A sunny garden…What a change from the old Tangly Cottage garden with its boggy, shady, cloud forest environment. I wanted meadowlike sweeps of flowers in the new garden. (Why do we always think of a meadow full of flowers, of all things!?) As always, I wondered how long before the beds filled in!
15 May, 2011
The big rhododendron which caused me so much uncertainty (keep it? chop it?) bloomed heavily on the house side. The other side had serious bed head from wind. I had to admit it was stunning.
I found the perfect “Park” sign at Olde Towne Trading Post Antiques for the entry arbour to the back yard.
entrance to back yard
By mid May, I had discovered that due to the low profile of the double wide home, the north side garden was in full blasting sun! Imagine NEEDING shade beds when I had come from a garden of 80% shade. In the back, by the alder trees, I began to create a haven for my shade dwellers.
beginning shade bed
Of course it ended up being a lot bigger! Smaller is just never with a garden bed, is it?
Living in a dull brown house just wouldn’t do, so Allan started painting in early June.
house colours new and old
Let me just say that if you were my neighbour and you painted your house, say, hot burnt orange, and I did not like it….I would not pester or question you about it in any way. Our immediate neighbours were lovely, but I heard the cry of “WHY PURPLE!” from down the block. I simply follow in the footsteps of the many gardeners’ home that in Portland and Seattle are the wildest of jewel tones.
I returned from the Hardy Plant Society study weekend in Portland in an absolute frenzy of ideas, on a mission to raise the front garden bed. Until the mission was accomplished, I couldn’t focus on going to work at all!
27 June, raising the front border
By June 30th, the house was fully painted. Go, Allan! He is a powerhouse, painting every day when we came home late from work. How does he do it?
me loving the new house colours
By the beginning of July, I was still waiting for plants to fill in, for the mixed borders to burgeon forth in the back yard. One day I turned and was gobsmacked by the glory of Clematis ‘Etoile de Violette” blooming over the arbour, back with a pink rose which was one of the the six (yes, only six!!) original shrubs that came with the yard. (Forsythia, Camellia, Rhododendron, Lilac, Holly, and this rose…)
5 July, rose and clematis
Oh the impatience of waiting for my vision of the Geranium ‘Rozanne’ river to bloom. By early July, the plants were still…creeping, not leaping.
5 July, still no river of blue
Meanwhile, glorious dianthus and poppies fulfilled that need for sunny flowers that no amount of working in other people’s gardens had met. Now, at home, in my own garden, I had the plants I had been unable to grow in the shade.
Dianthus 'Coconut Surprise'*
- By the 7th of August, the river of blue finally began to show. I had started with very small plants because I knew I needed a lot of them to replicate Blooms of Bressingham’s glorious river, my obsession since seeing Adrian Bloom’s slide at the Hardy Plant Weekend in 2010.
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7 August, a hint of blue
By August 21st, at last, my vision had almost reached perfection…still a bit of soil showing, but close to my dream:
the river of blue
The west and east beds exploded into blowsy billowing cosmos and poppies. Any structure of permanent shrubs and small trees (and they are in there) will have to wait a year or two to impact THIS annual exuberance.
21 August
During the end of August, a time when work traditionally slows a bit, Allan built the second big idea that I brought home from study weekend: an arbour to soften the boxy front of the double wide.
28 August, new arbour
What is the SOIL that still shows in the front garden? Again I feel impatience. I might need to get me one of those signs that says “GROW, Damn it!”
window view, 3 September
The glorious back garden continued burgeoning right through September and into October..as you can see in the view through my window screen, above. All the flowers I wanted and had only been able to grow at sunny jobs were now mine, all mine.
sweet peas and a baby Robinia
But trouble loomed: The day after I took this photo, deer came in and ate every golden leaf off my little Robinia psuedoacacia ‘Frisia’. I saw ahead to a winter not of rest but instead the building of a giant deer fence!
The river of blue continued strong until the end of October and slowly petered out in November. I think it will begin by June in 2012 now that the plants are well established.
Rozanne River, 16 October
My lovely sunny beds finished with a blast of fragrant red pineapple sage.
8 November, back garden
and Geranium ‘Rozanne’ just kept on giving. No wonder it was the 2008 perennial of the year.
Rozanne, 8 November
By the end of the year after the first three weeks of staycation I had spread 24 yards of luscious mulch (six of washed dairy manure, 12 of “soil energy” mulch) over all of the beds. The flowers were done, the annuals pulled but some seed stalks left up for the birds. And Allan had begun the next big phase of the garden: the deer fence. Note what is gone: Yes, with a little sorrow and uncertainty we took down the huge pink rhododendron. As soon as I saw the amazing new view through to the hills at Cape Disappointment I knew I had made the right decision.
26 December, the garden asleep
The mulch made me happy, especially in the front garden where I felt the soil had looked low, hard, and somewhat unhappy. Hundreds of bulbs had been planted and surely they would enjoy the fluffy, rich new cover. The tulips now planted in the back yard would appreciate deer protection, new roses have been ordered, and in a week of cold January rains, I’m waiting for a spring and summer of floriferous exuberance.
*Dianthus ‘Coconut Surprise’ and several other wonderful dianthus were purchased at Emerald City Gardens in Seattle; if that’s your town, you are lucky to be able to shop there! If you happen to be coming to visit me, I could do some virtual shopping and you could bring me a box of plants from expert plantsman Jay Williams. Just saying!
Next up, I’m pondering a slide show of 2011′s best flowers from spring through fall.
As always, I enjoy your posts & pictures. Someday I hope to get to the coast and would love to see your yard in person. You have so many plants that we’re unable to grow over here on the east side of the state.
We would love to meet you in person!