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

Dear Garden Diary,

Today is a foggy, autumn day in Thunder Bay.
All the leaves that were on the trees last week are now blanketing our garden, the streets, and sidewalks - I hear people crunching by as I type with mittens up above on this lovely balcony.

Below me, the front garden is on fire with colour. The cotoneaster is a rainbow of reds, oranges, and green - with little black berries speckled all over.
The elder is a popping shade of lime with other greens of hostas and lungwort - even the yellowed, hostas add some flare to the canvas.

In the backyard, the sumac is also wildly aglow.

a tree in the churchyard below
across the street

This year it seems Autumn has been particularly vibrant and long lasting. The colours everywhere are incredible - I'm happy I've enjoyed so much, soaking it all in from my balcony perches, trail rides, Sunday drives, and tree farms.

a Sunday drive on the Sleeping Giant
to Silver Islet in September

hosta garden I

 hostas in the front garden, 9 June 2011

Aquilegia vulgaris Purple & White
Common  Columbine, Granny's Nightcap

In the front garden...

New additions include 'Fairytale Pink' Daylily, 'Foxy Dwarf' Foxglove, Yellow Foxglove, a couple of Japanese Anemone's (Anemone bupehensis), 'Electric Lime' Heuchera x 2, and on the west side of the steps, replacing the Rudbeckia which didn't come back: 'Paul's Glory' hosta - huge, mature, and lush. :)