Spring in the Garden

The mermaid sits on top of the water fall now observing the top mossy water running down.  There is a view over the top of the variegated lily of the valley shrub to the back of the water garden.  Sadly this view includes Mrs. Pee's barren, cement back yard.  You see the green foliage plants beside the pond by the deck... a geranium, a monks hood and some primula.  The marsh marigolds are making a lovely big golden clump and are reflected in the pond.
  This evening when I looked out to the pond, I saw 2 little gold fish.  So, there are some fish in there!!  Hope to see more of them as the temperatures warm up.

There are two trilliums in the back woodland garden.  The big one has 3 blossoms.  It was buried beneath a big leaf of a plant.  It is doing much better since I uncovered it.  This area needs some attention to curtailing the invasive blue bells.  I hope to carefully use the Weed be gone spray on them.  They are getting all over the garden, not just in the woodland area.  Across the sidewalk from the trilliums and hiding the old compost bin, is the old lily of the valley shrub that is in full bloom and is perfuming the garden.   The white fawn lilies are showing in the photo.  You can see some of the bluebells in there.  They will be very carefully painted with weed be gone, and hopefully give the lilies a chance.

 A daphne, a lewisia, and two tiny alpines on the small rockery at the back.  I am happy to see a few of last year's alpine purchase surviving.  The lewisias are not the showy ones, but are nice little rockery plants.  This little rockery needs top dressing of compost and perhaps more pea gravel.  Most of these tiny alpines do not want moisture around their crowns.  I have yet to transplant this year's alpine purchases.  I really only have two or three to go in.  I will be putting the cyclamen coum in the front little rockery area where is is better shaded.  The willows will go into larger pots until I get time to transplant them in the right locations. 

Gardening.... continued

This trillium is called 'wake robin'. It is red with these lovely spotted leaves. This one is a transplant from a year ago from the specialty nursery on Saltspring Island (sorry, I have forgotten the name of the place). I have 2 other trilliums from them planted in this newly created 'rock garden/woodland area. Last year I made this new little garden by turning over some grass and putting stepping stones through it to the vegetable garden / lewiisia rockery. There is a tiny 'trillium' garden with an lovely anemone hepactica just beneath the Harry Lauder's Walking Stick (twisted branches of a variety of hazelnut). I don't see the dodecathenon or the ethronium showing in this new area. Although, I have some ethroniums doing very well in the woodland area at the back. Our lovely little indiginous lillies. I have yellow and white varieties. I should transfer some seed to the new area, as I understand they are impossible to dig up and move.
This is a tall trillium with a large flower. It is in the woodland area of my back garden. I am always happy to see it showing among the invasive blue bells and the other large plant it is near. I don't recall the name of the plant, but these dark green leaves look very nice in the photo.
This little trillium now has 2 flowers. It is in the front garden, by its large round rock. Today, I weeded out the violets and other invasive plants from near it. It seems to like the soil created from using bark mulch, and from the leaf fall of the black bamboo. The violets are running rampant again. You can see one in the lower left corner of the photo. They are pretty plants but they just take over! So, I must get my soil to the point where I can easily just pull them out. In my basic clay soil they get a good grip and the roots just stay put to come up again. I need more bark mulch, I guess.
This is another very good Primula vulgaris. Outstanding color on this one. It makes a tight bunch with multiple flowers. I think I should divide this one after it is finished blooming.

The primula marginatas in the pot and in the lewisia rockery are both coming up, and showing blooms. They both look a bit stressed though. I wonder if they need more 'lime'.

Yesterday, I was at Cannor Nursery to get some fish. I have 6 new goldfish - 4 of the least expensive 'comets' and 2 sarasa. It was a nice sunny morning, but when I was at the nursery, the wind came up and was very cold and raw. I have wind burn on my face from being out in it. As well as the fish I bought a few seeds: marigolds, dill, sunflowers and cosmos.

Now my uploading seems to be fixed for the moment. I went to the help forums for Blogger and found some interesting info. It seems our photos are loaded to Picasa albums and then to the blogs. I never knew I had such a thing. Well, blogspot bloggers check you dashboard and to the bottom and look at your Picasa albums and the limits. Apparently I am using " You are currently using 397 MB (38.77%) of your 1024 MB. " Thereafter, we can upgrade our storage space! Interesting.

This morning, after Capiccino, Pat drove me over to the Rock and Alpine show and sale. The show seemed to me to be rather less than what it has been. I don't know what has happened as I have not been attending the meetings. Perhaps some people have moved or are traveling. Beaver Creek Nursery was there. This is a great source for special rock and alpine plants. The plant list on Roger Barlow's website is very helpful. I bought a $15.00 tufa rock and two little plants. One a salix repetans (spelling) and a tiny lupine with silvery leaves, as well as a creeping phlox from the club sale. The people in the sale room seemed very sparse compared to the usual numbers. Oh well, guess clubs go through these changes.

The purchase of my tufa rock inspired me to go out and look at where to put it. I want to add to the lewisia bed beside the vegetable garden area. So, I moved the heavenly scented daffodil. There were lots of bulbs!!! I now have this daffodil all over the gardens! After I got back from the show, I decided to walk over a couple of blocks to see what the rezoning notice was about. Seems they want to make a duplex on their large lot. Well, the exciting part for me was that on the way I found that someone had dumped some rocks in the deer pasture, just across the street from my place! Just what I need! I got my wheel barrow and collected these rocks to complete the new addition to the lewisia bed! Now how convenient is that? I needed a few little rocks and they just appeared! So, I have a few more perennials to remove from the area, and then I will have space for the tufa rock and a few choice rock plants. I will probably let the new little area settle until next year. I have room for a few plants in the front little rockeries.