May in the Garden

This wonderful hebe is in full bloom.  It sits in the front garden as part of the little rockery.  You see a few of the other plants in this area.  The hedge was not yet clipped at the time of this photo.

Here is a photo of some of the tiny plants on the little rockery at the back.  These are last year's transplants that are doing very well.  I think they may get bigger than their tags say they will be.  The next photo is full of shadows.  It is the view of the strawberries in bloom and the newly transplanted Chinese vegetables.  Behind them are the big black pots, that I have yet to plant up.  Behind the black pots, are the tall bearded irises.  They are going to have a great show this year.  There are lots of buds now.  The last is the mermaid at the top of the waterfall.  I need to find a different place for the mermaid or make moss grow on it.
Yesterday and the day before I spent a few hours trimming the hedges along the top and down the side by Parmar's grass.   I also trimmed back the burning bush off their sidewalk.  Now, of course, we can see their garbage cans sitting out there from our front door.  Amazing... people will keep their garbage cans by their own front door.  I have yet to clip the little bottom hedge.  Since it is a bit misty rainy today, I am taking the day off.  I watered the deck plants a bit yesterday, also.  I moved the grass front and back.  Since I have the access to the back grass covered in vine clippings that will not fit into the big green bin, I devised a way to take the lawn mower up the two back steps.  I have a light board that is easy to place down as a ramp.  I take a short run at it with the mower and it works, really very well.  I may do this to get to the back grass, all the time, now. 

Gardening in Summer

This photo shows the little campanula on the little rockery by the vegetable garden. 
All the photos from last post and this one are from July 21st.

These are the white foxgloves growing under the plum tree in the Japanese Garden area.  They were not peloric this year!

This is a view down the old sidewalk behind the garage in the woodland garden.

This is the chip trail along the side of the garage and is part of the woodland garden.

Since these photos were taken approximately a month ago the garden has under gone some very dry and hot temperatures.  Most of the perennials are finished and need dead heading.  The new transplants are doing ok, but not great.   Everything needs more water. 

We had about half an inch of rain last week, but it seems to have not had much of an affect on our very dry conditions.  I am watering with the sprinkler on the vegetable garden.  Nothing in the woodland.  I topped up the pond and it over-flowed into the moss garden.  The moss garden needs weeding as does the front garden. 

I am trying to come up with a good design for the little area by the water meter, but it mostly just looks ugly.

My Adsense account is approved.  I await my PIN and the tracking of my bank account for payment by electronic transfer.  I set up a new custom channel for Playtime which is a community I have made on Megashot   My custom channel from Playtime does not report earnings on the blog monitize tab, but I guess that makes sense, because the Playtime is a new code and new channel.  It does report on my adsense account.

Megashot is growing like crazy and is getting more and more busy.  There are so many things to do.  The new critique forum is doing very well.  Explore and the contests are very active, too.   Our contest for this month with prizes is in 'Mixed Categories", so anything goes!  Come join us!  Its fun.

Today, we sold the 1915 Model T Speedster.  There are years of memories attached to that antique car.  But it is good to have the 1912 Model T Torpedo Roaster to take its place.  The 1912 Torpedo Roadster has a top, a windscreen and doors!  imagine!  The Speedster has gone to a good home. We hope to see it out  at events, as the guy who bought it is a member of the Vancouver Chapter of the VCCC.  I hope he finds the Can-Am and the Malahat Challenge events, too.  The Can-Am is in the US this year, but we regret we cannot make it.  The Malahat Challenge is out of the Victoria Chapter of the VCCC this year and we hope to be part of that with the new old 1912 Torpedo Roadster; all happening in September.  September will be here before we know!!

The vegetable patch and surrounds

this photo shows part of last year's newly made perennial and special plants area with one of the new heavier cement stones and one of the last year's decorative stones on the path. The path along the grass is flat field stones on a thin layer of sand. To the left is the border along the old cement path by the garage and to the right is the Japanese area /water garden and the vegtable garden. If you take the old cement path around the garage at the top of the left side you will be in the woodland area behind and on the other side of the gargae. The areas are small but definely give you the distinct feeling of being in a different 'garden room'. The apple tree needs the grass around it so that I can harvest and prune the tree. The branches coming in from the top right of the photo are the yellow plum tree branches. Its in the Japanese / water garden area.
In the forefront of this photo you can see the little lewisia. I have a pink and a white... nevada? maybe, and a few of the large showy varieties. The top of the photo shows the bottom of the veggie garden, including part of the rhubarb plant/
The strawberries are doing nicely this year. I do hope they get pollinated. I have some frozen ones for the next rhubarb and strawberry pie. The rhubarb can be harvested now.
This is the view past the little rockery, along the top of the garden path past the strawberries that are mulched, fed compost and slightly hilled up. At the back of the photo you can see the compost bags and 3 large black pots. I have transferred gladiola bulbs into one of the pots, but will need more annuals or perhaps tomatoes in the pots. The dill seed is in the row marked with its package. Across the path from the dill are the other herbs. I added some oregano to the spaghetti sauce last nite, but did not get the full flavour. I think I will add more next time.
In this shot I was standing by the Irises and shooting towards the grass (garage).
I added the brick edging along this little rockery to give me a bit of room to walk along its edge to tend the plants and view. I think it turned out rather well. It needs a bit more topsoil, then plants and the final pea gravel mulch. At the moment I have a cyclamen coum and the daphne to add. I have taken some of the very nice green mounding plant from the front and added it. It looks like it will thrive. I really like that plant .. wish I knew what it is. That upside down pot is hanging on the stump of the pear tree we took out. The pears were scabby and miserable hard things.
Primula marginata, potted, with its own special piece of rock. Its decorative to keep on the deck. I wonder if I should bring it into the house early next year to enter in the show. I can see that it is already too low in the pot. It needs a feeding as does the little willow.

Creating the little rockery

Cannor Nursery delivered my bags of sand, top soil, pea gravel and the few plants I had picked out to use. I have a six pack of small marigolds and a trailing yellow annual put into the strawberry jar that sits on the little rockery along the vegetable garden. I am going to replace the rosemary and the lavendar in the herb patch. I have a thrift and an iberis that I will probably use out in the front garden. I put a 20L bag of sand over the garden soil that I had over a few bits of broken pots in the new little area of the small rockery by the vegetable garden. I then positioned the small rocks and added the bag of top soil. I topped this off with a bag of compost. I might add another layer of sand as the plants that will go in here want good drainage. I shall let this settle for awhile before adding any plants and the final top dressing of pea gravel. I want to divide the mounding green plant, and the very nice cyclamen. I have a cyclamen coum and a daphne that will be added. The lewisias, a lovely campanula, a primula marginata, and a couple of other tiny plants are growing in the front part of this tiny rockery. I have not expanded the rockery into the vegtable garden, as I think it is a good size as it is now. I cleaned up along the lawn edge, dug over half of the vegtable garden and moved all these bags of dirt around today. I have some sore muscles, again.

The daffodils are mostly finished and should be dead headed. I was afraid I had lost tulips to the squirrels but they are showing now and starting to open. The primulas are doing great and the hellebores are still in full bloom. The magnolia is almost finished. The arabis and aubretias are going great! The strip along the driveway looks pretty nice. I must weed it and add compost along the front of that bed. Pat and Jim will be gone 5 days to the Red Deer Swapmeet, so I should be able to get a lot of my gardening done. It all looks so much better when trimmed and weeded.

The strawberries are weeded and have added compost around them. Dug over half of the vetable garden and added compost to the rhubard which is doing much better for having its annual feed of compost. The soil is quite dry, already. When I do the seeding, I shall try to keep the soil moist for the first few days and then start a good watering schedule once the plants are up.

All the newspapers and news sites and blogs are full of news about this swine flu that is jumping around the world quite quickly from its start somewhere in Mexico. The cases in Canada have been mild, as compared to some of the infected people in Mexico who have died from the worst cases. We have stock piled some medicines to combat this flu in B.C. The WHO has listed this as a 4 on the scale that goes to 6 as a pandemic.