The grass is always greener, part II

It appears that my worries about putting the grass seed out too early were unfounded. What a delight to see thin little green leaves of grass growing in my neighbor Jim's yard this week. The birds didn't eat all the seed that was uncovered, and he cold didn't keep the grass from sprouting. This is the joy of gardening and growing grass -- seeing those brave little shoots asserting themselves.

I hate to admit it, but what's been really helpful for the grass is all the rain we've had over the past few weeks. I've hated this gray wet weather pattern. One nice day, followed by three gray, rainy days. Repeat. But what I've kept thinking during the rain is -- I don't have to water the grass seed.

I heard an interview on NPR the other day with the author of a new book on water. The author talked about how all the water that exists in the world today is all the water that has ever existed in the world. There's a constant recycling of water. He remarked that some of the water we drink today was dinosaur pee at one point. That's a really fascinating idea (not to mention a pretty interesting mental image). So maybe it was the dinosaur pee that made the grass grow in Jim's yard. Whatever it was, I'm happy to see that it's off to a good start. We'll see if the rain keeps falling or if I have to start watering.

If you're interested in the book on water, it's called The Big Thirst by Charles Fishman. Here's a link to the NPR interview.

Getting ahead, but not too far ahead

In an earlier post, I wrote about how I wanted to get a jump start on growing grass in my neighbor's yard this year. Well, I'm happy to report that I did get out there and get the seed in his yard. A couple of Sundays ago, I went to Lowe's, bought the starter soil and the straw mat, and then got to work. It's not a big space, so it wasn't a really onerous job, but it does take some muscle. I had to rake up the leaves, then take the aerator tool and go over the area, then put the dirt down, and then spread the seed. After that, it was the frustrating job of rolling out the straw mat. It's easy at first, but the end of the roll somehow rolls over itself and you have to separate it. Grrr! This was a pain.

Luckily, we had some friends visiting from out of town, and they gave me encouragement along the way (although nobody offered to help!). The photo above shows what the yard looks like now.

So, I've tried to be ahead of the game this year. My only worry now is that it's been so cold this week. I hope I didn't get too far ahead of Mother Nature.

Bright spots appear in the downtown DC landscape

Last week, the streets of downtown DC perked up with splashes of springtime color. Landscape crews planted flowers in the tree boxes that line the sidewalks. I broke into a smile when I saw the workers unloading the flats of pansies below my office window. Soon, there were rows of purple and yellow planted around the tree there. Another sure sign of spring!

I love these small flower gardens that appear every spring. Washington is a beautiful city in so many ways. The scale of the buildings is more human that the towers of New York. The national mall and Rock Creek Park provide open green areas that allow an escape from concrete and brick. And there are flowers and trees woven into the landscape. The tree boxes in the Penn Quarter area where I work provide a little backyard-style treat for pedestrians (and those people looking out their office windows!).

So here's to DC and here's to spring. You don't have to go see the cherry blossoms at the tidal basin to celebrate the season -- spring is everywhere you look.

The grass is always greener.....

I hereby resolve to grow grass in my neighbor's yard this year. I gave up on growing grass in my front yard about four years ago. The soil is horrible. There's about a two inch layer of of topsoil and under that is a massive brick of red Maryland clay that makes it nearly impossible to grow anything. Plus, my yard is under several large oak trees that keep it mostly shaded. Growing grass was an exercise in futilty, so I finally put weedcloth over everything and piled mulch on top. Then I started planting things that I like - from azealas to hosta to a lilac bush.

It's different in my neighbor's yard. As you know from a previous post, I take care of my neighbor Jim's yard. He, too, has lots of shade in his yard, but the sun seems to stream through enough to make growing grass a viable option. Last year, I put down some good soil on top of his crappy soil, and then I put on grass seed and a mat of that straw-like material that you roll out. We kept it well watered, and grass actually grew! I was surprised and pleased. Then, at the end of the summer when I was sick of looking at what was left of the straw mat, I pulled it off the grass. Big mistake. It had been keeping the new grass moist and happy. And when it was gone, the grass got dry and unhappy and died. Sigh.

So this year, I'm going to put out the grass seed early and leave the straw in place until it disintegrates. Then I'm hoping the grass will be greener on Jim's side of the yard.

Smiling through the end of winter

Look! There it is! It's what I've been waiting for all these months. It's not a photo from flickr, it's one from my very own front yard. Those bulbs I put into the ground last fall or last year are sending shoots up through the semi-frozen ground in an annual display of chutzpah that justifies the time spent on my hands and knees digging in dirt. Those tender green harbingers of spring accomplish so much just by making an appearance. They make me smile.

I might be still wearing my winter coat and wrapping my neck in a scarf, but those budding daffodils and crocuses let me know that warmer weather isn't so far off anymore. It's time to rake those leaves up and clear the way for splashes of yellow and purple, folllowed by tulips of all hues and denominations.

I know we'll soon be sweating our way through torrents of beating sun. We'll go through the outbreak of yellow-green pollen that blankets the earth like snow. Thunderstorms will rattle the windows and knock out the power. And we'll complain about all that. But right now, I'm content to think about that one perfect spring day when blue sky meets green leaves and sunshine spills all over me. I'm drunk on the promise of spring, thanks to a few flowers making their way toward bloom.

Building a wall

The truth is, I have appropriated my neighbor's yard.

My next door neighbor Jim and I made a deal six years ago when I moved into our house here in Greenbelt. For the priviledge of storing my mower and gardening tools in his shed, I would take care of his yard. For Jim, this was a no brainer. He doesn't know an azeala from a daffodil and has absolutely no desire to ever pick up a rake or put a shovel in the ground. For me, I get more work, but I also get more room to play.

Let's consider the "more work" part of that equation. I haven't planted much in Jim's yard (it is HIS yard after all) but I mow, rake, trim, sweep and generally keep it neat and pretty. The biggest project came last spring. I had never cut back the red tips in front of Jim's house. Frankly, they were so big -- up to the roofline -- that I didn't want to tackle them and to have to clean up all the dead leaves and mess underneath them.
Then came three feet of snow last February, and the red tips were bent to the ground. When the warmer weather came, I had to do something. So one Sunday afternoon, I borrowed a bow saw from a neighbor and started cutting them down to size.

Once I was done with the red tips, I realized that the scraggly-looking cedar bushes needed to go, too. And then I needed to rake all those old leaves up. When I was all finished, it looked like a disaster area! No more towering red tips, just red tip stumps and a newly exposed heat pump on a barren bed of dirt.

For days I kept looking at this stark scene in front of Jim's house, wondering if my actions had been a bit too drastic. I knew that the red tips would come back and make great-looking hedge bushes along the front of the house, but we'd have to suffer through an ugly period of regneration first. That's when I got the idea for the border wall. I decided to make a bed around the red tip area because I knew that someday it would be the focal point of Jim's yard. I wanted to build a little wall that would signify that this area was going to be special, even though at that moment it was decidedly not.

Building a wall, even a low simple wall, requires more lifting and carrying of stone than you think. (It also requires more stone than you think, which means yet another trip to Lowe's.) As with my gardening, I am an amateur when it comes to building walls. I do it by sight, not with chalk lines or strings that have been measured to be level. Just a stepping back and sizing up with head tilted and murmurings to myself to lower that stone or put more dirt under that one.

In the end, it didn't look like much. A few rows of stone surrounding some red tip stumps and a heat pump. But I felt better for having put something new in place of the old, and the gardener in me -- that part that has faith that the bulbs I plant in the cold of November will bloom in the sun of spring -- could imagine what it all would look like when the leaves have come out on the red tips and a layer of mulch is covering the dirt.

Almost a year later, my vision is starting to become reality. So yes, Jim got a good deal on getting his yard cared for, but I think I got the better bargain.

Growing ideas

The reason for creating this blog is to get my juices flowing so that I can come up with a brilliant concept and business plan for a new online venture. By following my passion for gardening, I should be able to find some inspiration for this project. Well, so far, I haven't had any flash of enlightenment. I can't even say that I'm "growing" any ideas, and I'm certainly not "harvesting" any either.

What I have been doing is mulling over the thought of connecting gardeners in the same neighborhood. What if we could make group buys of bulbs or plants? What if we could have a tool exchange? (I don't own a tiller, but I might want to borrow one from someone down the street instead of renting one from Lowe's.) If I took a picture of a plant or a tree that I like, could someone identify what it was and tell me where to get it? These don't seem like ideas that are the beginnings of a new business. I haven't struck on anything that's a need or niche to be filled.

The only need I'm feeling right now is for warmer weather to arrive so I can start mucking around in my yard.  I'm itching to rake the leaves and clean up the acorns and start making it look neat again. I want to be able to see when the first green shoots of the crocuses and daffodils begin to emerge. I find myself searching for those first signs of spring. Could that be a bud on the forsythia bush?

Perhaps some dirt under my nails would provide some inspiration that sitting in front of the computer doesn't seem to spark.

BTW, I'm on Blogger and not Tumblr now. I found Tumblr too confusing, and I couldn't figure out how to allow for comments. The downside -- the name Dirt Under My Nails was already taken on Blogger.