Planted my most recent purchases this evening. OOOOoooooooh I really want to get going on that hardscaping so I can dig out and define a bed or two! The amount of space that would net me pretty much blows my mind, considering how many plants I've already crammed into the front garden and the east backyard bed. I suppose I should really take a couple weeks and let everything grow in, but the brain fizz I get from buying and planting new plants is mad addictive. I've offered to help my mom dig stuff up in her garden in exchange for patio-building help in mine, though. She may even have a sneaky flagstone connection for me.

Well, it's not like I have nothing to do out there in the meantime. I still need to:

* chop down the remaining hydrangeas - my neighbour's example confirms that they do in fact get pruned right down in the spring
* pry up the stupid paving stones in the back corner and the west bed (might pick up a pry bar for the purpose, actually)...a clematis would go nicely up the fence there (plus other semi-shade plants TBD)
* dig up the west bed in general - I will keep some of the geraniums to see how they turn out, but the orange daylilies can definitely go
* set up some sort of trellis structures to camouflage the compost bins - nice and sunny in that spot, so scarlet runner beans would probably like it there - and the a/c unit
* chop down the forest of suckers around the lilac
* clean up the through-space between carport and shed, which is littered with plant containers, leaves, and yard waste from the fall
* set up birdbath and buy a bird feeder
* get honeysuckle trained onto trellis thingy

At Loblaws today I was delighted to spy two gorgeous types of tree for $60 a pop, which seems pretty reasonable, really:

Flowering Almond


Purpleleaf Sandcherry


These both max out at about 10', a nice manageable size. I have, at the moment, nowhere prepared to put them, but god knows I've got expanses of sunny lawn I'm planning to get rid of. Or could I plant such things next to the west fence, since they're already tall enough that the canopy would probably be in the sun anyway? I hesitate, though, because these both seem to have a reputation for being fragile with regard to pests and diseases. I don't want to spend $60 on a plant that's going to die on me. They also had the extraordinarily funky-looking corkscrew hazel available for $40 or $50.

Loblaws garden centre is open! Being able to browse the full sun section as well as the shade section? MADE of DELIRIOUS AWESOME.

The spoils:

Rose Campion


Oriental poppies


Candytuft


Dragon's Blood Stonecrop


English Lavender


Russian Sage


Red Valerian


Golden Queen Globeflower


Bergenia


Gaillardia

Accomplished today:

* Planted sweet peas in a few different locations around both the back yard and the front. Am totally excited to see if they come up, since this is the first time I've had enough sun to even consider them.

* Raked leaves and crap out of the garden beds. What a mess. I think I'm going to end up just digging the backyard's west bed under and starting over. The bed itself is all uneven and full of overgrown broken ugly pavers, and I'm pretty sure all that's in there is daylilies and geraniums, regarding which, bleh. Elsewhere, though, I'm pleased to note that most of what I managed to plant last year is actually coming back...including the trillium, bleeding heart, and peonies, which I was worried about.

To Do in the next couple days:

* get raked-up leaves off lawn and into yard waste bags
* plant liatris and dahlias and anything else that needs to be in the ground earlyish
* hang up string trellis for sweet peas next to shed

I spent a chunk of the afternoon raking up pine needles, and holy crap were there ever a lot of them.



This endeavour also freshened my resolve to get some sort of renovations going back here, because underneath the pine needles the "lawn" is just sad. Especially under the tree, where it sort of straggles off into dirt and moss and creeping charlie (although the moss is lovely and I think I'll keep it). Also the planting beds, such as they are, have almost zero definition; they're sort of, you know, where the grass has straggled off and there's other plants instead of dirt. Sometimes there are borders of paving stones or bricks, but these are mostly half-submerged and overgrown (much easier to see now than they were in the summer, though!)

Here is a rough idea of what I've been daydreaming I might do:



This would leave some lawn in the foreground, i.e. for kids to play on, but in between the paths drawn in brown here there would be cottage-garden-type riots of plants. Probably starting with a magnolia where that little heap of newspapers is. As I may have mentioned before, my evil plan would be to do the hardscaping this year and work on cleaning up the existing beds (such as they are), and then each year I would fill in one section between the paths. Oooooooh I am ITCHING to get started on this, but (a) I suspect the materials for the hardscaping will be stupid expensive and (b) I fear that I will either get bogged down or screw things up trying to lay flagstone myself.

Meanwhile I am delighted to note that (a) my monster alliums are coming up, and (b) the new camera takes beautifully sharp and detailed pictures.



Also, despite the needles everywhere, that tree is really gorgeous.




Eventually I also need to do something about the front yard:



BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORINNNNNNNNG. Boring, boring, boring. Look at all that grass! My God! Still, this is the part that will annoy people if it's a mess, so for now I'll settle for cutting the grass and practice on the backyard. When I'm a little more confident in my garden-wrangling abilities and a little more practiced in actually following through on garden projects, I'll tackle this.

I planted seeds!

TRAY 1:
Gigantor marigolds
Jacob's ladders
Mimulus
Astilbe
Canterbury bells
Pampas grass
Delphiniums

TRAY 2:
Parsley
Shasta daisies
Cupid's darts
Asters (white with blue fringe)
Zinnias
Cosmos
Bachelor's buttons

GROW MY PRETTIES, grow, grow! Ahahahahahaa!

Awesome idea from the April ish of Canadian Gardening: a circular patio, with garden beds around it divided up by paths like spokes of a wheel. This way there is a nice spot to sit and enjoy the garden, beds of manageable size, access to weed everything, and beds that can be viewed on three of four sides. Dammit, I should have taken masonry instead of carpentry. I could be doing my own hardscaping. Paying to have someone lay something down like that beautiful spiral of cobblestone would probably be insanely expensive.

Further awesome idea: "underplant[ing a tree], in the style of an English cottage garden, with...spring bulbs of every colour." I spy a use for the ground around the white pine out back, yes I do. In fact, sometime this week I am going to march out there and stick my tulips in the ground, since the snow is off the back of the yard. I figure since I did leave them outside over the winter there is the remotest chance they might come up, although I doubt they'd have frozen as hard in the ground as they did sitting in the carport.

Also inspiring from said magazine is that the gardens featured that aren't professionally designed and planted are typically the product of 20-odd years' work. So it's no tragedy that my gardens have not looked like that. My mom has remarked that it takes 10 years for a garden to really "arrive". And the idea of spending 20 years on the same garden is oddly appealing, despite my typical impatience. After all, you do get gratification year after year in between.

It is seed-planting weekend! Woo! So must buy peat pellets and rustle up some planting trays. Also in honour of spring, I will make a Vesey's order. I had mixed success with their stuff last time, but now that I have a yard that promises to be semi-cooperative, I am going to give it another (slightly more frugal) shot.

Shopping List

Red Tickseed, 3' tall with big flowers; drought-tolerant and sun-loving, so probably a front yard plant.


Joe Pye Weed, or a compact version thereof, which blooms late and stands 3'-4'. I tried to start these from seed a couple years ago and had no luck.


Crocosmia, also a late bloomer, 2'-4'. Love the red flowers.


Astilbe, a pretty shade-lover which technically I can buy at the grocery store, but 3 for $10 is a pretty good price. Had one of these at Jamieson and loved it, and kept meaning to buy more. Figured buying more was probably less trouble than digging the previous one up.


Hmmm...I had Begonias and Rudbeckia on my list, but the latter I can get from mom's garden, and the former I can get from the market already in bloom, so maybe never mind. Images, however:


Liatris, which are 4'-5' tall, funky-looking, and late-blooming.


I was sorely tempted by the giant hybrid lilies, which stand up to 8' tall by three years, but I would probably have to go crazy with pesticides to keep them from getting devoured by beetles. Still...8' lilies...SO TEMPTING. The evil voice at the back of my head tells me that they're hybrids, not asiatics, so maybe the beetles would leave them alone...but the voice of reason counters that they're still PART asiatic lily, and the goddamn beetles are not that finicky. Siiiiiigh.