Great subject Pam!

First off we're going to jump start the lawn probably towards the end of Feb. See link below.
We'll add even more compost to the flower beds.

The top several inches of our soil were scraped off when we had the bermuda removed and the yard re graded. The soil could use some ummmp. (of course the bermuda wasn't completely removed)

I have one fall aster that needs to be moved in Feb. Once it wakes up I plan to pull some branches to the ground and lay bricks on them to try to get some new plants out of it.

I already plant mostly for hummers and butterflies. This season I'm planning on even more. I'll be trying new to me flowers or stuff I just haven't gotten around to growing yet. All my seeds are in order and winter sowing containers all most finished being prepped.

One bed that has grass still trying to grow in it (comming under the fence from the neighbor's) will get peas planted end of Jan into Feb. Once they are finished the grass should be starting to green up.
THEN IT WILL DIE!!! Round Up.
Then it will try to re grow, and I'll kill it again.

Once I'm sure its dead.. I'll clean that mess up and start planting my winter sown perennials which might be just about ready to go in the ground, unless its too hot by then.

If they are not ready they'll go into larger pots and placed where I can keep an eye on them through the summer and then planted out in the fall.

I want to start cuttings of more turks cap and plant them in the fall too.

We have several large beds that we've been working on for 2 years now. It seems we lost all last summer from that terrible hail storm in June followed by the intense heat and drought. The poor plants never fully recovered but they did pretty good considering what they had to deal with, especially the hastas and ginger!

Here is a link that might be useful: Topdressing the lawn

Thank goodness that I don't have much bermuda to deal with! We are almost completely shaded so we have St Augustine. Frankly I am getting sick of babying it but it's much easier to eradicate than your bermuda!

I have a nice sized butterfly/hummer garden too and plan to move some plants around and add those red pentapete from Roselee. You reminded me that I got one of those peachy colored butterfly gingers last fall! I also got a huge lovely Dr Seuss brugmansia from Carrie to add to that garden. We need to take down some big limbs to allow more sun over there. It's fun to plan especially when it's chilly outside!

I hate bermuda too. But it was here and we wanted it gone. The lot needed re grading so that was the best time to swap it out. We put in St Augustine, and now the two are duking it out. :)
Once established its not that hard to keep going. The clay soil tends to hold the moisture, and the kick start with the
compost and other amendments will do help a lot.

There's always something to be done, that's for sure.

I plan to move two peonies who are getting to much shade and attempt to move/add into another bed what I think is Turk's Cap. I tried tomatoes last year in pots. They did not do anything. Will try again this year straight into the ground. And, of course, as the season warms up I'll have more plans, praying it is not as drought like this year.

melva, I have always been told that in the arena of grass wars, St. Augustine should eventually kick bermuda's tail!

Oh yes.. Chickadee the Bermuda will die. But it doesn't happen over night, it takes time for the St Augustine to get established then to choke out the Bermuda. After the snow and ice from last winter, and the dog tearing up the very center of the yard chasing the ball the St Augustine had a minor set back so the Bermuda found its change to break through. Over time we'll get that Bermuda outa here and only have to deal with what comes in from the neighbor's yard into that one flowerbed.

We're constantly fighting something around here!

I'm planning a couple new areas to plant this Spring. Mike B is building me a new chicken yard with a concrete foundation and that's going to need something planted around it. Maybe some roses since it will be pretty sunny there. But I need to keep everything fairly short so the snakes don't find a way in. Some of the smaller ones can get their head through regular chicken wire and they can climb up four feet without any support. So whatever goes there needs to be four 1/2 feet from the top of the smaller guage wire that runs along the top of the foundation.

Second, I have an old veggie garden area adjacent to the greenhouse that has been fallow for a couple of years and covered with a tarp. Well the tarp is about worn out and just a few weeds are poking through now, so I'm going to uncover it and work in a lot of compost and chicken manure and see if I can grow some veggies again. Last time I used this area I over planted and after everything was up I couldn't walk through it. That fall after the tangle of vines died back I found a couple of birdhouse gourds on the ground that looked like aliens. They were so big I was afraid of them. My dog was a puppy then and she was so brave, she chewed them into tiny bits, saving the world from certain annihialation.

The only major change to the existing beds is that I'm giving up on my little fish pond. The birds and garter snakes eat the fish, the frogs and toads think of it as a nursery, and the neighborhood dogs all use it as their personal swimming pool on hot days. It just hasn't been much fun for me. I'll have to find some soil to fill up that space and something to plant there. Since it's a low spot in the garden anyway it might be a nice place for some gingers.

Cheryl

Cheryl, this comment made me laugh and spit coffee on my monitor!

"That fall after the tangle of vines died back I found a couple of birdhouse gourds on the ground that looked like aliens. They were so big I was afraid of them. My dog was a puppy then and she was so brave, she chewed them into tiny bits, saving the world from certain annihialation. "

I have plants for you too. I have that purple double althea tree and a Strawberry Creme brug. I'll have some pink turks cap coming back in a month or so also.

My plan is first and formost:

Not to assume the drought is over.

Take out the carefully planned and placed plants in the area inside the front dwarf youpon holly hedge and replace them with a carefully planned arrangement of various stay-small-type agaves that don't have to be watered (much) and which I already have -- thanks to pups produced by some mature agaves. I've already started, but it's hard to make myself do it as I wanted to have glorious summer color out there. I'm trying to at least get the front yard turned into a low water use area.

Buy parts to finish the drip irrigation along both sides of the back yard fence. The hardest part right now is figuring out what I need from a catalog. I probably need to call 'Drip Works' for some advice.

Not buy any more roses. I have three more coming that I ordered from "Roses Unlimited" months ago in a weak moment when I was feeling 'unlimited', but that's it. (Closing my eyes and gritting my teeth.)

Not be rushing around the yard like a 'bull in a china closet' trying to get everything done 'right now', but rather watch where I put my feet with every step (Well, almost every step.) Young at heart of all ages would be wise to heed this.

Not to go back on my resolutions to have less plants and enjoy them more.

Be realistic about what I can afford to do time-wise, energy-wise and money-wise -- so help me God. (Big sigh ... :-)

Cheryl,
Good luck with your veggie garden! Sorry to hear that pond is no longer giving you pleasure. :(

Roselee, Isn't there something you can put in that spot to give you the color you want?
If you can think of it and don't have it, please list it in the exchanges forum and surely someone will be able to help you. No need to spend money on it.

I like your resolution: Less plants but enjoy them more! That's something a long time gardener would say. :)

I hope your hand is healing correctly!

Melva, thanks for the suggestion. I just moved an esperanza to the same end as the purple crapemyrtle already growing there so that will be my color. It still may be more than I want to water, but we'll see.

I dug out three Henry Duelberg salvias. They are not big water hogs so it was a tough decision, but I went ahead with the plan while my resolve was high. There are three more at the esperanza end that I may leave -- until I have another day of high resolve.

I wish some of you were here to advise me on the placement of the agaves. I'll try to arrange the several varieties of different forms around some big lime stone boulders that are already there. They won't show over the top of the hedge from the street like the salvias would, but the area can be seen from my side so I'll enjoy it.

The hand is doing okay. I have to go twice a week for a month to a therapist to "help me get a grip on things" (groaner joke) as I can't make a fist with it, but I can grip a shovel and the SUV steering wheel so I'm not entirely grounded, so to speak :-)

Roselee said:
The hand is doing okay. I have to go twice a week for a month to a therapist to "help me get a grip on things" (groaner joke) as I can't make a fist with it, but I can grip a shovel and the SUV steering wheel so I'm not entirely grounded, so to speak :-)

That's good to hear and just about all that matters! :)
Being grounded is The Worst!!!

I'm sure with time and exercise you'll get at least almost back to normal if not totally normal! It always takes longer than you think it will. :(

Roselee, I bet you'll enjoy the agaves there, I love my cactus garden that has all of those lovely agaves that you shared with me. The manfreda is my favorite and will really be a show stopper this coming season.

I wish your hand was healing faster, but I bet with all of the therapy you'll be able to recover your grip.

It's so nice here today, I need to get back outside!

Roselee, glad to hear you are doing better.

I'll send you an email about placing the Agaves. All you need to do is ask. :-)

Roselee, your attitude will get you through anything. I admire you greatly for it. I have not been posting recently as I have been "a little under the weather" as "they" say, but am back now. I have no plans as yet for the coming year..........still formulating things in my mind, but I have resolved to get no more plants that have to go inside for the winter, and put a bit more color in my back yard that gets less sun than the rest of my garden. As with all of us, resolves go out the window at times, but I am trying hard to stick with the one about the tropicals. This is an interesting thread and I will continue to monitor it for ideas.

Lawn and garden have successfully been dependent upon Mother Nature's rains with a little sprinkler supplement for 25 years - until 2011. We are still debating whether to step out in faith and start the seedlings or pass this year. Way too expensive to use Monarch's liquid gold community water. What are you going to do?

Started some tomatoes and some native perennials that like to cold stratify. Not much else.

Expecting a bad summer and continued watering restrictions so avoiding creating a lot of new landscaping this year. Seems like it won't be a great idea.

I did get some trees removed. The former owners of this house had planted 4 red oaks (shumards and buckleyiis) a silver maple and a bald cypress all within probably a 50 square foot area behind the house. The maple had gotten huge and was really interfering with the oaks so we had the maple and the bald cypress (which was very close to the house) taken out. So that's a bummer, less shade this summer but better long term for all the trees and the maple was dropping limbs all over the place. No room back there for more trees though so no new ones.

However they also planted a large number of sweet gums which one after the other either succumbed to drought and/or borers or just struggled to survive I have a few that are in places that work so I water those and keep them happy, the rest I am slowly replacing or pulling after they die. So I had two of them removed that were each 4 feet from the driveway and the one on the house side was probably 10 feet from the house.

Why don't people think? :-)

Anyway, since I have lots of room, I did get two new shade trees to replace them though both are going alongside the driveway further out and not on the house side.

I'm afraid to buy anything else in the red oak family for fear of oak wilt. Most of my good shade trees now are red oaks or bald cypress So I got a really nice cedar elm and a somewhat smaller but still good sized, Mexican white oak. They are due to be planted next week, so I hope that goes well.

Those two will be close to the house and I figure worst case I can water them with grey water even if nothing else is available.

I wish I could have gotten them in a little earlier, but they are container grown in root growers, so hopefully they won't have a ton of transplant shock and will settle in and grow some roots before it gets too hot.

Finger crossed.

Teri

Thanks for all the post feels good hearing how others are gardening. Just reading the posts makes the world a happier place.

I recently ordered two Munstead Wood (own root) roses from David Austin in Tyler (because they haven't released them to Chamblees or Antique Rose Emporium to sell). I found out that DA prices are much higher and, afterwards of course, I told myself I shouldn't have spent the money, but . . . I will economize elsewhere.

I'm going to rearrange a few things, move some of my roses to other beds - probabaly my MME Joseph Swartz and two Sharifa Asma. One of my Frances Dubreuil roses needs a little more sun. Possible move another or two to get them in a better spot. Planning and rearranging and working toward a beautiful garden is the fun part for me. I also enjoy pruning the roses and dividing iris, cannas, and daylilies.

There are still a few roses that I'd like to try if I can figure out where to put them. I'll also like to try my hand at growing from cuttings.

I'm watching the daffodil foliage coming up and hoping that all my bulbs have multiplied well.

My February challenge is to divide and replant my grasses, both large and small and not buy any more.

I removed most of my Pink Futurity cannas last fall that were in my street bed (short, pink w dark leaves). I'm trying to figure out where I want to replant them because they have a little salmon color to them and most of my pinks and reds have blue tones. I will be starting about 20 seeds of Tropical Whites (also short, white with green leaves). I think white is a great buffer for the other colors. I like colors that make me feel peaceful, not energetic oranges.

My resolutions are to mulch better, which will help me do a better job in conserving water, and to keep building my soil.

I enjoy 'hearing' what the rest of you are planning to do. Lou