water source and timer . . . that remains to be done. There was a time when I wasn't sure if he could ever help me finish it, or if I would have to hire someone to finish it. For a time, I got all depressed about that. It set back my progress too. Turns out if he is able to help me finish it, it will have to be sporadicly, or he will refer me to someone who can finish it for me. So in the meantime. . . here we are a year later trying to tie up those loose ends! So I'm still getting out there with the hose-sprayer every evening. I suppose it's "quality time" spent with my garden?

Right now, my yard is kinda ugly as it moves through it's transition phase. No photos of that yet. Check in soon, I'll post some. But for the moment, the irrigation phase is not yet complete. There is pvc piping sticking up in weird places, and while the trenches where the pvc pipes were run have been filled in, you can still see where those trenches were. I have not yet rehabilitated the ground along those lines. I keep thinking, "What if I need to dig that up again to troubleshoot a pipe issue? I don't want to have put a bunch of time & work into it and then wreck it." So this year, I'm getting my flowerbeds back in order. I'm finishing the castle-brick edging of the side and back flowerbeds, that I began last year (or was it the year before?). And oh My, how that Honeysuckle bush has grown since last year!!! This year I'm having to put up some lattice to train the Honeysuckle to, so I'll be putting it up on that whole fence. The plan is to also put lattice up on the ugly cinder-block wall, on the other side of my yard. I'm hoping that will cut the reflective heat and replace some pleasant character to the yard. It will also give a place for future vines to grow. . . hopefully beginning this Summer!
I've planted one small tree -- a Mimosa tree that will eventually grow to be medium-sized. I have marked and designated another spot for another tree, and I'm moving around lots of rock. I'm redistributing almost ALL of the gray rock in the entire backyard. Eventually it will be mounded-up as the banks of a rock river running through the yard -- that I've had kind of outlined with an old gray edging. Talk about back-breaking! Moving those rocks? Eeeks! I have to take a lot of breaks!! This will make the space for what will eventually be a "meadow area" on the back-side of the yard. Like I said, there is still lots of work to do, but I'm chipping away at it. I'm not sure what I'll have time to complete by the end of this Summer, but we shall see.

Before wallboy and before beginning the irrigation phase, I thought my yard was kinda pretty. Definitely much prettier than Before I started! I guess it's in that "awkward stage" right now. But eventually, I'll have the peace restored to the yard.
Redoing the deck? hahaha THAT will be another project for . . . another year. Maybe even railing and a patio cover to go with it. One thing at a time. Sometimes I get antsy to get it all done. All good things in time! There's that word again! Oh well . . . That should be no problem, now that I'm growing thyme! So far, I have "Mother of Thyme," "Creeping Thyme," and "Lemon Thyme." I suppose it's all about Thyme management!!

~Paulena
(BTW -- All of these images are my photos and they are copyrighted. I hope you enjoyed them.)