Winter Additions

I don't usually do much in the garden during the winter months, but this year is a bit different.

As part of the garden shed redo project, I wanted to install a gutter and rain chain. Unfortunately, I had to wait several months before the gutter install contractor could schedule my project into his docket. The gutter was a narrow gauge cream colored gutter with a leaf guard. Honestly, the shed doesn't need a gutter, but without one, I could not hang a rain chain.

The chain I purchased was an 8.5 ft. copper plated lotus cupped chain that I found on Amazon for approximately $40. Each cup is only 4 x 2.5 inches, much smaller that the cups on the rain chain I installed last year on the back porch. 

 

Given the size of the shed, I felt a smaller cup size would look more proportional. I also really like the petal shape.

I won't keep the chain hung in the winter, only spring through fall. Taking it down may help it last longer by limiting its exposure to extreme cold, snow, and ice. In the spring, I will still need to adjust the drainage bucket and underlying gravel. I will then landscape the surface around the terminus with stones and crushed granite to make it appear more natural.

In addition, I purchased a small lantern I found on Etsy to hang on the opposite end of the shed from the rain chain. 

I chose the small sized lantern at $95.00. It was the perfect size for the location along the shed overhang. It even came with a battery-powered tea candle within. 

This lantern is wood, and very delicate, so I plan to keep it out only spring through fall. It does have some water proof/UV protection, but hanging outside as I plan to do will probably require an additional coat of clear varnish to help it weather the elements. 

It looks great, appropriately sized for the location, and relatively affordable when compared with authentic metal lanterns from Japan that can cost 4 or 5 times more.

The outside renovations for the shed are now complete. In the spring I will begin the interior renovations. Sorry, no teahouse, just a simple tool shed for the garden.

Thanksgiving Snow

Today is Thanksgiving Day and Mother-Nature has seen fit to bless us with a large accumulation of snow.

As a result, Songni Yuan has taken on the appearance of a winter wonderland. All though it continued to snow after these images were taken, these pictures reflect the early powdering of snow that enhances the garden before the larger accumulation buries all of the details.

Enjoy:

The Leaf Don't Fall Far From the Tree

I've never posted about fall cleanup before. Usually I would emphasize the beauty of fall colors. However, As the garden has matured I have discovered some simple steps for fall garden cleanup. Very simply, don't rake!

If I wait long enough, and beat the first snow fall, I have discovered that the leaves, which fall in abundance throughout the neighborhood, eventually blow into a few zones. Once they bunch up, cleanup is much easier.

In the Zen garden, most of the leaves will end up in the rock bed. 

I also use a blower to push them from the walkway into the bed. Once there, I lift them onto a large tarp and carry them out in a couple of large loads. However, to really clean it, I need a vacuum, hence I use a blower that is also a vacuum. I use  a TRIVAC 12-Amp Electric 3-IN-1 Blower / Mulcher / Yard Vacuum. 

This allows me to extract most of the leaf material from the rock bed, which can't be raked. The blower/vac also mulches, which is useful for disposal or use as garden composting. Without this vac, completing the cleanup of the Zen garden bed would be very difficult and time consuming.

It should be noted that I still have to crawl through the bed on my hands and knees and pull any remaining stubborn remnants which get stuck in the rocks. I usually have to repeat this step in the spring as well. I actually don't mind this step - I find it relaxing, like a moment of zen-like meditation.

Another accumulation zone is the rock/gravel filled mini-zen garden. Again the blower/vac helps a great deal.

The Dragon's Spine bed also becomes an accumulation zone.

The middle gate is typically shut during this time of year. As a result, minimal amount of leaves blow into the walkway between the house and garage. 

When they do, they end up along the edges of the building.

The Viewing and Stroll Gardens are a different story. Here is where an enormous amount of leaf material accumulates. The Stroll Garden gate area is especially prone to leaf accumulation. Its like a vortex where seemingly every leaf in he neighborhood ultimately resides. 

It helps to wait until late in the season and then move the majority of the leaves onto a large tarp for transport to the back woods. A final cleanup finishes up with the blower/vac and then hand collection, especially within the bamboo. Again, this has to be repeated in the spring.

Although leaf collection is not a inspiring garden process, it is part of the maintenance of the garden. Before one considers building a garden, especially a large one, a person must consider all of the effort that goes into keeping it looking nice. The garden always looks great in the spring and summer, but remember, that beauty is the result of good planning, time management, and hard work. 

Last Minute Landscape

Well into fall, I already completed garden cleanup and cutting back. Nevertheless, I still had a large number of bucketed plants that I need to get into the ground before winter sets in.

This season was a bit unusual with warm weather right through October. As a result, many plants refused to pass-on, even after a couple of cold spells and frosts. Regardless, I cut back and proceeded to look for locations for the remaining bucketed plants. Some will over-winter in the vegetable garden bed for retrieval in the spring. Others I wanted in the ground.

Conveniently, I needed to re-landscape the area adjacent to and around the newly face-lifted garden shed. Time was my only concern since fall was coming to a close.

First, I started with the front of the shed. I oped to replant a Threadleaf Coriopsis I had under the window earlier in the summer. On either side I planted Deutschland False Spirea (Astilbe x arendsii 'Deutschland') to help balance off the view.

I then added a small leftover Coral Bell (Heuchera 'Amethyst Myst') to fill in the awkward curving corner along the brick entry way.

I also had to install a drainage bucket at the corner of the shed to accommodate the rain chain I am installing on the shed.

I then planted a Bronze Wave Coral Bell (Heuchera villosa 'Bronze Wave') just behind the drainage bucket. I may need to make some adjustments to this corner after the rain chain is installed.

To fill in the side along the shed I opted to transplant a small Green Velvet Boxwood (Buxus 'Green Velvet') from the Dragon's Spine. Its a slow grower, originally planted in 2017 and still small, so it will be many years before it becomes too large for this small bed. I centered it with the right-side panel of the shed.

After digging and planting these plants, I had a significant amount of dirt in the wheelbarrow. I was not sure how to deal with the very narrow bed along the curve of the grass and the pea stone walkway. I considered hardscape element like a large narrow stone, but was unable to locate any stone that I felt would fit in the narrow gap and also look nice as well.

Instead, I opted to use the extra dirt to raise a small berm along this narrow corner and extend it in a sloping manner towards the drainage bucket and the newly installed boxwood. I then took a small boxwood that had been growing in a bucket and installed it near the top of the berm edge, close to the other boxwood. Again, these are slow growing, so no fear they will interfere with each other for a few years.

The berm remains covered with mulch, but the mulch will not do well in this location. My plan is to wait until the spring and remove some of the mulch and plant something like a Red Rock Stonecrop Sedum along that corner/edge. It should help keep the little berm intact and add some color interest to this narrow corner.

Near the edge of the slope, and the larger boxwood, I planted a bucketed Coral Bell (Heuchera villosa 'Carmel) I had left over from the summer.

I also had a small cutting of a Japanese Forest Grass (Hakonechloa macra 'Beni-kaze) that had been sitting in a bucket. So, I opted to place it near the small boxwood. It will do better in the ground than in a bucket. In time, if it thrives, I will have to move it.

Finally, I had a very small Azalea (unknown) that had sat in a bucket all summer that I decided to place near the the rain chain drainage bucket and larger boxwood.

My only concern is that all of these plants look small. If they survive this late transplant and the winter, it will take time for them to mature and fill in this bed. Also, if they thrive I might have to reconsider the placement over a longer period of time as the continue to grow.

I still need some sort of small shrub just below the faux round window (maramado) centered on this back side panel. A grass plant already exists in the far corner next to the gate, but it has already been cut back for the winter.

In the meantime, the bed looks better, but with winter just around the corner, I will have to wait until spring to see how it all turns out.

The Colors of Autumn Descend

Anther year is passing, and autumn once again brings great color to Songni Yuan. This year is a bit different than past years due to the fact that many plants have declined to pass along. Perhaps a result of climate change, but usually I have cut back most plants by now. Nevertheless, even during seasonable decline, the beauty of the garden continues to fill my heart with joy.

The Shed Reborn

The garden shed, which has always been part of my wife's vegetable garden, was on the property when we purchased the house back in 1999. It was moved to its current location around 2007 and a new roof and sofits installed around 2016. Throughout all this time it had only been painted once, so it was clear that it was in need of some repairs.

The major need was the foot of the walls. The thin wallboard had deteriorated in places due to rot and small critters chewing their way in. The first repair consisted of cutting 8 inches of rot off the bottom on all sides and installing PVC replacements and a Z channel. I also recognized the need to seal up cracks and repaint.

Initially, those were my only plans. However, as I began to work, I realized that I had an opportunity to transform this old shed so that it fit in better with the Japanese garden esthetic elsewhere on the property. 

Searching the internet for ideas, I came across the following image:

Beautiful and inspiring, the image provided me with some ideas. Wanting to keep costs to a minimum, I opted to make subtle changes to my shed rather than a complete redo - a traditional Japanese shed/teahouse with cedar posts and plastered walls was not financially possible. Instead, I had to retain my existing structure and make repairs.

Looking back at that image, I decided that I could add faux trim and windows. There had been no trim on my shed in the past, so adding some would enhance the appearance of the shed. The green and almond trim color would have to remain the same because the house and garage are painted in that manner. 

I also had to remove most of the plantings near the shed, including a large boxwood that was transplanted elsewhere. It had grown too large and was starting to take over the corner of the shed.  

 

The back of the shed required a lot of cleanup, especially the many plants I usually store there over the summer. 

I opted to remove the old metal shelving as well as the old brick along the bottom. The bricks were replaced with peastone.

 

As an experiment, I used some "cedar" colored paint for the top trim, but as soon as I started I realized it was a bad idea.

Sanding it off, I quickly reverted back to the original almond instead.

The trim pieces I added were meant to suggest post and beam construction. I even added protruding blocks in some places to create the illusion of post extensions.

In addition, I added two hexagonal umebachi gegyo with concave curves at the top of the ridge on either side of the shed. A gegyo is a decorative design used to cover the ends of a roof gable. I don't have a gable, but the gegyo still looks nice as a flush feature.

My shed was too simplistic for the more elaborate styles of gegyo, but more importantly, the umebachi gegyo style was one I could easily cut with a jigsaw. I then added two cedar stained flowerettes to each gegyo to add some interest. I have the flowerettes elsewhere in the garden (Peace Bell, Woodland Gate).

I also altered the top of the shed doors to look like traditional Japanese window screens.

Instead of rice paper or glass, I used white plastic acrylic cracked ice ceiling light panels. They look pretty good and require no maintenance. I then made some window frames out of scrap wood to create 12 window panes and attached the pieces to each door.

The large window in the front of the shed was a bit of a challenge to modify. It was too large and very un-Japanese in appearance.  

I liked the pop-out window I saw in the internet image I referenced earlier in this post. 

However, I chose to modify the design so that it would be less of a pop-out box and more of a pop-out screen. 

On the front I chose to use one-inch bamboo poles, similar to the bamboo on the nearby Woodland Gate. The bamboo adds interest and the color of the bamboo will eventually match the bamboo on the Woodland Gate. 

This should help to tie-in the shed with the Dragon's Spine fence and the Woodland Gate. I also added a brown roof above the pop-out screen to match the internet image pop-out style. Overall, the screen does a good job of hiding the old window, while simultaneously giving the shed more of a Japanese feel.

The final addition to the shed was a faux round window, or maramado, similar to the one I created last year for the back deck. The shed maramado was painted almond and has an interior with the same plastic cracked ice panel as the shed doors. 

Instead of bamboo for slats, I opted for pieces of wood painted with the same brown I used for the "pop-out" window roof. I realize these color selections may not be very authentic, but they work best with the existing shed color combinations.

I will be adding an almond colored gutter and rain chain with lotus petals as soon as I can have it installed.

Although this project took almost seven weeks to complete (I worked on it off-and-on due to travel, illness, and weather), it was well worth the effort. The shed looks much nicer than before, and the repairs and painting will ensure it lasts for a very long time. 

I know it is not a true Japanese shed/teahouse, but I think it still makes a nice transition from the Zen garden into the vegetable garden area. Additionally, the colors match the style of the house and garage structures ensuring that all three structures on the property compliment each other.

Next spring I will work further on landscaping around the shed. I will also renovate the interior. Sorry, no Japanese designs, it will be a simple garden tool shed, just cleaner and better organized than it has ever been.