We've recently moved to a new house with a large yard, full of new gardening opportunities - and lots of trees;
...the garden journey continues.
Come spring 2014 I'll be moving many plants from my previous garden to our new space, starting over again with a new perspective, and new meaning to everything I do.
We're still close to Lake Superior, still five blocks away but now with Hillcrest Park and the Port Arthur Ridge in between. A very different landscape.
We love to cook, and use fresh herbs & veg from our kitchen garden. For the culinary curious: amy's cookery
I like to read books about horticulture and honey bees, literature and writing, ecology, biology, botany, history, the history of gardening, and forestry (urban mostly), food and agriculture, photography, art......
all images are my own, taken by myself in my gardens - unless otherwise cited
amy.gardenerd@gmail.com
glossary
Q W E R T Y U I O P A S DF G H J K L Z X C V B N M
"Indeed, you'll be happiest if you learn to think like a tree: setting down sturdy roots (the soil prep), manufacturing your own food (the leaf mold and compost additions to the soil) and committing to the long term (the five or so years it takes to get established)."
"And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything."
As You Like It
Act II. Scene I.
~ William Shakespeare
Take a walk with me, where my plantation is, back to the same old place we long to be. Poplar, cedar, and spruce lined avenues tie together Pine plantations and Black Sturgeon projects where we stroll while dogs leap in jubilation around us. The best trails for tails around, hands down. A delight for the camera as well.
Our tree farm is a Plantation Demonstration and Assessment project, and is part of the Government of Canada's response to "climate change". I believe it's greater response is to beauty.
The forest floor, a world within a world at our feet. The fungi is fodder for the camera ~ a late summer quest to find them popping up through mulched layers under the trees. I could search the Tree Farm endlessly collecting snapshots for my collection and never run out of unique specimen.
Tree Nurseries for Seeding Trees (Helping connect Greenhouses with Re-Forestation, Natural Resources, Fruit Tree Growers, Christmas Tree Growers and Private Landscapers)
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
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.
I finally started to deal with the crazy front garden. It was once as well cared for as the back garden, also planted by Wayne (who happened to stop by while I was working, and was impressed with the progress ~ it's always nice to keep in touch with a garden you once knew), with a wealth of hostas and cinnamon ferns. I found twelve hostas in total, all saved; some transplanted and others remained in their spot with some extra attention to weeding and rejuvenating the soil surrounding them. There were some other perennials in there (I could tell by some root balls I dug up) but they weren't able to be saved. The Bergenia, which has been blooming for a few weeks through the grass can finally breath (but will be divided come fall).
The shrub is a Catoneaster. Really? Again, it's good to have original gardener of the garden stop by when trying to identify who's who; but it's true, it's a Catoneaster. I'm so used to seeing them as horribly shaved hedges - it's nice to see one be itself. I like the deep blue green foliage, and the berries in fall. I'd like to keep it pruned, but not harshly - it looks good the way it is now.
Deep in the cinnamon ferns were a few hostas, but mostly the fallen fronds have kept any weeds at bay so there are clear paths down under there between the stems. A group of irises are struggling to bloom in front of the Catoneaster. They'll need to be divided to give them some breathing space, but other than that I'll keep them where they are. Beside them, I think, is a Ligularia trying to peek out from the ferns. We'll have to wait until later on in the season to know for sure, and identify the variety (unless Wayne stops by again(: ).
After removing the grass and weeds from the bed I was left with some stray ferns, and hostas in all kinds of strange places. The hostas, well some of them, were dug out and grouped together - one group near the steps and the other near the retaining wall at the edge of the garden. Most of the stray ferns were moved back with the rest of them, and planted a little more tightly under the window. I left a few ferns out front because a) I like them, and b)it is a rather large space and I didn't want to empty it all right away. I'm glad I left them now - they will stay.
The soil nearest the sidewalk is in terrible shape. I will try to lay down some manure before laying the sod (which I will get and do this weekend), but it is a somewhat high traffic area, so I don't expect it to be perfect.
I couldn't help myself and did a quick run out to a nursery nearby to grab an Annabelle Hydrangea, Astilbe (white)(can't remember the name right now), and a small blue Columbine (again, can't remember which one off hand). I had to get that Annabelle in the garden, it was a must, and I want it to establish enough to bloom this year. From my own garden I added the little Blue Spruce globe that's been surviving in a pot for two years. It's right next to the steps, and should fill in nicely now that it has some room to breath. Behind it I left some goutweed which will do what goutweed does, spread, but that's okay. I want it to fill in behind there just enough (and when I've had enough I'll tear some out). Surrounding the globe spruce are three of the hostas found in the garden. They two in front are the smaller ones, with a more lime-green leaf, but still different, and the one tucked in the corner is taller, with a thinner white edged leaf. Hopefully that one won't get too big for that space.
Over in front of the Catoneaster I'm going to plant the remains of my poor Sutherland's Gold Elderberry, which too has been surviving in a pot for two years. I have faith that it will bounce back in good form...in time. In front of that is now the white Astilbe surrounded in another trio+1 of hostas saved from the weeds.
I've made a list of plants to add, such as Echinacea, Pulmonaria 'Raspberry Splash', heuchera (a red one, 'Midnight Rose', 'Plum Royale'), Carpathian Bellflower Campanula carpatica 'Bavaria Blue', another Lady's Mantle, a Hardy Geranium 'Johnson's Blue', and another Astilbe, a lavender one I hope. Some alliums would be nice, maybe a mixture of both small drumstick ones plus some Gladiators for fun. Tucked in and around of course will be some Myosotis (forget-me-not).
For spring I want to fill the garden with daffodils and paperwhites. As much as I love tulips, for now all I want to concentrate on are the daffys.
I'm sure there will be more added as our front garden evolves. It's so nice to throw some extra curb appeal to this beautiful old home. It's been neglected for far too long.
