Monday, 22 February 2021
At home after 2+ inches of rain
Out the front door to Allan’s garden…


Walking toward the back yard…



Only the heaviest of rain makes the little ponds overflow.



Let’s go south to the Bogsy Wood to check out the new path!






Below: The east Bogsy Wood mounds…and that darn hose that I haven’t waded in to move. (It is slippery along there.)

Looking west on the swale path…

Back around to the west end of the new path, where I happen to have left a shovel.

I dug the end out, not for better drainage but just for the fun of seeing it look like a stream.

Walking to the front of the hydrangea bed, where I need to put more soil because I expanded it.





Swinging east to the fire circle. It does not look at all like a bright clearing today.

Walking up the Willows Path East. Maybe I’ll call it Willows Way, that sounds better. I still have lots of clipping to do, which is a concern because I also must go to work soon. Narcissi are hinting and then shouting about springtime.


I fear that the red of the fish totes look too bright from the south garden. But then I remember that tall plants (blueberries, sanguisorbas, asters) will mostly hide the south side of them in summer.

Now I’ll go out the west double gate…

….past the garage veg enclosure battered again by wind….

…and around the front of the house via the new gravel path.



Now for some reading. Last night I perused Landscaping Ideas that Work, just because it is by Julie Moir Messervy. It features houses that are way too rich and huge to be appealing to me, with a lot of hard surfaces in the gardens, along with some photos that are beautiful. The information is pretty basic and I must admit I skimmed most of the text, which was not evocative like her more personal books. Today I am reading another of her design books, Outside the Not So Big House. While it wisely suggests “creating a house about one-third smaller than you thought you needed”, the author’s idea of not so big is a house that was “expanded from a tiny 950 sq. ft. to a still modest 1,048 sq. ft..” It is ridiculous to call 950 square feet tiny. However, the houses are much better to look at than the monsters that dominated the other book, and it does have some wonderful ones to dream over like a San Francisco house on a shrubby and floriferous hill, reached only by a public footpath, that reminds me of the setting of Tales of the City. (Later: I ended up only liking four of them and feeling exasperated by the rich, as usual. I would like to see a book about owner-created gardens that don’t rely on money and expensive hardscaping.)
Skooter feels quite strongly that these coffee table picture books are much too big to allow proper lap sharing.

The biggest cat laugh of the day is when a Grey got its head stuck through a paper shopping bag handle and walked through the house like a turtle with its house on its back.
Hah! I love the picture of the beturtled grey! I would love to read a book about owner created gardens that are achievable on a modest income. Sometimes I get frustrated because I would love to hire or rent a backhoe and do some earth moving, buy pallets of stone to make some dry stack walls or other features, have fancy outdoor furniture and buy large amounts of perennials and new trees. My partner already thinks I’m crazy for spending every free penny I have on plants. I rely on my own sweat equity, my rabbits for compost and divisions of my existing plants. I like the pulmonarias by your fire pit, I bet they glow beautifully this summer in the twilight. I was clipping back all my roses today and admiring my own just starting to bloom pulmonarias. They are one of the heavyweight champs in my garden. I was gifted a pot when I first bought my house and have made so many divisions from it. Same with the autumn joy sedum I was gifted at the same time.
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I feel the same frustration sometimes. Your garden sounds wonderful. Rabbit poo compost is great stuff!
Every S autumn joy in every garden I ever made here is from a clump I brought from Seattle in 1992.
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I am with Amalia. We live on a shoestring budget, and I have very little to spend on the gardens. Fortunately, my girls always give me gift certificates for Mother’s Day, and that helps a lot. Wet, wet, wet for you! Everything looks green and growing, more like spring than winter.
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If anyone ever asks what I want for my birthday, I say a bag of potting soil or mulch. Not everyone takes me seriously on that but it’s true!
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I absolutely believe it.
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Thanks for letting us tag along on a lovely garden tour!
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Thanks for coming along!
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Wow, like you and the commenters above, I too would like a book about owner-created gardens. This is one reason I enjoy private home garden tours and various garden blogs written by everyday gardeners. .
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Same here!
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wow, you are developing quite the estate! Can’t wait to get out for a visit!
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I look forward to that.
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That is a very soggy situation. I am glad that you haven’t been washed away altogether.
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