Renegade Planet
07-02-10 – WOW! A mere 30 days after instituting the new E-Mail Alert function on this website (thus thrusting its technology into the ‘90s), we’ve registered Renegade Gardeners from 25 states, eight USDA growing zones (two through nine), seven Canadian provinces and six foreign countries (Canada not being foreign in my book—unique, gorgeous, exotic, yes). To those who signed up for e-mail alerts from beyond the North American continent, may I say cheers, merci, grazie, tusen takk, g’day mate, and however one says “thanks” in Bulgarian.
If you sign up (see button bottom left), all we’ll do besides keep the list private is shoot you an e-mail when this site is updated (about every 30 days). November through April I publish new articles on the site each month. In summer, during my busy landscaping season, the updates are wimpy, like this one, where I dig through the archives of articles on the site and point you toward Suggested Readings, such as these:
Every Curb is a Shoreline
Mistakes to Learn By
Essential Gardening Tools
Except that now, with this being the first update where we’ve sent out the e-mail alert, my Norwegian guilt is kicking in, tusen takk, and even though I’m leaving early tomorrow morning for a long, long weekend in Northwestern Ontario, I feel as if I should write something original that might help you become better gardeners in some small way. So here’s a quickie:
Here are a few photos of a simple, quick job from a few weeks ago—the client had a small back yard (half, actually, the other half split by a fence for the dog) with a dying old blue spruce and a few elderly shrubs that were no longer interested in keeping up appearances. Yard butts up to neighbor’s back yard. They wanted a simple shrub backdrop along the rear fence, something that would do two things: mature to block the fence and soften the view of the neighboring yard, and serve as a backdrop to a perennial garden the clients wanted to handle themselves (here, here!). They had the tree removed, we yanked out the shrubs, such as they were, and weeded the entire area. I’ll let the pictures take over:
 |
| Tough to see in the photo, but the yard drops off, the lowest point being the fence line. I could plant it as is, but the new planting would be on a slight slope (think about watering) plus the soil wasn’t great, so you’ll note the concrete retaining wall block to the left and right. |
 |
| Don’t freak out. You know I’d never use concrete retaining block where a true gardener in his right mind would see it. We ran it inside the perimeter (and a few feet up the sides) with the textured side facing OUT. Let the neighbors enjoy it. We compacted the soil under the block with a hand tamper, but I didn’t sweat making the single coarse of concrete block exactly level—no need. |
 |
| Then we tilled in two yards of compost, graded it smooth, brought in four yards of blended garden soil, graded it smooth, and planted it. Voila—no more concrete block, its hidden duty now to raise the bed, allow us to easily amend the soil, level the area for watering, and make each new tree and shrub eight inches taller one second after planting. |
 |
| Left to Right: Arnold Sentinel Pine, Diabolo Ninebark, King’s Gold Chamaecyparis, Ivory Halo Dogwood, Dwarf Blue Spruce, Dart’s Gold Ninebark, yes, I know the botanical names, it’s late and I want to go to bed, I have a nine-hour drive. |
 |
| Left to Right: The same Dart’s Gold and Dwarf Blue Spruce, then a dwarf Burning Bush and a Yellow Ribbon Arborvitae. |
 |
| Here it is with the edging installed. The area from lawn to edging was seeded with lawn seed. The bare soil behind the edging to the mulch line will be the perennial garden. The deciduous shrubs will be taller than the fence by next year, and will widen to hide the fence entirely. |
This scene will mature into a nice tapestry of contrasting foliage colors and plant forms, with strong fall and winter interest. It’s a little shy on bloom (white, in late spring, from the Ninebarks) but remember, in summer it will have a colorful perennial garden in front of it. When that’s the case, I tend to cut back on the shrub bloom. Let it be a lovely second fiddle in summer, then in fall and winter, when the perennials are done with their run, it comes to the fore, particularly the evergreens in winter.
There’s a larger job detailed with pictures on this site where I use the same concrete block trick, you can access it by clicking here.
The Current Column will be update August 1, or so. To sign up for the Update E-Mail Alert, click here.
To link to this page, use this URL: http://www.renegadegardener.com/content/174_old_trick_again.htm