Gordon's Garden Diary

9 Oct '09 12:34 pm

Dogwood are lovely aren't they. Sorry about your street trees Dixie. Someone pinched a whole lot of trees from Canberra's new arboretum just a few weeks ago. Evil or Very Mad

11 Oct '09 2:30 pm

Boy, Dixie - At least in your town the vandals steal the trees; here they break the trunks!! Believe me when I tell you that vandalism is rife everywhere these days. I wonder just what those people get out of their misdeeds? Is it just anger and a feeling of powerlessness against the world that drives them? I don't know whether any link can be made, but it seems to me that as voting rates diminish, vandalism rates increase; hmm. . .

Well, thanks for your comments about my garden pics. This week I erected my latest trellis and got sworn at by my neighbour for my effort. Too bad, so sad! If he thinks that'll slow me down, he's wrong. He started all this, and I know that I'm in the right. Today I moved some more perennial plants away from his wall as he asked me to, so I've shown MY good will, and I'm not concerned whether he likes what I've been forced to do as a result of his wishes. Wait until next spring when all the newly-positioned plants bloom, and I'll post pictures of the modified garden.

Until then, enjoy spring down there!

Cheers!

gordonf

12 Oct '09 3:31 pm

Hello, everyone!

Today it was a cool day here, just right to get a lot of garden jobs done. I planted all but one batch of spring bulbs here and there, labelled a pot of bulb scales that were knocked from the bulb of one of my lilies when I moved it a couple of days ago and which I decided to try growing, went out to "my" quarry and retrieved some more flat rocks to use as a retaining wall in the Hidden Garden where I'm trying to establish a new bed and a sitting area for next summer and took some more pictures for you.

I've never tried growing lilies from bulb "scales", so I decided to try it rather than to discard these broken-off scales. I've read that it works - has anyone out there ever tried it? Also, I know that I said yesterday that I'd post a picture of the new trellis in the spring, but I couldn't resist doing it today. It's all planted up for the spring now.

I've also included a shot of the "no-man's land" between my garden and the neighbour's wall to show how hard I've worked on it this summer. I still have some wild ginger and tellimas to move in there to cover the bare ground but the job's essentially done now. I hope he's happy (although I know he'd prefer that I eliminated most of the garden for him). Twisted Evil

I just HAD to show some more fall colour pictures so I included a few of them as well as a few close-ups of late-bloomers or seasonal ones. I hope you like them!

For now, then, cheers, everyone! It's Thanksgiving Day here tomorrow!!

-gordonf

12 Oct '09 4:45 pm

Lovely as always. The colour of the Virginia Creeper is wonderful.

26 Oct '09 5:58 pm

Hi, everyone;

Well, last week my birthday occurred, so I went to Vancouver for 4 days to do some Christmas shopping and to see at least one of the many public gardens there. It rained, of course, but it's Autumn, and it WAS Vancouver, and this isn't called "the wet coast" for nothing!

Anyway, due to the weather and to the beginning of traffic closures in preparation for this winter's Olympics, I only got to see one garden, the Dr. Sun Yat Sen garden down in Chinatown. I went there 3 times in order to get all of my pictures - twics to the public part of the garden (no charge) and once to the bigger, paid part of the garden ($10. admission). It was actually a good time to visit as the summer tourists had left and with the recent rain, all of the coloured leaves glowed as if they had little lights inside them.

I'll probably post the pictures over 3 or 4 days as there are quite a few of them. Today I'll start with more general shots of Vancouver and of the garden at my hotel.

-gordonf

26 Oct '09 6:05 pm

Here are a couple more pics of Vancouver that I couldn't get on the last post. I can't figure why 2 of them came out in black and white! I've been fighting with the computer for 2 days to get these pics to show in colour as they do on my screen, but haven't been successful.

-gordonf

27 Oct '09 12:35 am

Thanks for more interesting pics Gordon. I find the steam clock particularly intriguing.

27 Oct '09 11:27 am

Well, here I am again to post the first batch of pictures of the Sun Yat-Sen Scholar's Garden. This garden is split into two parts, the public, free part, and an admission-only part. It's run by a non-profit society, I believe, and the admission money goes to maintain the garden. Admission is C$10. per adult.

The garden was built back in the '60s or 70's as a tribute to Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, who overthrew the Chinese Emperor and began the Chinese Democracy back in the 1920's or 30's (before the Communists took over). He's very famous in China and I guess the Chinese community in Vancouver wanted to commemorate him. Anyway, 50 craftspeople and all of the materials except the plant material and the water were brought from China to build the garden as a Ming Dynasty Scholar's garden. Of course, they didn't build the scholar's house, where he and his extended family lived, but more about that later.

The garden is based upon Taoist principles of Yin and Yang, or masculine and feminine, and those principles are demonstrated and pointed out by the guides during the tour, which is free.

Today, while I wait for my quince marmalade to cook, I'll post my pictures of the public part of the garden.

-gordonf

28 Oct '09 4:59 pm

Hello again!

Here are the first batch of pictures of the "admission-only" part of the sun Yat-Sen Scholar's Garden. This represents the part of the garden where all of the scholar's guests and family would be welcome to visit.

The guide told us so much about the history and symbolism of the garden and its parts that offhand, I don't remember them all. If you see anything you wonder about, please ask me and I'll try to explain if I can.

Tomorrow I'll post some more pictures of this part of the garden.

Cheers!

gordonf

p.s.- All of these pictures were in colour on my computer! I don't know why so many appear here in black and white; what an absolute pain!! Twisted Evil

29 Oct '09 7:53 am

Hehe, and here I was thinking the black and white photos were you getting all artsy on the job! I particularly love the round doors (reminds me of hobbits) and the subtle floor patterns are inspiring.

Gordon's Garden Diary

Vandals!!!!!

Trip to Dr. Sun Yat Sen Garden

A Couple More Pics

Sun Yat-Sen Garden

More Sun Yat-Sen Garden Pics

Gorgeous!