My Hot Sandbox and What I'm Doing to It

info@floridagardener.com — Mon, 18 May 2009 01:31:00 GMT

Here is a part of my yard and garden that has been bothering me for years. First, the exposure is east/west on the south side of the house so from sunrise to sunset, it gets sun, sun, sun! The only time I had real St. Augustine turf growing there was a couple of years ago when we had all of that rain move through Palm Beach County. Now it is weeds, sand, and runs of brave strands of St. Augustine challenging the hot sand.

I put-up the pergola last weekend (bought it from Lowes for $200). My plan is to build some sort of shade here from the east with a honeysuckle vine (purpurea) growing up one side and a climbing rose (must have lotsa scent!) up the other side. At first I wanted a Nahema rose to grow there (because I saw it in a German gardening magazine and had to have one!), but because the only place I could find that had this rose in stock was Cool Roses (who I found to be less than cooperative in selling their roses, unless you order it online and pay for shipping), I decided to see if I could find something else for the arbor to work with my honeysuckle (which, by the way, I bought from Abell's Nursery in Lake Worth (a 3 gal plant for $12! That's better than what you will pay for one at Home Depot -- if they have them in stock)).

Anyway, I wrote to Ashdown Roses -- "I am looking for a highly scented climbing rose to mix with my Pink Honeysuckle purpurea on my wooden arbor (http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=203949-15173-8203133&lpage=none) to grow in zip code 33411, what do you suggest? I wanted a Nahema, but that seems really difficult to procure." Trish wrote back "Ah, you came to the right person! What you need is a Dixieland Linda! The fragrance on this rose is just amazing. The pinks will mix perfectly with the Honeysuckle- This rose is more scented than Nahema to my nose anyway. http://www.ashdownroses.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1143 Here is the link to the photo for you."

So on Monday, I am going to order a climbing rose from my new friend Trish! Now, this is just the start for this side of the house. There is a lot of work for me to do here since the "soil" is pretty much dry, dry, dry sugar sand. I dug down over 12" and it is the same all of the way down. DRY SAND.

Stay tuned for what I am doing on this site. The first project was to set up the pergola/arbor, which is dead-on straight from left to right and east to west -- I put the level on it every-which-way so it is straight! And the metal legs are concreted in so it does not blow away! I then planted in the honyesuckle vine. To back fill the hole I reserved the sugar sand and filled the hole with bagged top soil and composted cow manure. The climbing rose will be placed on the left side (right side the west-to-east photo above) with good soil back filled in rather than the sugar sand. I also plan on sprinkling the rose roots with mycorrhizal fungi innoculant to help protect them against nematodes. I did this already for the honeysuckle vine.

For this area I have a Day Blooming Jasmine (never heard of one? Check out Cestrum diurnum at Top Tropicals) on order to match my Night Blooming Jasmine at the west side of the run.

Check back next month to see what this side of the house ends-up looking like!

FloridaGardener's Garden Blog

My Hot Sandbox and What I'm Doing to It