being frontyardovich 2014

Stopping to smell the tulips this morning, I took a photo using my iPhone's ProHDR app - which takes two photos using different exposures with a slight delay. The result is often kind of awesome.
Sometimes, I'll get ghosted images of things moving through the scene.

There's a small patch of tulips (and I think some lily of the valley?) popping up in the garden bed under the oak. Upon further inspection this morning and later again this afternoon with a measuring tape I am pretty sure I can fill all 17-18 feet of this space before we see another winter.

These tulips will stay. There's something about adopted tulips... Not sure who they are yet, but we're about to find out. I'm hoping to just work around them, leaving them as they are.

As for the rest... What the frack. No seriously..., those marigolds (upon further inspection) were planted in groups of three. Somebody actually put some effort into that. #headdesk Filler, I get it, but the lack of creativity in such an inspiring place sucks a little life outta me.

Yoga breathed it all back in and then some. Robin offers more than yoga; there's her background in massage therapy and understanding of anatomy, but it's more than that. I'm struggling for the words - too many things come to mind..., somehow today while trying to explain breathing and positions we ended up on ecosystems and the whole interactive within ones space and all the things within that space. The healing she offers encompasses not just now, my grief, my body and mind's desire to die, but all the things, everything from my very beginning: the sensitivities I have to chemicals (in food especially), illness and emotions that I thought would never matter, tragedies physical and emotions. Things I had put behind me: the c-section and difficult recovery from having H, the infection of 2009..., all of it revealing and relieving, finally feeling free to hope a little.
Last week, when I was as low as ever, feeling heavy and weighted by grief, Robin chose to weigh me down more with warm heavy blankets while in each position. The release was intense, I felt safe for the first time in days..., I fell into it and nearly fell asleep, crying, dreaming of my sweet baby Finn.
It's times like that I'm most grateful for my healers.

Today I think I can feel my rib cage for the first time in ... uh, years maybe..  I can breathe. Oh thank you thank you...
Taking my time to stroll up the hill, I stood in the playground at Hillcrest Park, on top of a jungle gym - joined briefly by a little girl who might have mistaken me for five. I twirled in my 360 panorama awkward way, pausing occasionally while clouds passed between me and the sun to maintain my exposure.

Up the hill with a view of the Lake, it's not the sanctuary that Waverley Park is, but it does the soul good for other reasons. When I got home I emailed the City to put in motion a memorial bench and tree for Finn in Waverley Park. 

I've thought about it for a while, and debated the parks. Waverley always wins, it's where my heart is, it's where Finn and I spent most of our time twirling around taking tiny planet panos. Hillcrest may be the view from his room, but I think if I was to find him in an urban forest it would be in Waverley. 

Back at home, I took what I hope will be the last photograph of this pitiful garden. Whatevertheheck weird weeping juniper thing trying to be something beside that nice rock it just got to get torn out. We're going to go for a more real look - none of these whackidoodle nursery experiments. It doesn't even understand what it's supposed to do: trained to go up and fall un-naturally, it's over grown and trying to grow upside down, rooting all around its "trunk." Why?

I did my best to photoshop out what's currently there, leaving the rock (I like that rock), and the tulips, with the oak anchoring one end, and the young blue spruce along the south side. The options are endless. I'm swimming with thoughts of sweeping spreads of spring bulbs - daffodils mostly, with tulips popping up from early to late season. Summer roses, butterfly flowers and soft colours, ending with a blast of autumn blooms in deep reds and oranges firing up the feet of the red oak.  

With 17 feet from the east to the blue spruce and 18 feet to the end of the bed under the oak branches, that's  lot of space. It won't take long though, and if I could absorb my entire wishlist from the catalogs spread all over my desk the dog ottoman it would be filled by the weekend. 

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.

Canary Columbine

5 June 2012

Aquilegia crysantha var. crysantha ~ Golden Columbine, Canary Columbine

A tender perennial here in Thunder Bay, the Golden Columbine is found growing vigorously in damp dapple lit areas in Texas and the southwestern States. It's in its second year in our front garden in nearly complete shade (other than an hour or so of morning sun). Columbines are members of the buttercup family. The Canary's delicate yellow blooms stand upright on stems reaching 20-50cm, with green foliage. My plant was touched by a little powdery mildew last year, so I'll have to keep a close eye on it this season. 

stamens reaching beyond the blades

9 June 2012

growing ideas & filling gaps

The ferns in the front garden enjoyed the rain and are uncurling more & more fronds. My plan is to get my builder, R, to install the rain barrel beside the front porch buried in the ferns behind our Annabelle Hydrangea. I'll attach a soaker hose to it, and make everyone in the front garden as happy as they are now all the time.

The Dwarf Globe Blue Spruce (Picea pungens 'Globosa') who lived in a pot for two years, moved three times, and is now in his third year in this location - is still small, and a little wonky in growth.., lost a few lower branches. Again I think more water is the key to a happier spruce. That and less goutweed surrounding it - gawd I hate that stuff. I ripped it to shreds the day I tore it out, and will continue to rip every root I see. Almost as amazing as it being sold in greenhouses, is that Neil was able to kill a bunch of it. I've never known anyone able to do that. I'll have to get him to stare down the weed smothering the spruce...

When I started excavating, rearranging, reinventing, establishing, removing, adding, and editing this garden in 2010 I had an idea, more than a plan, of what I wanted to eventually see. It's developed into a green-lime-red garden with lots of purple, blue, and pink flowers. Some later yellow blooms will arrive, orange geum, whites of Annabelle and hostas....

As everyone matures into their spaces, I think about their placement - move some around, shuffle the scene, and am now thinking about gaps and holes. There's a big hole front & centre now, where I removed an excavated hosta transplanting it deeper into the garden, for some low, bright light near a nice looking rock who's getting buried by the ferns. 

Next spring some tulips will fill the early gaps; now that I know how the garden is growing I feel more comfortable planting some permanent bulbs. I had always imagined daffodils, and it may still go that way, or a mix...who knows. Either way, dotted with bulbs is the way it's growing...

1 June 2012
Front  & Centre I've added a 'Brookside' Cranesbill Geranium
next year that will be spectacular
studying gaps, imagining bulbs

near the steps
1 June 2012
St. John's Wort gone mad
hostas arrving
heuchera, coral bells nearly blooming

new hostas
whose name I can't remember
he's going to be HUGE

cornflowers from Heather
excavated Ligularia

excavated hosta

elephant ears & lungworts

Ligularia dentata
'Britt Marie Crawford'

Pulmonaria officinalis, Lungwort

In the front yard garden
25 May 2012

frontyardovich morning 11 May 2012

Pulmonaria officinalis
Lungwort

It dazzles me every year. One of the first to bloom, it starts every garden season with fantastic camera fodder. I probably have more photos of this plant than any other.

Also returning happily are cornflowers

astilbes

and St. John's Wort

The ferns too, of course - which R wants to thin and give away (Gerry's garden?) which will allow some space for me to add some wackydoodle plants I've been eyeing at the greenhouse, high maintenance things like Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' (Red Banana), & Colocasia esculenta (Elephant Ear) ('Black Magic' and another baby leaf one)...so interesting.. :)

They'll have to be lifted before the frost returns and stored in the cellar for the winter. I've been generally lazy about this sort of gardening in the past, but I'm ready to commit.  

 Colocasia esculenta 'Black Beauty' & Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii'

garden cycle

the front garden
my sweet ride
20 March 2012

Spring Cleaning

Spring cleaning swooped into the front garden late Monday afternoon while R was at a meeting. It brought cold beer and a rake, and took about half and hour to make a disaster of it all, and another hour to clean it (ish) before R returned and we went on with our never ending list of things to do.

I feel a huge relief for doing it, but also slight unable to move comfortably - in a good way, bad but good - not sick bad in any way, which if fine by me. My body just wasn't prepared for the sudden session of garden yoga. I cleaned back to the mass of ferns, and broke them down as mulch - that seems to have kept the ferns going thus far, so we shall just continue. Everybody else seems to be returning with enthusiasm.

Lady's Mantle
from Heather's garden

Pulmonaria, Lungwort & Heuchera 'Lime Marmalade

Columbine, 'Songbird Goldfinch'

I planted peas on the weekend: mammoth sugar heirloom, two rows of early snap, one sugar pod, and one sugar daddy. Short rows, but enough to enjoy an early harvest, then move on with the space. They're planted in our micro-climate nook, which has been ready for seeds for weeks. I'm brave enough, are you?
Peas like cool soil, cold even - and can tolerate light frost and snow. Pansies too, and radishes, lettuce too.

We have peas and lettuce coming, radishes soon, just had to find the seeds...

I can not wait to start digging in the new bed.., just a matter of time.

I've decided that the greenhouse is going to thoroughly consume me this year with dirty green wonderfulness, and I'm just going to let it have its way with me. I'm going to try to photo document as much as I can without being a pain, and getting the job done, and not killing my iPhone ...what a blessed thing the iPhone is.

Dear Garden Diary,

4 cubic yards of triple mix + 4 hours of heavy rain = a mess. R deserves a hero cookie for moving it all in the downpour, and M another for helping him.
Amazing men. ♥

But an amazing mess too! It has taken all week hosing down the sidewalk little by little (to avoid creating more mud) to clean it off; but now we now have two new side beds to work with, mostly shaded by the house and fence, receiving no more than an hour of sunlight at any time. A perfect shade garden.
Since this photo was taken (on 3 days ago) I have planted another mature hosta 'Sieboldiana Elegans', a division of the hardy geranium 'Wargrave's Pink', and some yellow cornflowers - extending to about where those trellises are leaning. I would take a new photo but, *sniff sniff* ....today my camera was pronounced dead (along with a little piece of me..) so I can't. Heavy sigh.

Obviously the whole four cubic yards didn't go into the side garden beds. Most of it is being used to replenish the dog run, where the grass was. The area back there desperately needed some good soil and new depth. Once it's sodded we'll be able to get the main grassy yard back in good order. Dogs and gardens aren't always the best of friends, but living with man's best friend makes me a better person so we'll have to come to a compromise. If it means sodding the yard from time to time, so be it. (Being a small downtown yard to begin with this isn't difficult, just likely a biannual project.)

The few things I have already planted in the side garden are doing well. A Morden Blush rose is beginning to bloom, which I have placed in the one area that seems to get the longest period of sunshine. At it's feet a hardy geranium, 'Wargrave's Pink'; hostas, the rescued red 2 Daylily, and some transplanted blue irises surround them. For fun, some nasturtiums fill in gaps, and wolly thyme is being encouraged to spread into empty cracks and spaces. We have plans to recreate a succulent garden for R across the walkway, but aside from those plans it's all open - for anything.

Much of how the whole garden has come together has been by whim, and I think it will continue like that. When I like something I bring it home, often not sure of where it will go, but always finding a space. I see the side garden filled with hostas, with other feathery things (no more ferns, please) here and there. Perhaps some foxgloves to add some height to the garden path.

The front garden is also facing some changes. The ferns are simply out of control; it's time to cut back. With the heavy rains we've been having the weight of the huge fronds has caused them to droop so much even the Annabelle Hydrangea was buried for awhile under a heap of feathery greens.
I photoshopped the dwarf globe Blue Spruce and Annabelle Hydrangea into this photo because my camera angle didn't capture them well with the eave in the way. Had I leaned over any further I would have ended up in in the garden (A is for Amy who fell down the stairs OR off the balcony..).
There are two smallish empty spaces in the garden; gaps that drive me crazy like a crooked tile ( ;o) ). I've been considering filling it with some chocolate ajuga. It's a spreader, no so much "invasive," but definitely vigorous. I wouldn't really might it creeping over and into the grass - the grass is only there as a barrier to the busy downtown sidewalk. You can stomp on ajuga, mow it, cut it, rip it..it will just keep on growing. This is where the gardener has to take some control of her garden, and prevent it from moving in on the other garden plants. I think I can do that.

I want to take out a large row of ferns and bring in something with a darker foliage, perhaps a purple leafed Smokebush (nearly tender here), or a Ninebark - 'Diablo' or the newer 'Center Glow'. Also, a Rhododendron in behind the Annabelle, some Meadow Rue, and/or Joe Pye Weed. We'll see what develops.

Heuchera 'Lime Marmalade'

Garden Mysteries: Bellflowers

I believe this is the dwarf Bellflower, "Birch Hybrid", mislabeled from the nursery but not unwelcome at all. I expected the much taller and larger blooms of the "Hakone Blue" Balloon Flower - but not so. I only added them (x 2) last year to the front garden, but am just seeing the blooms now. Definitely not the double balloons of blue, but I just love them. The delicate little blue/purple flowers tuck in and out of the one of the Astilbes, ferns, and hostas - and make up some of the many (many) blue blooms of the front garden.

hosta garden I

 hostas in the front garden, 9 June 2011

In the Key of Catching Up

I used to curl up to my computer on a Sunday morning and listen to In the Key of Charles on CBC Radio with a pot of coffee and some garden dreams, often in the same theme as Charles's to write in this blog. I miss that show. I don't know what's held me back from posting, other than life..time, and dogs. This is the first season in years that I have a garden ready and waiting for me, prepared. This time I can just start planting. Minimal digging, minimal amending, it's as if I stepped back in time and have my mature garden back. Mature but never finished, that is. I can express in words how happy this makes me feel.

Last year there was still a construction zone over our vegetable garden when spring arrived. Early planting wasn't possible. I think it was July when things finally got underway...
We were also heartbroken and unmotivated at first. I was challenged trying to convince myself that 'gardening is therapeutic', and 'gardening heals' ~ things I've said and written about for years, but wasn't put to the test until last year. I didn't believe it could, or would heal or make our pain go away. I still don't. Some hurts can't be healed by my garden spade. But, the garden spade can certainly be a distraction, and it eventually was (along with my camera).

Gromit guarding his garden, July 17, 2010

Once we had the little vegetable bed prepared, planting all our quick kitchen favourites: zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, and herbs we cook with most importantly basil, (and R's new lavender plant) came together nicely.

There's a new John Davis Explorer Rose in the corner by the door with my tallest trellis anticipating a glorious year ahead. Hats off to my former J.D. rose, who lived to be placed in this spot - sort of. He was one of the first plants in my first garden, surviving every move we made, but just didn't want to bounce back this time.



The new John Davis will entertain me with me with it's red-rosy buds and precious pink petals, and will be neighbours to some (just some) of the garlic we're going to plant. There's chamomile to one side, which I'm hoping will return this year, and peppers caspsicum (of various kinds/degrees of heat) to the other.
This year we hope to grow more capsicum, more heat, for more salsa, and roasted red pepper soup. There will also have to be more cucumbers for the dogs, more basil (perhaps more pots), and better management of the zucchini vine. Spending three prime weeks of the growing season in Australia (in winter) doesn't jive well with training vines, so I may try pleading with our dog-sitter (who "doesn't eat vegetables") to give it a hand.

I've been making my lists, gathered from 2011 seed catalogs which have been arriving since the autumn of 2010. Every journal has scattered lists, some organized with page numbers and others with doodles mixed up in garden plans.

I wonder if R will catch on to the theme(s) of some of my choices...

Beets also included will be Touchstone Gold and Merlin. Eight Ball summer squash, and Vervain Verbena officinalis, Barbeque Rosemary Rosmarinus officinalis (in a pot, to move indoors), and Cupid Grape Tomatoes. Themes are the easiest way to weed though the bazillion choices available.

I prepared myself for the task of tackling the front yard which was, um.. "over-grown" by drinking wine on the balcony looking down on it. We spend a lot of time on the front balcony in summer, catching the breeze sweeping up the street from Lake Superior five blocks away. The view below matters.
I remember having one large bottle of water and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc on the steps while I worked to weed through the neglected garden. It took three days, and then some. By the end of summer it looked like this:

Someone in a previous post commented asking why I didn't bring the garden right to the edge of the sidewalk. I've been wanting to answer that. The reason is that this is a fairly busy sidewalk. It's not so much a busy street (for being downtown) but has a lot of foot traffic year round, and is ploughed in the winter. With all that comes damage. I suspect plants would suffer near the edge, not that the garden edge couldn't be something else. It would be much nicer with a Common/Woolly Thyme cover, maybe with some Ajuga and seasonal Periwinkle, but for the time being it's grass.

2010 Garden ~ New Beginnings

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My new journals, gifts from my mother - one from Stockholm (the purse/camera bag sized blue one) and another beautifully crafted sketchbook by Alison Kendall. The dragonfly is not the kind of sketchbook I would throw in my garden bag and bring to the plot or greenhouse, so will be reserved for couch and backyard doodles.

The blue pocket journal has been useful for doodling ideas on the go. Our community garden plot will be used for big root things like potatoes, beets, carrots, and some brussel sprouts for Hannah, chard for soup and red cabbage for apples.

We didn't take a community plot last year, which I regret, but I'm not going to get lost in what didn't happen and look ahead to a well organized season. I've already talked to Scott about my plans (thank goodness for the coffee shop run-ins). I'm sure plans will change from time to time when I'm in the greenhouse.

I can not wait to start planting - in the ground, but in the greenhouse more. I can't wait to breath that air. There's a big part of me that is terrified of the months ahead, not knowing if I can physically do it. I've been trying to focus on this being it's own greenhouse experience, and not compare it to years past. My spine won't stand up to what I used to do. I simply have to adjust what it is that I do, and I'm okay with that.