Tuesday, April 12, 2016

March 8th in the garden part 2

 An overview of the middle of the back garden, showing the apple tree and some of the stepping stone path.  Pat did a fine pruning job on the Apple tree two years ago.  It is now full of blossoms.  We should have a good crop of apples this year.  I have been missing the apple sauce and need to use store bought apples to make the sauce.
 /the yellow plum tree was covered in blossoms again, despite the pruning we have been doing on it.  Behind it you see the English oak tree with last year's leaves still clinging to it, and lit up by the sun.
 The double mauve primula.
 The newish drunstick primula
 This beauty is really spreading out.  Love the color.
 The yellow primula, which seems rather weak in comparison to the one above it.
 Wind Flowers.  They are slowly spreading all over the back garden.  They are easy enough to control, so I let them pop up everywhere.  Nice foliage and good color with the spring bulbs.
 The dark hellebore.  My photo of the white hellebore was terrible.  These plants spread too much for the space I have for them.  I am going to try to move them to the woodland and maybe further under the deck.
This is the woodland plants just getting started.  They are now in full bloom and looking great.  But the path is blocked by fire thorn bush trimmings that I need to clip into the bin.  And then the bin will be full again.  This bin is a silly size.  It is empty for some of the pick up days and has too much for other pick up days.  So, sometimes I have heaps of cuttings laying around.  Our other garbage can is bigger and is never anywhere near full.  We just do not have that much garbage that goes to the dump.  It would be nice if we could reverse the size of the bins... bigger green and smaller garbage.
I am into removing the invasive plants from my garden.  I found another daphne to dig out along the driveway strip.  Hope I have them all now.  Of course I will have to watch for new ones popping up.  I am not making much headway with the blue bells.  The morning glory vines do seem to be diminishing.  Next, I will get rid of the ivy.  There is ivy everywhere in the park across the street, as that area was once home to people. And, of course, everyone grew the ground cover.  I don't think I will be getting rid of the st. john's worte just yet.  The violets are blooming all over the garden now.  They ARE pretty, but guess I should keep after them too, and not let them run rampant.  The lemon balm has to be dug out too, and the one under the front plum tree has to be kept from going to seed.  I should take it all out too.  It is a mint, after all, and is tenacious.  Lovely fragrance.  Is nice to line the fish serving platter with its lemony leaves.  I dug the false lily of the valley out of my moss garden and put them way under the deck by the window.  No doubt they will continue to spread, but should make a nice ground cover in that difficult spot. And then there is the gout weed.  I clip it off in the summer when it is in bloom, but I still may need to get rid of it because I do not want it to escape from its confining space on the 5 foot strip next to the neighbors sidewalk. It looks good in the summer, though.  I imagine I could get Oregon grape to grow there, and move the camas.

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