Garden Thursday

I moved this arbor. Instead of it sitting in the middle of a bed where no one can walk through it (this never occurred to me - my mother pointed it out) I've now got it positioned as an entry to the vegetable garden.

I am waiting for the Westerland rose planted against it to take off. If you like orangey-gold climbers this rose is really beautiful. I bought it at a garden centre only because it was a) orange, and b) cheap, and instead of turning into one of those Regrettable Impulse Purchases it turned out to be a really nice rose.

In front of that arbor is a columnar apple tree my dad gave me. It's called Ultraspire. The handy thing about columnar fruit trees is that they can be grown in a tub or in a very tight area of the garden and they actually like it. I'm a little worried about this one because this is the third time I've uprooted it. First I thought "Oooh, this would look amazing in an oak barrel on that stupid ugly concrete slab over there." I plant the tree into an oak barrel and put it on the concrete slab. A week later I notice the wild green burgeoning of the Gravenstein apple tree beside it - but it's burgeoning all over the Ultraspire. I think, with a pang, "Ack! That poor Ultraspire is going to be drowned beside that Gravenstein!" So I move it. But if you've never moved an oak barrel full of tree, dirt, and wetness, let me just say that it's not an easy feat. After a few humiliating heaves and ho's I finally dug it out and planted it in the wheelbarrow, thinking "Another place will magically appear, til then it can sit here." Later that day I was moving the arbor and thought "Gosh, that Ultraspire would look amazing beside the Westerland rose!" One thing I did to move along the success of this final move was to add a lot of kelp and bone meal to the soil before plopping in the tree. That should help the roots from developing too much shock.

Here is Max dismantling an old bench a friend of mine gave me. Check out the wrought iron detailing! (uh-oh, I sound like a car fanatic "Look at those hubcaps!") My plan is to sand and paint the wood then reattach it, using the Handy Dandy Max of course.

And lookee here. It's the inside of a greenhouse. My mother bought my dad a huge hard-sided greenhouse the other day, so I inherited his old one. It's a bit weather-beaten but it's already made seed propagation so much easier. The cat likes to sit in here. Does that make him a Seed Guard Cat? He even made me put a concrete paver at the end so he can lay on the warm concrete when it's sunny.











Here's a shot of it at the end of the vegetable garden (makes it sound like it moves stealthily around the yard, doesn't it?). That red tape is from the 'weather-beaten' bit of its former life, when it was caught in a wind and had some of its cover shredded.

The twins and I planted a bunch of seeds the other day, and placed the containers on the shelves of this thing: carrots, lettuce, arugula, clary sage, milkweed, 6 different kinds of tomatoes, breadseed poppies, collinsia, peach hollyhocks, fennel, beans, and sweet peas.








And finally, some primroses. You SO need to stop buying those cheap 99¢ polys and get these English ones. They are head and shoulders above the others. And they aren't nearly as attractive to the slugs. At least, mine don't seem to be. And the colours! This one is red with yellow centres.













Well, that's it for garden action around here. I'm going to be thinking about installing watering systems soon, because I like having the beds on soaker hoses and timers, but I've yet to find a soaker hose that lasts. They all seem to develop little holes in them, rendering them rather unimpressive in the Soaker Department. I've cleared up almost all the winter debris, and I'm slowly working on removing all the Bishop's Weed from the side beds. Gosh that stuff is tenacious. Irritating, persistent, and horribly tenacious. Grows like buttercup but faster. When I'm done that I will move my ire to the vinca.