The Cutting Garden - a new project

 The pinks in bloom in the little rockery at the back.  They are fragrant

 a cosmos in the cutting garden.  I must keep these dead headed so that they keep producing flowers.

 The beginning of the new project.  The vegetables do not seem to grow as there is not enough sun and too many tree roots in this spot.  So, this side of the old veggie patch is going to be the cutting garden.  This year I have glads, cosmos, the calendulas from last year. And perennials: At  Brentwood Bay nursery and I got 16 flowers and a strawberry for $71.92.    1. Dianthus Neon Star and 2. Dianthus fire witch - both transplanted in the front of the rectangle #2 border.  Frangrant plants.   3.  Homestead purple verbena (trailing).. very pretty.   Should make a good cut flower too. Planted it in the back pot that has the geraniums in it by the back garage.   4.  Rose Wine Meadow Sage (Salvia Nemorosa 'Rosenwein') - fragrant and butterflies. Planted on the down side of the Magnolia. Will make a good cutting flower too.  5.  Gaillardia Burgundy - butterflies should like it, & cutting.   Planted in the cutting garden.  6. Iceland Poppy, butterflies & cutting. In the cutting garden.  7. Hellenium Autumnal - Helen's flower.  red and gold looks nice, cutting. 36 inches.  Planted in the cutting garden at the back near the oak.   8.  Blue Balloon Flower - Platycodon grandiflorus, Astra Blue  Planted by the smoke bush 9.  Geum- Blazing Sunset.. red cutting, I think I will plant it in the inner garden at the front with the balloon flowers... and remove the lavender that is not doing well  add more compost.  Left the lavender and planted by smoke bush. 10.  Asclepias tuberosa - cutting and butterflies.. milkweed. 24 inches.  Planted this at the top of the cutting garden where it gets most sun.  Happens to be by the dahlia which is up.  I will move the dahlia maybe, next year.   11.  Liatris - purple spikes - cutting, butterflies.  In the cutting garden. 12.  Monarda Fireball (Bee Balm) dwarf... shaggy flowers red 12 - 18" butterflies, cutting, hummingbirds. In the cutting garden.  13. Aquilegia (Columbine) Ruby Port.. a lovely wine, double puffy flower. planted this one in the cutting garden by the yews. The columbines are doing great all over the garden this year with a wide variety of colors, even a white one.  14.  Delphinium Black Knight Pacific Giant hybrid. will need staking, violet blue flowers/black bee, cutting and I know the humming birds like them too. Planted in the cutting garden next to the cement blocks and the yew trees. The humming birds like the siberian iris and foxgloves, and seem to check out all of the flowers.  15,  Aster Wartburg Star, Aster tongolensis - lovely blue and gold daisy like flowers.  Butterflies should like this one.  15.  Wallflower Cheiranthus Orange, fragrant.  Planted it by the Magnolia with the other wall flower. 

 In this photo we see part of the little rockery and a foxglove in bloom next to the cutting garden area.

 There are going to be some figs this year. 

 One of the oriental poppies from the back.  These poppies are mostly finished now and I have cut back their flower heads.  I should save them for poppy seed.  I love poppy seed roll that my Mom made. 

 Another view of the rhodo by the deck.  These shrubs are finished blooming.

The trailing verbena.  A lovely  color.  It should be good for cutting.

Early June in the woodland garden

this is the beginning of what I call the woodland area of my garden.  The old sidewalk goes half way along behind the old garage with about five foot beds on each side.  The germander is easy care and the bees love it.  behind the germander along the fence line there is a yew, some hedging cedars, a firethorn, a large herb that tastes like celery (don't recall its name).  This herb gets very tall.  The tall bearded irises are in front of it with polyanthus edging the side walk.  We can see just past the water feature which is a black tub with a gold fish and some water iris.  We see the dames rocket in purple that are just by the water tub.  There are more shrubs and trees beyond this area.  The sidewalk becomes a chip trail and curves around the garage.  Across the sidewalk we see the bed that has the winter jasmine, a lovely hydrangea, daylillies with sweet woodruff beneath.  The hydrangea has caught some deadly fungus this year.  I am in the process of removing all the weeds, bluebells where I can find them, sweet woodruff, and there is even an infestation of grass in this bed.  I dig it all over and save anything of value.  I hope I can save the hydrangea.  At the end of this bed, we see the lily of the valley shrub (piers japanica) that has red leaves at the top.  In front of this shrub there is a huge fern.  These two plants hang over the old plastic compost bin that I have not used for a few years, as I have had my Community Composting people with the closed in big green bin that they take away every 4 weeks.  Beyond the old compost bin (which is half full of old compost and still in good shape) the sidewalk ends and the chip trail begins.  By the garage there is a pin oak and a rhodo.  So what we see is only half of the woodland along the back.  There are more woodland plants along the side of the garage.  Along the back in the area we cannot see there is a tall Japanese cedar, a butterfly bush, the torch lily, fawn lillies and trilliums in the Spring and a few other small shrubs, another tall herb, more self seeding columbines, dames rocket and far too many perennial bachelor buttons.  All of this area is infested with blue bells, some bind weed, thistles and lemon balm and I will be trying to control them as the year goes on.

 A closer view of one of the tall bearded iris in the woodland.

 This torch lily is along the strip between our driveways, but is the same plant at the back, in the woodland.

 This is a view from the bit of grass under the apple tree over the stepping stones path to the rhodo that is by the deck.The path is looking quite nice this year, with corsican mint growing between the stones.  I need to keep this area weeded.  Small grass and tiny orange flowering weeds seem to like to grow here.  The mint gets little purple flowers and otherwise has a wonderful fragrance when stepped on.  The harry lauders walking stick (curly filbert bush), a small blue spruce are along this side of the path.  You can just see another rhodo peeking out at the end of the path, by the deck.  There are some primulas along the edge of the path, at the bottom, in front of the rhodos.  The moss garden starts just beyond the primulas, an azalea, a couple of hellebores, and ferns.  I let the welsh poppies self seed in the moss garden, but keep the ferns back from the moss along the dry stream and the stepping stones into the area under the deck. 

 on this closer view of the rhodo, we see the fig tree on the right.

 close up of one of the rhodos.

On Monday we were to Sydney for lunch with our travel agent, Maria, from Marlin Travel.  She had this Mickey Mouse in the front window advertising a Disney World vacation.  When I half jokingly said I wanted that mouse.. she said she would see what she could do about that.  I went home with the mouse.  She is the best travel agent.  We have been with her for years.  Monday was a terrific day.  We took the Bentley for a run to Sidney and while there, just happened to run into a 1927 4.5 liter Bentley.  There were about 28 of these cars on a tour.  But that's another story...

June weeding and watering

 A white foxglove that is in a pot on the deck.  It self seeded there.  I must save seed from it as well as the white columbine.  I should tag and bag them.  Perhaps I can get more white flowers for an attempt at a white garden in my cutting garden. 

 This scabosia is doing well on the deck.  Most of my butterfly/humming bird flowers on the deck have about run their course for perennials in pots survival.  Might rejuvenate them with herbs.  I am using chives, oregano, and bought parsley.  Ruby's parsley survived the winter last year, so hope mine will.  The dill is pathetic again, all though it did germinate before the birds got it, I suppose.

 The water feature on the deck with climatis.  The two iris have buds.  One is white and the other the lovely purple one.

 This is the white water iris in the pond.  Same one as is in the deck pot.

I was looking at some of our photos from our 2011 trip to the Model Ts meet at Pincher Creek.  I relly liked this one of the Columbia River wetlands and so had to get it ready for that travel album, if I ever get it done.  A quote from a website about this area: 
The Columbia Valley Wetlands covers an area from Canal Flats to Donald and is the longest continuous wetlands remaining on the continent. It covers 26,000 hectares (64,000 acres) and supports over 260 resident and migratory bird species. The Columbia flood plain is very flat and ranges from 1-2 km in width.
http://columbiavalley.ca/node/24
Yesterday, I emailed out the link to my gallery on megashot for last year's Can Am, and I am getting a few return mails.  Always nice to hear from people.
In the garden, I have the front pretty well cleaned up with just watering and keeping an eye on any weeds to be nipped before they go to seed.   In the back, I have the water garden and the waterfall working good.  The moss garden is looking real good too.  I need to be on top of those wretched bluebells in the spring.  I moved a big fern from beside the little dry stream and patched the spot with clay soil.  I hope the moss grows here quickly.  I think I got a new little moss in one of the flower pots from Brentwood Bay garden center.  I put it on this new area and hope to see it expand.  I have several different kinds of moss growing.  I am keeping it damp under the deck and it is slowly spreading.  I am also getting ferns moved around under there.  I move the chair to where I get a view of the moss garden and the pond.  I need to remove the delphinium to get a better view of the pond, though.  Some of the transplants are already growing to fill in the neighbors view under my deck and to my back patio.  I am in the process of cleaning up the little garden bed behind the garage.  My beautiful hydrangea is there, but has got some kind of fungus.  The leaves are all shriveled up and dying, but the wood underneath is still alive.  I hope I can save it.   After that I must get the woodland under control; especially those bluebells that are crowding out everything.  The dames rocket grew huge this year, so did the old fern and the lily of the valley tree.    Well, the garden is every changing, and interesting.