30-31 January: in our garden

at home

The weather warmed and I puttered in the woodsy garden. A local free newspaper, Hipfish, has an article this month about alder woods which affirmed my decision to plant more shrubs and trees in mine.

My view-blocking wood stack wall had sunk…

…so I fetched a pile of cut wood that Allan had left in Alicia’s back yard when cleaning up a fallen tree trunk.

Bright sunshine on Cornus ‘Midwinter Fire’:

Against the south fence, I started another and different sort of woodpile to make a wall (and critter habitat) in a spot where holly and salmonberry roots are just about impossible to remove. (The holly is on the noxious weed list here, which is a shame, because I can’t get rid of its huge trunk and I WANT a shiny leaved tall evergreen in this exact spot.) Imagine a huge building of fortress-like design, just past the fence, filling that field. I’d rather see a pile of branches interlaced with salmonberry.

In the alder grove, I had extended a garden bed and found a home for a red cafe table and chair. It just looked too small and civilised for that spot.

Allan helped me get a more rustic bench out of the wayback corner, which I think looks better there.

It offers some great views from that angle, looking east down the rhododendron path to the new bridge…

…and northeast down the deep path…

..and to the north along Willows Loop West.

The red table and chair look better in the more room-like wayback corner, which I rearranged to make them fit.

Allan put a couple of old chair backs on the southwest gate in a continuing effort to get all pieces of junk, I mean decorative items, employed in some way.

Tuesday, 31 January 2023

I decided to cut back the ornamental grasses and Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ in the centre bed, because I want to be able to clearly see the emerging crocuses.

In the east bed, I chopped down even the most beautiful winter perennials, like this structural achillea…

…because there will be crocuses pretty much everywhere soon.