My Gentle Garden of Peace
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This is where my heart is and my place of peace and sanity. I love to come and work in the soil and look at the colors and the changing shapes and sizes of the plants and to keep changing things year after years, adding this and removing that. I love to taste the produce from my tiny vegetable garden and complete with the weather and the creatures for the produce to see who will win this year.
It is always different and always challenging and always a feast to the eyes and the heart.
We had so much rain this year the plants did really well. My Siberian Irises blossomed like never before and my pink poppies were wider than my hand in width. Amazing!
My flower beds have disappeared under 3 feet of snow. The blizzard was awesome! It left a tonne of snow covering everything and now the temperatures are in the deepest freezing zone. At least I know my perennials are protected by the heavy layer of snow. I have been shovelling for three days and still have much to do. My car is frozen solid. I can't get the doors open to even start the motor so I am home bound but I kind of like the feeling of looking out of my warm safe home to my yard and garden protected by that layer of pure soft white, knowing that in a few months the ground will again turn green and the beds will reveal the beauty of a riot of color and texture and shape. I love the changing seasons and what it brings to my senses and my mind.
Winter is upon us. The only thing I am able to do outside now is shovel snow and pick up the garbage that the wild winds are blowing constantly into the yard the past month. They have been wicked and wanton coming from all directions and bringing with them every sort of trash that can be imagined. I am finding all sorts of interesting things from Christmas decorations to McDonald's wrappers. It is amazing how far these things can travel.
My compost bins are full but are slowly packing down as they begin to work their magic and create the wonderful fuel for my gardens next spring. I usually have enough from my two bins to last the entire summer for all my beds. But I think I will add a bit more this year. I want to build my beds a bit higher by adding some good soil this year and I am thinking of extending the beds in the front yard. My front yard has been neglected as I spend most of my time in the back yard out of sight of anyone and in my private oasis away from the world.
I spent Thursday cleaning up the yard and packing all the dead annuals into the paper bags the city requires us to use as garbage bags this year instead of the big orange plastic ones. I always compost the leaves I rake up but the stalks and plants with a lot so seed heads I like to place in the city compost. they can put them through their big mulcher and then they break down easier. It was a beautiful day and My two cats and my Yorkie enjoyed being outside working. They all followed me from front yard to back like a train with three cars. It was quite humourous. I am babysitting one cat so she was on a leash and I spent half my time untangling her from the plants and branches as she was determined to help me with my gardening or at least see what I was doing very close up.
We did get everything trimmed down and put to bed for the winter so I felt great about having it all done. I packed all my roses with e Now I can begin to look at putting up the Christmas lights.
I planted a Red Maple Tree from a tiny stick this spring and I am fascinated to see it growing. It is now 3 feet tall and has branches with maple leaves almost the size of my hand. It is wonderful. My Hydrangea is new and it is blossoming and filling in the corner I planted it in. It is happy and healthy and I love it. My goats beard is also doing extremely well in its location. However, I give up on petunias. I cannot grow petunias. They got rained out in my wooden barrel. Too much water I think. Rotted in the ground. I am a complete failure with petunias. I also planted them by my hydrangea and they are not doing well. All green and no flower.
My other challenge this year with the rain was slugs in my vegetable garden. Yuck!!!! They were everywhere. I hate slugs. Now I am on a slug war. I lost most of my peas to slugs and they are eating my tomatoes and my cabbages. So are the caterpillars. Terrible years to be organic. I still love gardening but not the bugs.
Goats Beard is a wonderful plant for partial shade. It loves moist humus soil and grows fairly tall so is a background plant. It has a feathery white plume of flowers in the late spring and is very ornate. I will try to post some photos if my camera will work. I think it is too late for the plumes but the plant is doing well. It can get quite big - almost 4-6 feet in a good growing location. This plant comes in male and female plants and you know which is which by the difference in the plumes. The female plumage is much bushier. I love it. Thanks for writing.
What is "goats beard"? Would love to see some photos of that if you get a chance. Sorry about the slugs!
