A Sunny Day in the Parking Lot Garden

A Sunny Day in the Parking Lot Garden

I took this photograph around 11 in the morning with the native plants backlit by the sun in the southeast. Lots of insects in the blossoms, crickets "cricketing" about me. 

This is a good example of interplanting: plants of varying heights supporting each other. And no mulch to be seen. the native plants have grown together, covering the mulch, forcing out the weeds.

From the Summer - Crickets in the Parking Lot Garden

This video was also shot on August 4 with my iPhone. 

You may have to turn up the volume to hear the crickets and general insect population. Everyone sounds happy in this video. 

From the Summer - Monarchs in the Parking Lot Garden

This video was taken on August 4 with my iPhone. 

Purple flowers are Meadow Blazing Star Liatris ligulistylis
Yellow flowers are False Sunflower Heliopsis helianthides scabra
White flowers are Pearly Everlasting Anaphalis margaritacea 

Seasonal Interest with Native Plants

Parking Lot Garden - 31 July 2017

Every month there is something new to see in the areas that we have planted at Riel House. Regarding the Road Garden and the Parking Lot Garden, our native plants endeavour to grow, flower, produce seeds and prepare themselves for winter. 

To keep you up to date, we have added a new tab called "Seasonal Interest" that shows the typical blossom times for our native plants. This information has been taken from the website of Prairie Originals who provided us with the plants for these two gardens. The inspiration for the document's format comes from Planting: A New Perspective by Piet Oudolf and Noel Kingsbury.

Our Parking Lot Garden looks similar to the gardens described in the book. Mr. Oudolf is the designer of New York's High Line, a public park built on an historic freight rail line elevated above Manhattan's West Side.

As well, we will endeavour to take monthly observations of our native plants. Since we are just starting, our first observation is for August 2017. We will also place our observations on the Seasonal Interest page. Please check on our site periodically for the best times to come and photograph our native plants and the birds and insects that are attracted to them.

The Parking Lot Garden is Buzzing

The Parking Lot Garden is absolutely humming with insects. Today, there were morning cloaks, monarchs and other butterflies along with dozens of little flies, beetles, etc. It's amazing how much our native plants have attracted insects. 

Here are a couple of videos that are stored in Google Photos. If you turn up your sound on both the video and your computer, you can hear the buzzing, humming and "cricketing". Once you click on the link, then please click on the video itself so that it plays with sound. Thanks.

Parking Lot Garden and Crickets 

             I am walking from near the Centre to the East side of the Parking Lot Garden. You can see what is planted in this area by going to our pdf Native Plants for Parking Lot Garden.

Parking Lot Garden and Monarchs 

             The Monarchs are attracted to the pink Dotted Blazing Star Liatris punctata. The yellow flowers on the left are Coneflower Ratibida columnifera. The white flowers at the end of the video are Pearly Everlasting Anaphalis margaritacea.

Medical Procedure: Adding More Native Plants to the Gardens

Holes in the Garden

Last year we planted native plants in both the Parking Lot Garden and the Road Garden. The plants have done very well, but a couple of things have become apparent. As you can see in the above picture, some areas were under planted, others suffered abuse from over weeding, rabbits and vehicles parking on them. Time to fill in the holes.

We purchased plugs of Prairie Dropseed, Heart Leafed Alexander, Dotted Blazing Star, Black-eyed Susan, Wild Bergamot, Blue Vervain and Meadow Blazing Star.

Below are plugs of Heart Leafed Alexander about to be inserted in the Road Garden. 

Plugs for the Road Garden

And I do mean inserted. 

Instead of ripping open the soil with a trowel and disturbing the fungus and bacteria that promote good soil structure and plant growth, the best way is just to slit open the earth (a hori hori knife works best), insert the plug. and push the mulch back around the opening. After you get the hang of this, planting proceeds quickly - we planted two hundred plugs in just under two hours.

I relate this process to an angioplasty - no need to rip open the patient's chest just to insert a 2 mm cardiac stent.

hori hori knife

Starting to Bloom

The Parking Lot Garden is just starting to bloom. Stay tuned.

Weeding the Parking Lot Garden

Just starting to remove the Curly Dock . . .

Now that we recognize the weeds growing between the native plants in the Parking Lot Garden, it's time to start weeding. I took on the task of removing the Curly Dock. 

Curly Dock

notice the roots

If you just pulled at Curly Dock in a newly planted bed such as the Parking Lot Garden, you could get an almost soccer-ball-sized clump of soil coming up with the plant. That could destroy whatever soil structure is beginning to form. Instead, while pulling on the plant with one hand, I used a garden fork in the other hand to loosen the grip of the roots. Once the roots were loose, then I used my Hori Hori knife to remove soil from between the roots as I gently pulled out the plant. Then I filled the hole back in and covered it with mulch. The wound to the soil is minimal. 

Tools of the trade

. . . half way done . . .

All done

All done with Curly Dock, that is. See Rogues Gallery for the other weeds we found.

End of Season 2015

Today we finished at Riel House by transferring the last of the mulch pile in the parking lot into the Parking Lot Garden.

At last! 21 October 2015

It has been a strenuous year. Perhaps we took on too much this year by planting a two thousand square foot Parking Lot Garden with native plants and creating thirty raised beds in the Produce Garden, each bed four feet wide and twenty-two feet long. But it's done, and everything looks great. 

To see what our thirty raised beds look like, here's the Produce Garden 2015 video.

Challenges with the Parking Lot Garden

Not only do we have challenges with the slope and drainage of the Parking Lot Garden, we have "awareness" issues - some drivers are just unaware of their surroundings. How can you go the wrong way in a parking lot and across the non-paved areas at the same time? 

We added a fourth barrier on the north side to slow down water flowing east to west.The first three barriers seem effective in reducing the speed of the water and the scouring of the mulch and soil from the north side of the bed. On the south side of the bed, you will see three "waves" of mulch created by the scouring action of the water. A curb around the entire bed may help to protect the mulch.

Summertime - and the gardening is easy

Day Lilies in Entrance Beds - 6 July 2015

Today was mulch and weed. Mulch the Parking Lot Garden.Weed the Kitchen Garden.   

There is a contest to see whether the mulch will lodge itself together with the native plants in the Parking Lot Garden or during the next rainstorm will it all wash towards the drains. Very little. if any, has been dislodged following last Saturday's and Sunday's rain. So far, so good.

Going . . . going . . .

Parks Canada is working to remove the gumbo that we excavated from the Parking Lot Garden. All the pile should be gone by the end of Friday.

The Parking Lot Garden is Planted!

Parking Lot Garden looking west

Finally. At last. At long last. The Parking Lot Garden is planted! The Parking Lot Garden is done!

Now we can get back to just normal gardening tasks. Weed, water, weed, water. Maybe weed and water.

Almost there for Canada Day

the West section is planted and West drain is completed

part of the East section is planted and East drain completed

planting the West section

The Dry Beds

We have installed landscape fabric and river rocks wherre rainwater flowed into the East section of the Parking Lot Garden. The idea is that water will flow between the rocks and then enter the East drain. We will complete a similar installation (although much smaller) at the West drain.

Parking Lot Garden

 https://goo.gl/photos/7JyQwPxeXh5NHTpz9

Determining how to share many photos in a blog

Landscaping company or . ?

This is the river rock destined to drain the East and West sections of the Parking Lot Garden into the drains. We "should" have this installed by the end of Thursday.

Beyond is the remaining soil that needs to be leveled in the East section.
Beyond are the two parking spots filled with gumbo excavated from the Parking Lot Garden.  Parks Canada needs to remove this.
Beyond is the rest of the mulch waiting for the East and West sections to be planted with native plants and grasses.

All of this really "should" be completed prior to Canada Day next Wednesday July 1. When I say "should", I don't mean "I think we can" but instead mean  "it is a really good idea".

Drainage

The picture above (facing east) shows the result of 1/3 of an inch of rain working on about 3 inches of  newly placed soil. The water comes from the left side of the road starting at the crest of the entrance to Riel House. Creating a dam to stop the water draining into this bed is not going to work.

. . . and a challenge . . .

Houston, we have a challenge. As  you can see, water of the left side of the driveway drains from the crest of the hill into the East section, then cuts across to get to the East drain. When we add soil to this area (probably Tuesday), we will mulch the east edge very thickly and see if that will be sufficient to slow the flow of water into the bed. In general, we will mulch all the sides of the Parking Lot Garden thickly.  If not, then it's onto Plan B.

Rain Delay

West Section of Parking Lot Garden

We certainly have identified where to plant the bog plants. Now we just have to wait until it drys out sufficiently to add more soil and actually plant them. We added another bag of rocks to each drain (West and East) to ensure that our soil will not be washed away.