Gordon's Garden Diary

28 Aug '08 8:16 am

Oh Gordon, your place is looking great. It has that fabulously 'uncared for' ramblyness that I love - but all gardners know that it takes a lot of work to get it right Very Happy

Where are all the weeds Question

I am a great fan of your pelagonium post too - I really like the old lantern and the bird feeder on top. Good luck with the house selling.

28 Aug '08 2:54 pm

Hi, Kerole;

In answer to your question, the weeds are tucked underneath all the greenery, occasionally lifting their trembling heads above the other plants, at which time, up they come by their roots!! Many of the smaller "weeds", actually self-sown babies of stipa grasses, Welsh poppies , Feverfews or Carexes, are growing on the paths. They are a constant nuisance there and every week or so I go on a blitz and pull them all up!

In front of the local art gallery today, I saw the coolest plant combination: purple verbenas growing among gray helichrysum plants. It has been a damp, gray day, and the colours just popped in that light!!

I made an offer on the house in the Interior today, subject to my place selling, so now the anxiety really mounts for me!! "Will they accept it?? Will my house sell on time?? Will someone else outbid my offer??" Oh boy!

As always, cheers, and wish me luck!!

-gordonf

31 Aug '08 11:58 am

And GOOD LUCK as the whole process of moving starts to gear up! And somehow your garden knows it, and is looking lovelier than ever...

I'm playing catch-up (as usual, it seems!); I've worked harder these last weeks than ever before in my life for 'Romeo and Juliet' and put in 3 100hour weeks as we went into performance. Now I'm doing basic things like catching up with my marking and my laundry. But tomorrow I will go into the garden and find proof that spring is here (besides the fact that I'm sitting in short sleeves near an open window at 2am right now...) and start my final post for the year...

Thinking of you, my friend!

31 Aug '08 1:27 pm

Hi, Jack!

It's so good to hear from you again!! I'm glad the Romeo and Juliette went well and that now you can get back to an (almost) normal life once more!! Shirtsleves before an open window at 2:00 a.m. sounds great, as our nights are now closing in and it's dark by 9:00 and the windows must be closed after that to keep the furnace from firing up! Up north the frosts have probably begun already, so I hope this place sells by my birthday (October 20) so that I'll still be able to get my plants settled in before the ground freezes hard there!

I was going to start thinning out the garden today but looking for wild Chanterelle mushrooms sounded like much more fun, so it'll have to be done tomorrow. It's a lovely fall day here - really warm in the sunshine but with a cooling breeze from the ocean. After 6 years, the garden really needs thinning as I originally planted thickly to achieve a full look quickly, so the plants that get thinned will go into pots to await their move, an nobody will know the difference!

Well, I'd better get out into the bush again for more 'shrooms before the sun goes down and the bears come out to play!!

Enjoy the spring, buddy!!

-gordonf

31 Aug '08 5:13 pm

Boy that picture of the Euphorbia lambii's makes for a pretty good illusion. It looks so much like each plant is as tall as the house. If it weren't for the plant name tag the illusion would be complete.

Well I celebrated the completion of the first week of classes by going to the Dry Garden nursery and buying a few new plants. I got another euphorbia new to me called 'Blackbird' which has, as you might guess, fairly dark folliage. I've tucked it into the dry bed between the variegated Yucca and the dark Aeonium. Then I picked up a new fine-leaved, silver folliaged spreader for a pot that sits on the top of a 4by4 post about the size of your Pelargonium post. The sign said "low to no water" so I might just take them at their word next year if I can nurse it through the rest of the dry season and into the wet one.

The last plant can become an 8 foot shrub/tree and has somewhat silvery, light grey folliage. I think it may have come from Australia. I'm not sure where this one goes yet. Hope I can figure that out soon.

Gee Gordon, I hope you get a buyer real soon or, if not, after spring returns. The prospect of moving in -let alone settlng your garden transplants- in the dead of winter is spooky. Best of luck!

31 Aug '08 6:33 pm

Hi, Mark-

Sounds as if you have some very interesting babies!! Good luck with them all!!

Yep - the thought of moving at all makes me shudder, let alone at the beginning of winter to a house that isn't currently livable!! Thank goodness that I have a few friends who could babysit my plants over the winter, although none of them are very reliable for watering in late winter before the spring rains arrive. I'm afraid that I'd be phoning them every few days to remind them that even though it may be cold (but not freezing) the plants will dry out in the wind and need watering!! Oh, boy! Confused

By the way - will the plant that you plan to put atop the post hang down or spread upwards? I'll be interested to see a picture of it in a year or so, once it has a chance to show its habit. As for me, whenever I DO move, I'll be interested to see whether any of my Pacific Coast Irises make it through their first full winter. We're trying to extend their range for gardeners, so if I can get a hardy one, it'll be a great one to use for breeding with Siberians and other hardy irises.

I'm already planning - roughly - my garden for the mountains. It gives me something to put my mind at ease while I wait for a buyer to arrive. It's funny how things happen sometimes; when I was a teenager, I used to subscribe to the UNESCO Courier magazine. One article in it showed the Swiss garden of some world-famous teacher. It was a somewhat unkempt-looking mountain garden, with a lawn ending with what looked like wild roses or raspberries. Beyond the bushes was a view down the slope towards the distant peaks, and I remember thinking that that would be a wonderful place in which to retire!! The place I hope to buy has a very similar view but lacks the garden. Coincidence or precognition?? Hmm...

Anyway, here's a picture that I took while I was inside the place in Wells. Cool, eh? The foreground is where the garden would be., if you look closely, you can see an empty line running across the picture; that's where the street is and the bog is below and on the other side of the street.

Cheers!

p.s. - "Hi!" to the folks at the Wells District office who are probably reading this - hope to see you soon!! -G.
gordonf

31 Aug '08 7:27 pm

Now that's what I call positive progress Smile

1 Sep '08 2:29 am

Nice! You have this view from inside your -we hope- new place?! Sweet! What an opportunity you have Gordon. I wonder how much ground you'll cultivate before you transition to the natural landscape. What an exciting decision to get to make. That's going to give you the kind of views Jack enjoys .. without having to plant the trees yourself.

Another garden you might like to look at is one in Washington state, in Bellingham which its makers call Silver Creek Garden. They have a site on flickr by that name which you might like to check out. Like Jack they also document a lot of the local native flora around them and they're avid hikers. They have a lot of photos of wild flowers encountered in the mountains which they still seem to climb frequently. Photos on flickr are of an unrestricted file size so if you're on dial up it could be a slow slog but I think you'd enjoy it. This is the connector to the set of photos of their garden:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/73254522@N00/sets/72057594110422453/

There are also sets for their other interests which I suspect will overlap your own. They are also 'shroom hunters, vegetable orchard growers and orchardists, chicken keepers, gourmet cooks, sea kayakers and hikers.

1 Sep '08 10:37 am

Thanks, Mark, for the link to the other garden; I'm going to look at it as soon as I've finished here!

Enjoy the rest of labour Day weekend!!

-gordonf

1 Sep '08 6:17 pm

Oh what a beautiful place!
Best wishes for a speedy sale and smooth move.

Gordon's Garden Diary

Immaculate!

Of Weeds and Other Things

Hi there Gordon!

And School is just ready to Begin here. . .

Moving . . . shudder!!!

The first "before" photo!

Talk about borrowed view ..

Thanks!