Today was supposed to be rainy all day, but it turned out quite lovely, actually. I got a good bit of weeding in this morning, hitting the beds in the center of the circular drive. I’d been pretty disappointed by how many weeds were coming up through all the mulch, actually, but it turns out the mulch isn’t actually that deep. It looks very mounded, but it’s dirt, not mulch. So I definitely need to haul some more out there, soon. I got most of the weeds out of the beds, though, and they look much better now.
Spending time weeding keeps me from seeing how nice the garden is looking these days. Even when I wander around with the camera, I focus on only a few things, and I’ve stopped seeing the big picture. So today, I tried to take lots of pictures of the whole garden, so I stop obsessing on the things that aren’t just right yet. (and there are a lot of those things darn it!)
I like the way the three beds I spent most of the morning on, weeding, look now, next to the freshly mowed lawn, too. (Problems here: the oak tree planted last fall is dead and needs to be removed. I think I want some sort of small flowering tree in it’s place, anyway. The flower beds are much too empty. Need to add more mulch to the beds. Have to figure out what sort of edging to put down between the lawn and the gravel driveway, as there are weeds growing where the two meet, in the gravel, looks bad.)
The side yard, where the majority of the thing are. The pergola, still bare alas. The pond, the waterfall, the bridge. The well. The gazebo. Looking quite tranquil and pretty. Sounds beautiful, too, when we sit in the gazebo in the evening. We can hear many birds, and the waterfall. (Problems: beds too empty still, though many are starting to flower. Lawn is pitiful, must be reseeded yet again. Have to get stuff growing up the pergola. Need to figure out what type of table/chairs should go under the pergola.) (And don’t get me started on the very back, which you can barely see here. The grass on the poor septic field. Oy.) (Oh, see the hanging balloon thing? I’ve never done lawn ornaments, but I’m trying this because I thought it was pretty. I’m hoping it doesn’t look tacky.)
And the back of the house — not bad, not bad. This used to be a complete jungle, so I’m happy with any improvement. Frank is busy clearing the trees off the left and beyond, which will theoretically be the orchard/arboretum. We usually stack our firewood for the winter season under the deck here. Not sure what I want to do about the big pine tree. The lower branches definitely have to come off at least, because the pine needles dropping into the window boxes along the deck are killing my flowers.
Here’s the view out the bathroom window that I see every morning. When I’m finishing in the shower, I’m captivated by my view, every single day.
Obligatory pictures of the fish. They are the world’s most spoiled fish right now. If I come near the pond, they now all swim over to me, hoping to get fed. I want to encourage this behavior, so I almost always give them something, even if it means dropping everything and going back into the house for more fish food. But that’s okay, they are cute! And getting bigger, too. We seem to have about a dozen. Still don’t know what happened to the rest of them.
Notice the butterfly near my flowers in the window boxes. Frank says he thinks it’s a White Admiral. I love the double petunias that are blooming right now. They are almost decadent. And notice the come-along — the ugly wire holding up the deck railing, attached to the house, until Frank figures out how to rig something permanent. He’s concerned about the deck railing collapsing and needing to be replaced. I’m concerned about all my flowers!
One of the roses that survived the mass transplant did survive, and is blooming. I still haven’t got around to cutting off all of the deadwood from last year, but I want to do that soon. And two of the new roses we bought this year are blooming now as well.
When I was mowing the lawn today, I ran over a sprinkler head by mistake, ruined it. Frank took another broken one and managed to come up with one whole sprinkler head by merging the two bad one’s parts together. And then he put a little red flag by it so I won’t miss it again. But it’s right in the path way, in the middle of the grass, which I don’t think is a good idea even if the lawn does come in nice and thick. I think this has to be moved off to the side or it’s going to get killed by the lawn mower over and over.
I got the grape vine planted near the pergola. Still haven’t put the little pieces of dowels up the posts so things will have help climbing the posts.
The flowers at the entrance to the bridge are all blooming. Have three different colors of lupines, a yellow iris, lilies in the background. As these guys all get bigger, I think this is actually the right number of plants to have in this bed. I must resist putting too many in, because I know they are going to get bigger.
I was so happy to see this guy coming up. I used to have three delphinium, pretty blue ones, that were happy and healthy, bloomed every 4th of July. But at least one survived, and I’ll get more.
All of the creeping flowers of so many different varieties that I’ve planted around the pond, the bridge are coming in so nicely. They all seem to be blooming at the same time, too, which is nice, except that they are all yellow! Oh well, they are pretty though.
And finally, I planted some impatiens in this super wonderful magic make-it-drape-and-cascade pot that I got at the flower show in the spring. So far it just looks silly, but I have high hopes for it. I put red impatiens in it. And my fuschia is still doing well, which I’m surprised at. I usually kill these so quickly!