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Gardens

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Several posts back in what is in serious danger of becoming a blog about gardening (a subject on which I am completely unqualified to write but which seems to be one of the few activities still open to one in these strange days) I spun a tale about the conversion of the redundant raised pond in our front garden into a new bed for plants. All that remained – I reported breathlessly – was to choose that which should be planted therein.

To give the gentle reader some broader physical context – this is what the bed looks like in situ:

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidAs may be observed the bed is backed – and overhung – by a screen of five medium sized fir trees and surrounded by a cluster of evergreen shrubs. This whole acts as a handy barrier between our property and the road and gives the garden an agreeable degree of privacy. There is – however – a fair bit of ‘green’ going on.

What to plant there? The firs raise the acid level of the soil beneath them which limits the choice somewhat. We considered azaleas or rhododendrons (both of which we already have in fair number) or something with bright coloured flowers. The problem with the latter is that the contrast obtained thereby would last but a limited period each year.

We chose instead to offset the greenery with some burgundy/red which would provide a nearly year round contrast – and went looking for suitable low-habit Japanese maples (or acers should you prefer). Here is what we found:

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidThe larger one is a Gloucester Red Select and the smaller one is a Red Dragon. Why did we not purchase two bushes the of similar size? Have you seen the price of these things? They will end up of similar stature and this way we get to see them grow and fill out over time whilst ensuring that they take on the shape that we want.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidThey both cascade nicely and will give us a pretty mound of burgundy – fading to crimson red in the autumn (fall)  – to offset all of that greenery.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidNow we just have to wait and enjoy the show from our kitchen window!

 

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“Spring is nature’s way of saying, “Let’s party!”

Robin Williams

I was thinking just how lucky we are to have a spring garden. This is my favourite time of year and having a spring garden may well be a large part of that.

Then it occurred to me that I have been fortunate enough to have had – or have had access to – more than one spring garden over the years. “Mayhap” – I pondered to myself – “all gardens are spring gardens… or at least, coming hard on the heels of winter, that is the way they feel”.

Actually it matters not a jot and I thought that you – the gentle reader – might like to peruse some more images of nature’s bounty as it currently pertains in this neck of the woods.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

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“Gardening is the slowest of the performing arts.”

Anonymous

Enforced inactivity (courtesy of the social isolation essential to the mitigation of the current pandemic) does have its upside. Sometimes it finally shakes one into commencing some project or other that one should have started years before.

Thus it is with our pond!

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidWhen we purchased our lovely home – nearly five years ago now – we observed that it had in the front garden (yard!) a small raised ornamental pond. As a water feature it distinctly lacked interest and its main function appeared to be to provide a breeding ground for mosquitoes and other biting things. We determined that we would get rid of it.

About a year after we purchased the property I bought a boat – the good ship ‘Dignity‘. In order that we might accommodate her (when not upon the saltchuck) in the driveway next to our house our landscape gardener friend from Saanichton carried out some groundworks to widen the ingress.

We asked him about our pond and he suggested that it should be no problem to demolish. As it happened he had with him his small backhoe loader – the sort of thing once known as a ‘digger’. He took a run at the pond in it and it simply bounced off – without leaving so much as a scratch mark. We decided that more serious firepower would be needed and resolved to temporarily park the problem in the bay marked ‘stuff for the future’.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidLast year I decided that the future was now with us and that something must be done about the pond. Demolition proving too difficult a task we decided instead to turn the feature into a raised bed. This would mirror other existing such beds in our front garden.

I carefully siphoned the (revolting) water out of our water-feature. The next task was to punch a hole in the bottom of the pond at its lowest point to allow it to drain properly. Since the thing had proved immune to the backhoe the logical thing to do(!) was to attempt the job by hand – with a club hammer and cold chisel. The result – after several months of repeated hammerings – was a gratifying six-inch hole through to the earth below.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidThus it remained through the winter – until such point as we found ourselves isolated by the pandemic – at which time our thoughts (well, mine anyway) turned to gardening. I quickly discovered that I could order and pay for the necessary materials online. At the allotted time a week or so later a spotty youth in a dump truck approached the house in a gingerly fashion – as though it were a leper colony or somesuch – dumped the contents at the end of the driveway and accelerated away as quickly as possible.

Perfect!

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidIt took but a short hour’s work to fill the bottom of the erstwhile pond with six inches of drain rock and to then top it up with fresh topsoil.

So – now we have a splendid new bed outside our kitchen window. All that remains to do is for us to figure out what to put in it. More on that later.

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

 

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Those of us of a certain age – and in particular those of us who played in bands ‘back in the day’ – will be familiar with Rob Reiner’s ‘mockumentary’ (the very first of its kind) – “This is Spinal Tap“. It was obligatory in the mid 80s for us to have seen the film (often many times) – to know it sufficiently well that we could quote chunks of it by heart – and to claim that it must somehow have been based on our own band’s experiences (usually completely missing the point that it was a satire… Yup – we took ourselves pretty seriously!).

Now – I must confess that, though I have certainly seen the whole film, I have a feeling that I have not ever done so in one sitting. I also have a feeling that I may not be alone in this. No matter!

Why am I bringing this up now?

Well – though the main characters in the spoof band were played by talented actor/musicians Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer (who went on to voice a number of key characters in ‘The Simpsons’) – one of the jokes was that Spinal Tap had worked its way through an infeasible number of drummers – most of whom had died in unusual circumstances (two from spontaneous human combustion onstage and one from choking on “someone else’s vomit”). Yet another had died in a “bizarre gardening accident” which was supposedly described by the police afterwards as a mystery “best left unsolved.”

Yes – you’ve guessed it! I was on the InterWebNet looking up unusual gardening accidents. There are – of course – many ways to injure oneself whilst tending to one’s estate (pretentious? moi?) and most of them do not bear thinking about. Some – however – just hurt a lot and make one feel particularly stupid. Such was the minor incident in which I was involved the other day.

I was mowing the lawn – which I am obliged to do with sufficient frequency that I should by now have achieved ‘black-belt’ status in the noble art of grass cutting. I should certainly know well enough what I am about that the following should not have taken place.

I stopped the mower to empty the clipping bag. Having done so I set things up again and gave a vigorous tug on the starter cord. Unfortunately I had not noticed that I was positioned rather too close to the corner of our garden tool-shed (Canadian: shop) and as I jerked my arm back the point of my elbow impacted with the corner of the building.

“Ouch!” (That is – of course – not the word that I used at the time…)

What a numpty!

 

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“A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself.”

May Sarton

This is the third year since I ‘retired’ that I have been teaching during the winter and early spring months. As before my efforts culminate in mid-April and I find myself with time (apparently) on my hands and must needs change gear and find a different rhythm for the weeks and summer months ahead.

It is also – as I have noted before – the time of year during which our garden awakes, stretches itself, yawns and starts to demand attention. There is usually a gap of about a month between the first plangent calls and the point at which I can no longer ignore them and must start to do something about them. There follows an unseemly scramble to catch up and to prepare the garden to receive admiring (hopefully) visitors throughout the bosky summer months.

I must – in short – get busy!

This is – of course – a considerable ‘advantage’ during these times of pandemic. Since I must needs devote much of my time and energy to our verdant (half) acre(s) it matters little to me that we are in social lock-down. The effect is the same either way!

Anyway – here be some images to ‘set the scene’…

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

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Winter lingered so long in the lap of Spring that it occasioned a great deal of talk.

Bill Nye

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid
It has, of late, been particularly wet here on the west coast coast of Canada. Not in the catastrophic flooding/exceptional weather kind of way that some other regions of the world have been suffering, but just a constant and relentless dampness from day to day. The aquifers are doubtless happy – as are the ducks – but as for the rest of us… not so much!

Further, even on days such as today – when the sun has decided to peep through the murk and the temperature has climbed to something approaching acceptability for human life – come eventide it will have again plummeted towards the red (or should that be blue) zone and the nights remain consistently chilly.

As a result our early spring flowers have been caught in two minds as to whether or not to grace us with their bloomin’ presence. The snowdrops have done their thing regardless – but then, that is what snowdrops do.

The daffodils and tulips – on the other hand – have poked their heads out, formed buds and then just stopped… unwilling to burst fully into bloom until the sun comes out in a more meaningful way to provide some proper spring warmth. My worry is that they will just eventually give up without ever bursting properly into flower.

The glorious magnolia featured in these photos is at the college at which I teach. Hopefully this will act as an exemplar to our own rather more timid flora.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

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Though the New Year is already slightly less new than it was and term has already started, I find that I am still trying to get up to date with posts that I had intended for the twelve days themselves.

This one – for example – features a visit that we paid with dearest friends before the New Year to Butcharts Gardens, to view their illuminated Christmas extravaganza. We have been trying to get to this annual celebration for the past four years, failing each time for one (good) reason or another. Well – this time we have finally been successful in so doing.

This festive flight of fancy is unsurprisingly based on the Twelve Days of Christmas – some elements of which can be seen in the photos below. See if you can spot them…

A very jolly and appropriately seasonal event it was too…

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

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A nip and a tuck

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidOur arborists paid us another visit last week, in part to remove the remains of a Doug Fir branch on the boundary between our humble abode and that next door to one side, the which had been broken in the bad weather last spring. During the year there was little danger of it coming to harm but the season of winter storms is upon us and we must needs be prepared.

The other apparently trivial task that we sought of them was to restore one of the two openings through which we are lucky enough to have distant vistas from the back of our house. This is the one through which Mount Baker may be seen (on a clear day!) and a determined cedar – which has clearly been cut back many times before – was making multiple skyward bids from the various shoots that had emerged after previous none-too-clever hatchet jobs.

Like the forest fight for sunlight, that takes root in every tree” – as Genesis would have it…

These operations are always delicate, not because of anything forestry related but because of the necessary interaction required with neighbours. In this instance the tree concerned was not on our property and – having been the subject of attention in the past – there was the possibility of an awkward history to be considered. This neighbour’s property is, however, probably going on the market in the New Year and we estimated that only minimal resistance might be encountered, which fortunately proved to be the case.

As can be see from the composite image below the the works were relatively subtle, though a surprising amount of foliage was borne away to the chipper. The picture does not do justice to just how much difference restoring the bottom right of the opening has made.

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

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Diabetics!

The Girl swears blind that the hummingbirds in our front garden (yard!) are diabetics. This is based on their slavish predeliction for the nectar that I lavish upon them at infeasibly frequent intervals. Being made by combining four parts boiled water to one part granulated sugar these must provide a healthy (or un-healthy) kick whenever they sock it back.

Now – for sure these gorgeous little friends burn off a fair bit of energy and because they are so tiny they don’t have much room to store same – but I am beginning to wonder what is going on. Our feeder at the front is suspended next to a hanging basket that is lavish with unctuous blooms – all containing stacks of that yummy nectar. But do the birds bother with that? Nope! They head straight for the feeder.

Hmmmm!

This is the work of but a few days…

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

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I thought I would post some images (before it was too late) of the relatively few remaining plants in our garden that have not been savaged by deer…

They are contrary ba**ards, these creatures. One year they are picky customers – turning their noses up at all manner of succulence. The next – they will (and do!) eat anything. If it’s green and has leaves – it’s lunch!

This makes planning a deer-proof garden almost impossible. If one is unable – as are we – to circle one’s little plot with a rugged deer-proof fence of some variety then one has little choice but to search out plants that deer don’t care to eat. That would be a good sight easier if they didn’t change their minds from season to season.

Purveyors of plants like to advertise particular combinations of perennials as being deer-proof. I think the deer just see this as a challenge.

Doesn’t matter if I don’t much care for this – I am going to choke it down anyway just to make a point! Hah!

Once one has reached the point of imagining deer internal monologues it is probably time to stop, though…

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

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