Clean-up Progress, Brenda’s heart starts pounding

Week two of the massive garden clean-up was well underway this weekend despite squalls coming through the Cowichan Valley about every hour or so.

Here’s a lovely serene picture of the pond from a distance.  It completely masks the fact that all the way around the pond requires weeding, clearing, stick removal, and cut-back.  But what a lovely picture, eh?

Every gardener loves this view of his/her garden.  It’s a cherished perennial coming up for another year!  This is my ITOH peony, Bartzella, which grows to a 4 foot, rounded glorious shrub with wonderful deeply cut foliage and pie plate sized yellow flowers.  But, it all starts with these little red shoots every year.  Yureka!

Those that follow my blog know that I acquired some special Hostas from some leading growers in Ottawa last year.  I potted them up upon return and had some decent growth.  In October I moved them from one of the patios with shade to under the overhang near my gardening bench where they don’t get direct weather and they get a tiny bit of heat from the dryer from the tenant’s unit so they don’t freeze.  A kind of neat cold frame!  I’ve given them little sips of water over the winter and feel good to see that they are just beginning to sprout.  Can hardly wait to see how Marilyn Monroe performs in her first full year!

Took over 4 hours, but have managed to get a sizeable amount of the moss removed from the north end of the Long Bed.  You may notice the very big cut back I did on my beloved Forsythia last fall.  She was diseased and this was my last attempt to save her.  If she’s still sick once she gets going – off with her head.

All types of hellebores, including these ones, are getting ready to bloom.  Hurray for Hellebores!

The Rhodos have enjoyed a mostly milder weather and most are budded out.  We are hoping for early blooms for the Nanaimo Horticultural Society tour of the garden on April 28th.

This will be the BEFORE picture.  I bought these cranes in Malaysia and they were shipped home when my husband’s consulting contract was concluded.  They have been the highlight of the garden since we placed them, but they have to be sanded down and repainted every once in awhile.  The last time was 4 years ago and they need another tender loving rub and re-paint.  So, here’s what they look like now and I will lug them to the porch and apply very light sandpaper and restore the lovely cranes.

The crocus are just starting to get going now and this bed badly needs raking and sprucing up.  But see how glorious the river is flowing at this time of year!

Woohoo! Hugging a precious pot bound and loving it conifer – here come the planted tulip bulbs.  The pot plant is a ‘yew’ . Some people think that the yew tree can help to solve the cancer mystery.

That’s it for this week.  I should say that I was stunned at the advanced state of many Victoria gardens when I went south down to Victoria this past week.  There were Camellia shrubs in full bloom and unlike our current situation where snowdrops and crocus are just coming up, Victoria had daffodils in full bloom!  And they are only 40 miles south!

Stay tuned.  I believe I will at least get the long bed and the iris bed cleared this week…………

And She’s Off! Brenda begins another gardening year!

Talk about an erratic blogger! Over three years I’ve managed 36 posts in total and most in 2010.  Every year I say I’m going to blog consistently, and every year I trail off at some point.

This year I am going to attempt to document with pictures and text, all gardening efforts, beginning today.

Why today?  I firmly believe each gardener is unique.  Their gardens are what they want to make them, and the motivations and satisfactions are different for every single person who plants a tree or grows a seed.

Today just felt right to get going.  I have a BIG garden with many, many beds, plots, and special areas including a decent sized river that runs through the property and a fair sized pond.

We’ve had a fairly mild winter in the Cowichan Valley.  Cowichan actually means ‘Warmland’ in Aboriginal dialect and the Valley is a micro-climate ideal for most type of gardening.  My property is a little cooler than those closer to the sea, but is quite reliably 7-8 with a little 9 thrown in for good measure.

I am one of those gardeners that doesn’t do much in the winter. I may pull the odd weed, clean up some broken branches after a snow, etc. but invariably every year about this time I am faced with the fact that every plot and bed needs ‘cleaning up’. Weeds are beginning (sigh), some grasses and other shrubs need cutting back, moss removed, hellebore leaves trimmed, etc.  And this year some top dressing is definitely in order.

So, I suit up, get a fresh pair of garden gloves on, the awful black vest that I’ve had for too many years, the knee pads, etc. and head out.  Here’s what happens:

February 26, 2012 Clean Up begins

Yes, nicely start trimming grasses – you can see many different varieties here, start pulling weeds, digging out a dead heather and yes, it starts snowing!

It was a wet winter, but then all winters on the West Coast of Canada are wet, but there was the most moss build-up I’ve ever seen this year.  You can read about using bleach to rid yourself of moss or other treatments.  I find the most effective is to put the knee pads on and thoroughly scrape and dig it off.  With the ground cold and still a teeny bit frozen, it’s easier to pull it off entirely.  Here is a picture of my biggest enemy:

The Dreaded Pepper weed

Anyone who has even done a little bit of gardening recognizes this early, persistent, wildly invasive weed.  I suggest you get out and pull as many as you can now, even if a blizzard occurs.  If they get established before you know it, they are everywhere.

Rose pruning

Yes, I know, serious rose pruning shouldn’t take place until after the Forsythia have bloomed, but about now I am doing some very light pruning to remove the cross branches.  I also gave the hellebores a little of that famous organic fertilizer (see previous posts) and removed the blackened and spotted leaves.

Sigh, see how much more of just this bed is left to go?

Ah well, I don’t view gardening as a chore.  It’s my pleasure and my passion and it’s so much fun taking these ‘Before’ pictures just so you can rejoice in the ‘After’ pictures a few months from now.  The Nanaimo Horticultural Society is coming down for a tour of the garden (and many others) on April 28th, so I’ve got two more months to get everything ship shape.  On the dog walk this morning I found some pussy willow.  How’s this for cheering up the house? Stay tuned, at least a blog a week as the garden progresses this year. Consider subcribing to the blog.  I am dividing many a plant this year and I’ll be announcing which ones available when only through the blog.

Pussy Willow and snow drops! Spring is coming....

My Cobble Hill Garden this summer

Finally, a new post from me! Because I work as a social media consultant, I am constantly on my computer (when I’m not in my garden) and I’m always thinking about what would be interesting in my next garden post.  But work, family, volunteering, work, etc. get in the way and the post is seldom written.  No more promises about trying to do more posting, but honestly, I’m going to try to do more posting!  Here’s a walk through my garden as of this week with comments and a few questions:

Siberian Iris 'Blueberry Parfait'

Many of you know I am an Irisoholic.  I started out with bearded Iris, mostly the border bearded or tall bearded, but they are short-lived and high maintenance.  I still have a decent collection, but have been slowly but surely building up my collection of Siberian and Japanese Iris.  They last longer, are 1/4 or less the work and are oh! so pretty.

It's a type of Impatien??

Every time I see a handwritten ‘Plant Sale’ sign anywhere where I am driving I screech to a stop and pull in.  I doubt this urge for the potential for one more good plant will ever leave me.  I screeched last weekend and drove down a very long land (it’s an 18 acre property) to a small plant sale filled with interesting plants conducted by the owner of the property and her gardener. What I really wanted to do was buy the world-class horse in the pasture, but he wasn’t for sale and would be way past my wallet-capability.  Anyways, one of the most interesting plant was the Impatien above.  It’s perennial, its stock is almost bamboo-like and the foliage is dynamic.  It’s aggressive and needs to either be in a pot or a place where you want taller, elegant groundcover.  The colour you see below is a coleus underplanted.  Please don’t mistake it for part of the plant.

Juassic Park coleus

Speaking of coleus, they seem to be developing them in huge sizes this year! Again, I love the coleus for their foliage and always have 3-4 pots of them during the summer.

Delmara Peltata

Hopefully I have spelled this plant correctly.  This is one of those occasional plants where I only know it by its Latin name.  A piece was given to me by a great plantswoman nearby, Ali, and I now have three thriving clumps.  Again, it’s all about the foliage, and its also a little Jurassic, but with a softer feel than a Gunnera.  Behind is the dreaded, dreaded invasive pond iris in our pond.  Three seasons of wading into the mucky, gucky bottom of the pond and ripping it out by its roots and still a few plants sneak back every year.

More Plants in Pots

I am not really a pot nut, and I have enough room to plant out most new plant purchases, but I’ve been known to put new purchases into pots for the first year or two to let them grow on while I figure out the very best place for them. Like retailers, plants are all about location, location, location! Here you see a Cooper Beech tree (I know, I know it will grow into a huge tree and out of that pot in a year or two), an Acer ‘Orange Dream’ and an Acer Palmatam (sp?) all just settling in.  They are handsome in their pots and perfect for this part-shade patio.

The Long Bed on Sea Soil

Gardening is a learning experience.  Misacanthus Giganteum is meant to be, well tall.  Same with the Nineback ‘Diablo’.  But maybe they shouldn’t be THIS big.  When this long bed was built four years ago, I thought, why not? I’ll splurge and use sea soil as the soil for the entire bed.  Don’t get me wrong…..like most gardeners….I will always be a solid fan of Sea Soil for soil augmentation, light mulching, etc. But here’s what happens if you use it for the main soil in the bed.  Most plant material has grown far past usual capability and in all this four years, apart from a bit of organic fertilizer for new introductions, I still haven’t added any more organic material.  Maybe this year.  Ever seen such a huge Nepeta ‘Dropmore Blue’?

Beautiful Japanese Iris

Enough said! In addition to my growing Siberian Iris collection, I am starting to add Japanese Iris.  I love their structure and wider foliage. This white one has been divided twice and is now scattered throughout the garden.

Can you see them?

Three bachelor ducks visit the pond every day.  There are two fallen logs across the pond (they both fell in high winds one year apart) and we left them there for the rustic look.  Those boys LOVE sitting on the log and falling off, flapping around to clean their wings, eating bugs and slugs (we love them for that) and they particularly like swimming through the plankton (aerator type top of water stuff) leaving paths and eating it.  They are totally undisturbed by the dogs, who mostly ignore them but they provide me with hours of entertainment.  Occasionally a lady duck accompanies them, and in previous years ducklings have had swimming lessons in our pond, but not this year.

Beautiful, lacey Elderberry

Not the very best picture, but this is a rather magnificent Elderberry (I think maybe Black Lace or Sambuca). The area its planted in was formally known as ‘the hospital’ which was a spot where ailing plants were put to either recover and improve or move on to the next life.  This plant chose to LIVE and its a beautiful airy addition to the area.

Next week is dedicated to hostas.  Its been a great year – with the cool spring and all that rain – for hostas and we’ve got quite a collection.  Hope you enjoy your garden half as much as I enjoy mine!