Of all the current gardening areas I have, this is by far the biggest hot mess to deal with! Every viney, invasive weed you can imagine is trying to grow in this area. Passionflower vine, trumpet vine, poison ivy, honeysuckle, wild blackberries, wild grape vines, climbing dogbane, wild yellow jasmine, and muscadine vines. I also have beautyberry, farkleberry, and American persimmons growing in the area – not planted by me. Not to mention the chickweed, vetch, pokeweed, and Lord knows what else. Hot. Mess. The passionflower vine is the hardest to contain and control. While it is native to the area, it spreads everywhere! This area borders my pollinator garden, so it’s nice having the passionflower vine for gulf fritillary caterpillars, but the passionflower is trying to take over the pollinator garden AND Oak garden.
It got the name ‘Oak Garden’ because of the giant, not-so-healthy-looking Oak tree that used to stand by the driveway (and where the front of the Oak garden is now). Below you can see it with poison ivy climbing up it.
We had it removed when we had all the tree work done the summer we moved here.
In summer 2020, the Oak Garden consisted of containers only, and I just referred to the area as the ‘greenhouse planters.’
2021 was containers also. The stair stringers on the tiered cedar planter you see here are now the stringers for the steps I made going to the Edgewood garden.
I had originally planted a dwarf burning bush behind the container area but decided against it and dug it up the following year. So the first thing to get planted in the ground after that was a ‘Florida Sunshine’ anise shrub (Illicium). I also had a rosemary plant (don’t remember the variety) planted behind the containers, but it died in December 2022 with our 3 days of straight below-freezing temps. In 2021, I also planted my dwarf Cavendish banana tree and tried to overwinter it, but I am pretty sure I smothered it with the wheat straw and killed it.
2022 was the year the weeds started getting out of control.
I added a small 4×2 foot raised bed to the area and planted gladioli in it. They didn’t do well because I never got around to staking them correctly before they started blooming.
Last year, 2023, I tried really hard to suppress as many weeds as possible with sheet mulching.
This helped some, but the passionflower vine is persistent and will travel under the cardboard until it finds a gap. I tried to keep it pulled anytime it popped up anywhere. I eventually covered the area with pine straw instead of the wheat straw.
As much as I would have preferred not to, I finally decided to use landscape fabric in this area so the weeds would be limited to the holes where the plants would go. I planted 11 peonies in the area in October of last year.
The other side of this area was to have 8 roses planted.
I still need to plant 3 I got at the beginning of the season. They shipped so late from the vendor, I was already too busy with other things to get them planted this spring. Honestly, the roses haven’t done great in this area. I’m hoping it’s just lack of water and fertilizer this season, but I also fear it might not be enough sun for them. And realistically, I don’t have many other options for moving them elsewhere. I will see how they grow next year with more consistent water and nutrients.
This year was the first year I grew ranunculus successfully in the raised bed in this area. I dug them up after they died off for the summer, so I will be planting them again elsewhere this fall. And now I have to pull out wild blackberry vines and passionflower vines in this bed. ðŸ˜
The passionflower vine is still trying to take over some parts of the Oak garden this year. This was August.
I had tried making the containers in front a kitchen garden (trellis for cucumbers) this year, but honestly, I suck at growing veggies. I am not even going to bother next year.
This is the back of the Oak garden, and over the past year, it became a ‘catch all’ for containers, trays, and other random things. I have started cleaning up the area and will build some cheap shelving to put all of this stuff on – hopefully soon. It stresses me out having stuff laying around everywhere.
Hopefully this area will be nice and clean by next spring. Below is the list of perennials I have planted in the Oak Garden.
- Columbine – Pink Petticoat
- Eucalyptus – Silver Dollar (behind the group of containers)
- Peonies – Coral Charm / Do Tell / Duchess de Nemours / Early Canary / Festiva Maxima / Krinkled White / Monsieur Jules Elie / My Love / Queen of Hamburg / Red Charm / Sarah Bernhardt / Sorbet
- Roses – Bolero / Ingrid Bergman / Julia Child / Lichfield Angel / Olivia Rose Austin / Pop Art / Princess Alexandra of Kent / The Lady Gardener