Rock Wall Garden

My rock wall garden is across the road from the house. Yes that is a road and not a driveway. Our road is tiny and there is no turnaround at the end. It contains some of my fruit trees and my strawberry plants. I'd trimmed most of them earlier. And I transplanted some runners into it. A few died, but most of them are growing.

The last segment however I didn't get to. Its runners were taking over the back near the trees and were draping down the front of the wall. It looked really nice, but that is a lot of energy the plants are putting out for nothing. The runners can't grow in the road. And I can't protect the strawberry plants if they get too close to the back (the squirrels will eat every one before it ripens if they aren't protected). So I spent some time cutting off runners and ripping out the ones that had rooted. I did save a couple rooted starts to replace the ones that had died. Hopefully they will make it and I won't have to buy new plants next year.

For now the strawberries are under control. They will send out more runners that need cutting back, but hopefully I won't let it get quite as bad.

Not all of the rock wall garden has fruit. At the very start of it I like to put flowers. The bees and hoverflies love it. And it is a nice entrance to the yard. My problem is the size of the zinnias. I want ones that get about 16"-18" tall. I grew some last year that were supposed to get to 18" they topped my neighbor's three foot fence. At that height, I have to stake or cage them somehow or they fall over and break and look ratty. I was hoping the 12" ones would get taller than their packet height. One seems to be, but most are very short. They really don't fill out the space well enough and have trouble competing with the sweet alyssum which I keep having to cut back. I wish I could find a good medium height one that had the best of both worlds.

And on the other side of that fence are my neighbor's tomatoes. He grows them there every year. His pride and joy. Yesterday I was congratulating him on his first red tomato. He looked shocked and wanted to know where it was. I could see it from my side, but he couldn't see it through the foliage at his side. So I directed him to it. He held it up and said, "This is the reason we do all that work". I miss the joy of the first tomato. I have my other firsts, but tomatoes are the queen. So many people will grow tomatoes even if they grow nothing else. The difference in flavor between a homegrown tomato and a store bought one is huge.