watching things grow

I'll admit, I had no real appreciation for Hawthorn trees before now. I've never examined one up close before.
A row of three Hawthorns grow along our north fence. They're a bit of a mess, in desperate need of a pruning, which I'll do a little of in the autumn, and maybe some more come spring. It will take a few years to prune them without harm.
Their flowers come out a pale pink nearly white and slowly turn a delicate deep pink. The glossy emerald leaves fill in all around - they're gorgeous.

Beneath the Hawthorns is another mystery garden bed. I don't remember much that was in it from viewing the house last year - other than noting that I was going to be filling in a lot of gaps. For now I'm just watching things grow, documenting who takes up how much space. I don't think I'm going to move anything, certainly not remove anything - it's all beautiful. It's mostly filled with lilies - nearly blooming, which will tell me a lot more..., and some irises.

irises under the Hawthorns
backyard adopted garden
4 July 2014

Peeking between the irises and lilies are sweet baby pink marguerites (at least I think that's what to call them). I adore daisy flowers, and these little pink babies made my day. They're tangled in a few weeds, but I'm less tempted to do a clean sweep on the beds - these have to stay.

Watching things grow, watching things wilt in nursery containers because I have no energy to plant anything...that seems to be the theme of planting season this year. Its amazing how as women we so easily forget the challenges of pregnancy (and morning sickness, and labour...). I knew I'd feel lousy, I forgot how tired I'd be. 

The few plants I have to plant get shuffled around - pregnancy brain has also wiped out my ability to clearly think about my plan - if there ever was a plan.. Unlike the detailed and well thought out plans I provide for others, my own garden is a little more, uh, haphazardly planned.., I sort of know what I want to see, and there are certain plants that I know belong - where exactly, I'm not sure. 

The beds are so big that even in planting in threes is still seems so sparse, and I'm trying to imagine large members who haven't even been bought yet - I'm still looking for at least two more Hansa roses, a Therese Bugnet rose for beside the front door, a yellow peony..., so I'm drawing circles in the sand and trying to imagine five years from now, and what size everyone will be then.

If I was working at full capacity this would be a breeze, but I'm exhausted nauseated and more mentally distracted than I had anticipated. The emotional toll of being pregnant in the midst of the saddest grief is hard to manage. It's not uncommon for pregnant women to have vivid dreams, but this pregnancy has also made my day dreams more vivid - my flashbacks and visions of Finn, it's all so close now.  

I've seen baby twice on screen, heard the heartbeat three times, and still I'm having a hard time believing. I think I'll feel a lot better when I start to feel baby moving around in there. I'm 11 weeks pregnant now, and baby is measuring right on track. There's no reason not to believe this baby will be with us forever. It just seems like forever waiting to have this baby in my arms. 

From the moment I found out about this little one I've felt the need to document everything. The apps on my phone already track weekly photos, and I've been subtly public about it from the beginning. I can't disguise my emotional roller coaster, and if there was ever a time I need my friends' support it's now. This baby is so loved and wanted, people around the world are praying and wishing, cheering on every milestone. It all means so much to my broken heart, and helps with the believing.    

Little Magical One ~ Finn's Garden

I hadn't thought about the garden bed in front of the house, I don't even remember looking at it much until now..., didn't even notice how pitiful it was.
It came to me in an instant as I walked up the path to the front door the other morning on my way home from yoga feeling good and clear for the first time in days. It's going to be Finn's garden ~ below his bedroom window overlooking the Lake.

As it is now a nearly dead, over sheared cedar stands nearest to the front door, anchoring that corner of the house. It just has to go, ...sorry, to the compost. Two leggy, confused mugo pines are also headed for the compost, with whatever mystery spindles are left. There's some sort of lime-leafed spirea in the middle that I'm not sure what to do with - let it stay? Find a new garden for it? I'm not sure yet.
The rest is just empty, full of rocks... .

Finn's garden will be filled with soothing scents, healing plants, blues, whites, yellows, and crimsons, with meaningful names, and messages in flowers. The plants I'm sure will change over time, but as our grief grows so will this garden.

I've kept the one mugo pine that seems to be in good health in the plan, but I've replaced the cedar with a Picea glauca 'Pendula'..which Cathy is kindly sourcing for me. Heather has a beautiful one growing in her front yard, which I've swooned over for years. Though they originate in France, I think they look like neat versions of trees in Group of Seven paintings. 'Droopy Spruce' is what I've called them for fun..., but seeing as a giant black spruce or white pine are a bit too big for the space (a lot too big), the 'Pendula' is a good substitute. 

Baby Millar's Lady's Mantle is going to be taken from Pearl soon, divided and planted all over our new gardens. It will grow and spread, be divided again, given to friends, growing on and on. It was given to us from Chops and Patti, who wanted to buy us a plant to remember our first loss, after that devastating miscarriage ~ which was such a sweet gesture. Chops couldn't believe what I chose, as I carried the unassuming three leafed perennial around the nursery (Bill Martin's ~ before I worked there)... Perennials often don't look like much in their nursery containers, and at the time I think Chops worried it was an insignificant gift. 

I'll never forget the look on his face two years later when they were over for a barbecue, when he saw how the little plant had grown.

Alchemilla mollis has been a favourite garden plant for as long as I can remember. I love how the dew pools on the leaves, and the lemon-lime flower sprays are perfect for cut flower bouquets - like baby's breath... gorgeous.  

Little Magical One (from 2 March 2008) Alchemilla has long been associated with healing and alchemists. From an Arabic word, alchemelych, meaning alchemy; the plant is named so for its "magical healing powers," with folklore suggesting that even dew collected from alchemilla leaves has healing properties.

Also for tea, chamomile (I like the little pointy daisy-like heads of the German chamomile Matricaria recutita), and two of the David Austin roses Winchester Cathedral (to have a little of my mother and father in Finn's garden) and Heathcliff, lemon balm, echinacea, feverfew, and lemon thyme.

For blue, I'll plant a cranesbill geranium ('Johnson's Blue' is the usual go-to around here, but newer varieties have come along that just as blue, longer flowering, and less floppy...like, 'Rozanne' and another I can't remember by name right now..) and the purple leafed Geranium pratense 'Midnight Blue'..., also bluebells and forget-me-nots seeded beneath everything. 

The back border of the bed, with the chamomile and echinacea I'd like to plant so asters - so long as they don't get too crazy back there. Blue wood asters (A. cordifolius) and Heath Asters (A. ericoides) which will all bloom late in the summer, through Finn's birthday, my special September baby. 

For earlier in the season I've ordered some irises: 'White Wings' and 'Little Sighs', and I'm sure I'll find a few more. I haven't even started planning the tulip and daffodils that will begin each new year, but what I have in mind will be something special - from under the oak tree, across the yard and into Finn's garden I imagine a wave of early, mid, and late tulips surrounded by smiling daffodils.  

I'd like to include a lemony-buttery daylily - this may be the perfect spot for Double River Wye.., and some primrose (Miller's Crimson maybe). We'll see what sort of nursery finds follow me home this year.

Being Backyardovich 15 May 2012

The backyard's east garden is coming up nicely this year. Feeling a lot more organized now with the dedicated vegetable garden, I'm thinking about containers for contrast and annual additions. 

Asiatic Lilies 

Baby Millar's Lady's Mantle

Irises under the Lilac

Monarda, Bee Balm

Rhododendron and Mugo Pine

Sedum  Autumn Fire

Weigela  'Red Prince'

Dear Garden Diary,

the front garden
16 June 2011

The front garden is crowded, lush, and colourful. When I excavated the site last year I uncovered a dozen or more hostas, the ligularia, and the bergenia. The hostas were divided and spread around, and are coming up nicely. The ligularia is also doing well.
The bergenia was dug out after it finished blooming because..no offense...but I just don't really like it. We have two others in the back which are both doing well and look nice; the one in front was so close to the footpath that it just got mangled under the pressures of winter life.

The empty space left by the bergenia will someday be home to a hardy geranium - a red flowering one. (For weeks I've been scouring greenhouses looking for a 'Johnson's Blue' only to change my mind ...there is already enough blue and purple in the front garden...) A red flowering hardy geranium will look nice tucked between the two Columbines: 'Songbird Goldfinch' and the Dwarf Common Columbine.
Throughout the garden, tucked in and around near the ferns and at the edge near the 'Sutherland's Gold' Elderberry I've added Straw Foxglove Digitalis lutea and Foxy Hybrids Digitalis purpurea.

Straw Foxglove Digitalis lutea

I moved the Alpine Primrose, mid-bloom breaking all kinds of gardening rules, and replanted it nearer the front steps by a couple of hostas and my dwarf globe blue spruce. I dug out a nice ball of soil around it, and it seemed to not even notice. I was gentle.

Behind it, a Japanese Anemone bupebensis and blue irises from the back yard. To the side, a Lady's Mantle, a division from H's garden.

Also from H's garden: "blue flowers from H's garden", or so they've been called so many times after I sketched a garden plan for Gerry. I couldn't think of the name Bachelor's Button or Cornflower when I made the drawing; I wrote: "blue flowers from H." I think to Gerry they will always be known as that, but to the rest of us they are Bachelor's Button, also knowns as Blue Cornflowers, and Mountain Bluet.

Bachelor's Buttons
also known as Blue Cornflower and Mountain Bluet

West of the steps the only one to attempt a bloom is the small Columbine. I don't know more details on the name because I can't find my bag of plant tags from last year (I'm trying to be better this year at documenting who's who...). Surrounded by giants hostas, St. John's Wort, Heuchera 'Coral Bells', a butter yellow iris (plant tag also in lost bag) I rescued from cold corner, and the sedum which won't bloom until autumn.

columbine

"There came a time 

when the risk to remain tight in the bud 

was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

~ Anais Nin

bellflower

Dear Garden Diary,

Where have all the irises gone, you ask? Well, I can not break them apart - they are so overgrown and so tightly grown together that no spade nor old kitchen knife can dissect them. I thought about sectioning them, but even that proved to be too much. Admittedly my arms are weakened, but with all else I am able to do now again, I should be able to free a few irises. sigh

I've moved the giant clumps to the side of the house, for R to attempt to break apart this weekend. I do desperately want to save and replant 20 of them (maybe more) in the large open space in front of the Wegeila, eastward from where they were before, a little closer to the fence.
They are a stunning blue, the perfect colour to break up the pinks and reds we have such an abundance of in that are (unlike the front garden which is home to too many blues and purples...)

rescued red 1                            rescued red 2

I've rescued the two red dayliles from the west evergreen garden, which can now become dog territory without worry for the flowers. My favourite of the two, rescued red 1, is planted near the spot where the Rudbeckia Goldsturm is mean to be (a few leaves have appeared but timidly and without the vigor that plant should have)... I may have to seek another rudbeckia plant. Rescued red 1 is a large-flowered cultivar with deep red velvety, ruffled petals with a yellow throat and eye. Rescued red 2 has more tapered petals in the same deep red, with just yellow in the eye of the flower. They're both late summer bloomers, appearing just as the peach and yellows ones are finishing their bloom on the east side of the garden. It should look nice now that they're all together on the same side, ...though I'll miss the balance the red blooms brought to the west side of the garden.

The name Hemerocallis comes from the 

Greek words ἡμέρα (hēmera) "day" 

and καλός (kalos) "beautiful".

I'll find a great bit of satisfaction adopting blooms and more for the west side's new side garden (I should come up with better names for the garden beds...this is getting confusing..). After a few thousand dollars in vet bills to remove rocks from a certain Basset's belly, R has removed every rock and pebble from the beds on the west side of the house along the walkway - creating two rather large, 26 foot long x 2 foot garden beds. One side, to the west of the walkway, we've filled with bags of triple mix and manure, but we'll be needing a truckload to finish the job (and repair the dog run). 

The tall, thinly leafed hosta nearest the corner is "Twilight Time", which we chose for H thinking vampires are all the rage, but I don't think she was nearly as excited as I was. Either way, it looks nice - and under are two lime leafed, small 'Gold Drop' hostas. Further along is another hosta, another rescued plant from dog territory. This one was hidden under the giant dogwood that's taking over the middle garden, and unknown to R until I mentioned it. It's a gorgeous hosta (the kind I usually fall for in the greenhouses) and will thrive in his new spot nicely. Near to that is a section of rescued red 2, which divided nicely during the move.

Hosta 'Gold Drop'

Taxonomists differ on the number of hosta species; there may be as many as 45. The genus may be broadly divided into three subgenera. Interspecific hybridization occurs since all the species have the same chromosome number (2n = 2x = 60); except H. ventricosa which is a natural tetraploid that sets seed through apomixis. Many Hosta formerly described as species taxonomically, have been reduced to cultivars; these often have their names conserved, and retain Latin names which resemble species names (e.g., H. 'Fortunei' ).

Getting back to the east side, other losses have created new space for ..apparently tomatoes. Yellow tomatoes to be exact, which fill both the space where there was once that nice two toned spurge plant, and an open area in front of the zucchini. Hoping that the zucchini catch the trellis on the fence and climb upward, my only concern would be if it caught a touch of mildew. It's a little tight in there with the tomato, but it's a sunny, hot (probably the sunniest of the whole garden) there so unless it gets damp from over crowning or too much water from above we should be good.

Black Beauty Zucchini Squash

COMPANION PLANTING:

Monarda is a great companion plant to grow with tomatoes, attracting pollinators and some predatory insects that help to minimize garden pests. Commonly understood as a food plant for the larvae of some Lepidoptera species and many Coleophora (moths), the plant is a favourite attraction for hummingbirds and bees. Also, the roots of the Monarda plant contain oils which are beneficial in deterring subterranean pests around small, susceptible vegetable crops. 

Monarda, (Bergamot, Bee Balm) and the East Garden

Irises

Irises

Amy & Rohan's Garden June 10, 2009