Since I received my Master Gardener certification I frequently have friends asking for advice with their gardening and plant questions.  Recently my friend Laura decided to get serious and redo her backyard…so I offered to help “coach” her through planning and picking plants and arranging them in her yard.

We got together early this month to survey the backyard where she wanted to start.  After looking over the space it became clear that she really had to do some hard-scaping before we could put in plants.  An old fence would need to be replaced and a bunch of large “trash” trees cut down.  She also had to find a new location for her grave site collection of empty nursery containers.  We looked over her soil and it wasn’t good. Like most people in Dallas she was sitting on top of that thick black “gumbo” clay…she would have to amend the soil before putting in plants if she really wanted to do it right.

Carolyn helps dig a spot for Laura’s new plants.

After our meeting she and her best beau Gabriel got right on it and I was really impressed at how fast they got all the prep work done. Laura can really crack the whip! A crew came and cut down all the trashy and dead trees, Gabriel replaced the back fence, and Laura and friend Gini did some heavy lifting by moving all the concrete pavers into a stack out of the way. The yard debris was sorted and carted off. It was stripped down to the dirt and weeds, a nice clean slate, all in one week.

Gini gets a work out moving pavers.

Now it was time to pick plants. Like a lot of new gardeners Laura had dreams of Northern blooms in her head…lilacs, azaleas, and tulips…oh no…I had to stand firm and try to persuade her to make better choices for our climate.  I showed her some Texas hardy perennials in hopes that she would come to accept and love the zone 8 plants as much as the zone 3 flowers from her childhood memories.  This was not going to be easy… before I could accompany her to the nursery to pick plants she snuck off and bought a dwarf lilac!  DOH!

We went on a fun shopping spree to a couple of great nurseries in Dallas and she picked out some plants much better for our area.  In the end we had a lot of plants and they filled in nicely. They include, a Montmorency cherry tree, a Vitex that we will let grow into a small tree, a Chinese fringe flower bush, a couple of Indian Hawthorn bushes, a couple of Texas sage bushes, and some knock-out roses she already had growing in pots. We filled in with some smaller perennials including, a lipstick salvia, white candy tuft, evening primrose, lambs ear, some purple shamrock, silver mound, a sago palm and some butterfly weed.   For the shadier spots, some Hinkley columbine, some green leaf “coral bells”  Huchera, and Brian dug up and passed along one of his Redbud tree sprouts and a small fig tree,  ….oh yeah, and that Lilac bush Laura couldn’t resist buying!

Ken shows his bunny tiller skills.

So the big planting day came last weekend and a bunch of our good friends got together and helped Laura and Gabriel break ground for the new garden.  And we literally did break up the ground… Gabriel, Ken, Steven and Brian took turns on the tiller that had been rented for the day and attacked the hard clay soil. Laura had a huge truck load of compost and expanded shale delivered and dumped in the driveway, and wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow, it was all worked into the new garden beds with the tiller.  That black clay is hard to dig but those guys really showed off their manly man skills and knocked it out fast. I was extremely impressed with their energy and positive attitudes in getting it done.

Carolyn and Gini were also there to help move and arrange the old pavers that had once been a walkway into a new patio area where people can sit and relax in the middle of the new garden.

The new fence serves as a nice backdrop for the new plants.

Once the tilling was done and the pavers laid everyone pitched in to dig and set out the plants. It went super fast and the yard was literally transformed in a single day.  Now it was time for pizza and Laura’s famous homemade sangria!  YAY!

I think Laura is happy with the outcome even though she’ll have to wait for the plants to get bigger and fill out. She may have to replace some that won’t make it on this first round, but I think she has a strong start and there will be a lot more gardening in her future as she expands and adds new plants to other parts of the yard.  I had a great time orchestrating the activities and a little part of me feels like I got a new garden too!

UPDATE: Sign the Petition HERE.

An association of chemical companies that make fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides have got their hazardous panties in a wad and are on the defensive because Michelle Obama is promoting an organic garden on the lawn of the White House.  The Mid America CropLife Association (MACA) dashed off a letter of reprimand…

“Fresh foods grown conventionally are wholesome and flavorful yet more economical”

Grown conventionally?  More economical?  HUH?

Since when does “conventional” gardening imply that you have to conform to using synthetic chemicals and petroleum based products to have a traditional garden?   And since when is it more economical to have to purchase a bunch of chemical products to get a few tomatoes from your home plot?  Yes it has become all too common for people to use, and misuse, the chemical products these companies sell; but it’s far from being the mandated ideal in gardening and it certainly should not be the norm.

They seem to be concerned that their “contributions” will go unnoticed and unappreciated … and they’re worried that an organic garden on the White House lawn is going to give people the wrong idea about their massive multi-billion dollar business providing environmentally hazardous chemical products to mega agribusiness corporations so they can make profits off the colossal food industry.

Boo Fucking Hoo.