I’m sorry to hear of your loss.
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Eh my heart isn’t as in the tomatoes this year. I was pretty determined not to net but I don’t think that can work in this garden bed. We have other stuff growing 
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Is it only happening at night? Could you possibly rig some sort of easily removeable netting and just put it up in the evenings?
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Irises, tired but pretty.
The other side is a little shadier and didn’t bloom the first two years. It’s awash in buds now though.
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The unicorn scarecrow is an unusual garden decor choice. Nicely colourful.
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Dingo trash-picked it and carried it all the way home 
.
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Dingo definitely has style!
I didn’t plant my lettuce seedlings today, but I did get some seeds in. I both need more planting space, and cannot keep up with much more garden than this right now. I’m trying to focus on getting this bit right (continuous salad crops) and then add something else, but I also would like to do everything at once.
Also, my hedge died over the summer (got too dry?) and I am annoyed and sad, and not sure what plant to try in that spot next.
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You’re smart to pace yourself! I adore the tiny vertical salad farm (and farmer too).
It seems like many OMDers do mostly edible gardening, but I’m here to blather on about the benefits of some low-labor, decorative perennials. We’ve got 80% shade stuff, ground covers, etc. and 20% edible and that’s felt about right for our kitchen and routines this year what with newborn and all.
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Ooh I love decorative plants too! I just talk about them less. What have you got?
We planted more Silver falls dichondra to cover the sand and weeds in the “fairy garden” and I’m chopping up succulents to propagate down there too. The last few years I’ve planted cottage garden annuals down there, but I want perennials to start being the main plants.
I need to buy a bigger pot for my monstera deliciosa that lives at our front door, it’s sent off big roots to try growing under the house. I have 2 of them so matching pots to frame the front door might be a fancy idea?
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Oooh I want to hear more about your plants too!
I had full shade in about 80% of my front and back yards until last fall when a tree was removed and trees trimmed. The backyard is now full sun so I’m in the process of redoing the whole thing but front yard I want to put in a ton more perennials and flowers.
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I don’t dislike ornamental perennials! They’re just expensive, so I have to accumulate slowly. Plus, up until now I was very space limited. I am always looking for interesting things to add. 
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Or maybe perennials change less often so there’s new stuff to announce! With the cost, I think it helps that my outdoor space is very smol. We’ve also used our city’s free tree giveaway (2 yard trees a year), friend plant swaps for free plants, and ordering en masse from a wholesaler.
Here’s the left/south side. There are 3 trees and 6 shrubs along this side 
Umbrella magnolia, variegated dogwood, some sort of recalcitrant citrus that lives indoors in winter, 3 yellow-twig dogwoods, a dogwood tree, and a styrax tree.
The understory on the left gets partial sun and is mostly phlox, foamflower, and hosta. The very rear of the wall is a non-fruiting grapevine. Some daffodils and tulips, plus two fancy iris bulbs. It could use some trimming but isn’t super urgent.
And here’s the right/north side, which gets south sun. It has ivy and a veggie/herb garden in front, and 2 big shade trees in back. The tufts of taller grass are switchgrass, which dry into nice golden puffs in winter. The closer tree is a honey locust which looked like a scrawny ruler when we first got it 3 years ago but has taken off in a major way — I think it’s 40’ tall now! The crepe myrtle was here when we bought the house. It doesn’t leaf out until pretty late in the spring, so layering the honey locust in front has been nice.
Black-eyed susans probably need thinning, they’re crowding out the kale.
Cilantro, basil, parsley, thyme, rosemary, lavender in the low bed closest to the house. This needs to most labor but because there’s no single fruiting season, it’s not too time sensitive. A few tomatoes in pots are coming - spouse’s boss starts hundreds of plants every year and gives them to everyone in the office :D.
Here’s a less washed-out photo of the back nook. Nice place to hide from the sun. Sometimes WFH means WFG.
The understory in back is river oats. That and the black-eyed susans are the only things I don’t love because they look like weeds (shhhh). No, really, a guy looking for work knocked on the front door, next to the tree pit planted with the same, and asked if we wanted help pulling out the weeds 
. I think tree pits around here need more “legibly decorative” aka “basic b” plants. None of this highfalutin’ stuff for the street side! The tree pit and its fence (photo to come) could use some more love and thought, but that’s for another year!
I want to replace those with an understory of ferns, but will probably have to talk to Bear into it.
The garden is 99% Bear’s idea and labor, by the way. I’m married to a plant pro who went hog wild on this project after discovering lead contamination in the previous soil. Other than endorsing the spending of doubloons, my contributions have been erratically buying random plants that weren’t in the plan (hi irises! hi kale trees! hi dogwood!), and installing the hammock.
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Your garden space is sooooooo welcoming. I aspire to this!
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I have all ornamentals, nothing edible. 
Your yard is pretty!
ETA not edible to humans, my asshole squirrels love my plants.
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What a nice tour! That is the perfect WFG setup 
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It’s all lovely, but I like the dog decor the best.
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Thank you @CalBal @turtlegirl @katscratch @rural. It’s been such a treat to have this at home. Helps scratch my itch for wide open spaces a little.
@CalBal This is year 3 (only about 10% of this was here before the big overhaul) and I think this is the year everything started to grow into itself, if that makes any sense. So I’m really excited for all the planting you’ve been doing at the Bobcat Ranch, and what that will become in a few years!
Me too 
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That seems like an excellent size for a backyard! I love all the dappled shade.
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We’ve got a bunch of tomato volunteers all growing in batches. What’s the best way to transplant some of them to other parts of the yard? Is it’s safe to chop each batch in half with some soil, and then wait to see who survives before thinning?
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Two questions:
- Has anyone used chocolate mulch before? I was very excited about it but the squirrels tore into my package when it was waiting on the stoop, and now I’m afraid it will attract them.
- Anyone have a rain barrel they like? My free one is kind of annoying. The tap is too close to the ground to fit the watering can under (I propped it on bricks) but there’s still like 6” of water under the tap that I can’t get at! I ended up leaning inside the barrel and scooping it with a water bottle last summer but I would prefer one that let you utilize all the water.
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