POSTED BY KIM — Cabbage and kale are cool-season standards in St. Louis gardens and containers, and they’re also very popular with the *varmint population.*  In the photo above, you see two purple kale.  The one on the left has been a). chopped up by a weed-eater; b). torn apart by the hands of a bored 2-year-old, or c). nibbled by a rabbit.

I think we all know what happened here.

If you look closely, you can see the indentations in the pot where the rabbit put its feet.  Good eye, Michael!  Below is the “salad bar.”  The moral of this story: Plant your cabbage and kale up high, or get a very large, hungry dog. 

I’ve been a very good weeder the last couple of years.  I’m determined to eliminate all of the unwanted weeds from my backyard.  First it was the morning glory seedlings. They were everywhere.  I started the whole thing a few years ago.  In an attemt to hide a chain link fence, I planted Morning Glory Vine.  The flowers were lovely, but I didn’t know I was making a ten year commitment.  The seeds spread everywhere.  Year after year they show their distintive little heads, sneaking in from the other side of my new fence, winding in my tomato patch, popping up all over the place. Who brought this invasive weed into my yard?  I did.

Morning Glory seedling

 Next it was onions.  Onions, onions everywhere.  Popping up in the lawn and  the perennial beds. Where do these seeds come from I ask myself.  How do get into my yard in such quantity?  Could the culprit be the lovely chives I have growing in my herb garden.  Chives are in the allium family.  Allium = Onion.  Yikes, did I do it to my self again? Just to be safe, I’m not letting the chive flowers go to seed.  I will let them bloom, then wisk the flowers to the compost.

This spring I have a new nemisis.  A small low growing plant with a tiny blue flower has appeared.  It could be mistaken for a steppable.  If it wasn’t sprouting up in every nook and cranny in the yard, I might think it was kind of cute.

What is it?  How did it get into my yard?  Did it blow in from the neighbors? Did I overlook it last year, letting it seed all over the place. It almost looks like someone brought a bag full of seeds into my yard and spread them around.  They are especially abundant in the area near the bird feeder.  Bird feeder = seeds.  Did I do it to myself again?  Do bird seeds sprout into  weeds?      

I had fun trying to identify it.  Check out this website for advice:

 http://www.grounds-mag.com/mag/grounds_maintenance_identify_weeds/

Or go directly here for an interactive guide.  You tell it all the characteristics (size of leaf, color of flower etc) and the computer narrows it down for you. 

http://weedid.aces.uiuc.edu/

I still haven’t been able to ID this weed.  The closest I came was Creeping Charlie, but it isn’t an exact match. 

Can anyone help me out here?

Ooooh...This is what a trillium looks like in someone *else's* garden.

POSTED BY KIM — I love trillium.  I love that they’re one of the first flowers to appear in spring, then disappear in the heat of summer, only here to be enjoyed for a short time.  I love that they’re a woodland flower, a bright spot in an otherwise shady place.

I HATE that they won’t grow in my garden.

It must be the clay soil.  In many parts of my yard, I have raised beds where the soil has been heavily amended with compost.  In my shade garden, I simply killed the grass, made a bedline and threw down some mulch.  Now I’m paying the price.

A few years ago I found a good deal on some dormant trillium through a mail-order company, and probably planted two dozen plants.  The following spring, maybe six came up, but I was in denial.  I told myself the poor showing was because the plants were getting established — maybe they needed an extra year to get started.

No, they were simply dead.  I went out yesterday and found one single, solitary trillium.  Maybe I’ll stick some artificial flowers in the soil around it. 

The sole survivor. Maybe I should put barbed wire around it to protect it from the rabbits.

POSTED BY KIM — At the moment, I have the ugliest yard in the neighborhood.  I haven’t had a free moment to get

Before...

outside and start cleaning, but I made up for that at work today. 

The bed that’s on the east side of the gift shop was in sore need of a little TLC — I’m not sure we even managed to get mulch down last year.  So in between helping customers, doing a consultation, and researching plant availabilities, I managed to get the bed somewhat weeded and mulched — a big difference!  Here are the before and after pics.

Now I’m more anxious than ever to get outside in my own yard.  I always think I’m going to get my mulch down before all the plants are up, but sometimes I don’t finish mulching before July!  This looks like it will be another one of those years.  But at least I can feel productive at work. 

After. Ready for the hostas!

Me in my garden viewing rabbit damage.

POSTED BY KIM — I was going to take a picture of my blooming pussy willow for today’s blog, but it started raining, so forget that.

Instead, I’m going to talk about my two greatest gardening pet peeves: 1). rabbits, and 2). hoses that kink.

I have a fenced backyard. I have seen a full-grown rabbit miraculously transport itself through the links in my fence.  I guess that somehow they’re able to contort their bodies so they can smush through those little fence holes at a full run.  *And it makes me SO MAD.*

Rabbits can also climb fences.  We’ve had customers tell us that they’ve seen rabbits scale chicken wire that’s been placed around plants for protection.  I believe it.  Last spring we had a rabbit make a nest and GIVE BIRTH on one of our potting tables in our little quonset hut.  That table is 3 feet off the ground!

Here’s a million-dollar idea, and I’m going to give it away for free:  someone needs to develop a birth-control product for rabbits.  BANG — you’re a millionaire.

For anyone who’s interested, here’s a handout we put together on plants that rabbits and deer tend to avoid.

The other thing that really makes me crazy is my garden hose.  My dad is a retired engineer, andI I’ve suggested that he develop a hose that truly doesn’t kink — another million-dollar idea.  I would pay a lot of money for this mystical hose, but I don’t think it really exists (and believe me, I’ve tried many).  I also tend to drive over them with my car, which doesn’t help.

Here’s a funny picture I found on the Internet that sums up my garden hose experience.

POSTED BY KIM — The worst part of moving houseplants back indoors in the fall isn’t the mess, the danger of traveling pests, or the hassle of lifting heavy pots back and forth.  It’s the cat puke.

A gross combination, at least at my house

Oh, I love my cats, don’t get me wrong.  But they eat my plants.  And if it just ended there, I think I could live with it.  But they throw up regurgitated leaves all over the house.  It’s bad enough that I have to battle the rabbits outside, but battling my own cats??  I’ve even resorted to fencing off plants indoors.  Let me repeat that:  I’ve fenced off plants INSIDE my house.

<Sigh.>  My children sometimes have friends over to play, and as women sometimes do, I worry about the state of the house whenever parents drop off or pick up their kids.  But can you imagine this conversation?  “Okay Kim, we’ll pick up Zach in a couple of hours and – is that chicken wire in your living room??”

Nothing is poisonous — no poinsettas or chocolate bars or anything like that.  Just nausea-inducing.  Blek…

POSTED BY KIM — Summer is over and fall isn’t quite here yet, at least not in spirit, and I am really, really sick of my garden.  I think most people tend to view their own gardens with a more critical eye.  But I look outside and see perennials that need dividing, plants that should be moved, and flowers that need deadheading.  *Except* for this bed.

An oakleaf hydrangea is offset by golden Hakonechloa 'Aureola' grass and campanula..the only things that don't suck in my garden right now.

Granted, there’s not a lot of flower-power here, but the golden grass is really colorful, and the campanula have been blooming for many weeks now.

Even my mulch is tired!

Maybe I’ll revive with some cooler weather.  Along with my garden…