Sunday, 12 May 2024
mostly at home
A couple of days ago, while Jane was here, we had our first sighting this year of deer in Alicia’s back yard next door.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc04350.jpeg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc04351.jpeg?w=581)
We will have to be extra careful now to close the gates because they could do a lot of damage before our garden open day!
I opened the very stinky bucket of comfrey feed that I made last autumn, strained it, and used it on quite a few plants, with some left over. As I understand it, one is supposed to dilute it quite a lot.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02645.jpg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02646.jpg?w=640)
One thing I don’t fertilise is my grevilleas and callistemons, as they don’t like certain things, so I don’t know if they like other things, and I am too busy with this and that to look up their exact preferences. My Grevillia victoriae looks sad, as it does every spring, and it never looks wonderful and doesn’t bloom as much as I wish.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02647.jpg?w=640)
I was pleased to see how full the east side of the front garden looks. I will be able to get by with not much weeding in here during my big weeding push…I hope.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02648.jpg?w=640)
One thing I must do is transplant this big house plant that we found languishing outdoors with a free sign on it last autumn, to go in my sale, for enough money to cover the potting soil at least. I like the pot it is in and want to keep it. Although I like the plant, it is too big for our indoor space. It’s a croton, said to be poisonous to cats, but they show no interest in it.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/img_3295.jpg?w=640)
I spent the day potting up plants and planting some in the garden. Below, a primula auricula that I got from Planter Box joins the one I got from Far Reaches. If I get two more, I could ask Allan to make an auricula theatre.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02649.jpg?w=640)
Because I have a bigger iochroma in an overwintered pot, I planted my new one from Annie’s Annuals out by the fire circle in “bright shade” and must ask for Allan’s help in moving the potted one into bright shade rather than full sun.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02651.jpg?w=640)
Also planted this in there (see right side of above photo, red feathery leaves), so it can fight with the maianthemum:
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02710.jpg?w=640)
To plant there, I had to fight off the net of roots of the maianthemum, a native creeper that will take over and then go dormant in summer.
As I write this the next evening, I haven’t found time to bucket up the pile of roots.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02652.jpg?w=640)
When Jane was here and we were sitting around the fire circle, I saw the leaves of the maianthemum marching through the lawn on a mission to get to yet another garden bed, the long center bed at whose south end is the contorted filbert. It is determined to defeat me, and probably will as I get older.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02627.jpg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02628.jpg?w=640)
It is several feet from the bogsy wood bed it snuck out of!
Allan worked on the old bridge, removing the battered wire and staples that could grab an off balance person’s shoe.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02657.jpg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc07510.jpeg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc07513.jpeg?w=640)
He took a break to help me by planting a new skunk cabbage from Far Reaches on the slope of the deep swale.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02653.jpg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc07511.jpeg?w=640)
The deep swale, though dried up, is still very damp; the deep path still holds water.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02656.jpg?w=640)
I planted my new tray of plants from Digging Dog. The delicate grass, sporobolus, went into a bed that has a delicate weed grass, just asking for trouble later. One of those times when I think, I will deal with it later, and often don’t.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02659.jpg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02658.jpg?w=640)
Next, in the new semi circle beds…
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02661.jpg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02660.jpg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02662.jpg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02666.jpg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02670.jpg?w=640)
I couldn’t remember what that even was and didn’t look it up till evening. Compass flower, turns out it gets eight feet tall…and gets wide, too, so am pretty sure I planted it in much the wrong spot. Then the next day I got so busy I didn’t move it. I hope I remember before it is too late.
White camassia is blooming, looks great with Geum ‘Totally Tangerine’…
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02668.jpg?w=640)
…as does Skooter.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02669.jpg?w=640)
I planted a Dierama ‘Painted Tips’ that had only two leaves that were held up by a tiny bamboo stake. Hope it survives, I probably should have planted it in a pot and let it size up.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02673.jpg?w=640)
I don’t enjoy planting and therefore often make the wrong decisions at home; I wouldn’t have planted it at work!
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02676.jpg?w=640)
What a lovely fern on the way to my next area…I must have planted it…
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02677.jpg?w=640)
…but where is the tag? and look at all that maianthemum. The trick is to plant things that get big enough to be above the maianthemum and not get swamped.
I planted a new epimedium in a shady box where a deer fern I had despaired of is coming back, and the other side has a very special and of course therefore rather pricy fern from Far Reaches that is barely showing so far.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02678.jpg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02679.jpg?w=640)
The elimedium is named after the gardener who gave us the Eryngium giganteum (Miss Willmot’s ghost) so I had to have it.
Planting distracts me from enjoying the garden. At least I noticed some beauties like this thalictrum.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02682.jpg?w=640)
…and this cat when I went into the catio to turn the hose on.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02683.jpg?w=640)
How I ever managed to create this garden while working full time is beyond me.
I had run out of steam at six and still had this many plants to plant….
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02685.jpg?w=640)
…but we had a project to do, refreshing Wendi’s downtown planter with summer plants, and taking her primroses and potting them up to go behind her building in another batch of pots.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc07517.jpeg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc04399.jpeg?w=577)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc04400.jpeg?w=633)
On the way home, we looked from our vehicle at the planters on the north side of the fire station. They contain the shade plants taken out of the garden bed that still is not concreted over, and the plants look good. Firefighter volunteer John Bageant is, we think, the one to credit for keeping them watered.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02686.jpg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02687.jpg?w=640)
When we got home, I potted up the primroses and Allan took them back to Wendi’s building.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc04416.jpeg?w=562)
I had a last burst of energy and planted some more of my plants in the driveway garden.
I didn’t really want this bright yellow helianthemum. I bought it for the Freedom Market garden and then the job went away before it got planted.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02690.jpg?w=640)
I have some good Miss Willmot’s Ghost in the various faux troughs!
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02691.jpg?w=640)
Added two nice lewisias.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02692.jpg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02694.jpg?w=640)
And a curly allium that I like a lot.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02695.jpg?w=640)
Everything in this area is drought tolerant except the Davidia ‘Sonoma’ that I planted when I created the bed in 2010.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02696.jpg?w=640)
I think it is too big to move. I wish I could put it in the damp back garden and have my fremontodendron there instead, because I have to prune that one a lot to keep it out of Alicia’s driveway:
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02698.jpg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc04409.jpeg?w=626)
I was very tired but pleased to have gotten more planting done. I will close with Allan’s photos of the flowers in Alicia’s garden.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc04401.jpeg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc04402.jpeg?w=480)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc04408.jpeg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc04405.jpeg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc04404.jpeg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc04412.jpeg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc04413.jpeg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc04410-1.jpeg?w=640)
” how I ever managed to create this garden while working full time is beyond me”
The wonders of youthful energy. Youth of course being any year prior to the current one, because it surely seems my youthful gardening vigour is on a quick downhill bobsled.
Again I am covetous of your new plant selections. Thankfully many of them are too zone tender for my garden, or I would surely have to create a new bed. Which cycles me right back to gardening energy…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I will lose half of them to letting them get swamped with a weed or chomped by a slug, if my past successes are any indication! I hope I can do better. I was only 55 the winter that I made more than half of this garden, making the beds and so on, and the next winter was the deer fence project. My hope was to be able to keep it going and then retire at 70 and hope to still have the energy to work on it. My mo could still garden six hours a day into her late 70s…and still did some gardening up till age 83 or 84.
>
LikeLike
I often wish the comments weren’t limited to “like.” SteveStonGarden often merits at least a smile, and your writing always elicits many emotions and desires to be more than one person! Gardening is such an amazing combination of skills, aesthetics, energy, passions.
Lewisia always gets my blood moving, but I never can make it survive more than one growing season. Sigh.
LikeLike
I had one last year, lewisia, and I am not sure it made it through, or if it did it doesn’t look like those! I better remember to look for it….
>
LikeLike
I am impressed that you actually made and used comfrey fertiliser. We have thought of doing it, but Mrs T has always been put off by the smell.
LikeLike
The smell is not as bad as Monty always says it is. In my opinion anyway.
>
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mrs T couldn’t stand it.
LikeLike
I’m sure your plant sale will be a success! Comfrey fertilizer- I truly admire your dedication.
LikeLike
The comfrey fert might just be a bunch of hooey. But Monty says it’s good and it is kind of fun to do.
>
LikeLike
Does the Fremontodendron happen to be a cultivar? I have not worked with any for a very long time, but it seems to me that the last that I worked with had a cultivar name. If so, they must have been grown from cuttings, which can not be easy to do. (Actually, I do not know, since I have never done it.)
LikeLike
I don’t know, I bought years ago at a Hardy Plant Society study weekend plant sale, and I think it didn’t have a cultivar name or I’d have made a note of it. I’ve tried cuttings twice, with good instructions from Paul Bonine, and they took but then fizzled in the cuttings pot. Once I put them in sun and shouldn’t have and we had that heat dome. I think this time I put them in too shady a place. I’ll keep trying. I need to prune it pretty often so it doesn’t stick out car height branches into Alicia’s driveway.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Is it difficult to handle? I avoided it when I encountered it in the wild, which can be difficult where it is abundant. Although uncommon even in the wild, it develops small thickets at the tops (origins) of canyons.
LikeLike
Oh, there are a few cultivars, and some sound familiar.
LikeLiked by 1 person