Two months till spring, provided spring is as freakishly early as it was last year.

Siiiiiiigh. C'mon plant catalogues, where are you when I need you??

Well, the Experimental Farm's plant sale is on May 8 this year, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., in the parking lot of the Tropical Greenhouses on Maple Dr. In addition to the wagon, this year I must bring a screwdriver and/or a wrench to secure the loose bolts on the wagon, and also an actual shopping list, although I would never dream of restricting myself to such a thing.

I should sign up for some of the tours of the Experimental Farm too, come to think of it. They have a guided historical tour and also tours of the rose and peony beds. Bet I could drag my mom with me on those.

I also want to check out the Fletcher Wildlife Garden's native plant sale on June 4, since I missed it last year.

Toying with the idea of putting my planned John Davis rose climbing up something like this, but not sure whether I really have a spot for something like that. Could put it over the start of the path next to the driveway, but then it would block the view of what's behind it from the road, which at the moment I kind of like. Could use it as a focal point in the upper part of the yard, but don't know if that would work and/or if I'm design-savvy enough to coordinate things around it. Time to break out the mad paint skillz!



That's...not half bad, actually. And I'd forgotten about the metal railing around the stairs, which isn't exactly conspicuous but would still provide some sort of repeated element/context for the thing. Let's see if I can fill in some of my plant schemes for the spring and see how it jives. Something liiiiiike...



Well, it will be a hodge-podge, but we knew that already. Hmmm.

Option #2:



Huh. That doesn't actually work at all. As a focal point it would be fighting with the magnolia, and it looks weird with the window anyway. Good to know.

Progress!! Bwahahahahaaa!





This is about 1/4 of the path, I think, and it took me about 2h to excavate...so naptimes over this weekend and next ought to be enough to have it done and ready to fill. Although tomorrow it's supposed to rain - dammit. Hopefully it will keep to a drizzle in the early afternoon.

Also, while browsing usedottawa.com, I came across an ad for a pile of Fine Gardening magazines. When I responded, it turns out they also had a stack of Canadian Gardening issues for sale. 90 new garden magazines - RAWK. If I restrain myself to one magazine a day, this will almost keep me in garden daydreaming material through the whole winter. I don't know if I have such ninja-like willpower in me.

The digging - it starts!!! For future reference - so as to start the pavers level with the driveway:

4" gravel
+ 2" sand
+ 2 5/8" pavers
- 3/8" final compacting
_____________
dig down 8 1/4"

I'm thinking, though, that they should mostly stick up at least 1" above the grade, since I will be heaping dirt and mulch on top of the existing grade to create garden beds. SO, while I will dig to the depth above for the first row, for the rest:

4" gravel
+ 2" sand
+ 2 5/8" pavers
- 3/8" final compacting
- 1" above grade
_______________________
dig down 7 1/4"

Thanks to one awesome neighbour, I have a new spirea (smallish and pink-flowering), some gooseneck loosestrife (which is apparently apt to be thuggish, so I'll have to plant it in a pot, I think), an astilbe, and some silver deadnettle.

Another awesome neighbour is redoing her driveway and has offered to share the cost of delivery for crushed stone and sand, making the aggregates for the spiral walkway a lot more affordable.

The bricks, meanwhile, have been found and delivered! Cobblestone interlock pavers, actually. They were more expensive than what I'd originally been hoping to spend, but they are so gorgeous that I'm thrilled to pieces anyway. I did a dry run this weekend and totally should have taken pictures...for my absent-mindedness I will just have to wait for a few weeks until we can get it done for realz.

ZOMG BRILLIANT GARDEN BRAINSTORM OF INSPIRATION.

Poking around for local garden blogs, I happened across this post, and thought that a spiral garden was about the coolest idea for a garden design I'd ever seen. So I started thinking and doodling about the front yard...aaaaaaaand...



Ph33r my mad paint skillz! I even managed to copy and paste the dirt all over the yard to illustrate the elimination of grass. But yes! A spiral path - possibly made out of reclaimed brick - would bring the existing beds together beautifully, I think!

So here's the effect of the renovations so far:



Newly planted Black Lace elder!



I debated between this and a Wine & Roses weigela, which is a similar colour but a little smaller, but went with this one in the end because the nursery people tell me it's tougher. Given my crappy soil and the dry-as-dust conditions in this bed, it'll need to be pretty tough.

While there I was unable to resist the purchase of some asparagus, as burbled about previously, and some globe thistle, which I keep hearing about. It looks much cooler than it sounds, as a handy google image will demonstrate:




A few more pictures from the back, while I'm at it:



Bee balm and rose campion. What a lovely combination. Too bad I picked such a stupid location for them.






Lily patch, continuing in gloriousness. Although I spied one single, solitary beetle today. No rest from shit-bugs for the wicked.

This weekend has been the beginning of a ferocious heat wave that promises to continue all week, so I turned on the sprinklers this evening. The result, unfortunately, was that a few tall plants flopped over and broke. Lesson learned: SIX foot stakes for the delphiniums next year, and a "cat's cradle" arrangement with stakes and twine for the lilies.

As a silver lining, though, I got a nice bouquet out of it.

Because I can't stand thinking about something for very long without doing something about it, today with the help of the Brute Squad (aka Corey) I tore out the stressy tree, the juniper, and the probably-a-weed tree.

RAHR.

The front of the house is very bare all of a sudden, but given that it already looks better despite the empty spot, I'll call this progress.

Tomorrow I will pop by the nursery to pick up a Black Lace elder and scout for ideas for other shrubby things to plant in the spring. In the fall I will put down some cardboard and amass fallen leaves, thus expanding the bed to accommodate roses etc., and plant alliums.

Before planting the elder, must remember to dig some compost into the soil there. And then I will dig up all the stupid wood violets and mulch the hell out of the whole bed, hopefully thereby using up the last of my pile.

More front yard schemes illustrated with that glorious piece of software, Windows Paint!



So at the back we have a Black Lace cutleaf elder next to hydrangeas of insanity. In front of this will be a little trellis pyramid - I figure I'll take two of those nice 4"x4" square cedar ones (like the one for the teasing georgia out back) and lean them up against each other. This will serve as the climbing surface for a Zephirine Drouhin rose. All around the rose will be planted monster alliums. Down in the front will be blue star junipers, maybe, or whatever other low-profile shrub I can find in that colour, and a My Monet weigela.

Hey, maybe I can put some of the awesome Graziella maiden grass in with the mallows?



Hmmm. Hard to tell. Getting kind of cluttered though. Damn my plant-collecting urges!

Canadian Gardening magazine, why must you get me in so much trouble!!

Idly flipping through some back issues I have kicking around the house, I ran across an intriguing front-yard garden design in the Fall 09 issue. The design was for a bungalow that featured a stone finish and bay window similar to what we have in the front of our house. They proposed a pretty trellis screen against the wall under the window and a paved "courtyard" area with stone bench surrounded by shrubby things of varying textures and colours.

I'm not sure there would be a lot of point to a sitting area in the front yard - much nicer, quieter, and more private in the back - but it would certainly make more sense to pave over that insanely dry area right in front of the house than to try to grow stuff in it. In any case, I do quite like the idea of an all-shrub planting in this area, since that would occupy lots of space and look schnazzy while being helpfully low-maintenance.

Possible candidate for replacing the perpetually-stressed-out-looking tree: Sutherland Gold cutleaf elder.



Would be a nice contrast with the monster yew. Maybe too yellow, though? There's a nice dark purple version too; that might do a nice job of repeating the purple-leaf sandcherry note.



These both get to be a little more than 6' tall, which sounds about right; the rest of the space at the back could go to some hydrangeas of insanity, and possibly a ninebark on the other side (again with the purple). Then in front of all that I can put all the random stuff I wouldn't have room for otherwise - barberry, a rose or two, possibly some less ratty variety of juniper (more blue stars or some of that spreading stuff, maybe). As an added bonus, this would get rid of an additional few feet of "lawn"; I could also yank the currently invisible daylilies and the beetle bait - ahem - orange lilies.

In June there bloomed a red rosebud - that is the flower for me

Front Yard



w00t, flowers! Cleome, mostly; either I accidentally picked a dwarf variety (again!) or they liked all the rain we got last year, because these are a lot shrimpier than the ones I had out back. Still, they're colourful.

This photo also features a swath of pink mallows that popped up in the - ahem - "lawn". They self-seed most perniciously, but they are pretty, and it's not like anything else is much inclined to grow in that patch of dirt. So let them do their thing and eventually I'll get around to building another bed around them.




Closer up: cleome, jupiter's beard, and mullein. Mini-mullein, really. I wasn't expecting it to bloom this year. They are supposed to get pretty massive - maybe this variety doesn't, or maybe it's just biding its time for next year, like the delphiniums did.




Super-awesome fiery red bee balm. This stuff gets taller than I thought, as I will exclaim about below re the backyard, but not before the baptisia blooms, so it can take over when the baptisia fades into the background. Or so the theory goes.




Siiiiiigh. Need to devote some attention to the foundation bed, because it looks like crap right now. A fringe of violets of doom around the edge, a random-looking tree that I strongly suspect is a weed, a ridiculous tree that is rapidly outgrowing its allotted space and never gets enough water so it's always browning and clearly stressed, a massive yew making a bid for total takeover, peony foliage completely overshadowing everything around it. Also hidden behind the money plant (which looks much nicer in the photo than it does in real life right now) is a ratty-looking juniper.

I don't even know where to start. A lot of the problem here is that it's so insanely dry and shady thanks to the overhanging second floor, because I could rip out what's there, but WTF else would I do with it? For example, the trick will be to replace the ratty stressed out tree with something that (a) can either withstand the drought or climb towards the house from a few feet out and (b) has some height to it. My neighbour has virginia creeper climbing up around the door, which looks great, and conveniently I have one of those creeping unwelcome around the backyard, so that's a possibility. Could also try a clematis or a honeysuckle, but those actually need to be tied to something, so I'd have to rig one of those sneaky string trellises from Lee Valley.

Maybe I should just transplant some of the damn hydrangeas and ferns from the backyard and let them do their wild and woolly thing here while I figure something out.




Somewhat nicer, but not without ugh and dismay. Again with the marauding yew. Google-fu tells me that you can prune the hell out of them, fortunately, so I'll have to give that a shot. And I have to remember to take soap and water to the mugho pine - goddamn sawflies - the larvae seem to have flown the coop, because it's not getting devoured any more, but the last thing I need is another set hatching out. Should fill up some of the empty dirt with some sort of low-growing ground cover stuff...relocate some of the dragon's blood stonecrop, maybe, since it got completely lost under the exploding artemisia. And that stupid freaking peashrub...ugh. I hate that thing, but every time I look at a picture I am forced to concede that its height and texture work well in that spot. Have to remember to prune all the stupid mildew-spotted suckers off the bottom.


Back Yard



If I do say so myself, this is starting to look not half bad. Slightly closer but still general shots (featuring awesomely filling-in patio thyme!):








Another view of the sun bed, showing the surprising results of chopping down the daisies, which were winding down. I wonder if the crocosmia is actually going to bloom this year - it's put up about 3x as many leaves, anyway. The intarwebs say mid to late July, so here's hoping. One thing I really need to do in the fall is to divide that massive chunk of bee balm that I foolishly put in the front and move it around to different places where it won't block my view of the roses. Haven't decided about the rose campion yet, that one's a little airier in habit, but may do the same with it too.




*happy sigh*





The only way I could be happier with this plant right now is if it had actually managed to, y'know, climb. But I prefer the flowers to height.




Right in front of the rose are irises of doom, which for some reason failed to bloom this year. They certainly look green and massive enough. I fear they may be overcrowded, but maybe they just need another year to get established. If they still don't produce anything next year I'll shuffle them around a bit.




Delphiniums. Taller than ME. And yet not flopping over. Squeeeee!




Rose campion and Teasing Georgia. Was totally not expecting the rose campion to survive over here, and it's not going as nuts as the stuff in the sun bed, but this is nothing to scoff at, I think.




And Operation Sudden Lily Beetle Death has paid off. OMFG.



I didn't think the show could possibly be worth picking nasty shit-bugs for, but...man. Look at that. I may keep them after all.

Time for a picture post!

Been awhile since I posted pictures of the front yard, so:



Mulch, how I ♥ you.




The flowering things are all cosmos. Dwarf cosmos, apparently - note to self: the variety that grows 6' tall is Sensation, not Sonata. I've also put in some cleome, so hopefully that will achieve some height in the back this year. Since the hollyhock seeds failed to take *grumble* I gave in and bought some in pots at Loblaws. The poppy seeds, however, sprang up just when I'd about given up on them. Considering they've usually bloomed by now, I hope they manage it before frost (or, alternatively, that the seeds that came up are the perennials).




The little purple-leafed geranium I bought at the beginning of the year is blooming! And the cilantro is close. Man is it ever nice to be able to go out and pick a few stems off when a recipe calls for 2 tbsp of the stuff.




Bright Lights swiss chard is as colourful as advertised. For some reason it particularly likes this location; it came up elsewhere, but is about 4x as big here so far.


In the back, meanwhile:



Check out the INSANE civilization of the east bed!! Need to wrest the corkscrew hazel back from the ferns/creeping jenny of doom, yet...but still!




Two plants blooming for the first time: astrantia, aka masterwort (pink) and trollius, aka globeflower (yellow). The globeflower is surprisingly impressive, actually, for a random impulse purchase; it's been blooming for weeks now and still going strong.




Newly purchased veronica. It makes a really beautiful combination with the foxgloves, columbines, and evening primroses in the corner next to the tree, but I'm at a loss to explain why they go so well. The blue spikes go nicely with the pink and yellow, but maybe there's some sort of subtle height and texture interplay going on too, the kind of thing they're always on about in garden magazines. Damned if I can articulate it. Must try to get a good picture. I begin to appreciate how garden photography is an interesting challenge.




I actually went so far as to pick a bunch of larvae off of these a while ago, swearing a blue streak the entire time. Lily beetle larvae are really, REALLY fucking revolting. I think I will stick to picking off the adults from now on. If they manage to eat the flowers despite all my disgusting labour, I am giving up.




I had forgotten that these even bloomed.




Prairie joy rose - the first of several flowers. Awesome. It seems much happier in its new sunny home, unsurprisingly, but is still quite spindly from its shady exile. Not sure how to fix this. Do I pinch off the tips to make it bush out?




The Blaze rose is also in bloom...



...in fact, about to explode into bloom!! I think I may be reaping the rewards of planting it over the former site of the compost bin.




To my surprise, it looks like the Fairy rose is also going to bloom this year, with several buds at the end of every stem. I was worried about this one because a few stems had gotten quite yellow and straggly a couple weeks after transplant. Despite being a condescending wanker, the guy I spoke to at the nursery was apparently right on, because a dose of fertilizer (which I have never bothered with before) seems to have spruced it right up.

Also: pictures!

FRONT YARD

Overall, for the record:


Stoopid lawn. It's as patchy and lame as ever. Although some clover has come up here and there, so I guess that's something. My next-door neighbour, with whom I share said stoopid lawn, has shared the depressing news that he has also tried to overseed it in years past and never had much luck.

Oh, purpleleaf sandcherry, how I ♥ you.


Money plant! This should be fun come the fall. It's surprisingly tall, too.


OMG. Scarlet Majesty tulips FTW. I am SO buying more of these next year.



BACK YARD

Overall:


I have finally figured out what patio furniture would work back here: a couple of nice adirondack chairs, especially in cedar so they could weather to a nice silvery colour, with a little side table and footstool(s). They're surprisingly comfortable, those things.

New shade bed, strictly for future reference. Weeds are already invading. Must make with the mulch!


Sun bed.


The yellow tulips were supposed to be part of a "french lace" blend of pink, white and purple. Somebody wasn't paying attention when they picked my order. Fortunately Breck's has an insanely generous return/replace policy, so they're sending me another batch, and I will just move the yellow ones somewhere else, because they are pretty stunning.

Wall bed.


Corner bed, featuring weeds, weeds, weeds. Ugh.


HowEVer, the very corner of said corner bed is looking quite nice.


Also, I was stoked to see that the trillium sent up two stalks this year! Maybe next year I might actually get two flowers out of it.


East bed.