The Shop Sideyard

 

We knew the shop had a big sideyard. There has always been a red shed in the overgrowth there and we could see remnants of it being a working yard. Our plan has always been to clear it and use it as a working yard for all of our groundskeeping needs. We always have a pile of rock, a pile of soil, a huge compost pile of yard debris, piles of branches at different stages of drying... things that now reside all over but would be handy to have in one spot. This is the year we get that done!

Miles has cleared out half of the yard already. The rolls of fencing and wire from the front of the shop are now stored on and under the rack at the side of the red shed. The compost and branch piles are started at the bush edge. It is all very exciting!

Plant Pairs

I try a lot of plant pairs because they are easy to manage in my head. They don't require much thought and if they work out... the garden seems to come together based on them. This makes overall planning less thought too. I am not really the most thinking gardener. The rest of my life requires too much thinking and I don't like gardening to feel like work. Plant as you go is my entire gardening strategy. That is why it is such a delight when pairs work out.

I have two pairs in the front yard, one old and one new that work perfectly together. At the front walk, for years now, we are welcomed by tricolour sedum paired with hens and chicks sedum. The tricolour rises up and blooms above the hens and chicks which are well established but slow to spread.

Last year, along the lawn edge, I planted a new pair. Speedwell and Summer Phlox look great together. Even better than I hoped. And while it may seem odd that plants this tall were planted along the lawn edge, it is because from my view out the windows, the lawn edge is the back of the garden.

I am planting honeysuckle with delphinium this year. It will be my new plant pair next year.

Birds in My Garden

We have a bird sanctuary section of our garden that is full of bird feeders, baths and shrubs they can perch in. Our cats know better than to hunt birds but occasionally, we have to remind them. Our bird sanctuary is full of birds of many types throughout the day. It is not the only place you can find birds here though.

Cliff Swallows move in at the shop every year to have babies. Some years they are greater in number than others. This year, there are a good number of them but we have never seen as many as arrived to welcome us the first year we lived here. They were building 3 nests deep that year!

And not all of my birds can fly. But all are just as engaging as I walk through the garden :)

Showing Off Daylilies - Red

I've had a bunch of daylilies bloom this week, many are new in my garden this year. The shades of red really vary.

daylily - unknown red

daylily - unknown dark red

daylily Nona's Garnet Spider

daylily Creature of the Night

daylily Fushia Fashion

daylily Cameroon's Twister

Backyard Views

The back yard has gone through the most changes since we first arrived here. The day we moved in, the middle section was a big, dead circle that had been sprayed with roundup to create a turn around for the school bus. A turnaround that the school bus could not get to through the bush.

It then became a much larger garden than it is today. We built the firepit and my intent was to build a quarter moon shaped garden around the edge of the middle section. That was almost complete when we thought we were going to move. The real estate agent thought the garden might be too big so it was dug out until there was just a small border garden along the parking area of the drive.

Now, I just plant as I go, I have no plan and there is no vision of what the whole thing looks like when it is done. I am finding this approach much more fun. It always seems like that garden is incomplete because there is no real start or finish but that doesn't seem to matter to me anymore. Nor does the pallet of brick that I have been meaning to move for 2 years now :)

Our Rock Wall is a Puzzle

My husband Kelly has had to rebuild this rock wall 3 times now. He's determined and keeps making it more resilient each time. He starts with a pile of rocks...

rock wall under construction

... and fits them all together like a big 3D puzzle. The result is quite remarkable!

rock wall complete

Here are some more shots showing how perfect his alignment is.

Random Blooms in July

I my Saskatchewan garden :)

Daylily 'Stella D'Oro'

Rudbeckia - yellow

Rudbeckia - orange

Rose, 'William Baffin'

Maltese Cross

Osteospermum

Marilyn's Rose

Linda's Yellow Lily

Rose, 'Morden Blush'

Lily, 'Tiny Bell'

Double Pink Peony

Lily, 'Landini'

Delphinium

more Delphinium

Columbine

Clematis

 

 

Volunteer

Our front deck was set on top of what was once a garden. Virginia Creeper pokes through and I am always pulling it up and out. Every year, a single columbine pops up from under the deck at the top corner. The first year, I left it so I could discover that it bloomed a clear yellow that went perfectly with the yellow and purple that I already had. Each year since, I have moved the yellow columbine out into the bird sanctuary when it pops up. Last year, I was convinced I had gotten all of the root, despite the fact that digging under a deck that is ground level is not easy!

So I was surprised to see it pop up again this year. I was also slow to deal with it. Which meant it bloomed. Bigger surprise was that it isn't yellow! It is a columbine I have not seen before, blooming white with a very faint hint of purple. I love it and it makes me want to lift up the deck to see if anything else is surviving under there.

Little House in Pink

The Little House is another place here that had a gardener at one time. When we arrived, there were pink columbine, a peony and the odd few other things that were harder to identify since all of it was tangled up in weeds and overgrown.

Across the road from the Little House is our combine garden and our gate to close the road is in this spot as well. It is very pretty in the spring and summer with dark purple lilac, linden flowers and the few perennials.

Over the years, I have barely managed to even get it weeded. Proably once a year it gets cleared up a bit and when I have an overflow of plants I don't know what to do with in my garden, they can get thrown here. Theoretically until I figure it out but in reality, they rarely get moved out once they are abandoned at the Little House.

Last year, I noticed Cranesbill in this yard and when it stopped blooming, I promptly forgot about it. Until last week when I noticed a huge, beautiful patch of blooming pink and pale purple all along the weed edge. That drove me out to take a walk around the Little House with my camera.

And I noticed something I never noticed before. Everything that gardener planted is pink. Pink shades with the odd bit of purple. There is columbine, peony, wild rose, cranesbill and they are all in pinks. The only plant in either of those gardens that does not bloom pink or purple is a bright creamsickle orange daylily that I added two years ago.

This morning, I decided that daylily is going when I clear this out. I am going to keep this garden pink, pale purple and white. I like it :)

Frog Days

This is Moxie hunting frogs.

The water level has again brought a lot of water wildlife into the yard this year. Frogs have been our most frequent visitor. While all the dogs love to chase and hunt frogs, Moxie and Summer and the most diligent of our frog hunters. Often the frogs will hop over to wherever I am gardening, seemingly knowing I am the safe spot, understanding that I am not going to let any of the dogs attack them right in front of me. It is a daily occurence.

This is the frog, hanging out with me in an attempt to escape her.

Big Flowers

One flower doesn't make a garden, but it sure can look impressive on its own.

First up is a new daylily bought on one of our trips to Harbour Breezes last summer. Of course, it's not a big patch yet, but the flowers are huge and it sure is eye catching.

daylily Heavenly Orange Blaze

We've already made our first trip to Harbour Breezes this year and came back with this stunning white Japanese iris - blooming before we got it into the ground.

iris ensata Grand Island

Containers

 

I used to have a lot more containers than I have now. My city garden was full of containers and finding unusual containers was a hobby of mine. I found plants to be easier to plant, maintain, control, feed and look after in containers. I could control the soil and the food easily. Move them if they were not happy. They provided bright colour in shady places just by rotating them out into the sun and back.

In my Valley garden, I find containers far more labour intensive. They fill with ants. To place them anywhere in the sun garden requires a lot of time laying hose to water or hauling water in buckets a long way... down steps. The steps are more decorative than functional and are among the paths that were built for me to garden - they are not paths or steps I would invite visitors to use. lol. Plants seem to need more water in containers here than they ever did in the city. The result is that I have pared down my container collection to about 10 or so. And so far this year, they are not all planted. The ones that are were only planted recently.

Of all the changes I have made to my gardening style, methods, design since moving from the city, this is the most noticable.

The Start of Lily Season

The lily have started opening here. My early orange have been open for a week and Linda's Digby Yellow shortly followed. I have been looking forward to Lily season this year because I have no idea what is left out there for Lily. It is mostly going to be a surprise.