Garden project 4: Flower garden

This project unlike the first three is in the front yard. We have 5 large garden beds and whilst most are planted with evergreen shrubs there are quite a few 'holes'. One of the beds (left) was a blank canvas except for the large ornamental pear tree in the middle.

You'll have to wait for late summer for some better photos as there isn't much to see yet (though there is nice promising growth especially with the ice plants at the front flowering) We do have a red hot poker that has grown in another bed and it is gradually changing from green to orange to red.



Here is the planting list:

• black eyed susans


• pink coneflowers


• green rudbeckias


• ice plants


• butterfly bushes


• red hot pokers


• purple liatris


• diamond grass

Product of the week - Iron Chef General Tso's sauce

We saw this Iron Chef product at Costco the other week and had to blog it (though we did not purchase it). Here is the blurb from the website, and by the way if you haven't watched the original Iron Chef series you should!

Welcome to the home of Iron Chef Food. We are the exclusive licensees for all food and beverages for the Iron Chef, we are licensed by FujiTV in Japan and work closely with them to maintain the integrity of the Iron Chef name in our products and flavorings. Our Iron Chef products include an extensive line of sauces, a line of gourmet soup mixes, our line of exotic rice crisps and our new line of flavored Panko (Japanese bread crumbs). Four years ago, we realized that there was no brand that was offering authentic Asian sauces that was appealing to the American palate. There were a few sauces with Asian names, but these sauces used artificial flavor enhances and preservatives, or were sticky-thick sauces, that still needed to be refined by the customer. Iron Chef Foods developed a line that combined the authentic ingredients (like real brewed soy sauce) to create authentic Asian sauces that were exciting and credible to the American palate. At the same time it was important to us that all our flavors remain faithful to the original sauces that bear their names. In the words of the Iron Chef Chairman, "Allez Cusine! Let your cuisine reign supreme!”

Rose garden

Continuing the garden theme of last week here is an update on our roses. Our now famous yellow rosebush has yielded 67 roses in just five weeks. We moved into this house in June so we missed this initial crop last year. However the bush blooms until September so we are looking forward to many more sweet smelling flowers. I have given these roses to lots of people and each time people are amazed at their wonderful scent. They also look so perfect that people think they aren't real until they smell them (or a bug flies out).

We also have a couple of other rosebushes including the white ones on the trellises (the technical botanical name), the red one and the pink one (transplanted from the back and doing extremely well). Our dianthus plants bloomed (and died) over the past month with pink and purple flowers which made our garden smell very sweet.

Garden project 3: Shady garden

We have a shady garden along the side of the house where the airconditioning unit is located. Nothing much grew there and we pulled out about 25 roofing tiles that had been dumped and were rotting. In their place we have planted five red 'cardinal' hydrangeas and four 'loyalist' hostas.

I didn't think any of them had grown much until I looked at this original planting photo and compared them to the photo from today. The hydrangeas look great with many more leaves and have flower heads that are beginning to form. The hostas have sprouted their glossy varigated leaves and are beginning to take the form of a plant (having been planted as bare rooted bulbs) This garden is looking surprisingly good for an area receiving no sunlight.

Grandad, we got the Hawthorn DVD!

Garden project 2: Herb garden

Our herb garden is very unique. Not only did we design it ourselves but we completed the project from start to finish in 7 days! This is unusual as our projects usually drag on for a long time but Andrew was so motivated he worked on the pavers until 10pm one night. It is fairly large with a 14 foot diameter.

After discovering this lovely bird bath at Stone Garden whilst looking at pizza oven stones I immediately imagined a circular herb garden. One week later I am picking fresh herbs to saute veal in olive oil with crispy sage leaves. The herb garden includes sage, rosemary, coriander (cilantro), parsley, oregano, basil, mint (some regular mint, some chocolate mint), and thyme. Now you know why I was posting earlier about translating herb names into Amlish!

Project construction

25 April - Marked out the circular garden bed

27 April - Dug out the grass and bought the bird bath

29 April - Filled bed with cow manure and soil

30 April - Bought herbs at Pender Pines

2 May - Bought pavers at Adams products, laid pavers

3 May - Planted herbs and a single circle of red dahlias

Someone remarked at Lucy's party that it looks like a pizza which is very ironic as the primary purpose of the herbs is to make great pizza! Photo 1: you can see the orange flags marking out the circle, Photo 2: cow manure and soil in situ, Photo 3: completed herb garden (without mulch)

Garden project 1: White cedar border

We have a very tall 6 foot fence across our backyard. It is not pretty but we are very thankful for the fence given the 'beach' backyard behind us. (Not many houses in Wilmington have fences so most backyards are conjoined and it is not unusual to come face to face with neighbours eating their dinner) So to hide the fence we decided to plant a row of white cedars. We decided on white cedars as 1. they are evergreen, 2. they grow fast to make a great screen and 3. they don't mind boggy soil. Our neighbour Jim told us that they are native to the area so they should do fine. So my lovely husband dug 28 holes during March in anticipation of our trees arriving in April. He then planted them all after clearing out much bamboo and other mess. The trees arrived in large boxes via UPS from MI and so far they seem to be doing well. We are looking forward to a lovely green screen.