Fairies Make Way for the Dragon

There will soon be a new dragon in the garden, and the fairies have graciously agreed to the removal of their long-abandoned home, to make room for her.  Anyone who is following my ceramics blog may have seen my dragon, she is still in progress, but should be finished in the next few weeks, and ready for the garden :

Today I spent some time cleaning up the garden, and also considering where the dragon will take up residence.  I am grateful to my sister Rose for pointing out that the fairy home is no longer being used by the fairies, and is in a state of serious disrepair, having pulled through 6 winters now.  Here it is in one of its better days (2009) :

Here it is, a couple of months ago.  I'm very proud of how it has held up structurally, considering it was made from cuttings of my buddleia tree connected by wire, but the roof is leaky and the fairies have found other homes.  Besides, at the rate I'm progressing with the ceramics (see my ceramics blog), next time I can make them ceramic homes :

I should have taken a "before" photo before cleaning up this area, but here it is tonight, part way through clearing out the area :

I plan to create a "lake" for the dragon, from blue glass.  The miniature tree will stay, but the beautiful lilies may need to be find another home, too.  Stay tuned.

Merry Christmas to All!

I hope you are having a Merry Christmas, or have had a Merry Christmas, depending on your tradition and your timing of reading this post.  We celebrated Christmas tonight with the kids and their grandparents.  A few days before Christmas, it always feel overwhelming at what is left to prepare, but it always comes together in the end.

I made my own Christmas centerpiece this year for the table, and was pleased by the result.  (Unfortunately, Blogger seems determined to upload this photo rotated, even though it shows up in every other app correctly!!) :

The variegated cedar and variegated holly are from my garden, as are the few branches of our silver-tipped sequoia.  The red berries were from a bush overhanding a back lane (behind a commercial building) just a few blocks away.  The container was from a centerpiece I received from a friend a year or two ago, which I kept & reused.  I would have liked a red candle, but I had only white ones, so I used that.  I've learned not to stress about such little details anymore.

I also updated my neglected front planter for Christmas, but am too lazy to get the other camera and upload a photo.  Another time.

I finally got outside yesterday to wrap up my glass path lights, so they will hopefully survive another winter, and my son came out & had some fun playing with snow while I puttered away.

My poor little fairy house, which has been through a number of winters now, may not make it through this one.  It has lost most of its roofing materials, and is leaning now (Okay, Blogger is being really annoying tonight, with these rotated photos!).

I wish you all a Merry Christmas, and all the best for the New Year!

Mosaic Monday : Fairy House

I received encouraging comments on the recent photo of my little fairy house, which has survived 3 years now in the garden, with incredible durability, since I built and installed it there in May 2008. So I have assembled a mosaic of photos over the years (click the mosaic for a slightly larger view).

I wish I could have found the photo from three winters ago, when it was completely covered in a mound of snow. See this post, which shows it just prior to being buried.

Pop over to Little Red House for more of this week's Monday Mosaics.

Plant Sale Season

As a gardener, this is one of my favourite times of the year.  There is much to clean up in the garden, there are blossoms and signs of new growth everywhere, and my favourite plant sales to attend.  Today was one of them, the South Burnaby Garden Club's sale held in the Buy Low parking lot in South Burnaby.

Since it started at 9am, and church starts at 10am, I convinced the family to get up early to join me (actually, I gave them the option to let me go on my own, and meet up at the church, but they chose to join me).  My mom is actually a member of the club, so we picked her up on the way there.

Sadly for me, the focus this year was on edibles, but I pretty much have all the herbs that I need, and I really don't do vegetable gardening.  Although I made the exception for a very gorgeous red-veined plant which is slightly sour and can be used in salads.  I am too lazy to go outside to look at the tag for the name.

My delight this year was to pick up a small pot of Mousetail plant (Arisarum proboscideum), which I have since read is a relative of the Jack-in-the-Pulpit.  It has lovely green spade-shaped leaves, and funny little flower spikes which look like a mouse's tail.  I separated the tiny plants, and put most of them in the fairy garden, and a couple into my native/shade garden. (Click on any image for a slightly larger view.)

I also picked up a few more columbine (they weren't labelled for colour, so it will be a surprise), some hellebore seedlings which will apparently be black/dark flowers (wow, can't wait!), a Japanese iris (again not labelled for colour, but I loved the narrow strong leaves), some dark bearded iris, and a few more plants which caught my interest.  Prices at this event are always good, so I came away feeling like I got some bargains, and also supported a local club, so it went to a good cause.

The "big" plant sale for me will be the Van Dusen Gardens sale (Vancouver, BC), which is May 1, 10am - 4pm.  Sadly, it will be early afternoon before I can get there, after church and lunch with the family, but unless the weather is miserable, it is worth it just to enjoy strolling the gardens for free, taking a few photos, and if I pick up some neat plants (as I always do), that is a bonus.

My other favourite plant sale, the BRAGS (Burnaby Rhododendrum and Garden Society) fund raiser, will be held May 1 at Shadbolt Center, in conjunction with the Burnaby Rhododendrum Festival (the rhodo is the official flower of Burnaby).  So not only will it be more crowded, and unlikely to get parking nearby, but it is the same day as the Van Dusen sale.  So this will not be an option for me this year.  Too bad.  Usually I pick up some plants on my way to church, then a few more at 1/2 price (as they are closing up) on the way home from church. 

The weather has been interesting.  Alternating between beautiful sunny days and rain with snow/hail mixed in.  Good thing Friday & today were the sunny days, and both days I got out in the garden for a few hours.  There is much to do, and if I thought of it as a job, trying to remove weeds and straighten out my gardens, I would be overwhelmed.  But I take it as therapy, and do what I can.  By the time I come back inside, I am so exhausted I can hardly walk, but at peace with the world, at least for a little while.

Friday I did a significant clean up of the raspberry patch.  Today, I cleaned in various places, but the most rewarding was to recover the path in the fairy garden, which I built out of smooth stones and shiny marbles, but has been grown over for some time now.  Here it is after today's clean up (and note the Mousetail plants to the right of the house):

I marvel at that little fairy house, built from cuttings of my butterfly bush, and roof from my blue oat grass.  It has survived 3 winters now, and still looks amazingly fresh.  I didn't know I was so good at fairy house construction.  If I didn't know how much work it was, I would be tempted to build some more.

Yesterday, between showers, our family took a walk around Deer Lake, but instead of walking the full perimeter, I convinced them to detour through the Century Gardens around Shadbolt Center and the Burnaby Art Gallery.  The gardens were pretty.  I want to end with some photos I took yesterday.

I love this grotesquely contorted tree.  Somewhere I have jotted down the name of it, from the "Burnaby's Great Tree Hunt" book I borrowed from the library, but I don't remember where I put it now.  Hmmm.

 This was a pretty narcissus, with the double/triple center:

The hellebores were in bloom, and there were very large sized clumps of them.  Quite impressive.

I didn't know that trilliums also form a beautiful clump.  I was very happy to see that I have one small white trillium blooming in my garden now, I bought it at the South Burnaby Garden Club sale last year.

My daughter April took this beautiful photo of emerging fern fronds.  They look like a sad couple about to embrace.

I believe this purple beauty is a Primula denticulata:

Mosaic Monday : Fruit Blossoms

I love this time of year when the fruit blossoms are bursting open, so I thought I'd combine fruit blossoms in my first attempt at a mosaic (clockwise from top left - Missouri currant, Asian pear, Frost peach, espalier asian pear (three varieties in horizontal cordon form), cherry buds getting ready to pop).

If anyone has some tips on how to mosaic, I'd love to hear.  I found some sort of photo-collage feature in Photoshop, but I didn't like how it worked, so I'd like to try different software - or methods - next time.

For more wonderful Spring mosaics, but sure to visit the Little Red House.

I wanted to also share my yellow and blue spring flower arrangement (the colours of the Ukrainian flag), which I prepared from my garden this weekend, to match the Ukrainian themed birthday party my sister Rose planned and prepared (and we hosted) for my Dad's 75th birthday on the weekend.

I love to underplant the fruit trees with spring flowers such as daffodils, which are in bloom while the fruit trees are just "waking up" and budding.  And a few of them came in handy for the arrangement.

The other yellow twigs were from the Ribes odoratum (Missouri currant) bush which is living up to its name with a wonderful sweet fragrance.  Here is a photo of my sister Rose visiting the bush during her walk-about through my garden (I treat - or, as my husband thinks, torment - nearly all my visitors with a "tour of the garden").

I should have spent a moment to lighten up this next photo, which shows my miniature irises popping up below my cherished granite bench.  I'm very pleased with this effect.

I just bought this gold-laced primula this Spring, and it looks happy in the garden.  A tree peony (it has wonderful white blossoms, and I think I counted at least 5 buds this year) is visible in the background.

I am super excited that the "weeping cherry" (Prunus "snofozam" or "Snow Fountains") is already budding and starting to flower.  It looked pretty dormant when I planted it a few weeks ago.

The fairy garden has survived two winters now, and looks none the worse for wear.  I guess I'm a pretty good builder, on a small scale anyhow.  Its stone path, though, is almost completely covered in sedums.  (The blue bowl is supposed to look like an outdoor "hot tub".  The little miniature "Christmas tree" is next to it.)

So many signs of Spring.   Even the Gunnera is waking up, and sending up a hand-like shoot from beneath last year's crumpled foliage (In the Fall, I fold the leaves over the crown to protect it from the Winter cold).

All the best of Spring gardening to everyone!

Fairy House and Hot Tub - Why Not?

I am still having fun expanding on our fairy garden, and recently installed a "pool" and "hot tub". I found some blue acrylic dishes which serve the purpose, and filled them with water. What do you think?

To see more photos of the fairy house, including its construction, click the "fairy house" link on the left margin on the blog or click here.

Lately, whenever I have a chance, even if its late in the evening or on Saturday mornings, I find myself in the garden pulling weeds. But please don't feel sorry for me, I love pulling weeds, and find it very therapeutic. I wish I remembered to take a few more "before" photos, because I love to see my progress. Recently, it was clearing under the fruit trees again, here is a "before" of the base of my apple tree:

...and an "after" photo:

The trick with weeding is not to try to do it all in one day. For me, I just tackle one spot at a time, and do what I can, enjoying the hard work, and the satisfaction of seeing the improvement. I'm not worried that I will never "keep up". There will always be lots to do, which is not a problem for me.

Of course, there are other rewards of gardening along the way. The strawberries are just starting to get ripe, and I have lots of strawberry plants this year:

I started last week to sample the occasional one while gardening. But tonight when I went out to put on a sprinkler, I found enough to bring in a handful for the kids:

The raspberries will also not be long now, I can see the green berries forming. Sweet!

Spring is Finally Starting to Spring

I think Spring has finally Sprung. Or at least that's what my allergies are telling me. ;-) Actually, this year, due to the unusually cold winter, my allergies have only started about a week ago. Most years I am already suffering in February, and it goes until April. So hopefully it will be a shorter allergy season for me.

Today I went looking for some signs of Spring. Like this lone crocus (the only one not eaten by the squirrels I guess) poking through the decaying Gunnera leaf (as always, click the photo for a slightly larger image):

This past winter hit so cold and so suddenly, that I didn't fold the Gunnera leaves back over the crown to protect it. So hopefully the snow insulated and protected it. We'll find out.

I love this mini daffodils, they are a cheery sign of Spring (the tiny red sprouts nearby are from the Geranium "Victor Reiter" (cranesbill):

This time of year, my metal frogs are visible behind the bare twisted vines of the climbing hydrangea. Wow, those little guys have held up to a number of years of weather now, and look as delightful as when I bought them many years ago, in a little shop in Gastown, Vancouver, BC. If I ever see them again (they had lizards to choose from also), I will buy some more.

The fairy house held up surprisingly well to the winter, it appear to be undamaged from the load of the snow and pelting of the rain this winter. So I must have done something right when I built it (click "fairies" on the left for postings on the construction of the fairy house, and clearing and planting of the fairy garden).

Although not particularly attractive to me, the flowers of the Petasites Frigidus has emerged. It will be followed by very attractive leaves. For more photos of this handsome plant, click "petasites frigidus" at the left, or click here (note also those same frogs in the climbing hydrangea).

Some of the fruit trees are visibly budding. Particularly the cherry trees, such as this Lapin (dark) cherry:

...and the Rainier (golden) cherry:

This is the time of year for major garden cleanup, and fortunately the past couple of weekends have cooperated with good weather. I have pulled and cut many bags and wheelbarrows full of last year's stalks and rotting leaves, to make way for the new plant growth. I keep thinking I'll take some "before and after" photos, but forget to take the "before" ones, or move too randomly from place to place, and can't decide what I'm going to tackle first. So here's one of my "after" photos, after I cleared a lot of tall grass and weeds around the base of some of my missouri currant (Ribes odoratum) bushes (the clumps of dead-looking grass to the left will soon be an attractive green and white striped ribbon grass).

This part of my "hummingbird garden", with the Buddleia davidii (butterfly bush), Crocosmia, and red Monarda (growing all around the white stick), is substantially clearer, but still needs more cleanup. I have a nasty grass which has grown and tangled itself between the crocosmia shoots (that hairy mess in front of the buddleia), so one day I need to dig up the entire clump, sort it all out, and replant the crocosmia. I have a feeling it may not be this year. We'll see.

All the best for Spring to everyone! Go out and enjoy the garden whenever you can.

Enough Snow Already!

I hope everyone had a good Christmas, and are finding some time to relax and enjoy visiting with family (or playing with new toys - like our Wii system)!

This is more snow than I can ever remember in Vancouver (BC), and certainly in December! We must have had about 3 feet of it already, and it still keeps coming! Even the garbage trucks didn't venture down our street earlier this week, so it will be 2 1/2 weeks between pick ups this time, instead of the usual 1 week!

This summer I built a fairy house for my daughter, and have made a good start on a fairy garden around it:



When I was preparing the garden for winter (which I never quite finished, but got pretty close), I decided to leave the fairy house out, and get a photo of it with snow on the roof. Well, it didn't take long this winter to get my wish:


But then it kept snowing:

Today when I looked out, the fairy house is completely buried, only a white bump in the white landscape. I had a thought to run out there and rescue it, but then again, the snow is a few feet deep, so I'll instead wait and see if it will bear the load. Let's hope when it turns to rain, it starts gently, not a downpour.

But as the song says, since there's no place to go... Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow!

Garden Related Glimpses : mid-Aug 2008

Here goes with some more garden photos, and other miscellaneous photos from August. Instead of my usual close-ups, here are a few wider views of my garden:

Here is our fairy house, with blooming lilies towering above it:

Here is my hummingbird corner, with a lush butterfly bush cascading over a clump of crocosmia, and a set of red monarda falling to the right:

Here is one of challenges I regularly deal with, blackberry vines reaching over the fence into my garden (those nasty things seem to grow one foot or more per day!). The large purple plant on the right is a purple sage. To the left of it, the straggly flower stalks of Stachys byzantina (Lamb's ear). I don't much like the look of the flowers, but I leave them for the bees (especially the little mason bees) which are all over them. To the far left, our red currant bush, which bore more than a 4L (1 gallon) bucket of berries this year:

I was very pleased to gather a large harvest of lavender flowers from my neighbour, before her landscaper removed the large plants this year. While I had the lavender drying on a number of cookie sheets and other trays on the kitchen island, the fragrance throughout the house was amazing:

I also made a batch of lavender jelly. I was very pleased with the natural colour of it (yes, just lavender, certo & white sugar, no other additives or preservatives). Oh, and did I mention that it tasted good, too? My 9 year old daughter has been asking for it on toast for breakfast ever since.

While I'm posting photos, here is one of Alouette Lake, BC, from above. My husband and I discovered this viewpoint while off-roading a few weeks ago:

Yesterday (Sunday) we took the kids canoeing from Barnet Beach across and up into Indian Arm, to escape the heat. It was indeed much cooler there, and ended up being a beautiful day to canoe, with only the occasional drops of rain. We spotted this harbour seal with her pup on the shore, mainly because a pair of kayakers ahead of us had already stopped to watch. Otherwise we may have missed them on the rocks, since they were quite well camoflauged:

Here is a closeup from the same photo, you can better see the mother seal with her pup (he was not interested in looking at us, so that is his back end, you can see the flipper on the right side):