Bluegate blog

It has been very hot here in the PNW for the past few days. We just aren't used to this kind of thing and begin whining when we don't get rain daily. Well, that's a wee bit of an exaggeration. This has just been an unusual season. Spring was unusually warm and dry and then it just jumped right into full blown summer. We can expect a week or so in late July to reach upper 80s and to be dry but we have already done that and then some a few times already and it is only the 4th.


I have been watering my little gravel beds with dedicated consistency and they are doing just fine. Since there isn't any water table at all beneath them they have a hard time staying moist in this kind of heat. The beds in the back have a very good water table and I have not had to water them once this season! I am hopeful that one day after years of adding soil to the front beds that they will develop something of a moisture trap. I can hope can't I? Until then I have decided the hose actually does belong in the driveway and not neatly coiled up somewhere. I have started thinking of ways to decorate it so that it becomes a piece of garden art. Like some sort of colorful interactive garden snake. The design department is currently working on some ideas.

The other day I added a new impossible bed. Plant pocket is more accurate. Since everything is bedrock I have to find all kinds of ways to create water table substitutes. This is onto of the big rock that I am turning into a second waterfall. I lined the area with black plastic and built up with rock to form walls. Then filled it with a layer of driveway gravel from the trench project. I used some scavenged dirt from the hill side and a good helping of a very rich dirt mix I made a couple weeks ago. The made dirt was a mix of peat moss, homegrown compost, manure, bagged compost, chopped organic matter and some clay like fill dirt for binder.

I have planted it with a variegated Ivy, various trailing sedum, Candy tuft and Alyssum. Right now I think it looks to "round" but then again the rock is bowl shaped there. What can you do? I am thinking that as the plants fill in the roundness of it will diminish and it will look more naturally blended in. I still have to figure out what to do with the foam sealant at the bottom where the rock and liner meet up. Another day, another project.

I hope to make some time tomorrow to post updates on the gravel trench bed. I'll probably do that when I slink inside to avoid the heat of the day. I am such a wuss.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Fourth of July. This is a great country we live in!