Cottage Garden Diary

18 Apr '06 8:14 am

Jacqueline! So happy to hear again from you! I missed your warm and positive Forum presence! I hope you had a blessed, happy Easter with your lovely family! Thank you for the Easter wishes! Let's hope, that true Love remains in everybody's heart all year round and not only during Christmas or Easter! Your Amaryllis is an eyes' treat! Stunning!

And our Cottage Garden is not only a creative dreamer gardener and garden designer , but also a hard worker! I think he represents well the sort of the happy, positive gardener that we all hide inside...

18 Apr '06 9:32 pm

Liza: Thanks for your lovely comments and wishes. Yes, I had a lovely Easter Sunday, beginning with a meaningful church service, followed by a great Japanese/Korean lunch with my family and ended with a sumptuous Chinese dinner. Both meals were themed 'eat all you can', so you can imagine how large my waistline expanded that day! Smile

seriously, there were so much to eat but my stomach was too..oo small to contain!

Liza, you yourself have such an exuberant spirit/nature, with unrestrained honesty, warmth, joy and love that some overflow onto me, Smile

I think! I agree with what you said, Liza "let true love remain in our hearts all year round" and make the world a better place!

I love the soft orange colour of this amaryllis, especially as it withers into a lighter shade. Their bulbs are really tough, they managed to survive and bloom in less that half a year inspite of being 'rained' with kerosene by our backdoor neighbour living a few doors away, who was angry with our dog barking incessantly during the wee hours of the morning! This unfortunate incident happened last October when we became first-time parents to our dog presented by my sister. We've been wiser since then and after being presented with an e-book on 'how to teach your dog 100 english words' by my son Smile

28 Apr '06 12:16 am

Well, they're ready!

As part of my plans to get the landscaping in better shape here (moved here in late winter 2003) I did some work to these beds last year.... took out the old dead plants, expanded the boarders and made them curved... and added lots and lots of compost because nothing had been done with these for years.... and basically put my "extra" plants and some annuals in the beds. I really wasn't happy with the way they looked, and not at all happy with the soil in this area. I knew at the time that I would have to revisit this part of the garden this spring and finish the work....

So early this year I got online and ordered a bunch of flowers from a nursery. And, I've been working on transplanting the few perennials that were in these beds to other parts of the garden. Well, we finished last night. After removing all of the plants, we added a 3" layer of compost to each bed and tilled it in well. This is the SECOND time I have had to do this, but I think I've finally got soil that is healthy enough for the new plantings to thrive.... And as long as I topdress with more compost spring and fall, it should stay in good shape...

I'll post photos of these beds throughout the season so we can see how they progress.... I'm planning to get all the plants in this evening, so that will be the next photos...

28 Apr '06 5:36 am

I have been wondering how you are progressing Cottage Garden. You have worked so hard to prepare the ground !In the photo are there little red flower pots on your steps ? It is so welcoming to have pots of flowers to greet eveyone who comes to the door .
Dixie.

28 Apr '06 12:12 pm

Hi Dixie!

Yep... those are pots on the steps. I like to put annuals in them in the summer. The more plants the better!

28 Apr '06 4:14 pm

Hi C/Garden!

Cool, neat beds waiting to be 'dressed'! Way to go! Smile

So much of hard work that I'm wondering who are your helpers and how you juggle your precious time!

28 Apr '06 11:28 pm

Jacqueline - I do most of the gardening on my own, but Kevin (my partner) will help if he is available.

How do I juggle my time? I don't have a clue! I think that gardening is one of those things that if you enjoy enough, you will MAKE time for it. If I waited until I "had" time for gardening, not a whole lot would get done!

1 May '06 8:38 pm

I agree with you, Cottage Garden, about the time juggling. Gardening time is so very special. I love letting time stretch away, and I'll deliberately not have a watch to know what the time is. Huge sense of pride when I go into the kitchen for morning tea and discover it's past 1 pm - like today! And finding that the light is fading, and I still feel like pottering on (also like today!)

2 May '06 10:28 am

Moosey - I'm the same way. I refuse to wear a watch in the garden. And I devote most of every weekend during the Spring, Summer and Fall to my garden. There are other things that I "have" to do.... laundry, housework, etc.... and those always manage to get done during the evenings and on rainy days.

7 May '06 12:26 am

I'm so glad its finally the weekend and I can work in the garden!

I've planned to finish the expansion of the grass bed today. I got the grasses and white coneflowers I ordered online. the plants are very small, and the bed will pretty empty for the first couple of years while everything grows. I may fill in some spots with annuals of some kind, but I really haven't decided. I'll make up my mind on that after I get all the hard work done. For today, I'm concentrating on what I have.

I had a load of mulch delivered this week. I've learned that I can buy it by the load for a fraction of what I have to pay for it by the bag. And by load I mean LOAD!!!! Its equivilant to 2 pickup loads. Anyway, I had ordered it last week but had forgotten to tell them to dump it in the driveway..... so, not knowing any better, they dumped it in the grass.... Looks like I'll be raking! LOL!

For Mother's Day Kevin is treating me to a trip to my favorite nursery. SO.... I made a stop there last week to look around and found Blackeyed Susan Vines.... and promptly fell in love! Very Happy

They are now at the top of my "must have" list for the raised rock bed. I'm going to plant one on each of the lattice panels and letthem grow and meander. They're perennial in my zone, so I'll only have to plant them once. I've also got my eye on a couple of other perennials for that bed... and about a thousand and one "wish that was hardy here" tropicals..... sigh.....

Okay... I'm off to make coffe and write out my to do list for the day! I'll be sure to take photos.... Very Happy

Cottage Garden Diary

Your orange Amaryllis!

Ready for a new beginning...

garden plans

Gardening Time

So glad its Saturday!