Late May garden photo

 The tree peony was huge and gorgeous with a slight fragrance.  It got its usual share of compliments.

 This is a blue perennial geranium.  The flowers are nice, but I really like the textured fresh green leaves.  I have a number of them around the garden.  The garden designers say that planting some of  the same plants around the garden rooms unifies the garden.  I just like this carefree, well behaved plant. 

 Last year's planting of calendula that did not bloom.  At the moment they are the stars of my newly made cutting garden.  I was trying to grow vegetables in this area, but there is just not enough sun and too many tree roots.  I had Davey Tree guys cut back the hedging cedars a bit and take off the long branches at the sides, so I may get a bit more rain and sun in this area.  I hope I have these calendulas in the garden forever now, by self seeding.  I think they will make good cutting flowers.

 I let the columbines self seed every where in the garden.  I am going to save the seed from this white one.  There have been some lovely lavender and mauve ones this year.    It looks like it might be in a pot, but it is in the ground.  That tray is what I am going to use for starting any seeds or cuttings. 

 This is the rectangle in the front garden on our driveway side.  That is one of the lupines that I started from seed last year.  I had 22 plants and can find only 6 plants now.  They do not live very long.  But I will be trying to take better care of them.  I had Davey Tree guys take the cedar hedge behind these plants down to about 12 feet.  The little honeysuckle hedge in front of the plants is trimmed and growing nicely after a few years of neglect.  This bed is cleaned up nicely now and the plants are healthy.  The regular peonies are finally doing well this year.  Just a little care and attention does wonders for them.  I have dug out some of the bamboo runners and Derek came over to get them.  More photos of the peonies soon.  That little geranium goes very well with the colors in this bed.  It is going to make a fine edging plant. 

 The pond -- shooting from up on the deck, framed by the knarly old plum tree branch.

 I was loosing a lot of water out of this waterfall.  I rebuilt it with a piece of pond liner under it covered with a few flat rocks. I put the moss back over the rocks on the side.  This moss might wick off some of the water, but there has been very little water loss since I fixed it.  The mermaid sits on top of it again.  I think she makes the waterfall look taller.

 One of the tall bearded irises. 

We had a very good butternut squash awhile ago.  I planted the seeds in the vegetable patch and they came up quickly.  In a few days they were gone!  I don't know what got them!  Maybe the crows.  I have seen a little brown bunny in the front garden, but it wasn't eating anything.  Since the neighbors have their stinking open compost bin next to my back garden I have seen more crows and even rats in the back garden.  Thank heavens there is some relief in sight for this problem.  Next year, Saanich is going to implement the two tier garbage pick up system.  We will have one bin for green garbage and another for everything else that cannot be composted.  This is being done so that we will have less garbage going to the landfill.  I am already doing this with the Community Composting green bin people.  They take all the kitchen scraps and garden clippings.  And my gardening is a lot of clippings.  They take branches up to 3 inches in diameter.  They leave me a bag of compost on each pick up day which is every 4 weeks.  So, this is going to put the city people in charge of this perfectly fine service I have now.  I hope the guys from Community Composting get to transfer their truck to the city.  They have been really good for me.  I am afraid of what will happen when these civil servants start telling me how to leave out my garbage, or the possibility of a strike.  I will need to go and get compost instead of having it just dropped off at my house.  I would prefer to have the option of staying with my Community Composting guys.  Saanich says we should still keep our compost bins going.  I will use my old one for grass clippings and leaves... anything that does not attract rats.  Everything else will have to go the closed garbage bins. If I have any more big tree branches they will need to be cut up for burning in the winter.   Saanich does not want invasive species of plants either.  So what am I suppose to do with the bind weed and thistles?  C'est la vie!  Some good things about this and some not so good.
The photos were done with HDR photo merge of the bracketed shots.  I still need to get this feature of photoshop working well for me.
I have the front garden pretty well cleaned up and am starting on the back, now.  The cutting garden has the new transplants surviving.  Under the deck is slowly getting the moss, ferns, and few other shade plants to spread and grow.