Gardening in February on the Left Coast

 

  

  

The Spring Bulbs are looking very good.  It is so early.  The snowdrops, crocus, daffodils, hellebores, and camillias are all out in my garden.  Around town there are rhodos and azalias out too.  The flower count is going to be amazing this year.    

I managed to get the firethorn debris chopped up and put into the green bin.  The guys will be around tomorrow to do the pick up and leave the bag of compost.  The firethorn is taken down to about 10 feet with some large cut stems showing.  Hopefully, this will all fill in with new growth in a few years.  I hope I can keep it trimmed to size.  I can just reach the top with my long handled pruners now.   The holly tree is growing up in the same area to screen the view from the neighbors front window.  

The pond seems to have a slow leak.  I have the water fall turned off, and am letting the water drain from this slow leak, until it stops.  I will then know at what level the hole occurs.   Once the water level stops dropping, I will top it up again slightly, pour a cup of milk on the surface... around the edges but not right at the edge.  The leakage should draw the milk out and I should be able to see where the hole might be.   If I can find the tiny hole, I can patch it.  If I cannot find it, I will drop another liner inside the existing one and redo the edges while I am at it.    Maybe I could get a plastic waterfall tub at the same time and get my waterfall looking better.  I would be able to add the mossy rocks I have now, as well as any sedums and grasses.   All of this to do after our trip. ... maybe.  If I do not get to it this year, I will just keep topping up the pond every few days.    The fish were on the surface today.  A couple of them are growing bigger and I know there are numerous babies in the pond that are still black.

I was dreading pruning back the firethorn and it was not all that bad of a chore.  So, the pond, will be much the same.  Easy enough, once I get at it.  Last year I managed to get quite a bit done, after having let things get a bit wild.  

The woodland is full of  bluebells.  They look nice but they just take over everything.  Very invasive.  I might have to use chemical control on them soon.

Garden in February

 

The Anna's hummingbirds have over wintered.   They seem to have survived.

The view of the drystream meandering under the deck.  The moss is luxuriant under the steps and up to outter post that holds up the deck.  The rest of the moss garden needs more encouragement.  It is coming along nicely, considering I just started it last summer.    This is a view of the water garden from deck.  Photos from the 15 of February.

Today when I went to throw fish food over the deck railing into the pond I was dismayed to see that the pond was about one quarter empty.  I had just topped it up two days ago.  So, this required immediate action to rectify the situation.  Some of the stones from under the little Lebanon cedar had slid into the pond.  They were on the pot ledge, so I could reach them and drag them out.  I examined the area around the pond and found no other damage.  I can only assume that the water fall was running too  fast and I was losing water out the side of it.  Either that or there was a great pink elephant drinking and I missed it!  I cleaned the filter on the pump and reset it to run at a lower feed of water to the fall.  And topped up the pond again.  I shut off the pump to the waterfall.  If I lose water again, I will have to consider that I have a serious pond leak in the pond.  I have no idea what I would do if that is the case.  Perhaps get the pond done professionally.  Later in the afternoon I went out to see if the water level had changed.  The water level seemed to be topped up.  AND.. I saw the fish... I could count at least 6 of them.  So, if there was a creature in the pond, it had not been after the fish.  I have some black plastic pipe where the fish can hide from predators, too.  My fish are very wary and do not even come up to feed.

I have most of my clothes ready to pack for our trip.  I need to have the legs of one pair of pants  shortened.  Tomorrow I shop again.  I would like to get a couple or three blouse tops and some very comfy black pants for traveling.  

James and Bruce have finished the restoration of Pat's 1912 Ford Torpedo Roadster.  It looks great.  I hope to get photos of it tomorrow, or soon, too.  They say it will be slower than the Speedster, but it has a roof, doors and glory be! a windshield.  Not nearly as wild as the Speedster but far more comfortable!  Excitement abounds at our house!

Cyrus has got Megashot moved to the new cloud servers.  They are having a few little delays in sorting it all out but today it was great, fast and more and more people joining and building their pages.  No new communities yet.  We are over 100 registered now.  It is going to mushroom, fast.  People seem very impressed with the quality of photography and photo art on the site and are very protective of the site.  We have soooo many great features... not all totally finished yet... but they are in the works.  One that really rocks is the ability to make a slideshow with music on our profile presentation.  In fact, when they are finished building this feature, we will be able to make up to 20 of these slideshows, and save each of them in a playlist.

The garden in February

 

The crocuses of all kinds are putting on a show in the garden now.  We have had a few warm, sunny days.

 

Harry Lauder's Walking Stick  showing its catkins.  Its a lovely little tree at this time of the year.  Its curly branches can be seen holding the long catkins of gold.

closer view of the catkins on the Filbert - Corylus avellana 'contorta'

 

I took quite a few photos of the paths for future reference.  I am also considering making an album on my old web page under gardening.. a page for each year, once I get the monthly albums finished..  This is the finished rock path that goes through the inner garden at the front of the house.

 

This is the view of the woodland path (old mossy sidewalk) that goes from the side of the garage or from the grassy area under the apple tree; into the woodland and around the  garage on the bark chip trail.

Along the right side of this photo you see the leaves of the firethorn.  This bush has become large and unshapely.  This afternoon, I spent a couple of hours trimming it down to manageable height and width.  I have taken it down with a bow saw and a long handled pruner.  I have most of the branches cut up and put into the compost bin.  I just ran out of energy before I finished the job.  

I went out to feed the fish.  I throw fish food into the pond from the deck.  While doing this after lunch today, I noticed a few dandilions in the  pond area.  So, I went down to dig them out.  I also topped up the pond and cleaned up some of the leaves and debris off the little dry stream.  The moss garden along the dry stream is looking really quite nice, especially under the deck.

After I finished cleaning in the pond area, I decided to get on with the clean up of the firethorn... out there in my sandals, no goggles, no gloves.  I managed to get most of the job done with only a few thorn pricks in my fingers and some sore muscles.   All this took me about 3 hours.  It was about 13 degrees and a fine sunny day.