A Gardeners Forum Forums Members History Forum Life 2005 Carly's Garden Journal - Ongoing Thread

So with that south island foursome you can see that I made a couple of attempts to improve that corner - the first picture on the second group is what I came up with. Clover into the ring and a few tidbits behind it.

It will be interesting to see how that grows in.

June 21st - First Day of Summer

I have 10 new plants! Ha ha! No more plants, he said - you can't look after the ones you've got going now.

At 50 cents a piece, I'm not going to turn them down. This is a good time of year to go out picking up plants.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the beach, with the plants I got on my bike cart - had chips on the cafe patio, like Queen Sheet at a fancy summer resort. Then I went and got some stones from the water - I love collecting stones. I couldn't manage to bring back any big flat ones with the plants on the bike but I got 6 smaller ones.

Jeff and I are going down there tonight, so I'll get some more. Unless we go to another part of the beach/park.

I think if I'm going to get more stones, I'd better take one of my gardening carts - it will be better for heavy lugging.

I end up walking my bike back home anyway. Gives me a chance to eyeball everybody else's gardens and see what spill over I can pluck from the sidewalk areas.

There's a lot to tell - Jeff jumped into the gardening yesterday - he mowed a lot of the grass and weeds, even started a patch of his own in what I've always called 'Murtie's Square'. I used to put my wild prunella there, but it's doing nothing this year, so he colonized it for that stuff he calls 'clover' and I call 'grass mallow'. Haven't a clue what it is.

I'll put some pics up later - he and I have agreed that I'm to get all my projects cleaned up before I start any more.

No more plants.

No more books.

Heh! Heh! Every three days or so he sees me coming riding home on my bike with petals and leaves waving from the cart on the back.

And books? Accccccccch! I must have my books.

Anyway, I'm working on the squares on the north lot and it's going really well - more on this later.

LOL.. Jeff getting into the gardening, eh? Look out! Soon, ya'll will be trying to take over each other's patches ..lol.

Meg

your skitter looks almost like our Coho.

Hey Meg do you have a local sell forum? We do and when we moved in there was a patio like that one with your patio stones. I posted them free to whom ever wanted them but they had to haul them off! They were gone within 2 days! no work for me and a bonus to someone who wanted them!

Hey Karrie, I think you meant to address Carly, but that's ok. What's a local sell forum? I am a member of a yahoo group of a local freecycle. I got rid of a vaccum that way.. but have yet to get any goodies for myself yet. I always seem to just miss out on the stuff I could've used. I think I recall someone getting rid of bricks or something that I woulda loved to get, but I wasn't a member yet, and they were gone by the time I got added in.

Meg

Oh, yes - Coho does look like Skitter - looks like Coho is as nice a cat as Skitter too.

I just love seeing them sit when they're at rest -like kings and queens of their territory supervising the staff (us).

Yes - about the 'sell' forum. I have looked at them. There's nothing you can't sell, give or get at them.

Jeff often has things to get rid of at the building here - I should keep that in mind next time.

There are two trailers out back here - the owner rents the parking space from us. She's a nutbar who is not with us (temporarily - white coats took her in for a rest, if ya' know what I mean).

Nobody lives in the trailers - she stashes all kinds of things in them and around them which creates quite a mess. City Hall wants the trailers outta' there - they placed an order almost a year ago and her family has been humming and hawing since.

Maybe I could suggest that forum to her son - see if we can get them moved off all told.

I have an idea to just buy them myself (or have Jeff's employer, the apartment building owner) buy them. We could fix them up, insulate them and rent storage space with them. That way, it's in our control.

It's a tacky situation really. Jeff does not care for my idea at all. I don't even get to complete the sentence when I talk about it - he just cuts in with a DEFINITELY NOT when I open up about it.

Hee hee!

We'd have to pay 100 bucks a month if we owned them - for the space, I mean, but if I was making money on them . . . wellllllllllllll . . .

my local internet has a page where you can post adds for sale or trade and what not. I am constantly putting "junk" on there for free. People always come and get it. My father is a pack rat who has ran outta space, he keeps putting his goodies on my property. My rule is 2 weeks and it goes, if I make money on it or not. His "treasures" will not be my clutter. I am a total neak freek. I wonder what possesed me to purchase a house behind them. Oh I remember what - love- of course the hubby calls it ignorance!

Well, I'm stubborn - I insist on using every available thing on the lot. And today?

SUCCESS!

Here's what I ended up with . . . I've put it on the Landscape forum.

I just had another idea for those patio stones........stack them and make a single bench! Surley no one will complain about a single bench in the middle of some flowers! Kinda a quiet lil retreat.

Yes, good idea - but like I say - I'm done with it now.

I started the morning by going over what I call my root/log work. It's a particularly big root that protrudes from the ground on the north lot. About 3 weeks ago, I did up some of my neighbour's goutweed there, and dressed up a log with some weed/plant that grows under the mallow on the retaining wall.

It all took - but it was a bit messy.

First I planted the weed properly - put it in the hole instead of just in the pot as I had it. Then I cleared the stones, the pine cones and raked around it.

Then I put it all back.

Ta da!



Then I sat down and broke a few sticks into little wee pieces - Jeff raked the lot while I did that.

I did a little raking and cleaned out a couple of segments at the back of the stick circle.

Then Pat from next door showed up with some goutweed - when she thins her goutweed, she's on business, lemme' tell ya' - it isn't just a few pickings - she gets in there with the shovel and hawks up a good square yard of it at once.

When I see her starting that thinning, I know I'll be busy - she carried the whole tray over to me.

I put some in the portion I just cleaned.



This is what I have left to do.



I also got another plant from Pat today - she doesn't know what it's called - a variegated something or other, she said - it looks something like goutweed, but it has a thicker stalk and stems. It gives pink flowers, she said.

I didn't take a picture of it.

Well, this was a small jobs day really - I also had to fix a few plantings from the table garden.

These pansies had to come out of their seeder containers, so I put them in this terra cotta pot.

Evening work?

No, I do not stop . . . I'm obsessed and I don't care who knows it. Hear that neighbours? Tenants? No, it's not my JOB! It's my pleasure!

Thanks.

OK - evening work - I have been neglecting my austrian tree circle on the north island so I thought there's no better time.

I put some of the goutweed in the back of it.

You will notice there's space where I didn't put anything - that's because I 'think' that's where my blue gentian is - I haven't seen it come back this year - probably 'cause I had it covered with pine cones, rocks, etc.

I felt in there with my hand and there's a lot of what feels like root, so I'm leaving that so the gentian will have a chance to come out.



Here's the front:



I had to add some soil - I also make sure there's not too much soil up against the tree - those pine cones you see are in a trough about the width of my fist.

I had to retrieve some more lobelia from my rock garden - got 2 plants (the rock garden's getting some more stuff anyway). And I re-arranged my two german ivy plants.

I think this will come in quite nicely.

Yes, there's more . . .

What else did I do? Oh yeah . . . I finally gave up the ghost on trying to get those purple coneflower seeds to sprout - here's some (allysum, I think) in the round patch on south island where said elusive cone flowers were supposed to emerge . . .



And lastly? Lucy brought me a geranium - I don't know what kind of geranium it is - it isn't the common kind anyway. She has had it on her balcony since last year and figures it should go in the ground.

I put it in Washington Point (where I put the Martha Washington).



Is there anything else? No.

Say goodnight, Carly.

Goodnight Carly.

June 30th . . .

I don't know why but those lobelias seem to be dying off. Maybe they rest.

Then again, my other bluebies that I bought at the same time seem to be coming back. Hmmmph!

I haven't been gardening the past couple of days -had some deadline work to catch up on. Creating puzzles for two publications and I shouldn't have left it till the last but I did.

Tonight I stepped outside for a couple of hours - it was cooler and I enjoyed a little puttering around.

I cleaned at the foot of the walk, and started cleaning up one of the scrub bushes. Don't know what it's called really.



Well, of course I'm not talking about that scrub maple branching in there - I'm removing that.

I don't know what that bush is.

Now, I'll have to copy paste and start my reply over - Quick Reply won't do a picture.

July 4th, 2k5

I guess the only real thing that's new is the Hibiscus we got last night.



They were scarce around here - we both kept looking every time we were in a place where plants were sold.

The one we got was grown in a greenhouse here in Ontario.

Other than that? The cleaning I'm doing down at the entrance of the walk. I'm cleaning it out, poking weeds in around the big tree. There were weeds growing in there anyway, but I'm just being a fuss-budget - ha ha!



I'm taking bits of stuff out, and putting them on the lemon patch lot (where it didn't come back yet) and along logs down in that section, etc.

It looks good already, me thinks.

I've come to a crossroads with my gardeners' muse - I'm no longer trying any serious introduction of plants that really don't belong on that kind of soil - it's a woodland really, and there's no point trying to get the Blue Hat Society garden club type of stuff growing on that lot. Even container gardening is difficult - we can't be out there watering all the time, and there's a lot of places where the rain doesn't make it to the ground anyway - 'cause of the trees, of course.

My success has been with stuff that grows naturally there anyway.

I might (just might) go down the road here and grab some scrap chicory from the lane at the bottom. I'm sure nobody will mind - that might work well. But as for taking any of the store-bought stuff from my table and putting it there? Nope!

I'll keep the tree circles going on the north island - but that's it.

The rock garden's easy - that's something I can keep cultivating.

This patio stone we put in last summer was raised a bit too much, but we thought there wasn't much we could do - we just assumed it was because of the tree root there.

But surprise, surprise - Jeff got digging around it, seeing if he couldn't find some other way around it, and it turned out to be a big stone that was stopping the patio stone to lay flat.



Ahhhhhhh! It's nice to have a clever man.

Well, a few things have been done since - I'm on the other side now.

You can see it in the Landscape projects - where I did up the bicycle wheels, the big rock from the beach and the garden seat.

My goodness Carly, you sure do keep yourself busy! I don't know how you find time to even be on here! It all looks really good!

Meg

Well, if I had to go out to work (outside the home, I mean) I wouldn't have this kind of time.

I'm 61 - the job bunny isn't interested once you're older, as you've probably heard.

Jeff is the superintendent here. I more or less work at my gardening on the grounds and as you know, I do some writing.

I also construct crossword puzzles for a couple of magazines.

When I was working out in the workplace, it was in law offices. Real estate law, general practice offices kinda' thing. When you work in real estate law, you don't have any space in your mind for anything else, never mind time.

Today was hot, hot, hot but still, things needed re-potting . . . did a little work with some of the plants on the table garden - hibiscus for one needed a bigger pot already . . .



And the rock garden seemed the logical place to work - cooler than any other place on the lot and there's stuff from the table garden that should be scaled down, so in its going . . .



This rock garden of mine - I start working on it, then I let it go and do something else, then I go back to it - well, I'm going to finish up over the course of the next couple of days.

You'll note from this foursome that I changed a couple of pots - thought the thing in the clay pot looked better than just the green.

I put a lot of my smaller rocks at the top.

Jeff was kind enough to shore up the bottom and side this morning with some wood.

I'll have to get some finals together when I'm finished.

There's lots of small things that can go in here without buying more plants.

July 11th & 12th - again, too hot, too muggy, even with the A/C on.

I went out and poked some small things in the rock garden but had to come in - bugs are a bitin'.

Did I say I wasn't going out gardening today? Well, it so happened my rock garden was a cool spot till around 2:00 pm . . . I did a few things:

(Ok - so I'm an over-achiever)

Hee hee! Would you believe I 'exceeded the maximum number of images in a post'? Gotta' break 'em up.

Idunnos In Rock Garden - July 13th



I have had these around for a while - all of them in a black pot. I don't know what they are or where they came from - all I know is that they grow and grow. Maybe they're weeds - I dunno' . . .