Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Pond renovations at the end of February

 Overview of the pond after I did some renovation on the edges.  I took the lilies out the pond and divided them.  This was heavy work.  Then I remade the rock edging.
 There was some terrible contrasty light for this photo.  It is a closer view of the renovated edging.  The water marigold is starting to bush out by Feb. 20th.  It is next to the waterfall.
 The water hawthorn is looking good and has quite a few blooms already.
 This is a view of the moss garden and the stone path up to the pond.  The moss still needs a good clean up, now.
 A closer view of the moss.
 The mossy rock and the moss on the lantern bordering the dry stream are features of the Japanese/moss garden.
this is the front rectangular bed next to our driveway.  I cleaned this up earlier in February.  The perennials in this bed are beginning to grow as at Feb. 28. I added more top soil here when I cleaned up this bed.

I have been getting rid of the invasive species in the woodland.  I took out a daphne.  This plant is toxic to people, animals and even to the soil it grows in.  It is spreading along the river and in the parks.  It was being sold as a landscaping plant by the nurseries.  And it is a nice looking shrub.  We are not to put invasive species into the compost bins, so I have bagged it.  When it is all dried out I will burn it.  It seems like I have quite a lot of invasive plants in my garden.  I have been working at eradicating the blue bells  in the woodland area of my garden.  I am pulling them out diligently.  Last year I covered them with cardboard and then with mulched leaves.  I did not put cardboard over the fawn lily patch, so had to be careful in removing the bluebells in that area, and around the hepatica and the 2 trilliums.  I have a few more feet to clean up.  I moved the water tub off the stump of the old eucalyptus tree as it was rotting away.  The fish is still alive in that water feature.  There are cyclamens growing in the tub area.  I need to be careful of them spreading everywhere.  They, too, are on the invasive list.  I was pulling out the perennial bachelor buttons.  The bees like them, but apparently they are on the list to control.  And yes they do take over.  I can use foxgloves and maybe lupines, and columbines instead of these plants.  The woodland looks really good, especially where I put down the cardboard with leaf mulch over it.  I am letting the honesty and dames rocket self seed in there for now.  I still get a few morning glory, thistles, and blackberries popping up, but they are getting easier to control as I keep after keeping them down.  The chocolate lily that  I have in a pot will be put  in the primula bed, if I have soom.  I am removing the miniature blue spruce that has become too large for its spot by the moss garden.  I will be trying to get the moss to spread out more towards the primulas.  The spruce needles seemed to kill the moss.  It is a busy time in the garden.

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