Cynthia LeFevre – Page 10 – Wellyssa's Womb

Winter 2018

Winter in the garden is beautiful.

Beautiful because the snow highlights the bones of plants and structures that you don’t see otherwise.

Beautiful because the garden is at rest, so I am at rest.

Rabbit, catching some sun against the south facing side of the vege garden bed

Southern guardian, feeling a little out of his element.

Beautiful because thee is a deep silence and stillness that only winter brings.

Bottle bed, north/east garden. secluded up next to the north berm, and under the Canadian Red Cherry.

The color on the story pole stands out in the snowy backdrop

Beautiful because even the smallest bit of color seems like a gift from God.

this bird feeder is very busy during the winter. It’s in the south facing willow garden. The large spruce to the left gives the birds a place to flee to when they feel nervous.

I love how the light shines through the bottle wall, even in the grey light of the storm.
The elemental dragons seem undaunted.

Womb of the Earth, looking through the butterfly garden

Beautiful because it magnifies the strength of all creatures exposed to it.

Just, Beautiful.

Fountain, South Willow Garden. I love how the snow drapes the bowl. But it also reminds me that I need to get outside and clean it out, dry it and wrap it for winter, so it doesn’t crack.

Looking south, from the gravel walkway, just off the back porch, this is the low water garden. I have cacti, red stone crop, Turkish horned poppy (which is done blooming in this picture, but has a riotous yellow flower), orange oriental poppy, echinacea (which isn’t doing so well), sunset hyssop, white sage, some self- seeded milkweed, red hot poker, and a hairy leaf white sage. The sumacs in the background provide a lot of privacy, and beautiful fall color.

This little monkey (all 150 pounds of him) loves his little larch tree. But the 6′ x 6′ marshmallow is hogging space. I will need to dig out the marshmallow, harvest the roots, divide and replant next year. I purchased this little monkey sitting on a pile of books, looking very contemplative – – – in Salt Lake when I went to visit my Mom in the spring. As I was having him wheel-barrowed to the checkout, I spied this little larch tree. The two just seemed to go together. And sure enough, the monkey loves the larch tree. I was worried that it wouldn’t be hardy enough, but it pulled through the winter just fine.

North rock berm, viewed from the front porchThe north rock berm is finally filling out. It looked so silly when it was first planted. It really just looked like a pile of rock with a few pathetic little shrubs on it. These dwarf evergreen shrubs are pretty expensive, so I bought them small, like 12″ tall and wide. Time. It’s about time.

I purchased two baby elephant sculptures from Sante Fe Pottery on south Sante Fe Blvd. They are made of old sheet metal and have a nice rusty patina. They stand about 24″ tall and long. They really look like they belong in the wild flower meadow, it’s a Colorado take on the African Savanah. Their Mother is also available, but i don’t think I can afford her.

Mad Hatter’s patioI picked up this old wooden table and chairs from a friend who no longer wanted them. Repainted them in a baby blue (which isn’t a color I usually go with, but I thought it made a nice contrast), and the chairs in green and purple, to match the house trim. My gardener extraordinaire, Jester, helped me create the patio using 4 different colors of slate which I purchased from Bedrock Materials in Brighton www.bedrocklandscapingmaterial.com/, and edged with red sandstone which I got for free from a friends garden. I’ll be adding some additional whimsical touches as time goes on.

The Dragons be gettin all fancy

Last fall I decided to add some bulbs to the Dragon Garden. I planted about 150 bulbs in each of the four elemental dragon beds. After the big pampas grass gets cut back in the early spring, nothing is growing out back, and the Dragons look so stark. Each bed has a different variety of short, early blooming bulbs like snow drops or winter aconite. Then the hyacinth should come up next, followed by daffodils, tulips and lastly the Asiatic lilies. I tried to color coordinate the bulbs with the elemental representation of each dragon. Air should be white and yellows. Fire, yellow, orange and reds. Water, white, blues and lavenders. And Earth, a mix of color.

I planted bulbs that would bloom early spring through mid summer. The mid summer lilies did not come up well, maybe they need another year in the ground, we’ll see.

As fate would have it, some of the bulbs I ordered did not look like their picture, or maybe they were mislabeled. Of course, I’m not going to dig them out and send them back – I think the bulb companies are banking on that.

I used a different on-line company than I have used before, because Breck’s didn’t have all the colors I wanted. Never the less, I think they turned out beautiful.

Forced Fairy garden

Lady bug invasion	Mommy had a little lamb, or three or ten . . .
Worms need to stay underground	Gnome invasion

My Mother LOVES to do ceramics. (All of the above are from Mom’s garden.) she has run out of room to put ceramics in her garden so she is “helping” me decorate mine.

I have ceramic ducks, a turtle, mushrooms and now, I have a fairy garden. I’ve finally had to ask her to check with me first before making me any more ceramics for my garden, or my house for that matter. I am not going to be an outlet for supporting her addiction! (She has run out of room to put more ceramics in her own yard – seriously, it’s scary. My Mom is “that crazy ceramics lady.”

My fairy garden – courtesy my dear Mother

But these little fairy houses are really cute, and they look nice under the willow shrubs in the south/east fountain garden. I have them tucked just beneath the overhang of the willows. Fairies like their privacy you know.

The fullness of June

Butterfly garden looking south east across the back lawn

Rosa rugosa at the edge of the Safari Garden

Fabricing the world!!!!

I am sick of weeding! I know it’s a never ending battle; I know that as a gardener, I will always have to weed. But seriously, I do not want to spend the majority of my time weeding; that should not be my primary function in life. I know the giant wild field to the north of my

Landscaping fabric around the outside edges of the trellis.

neighborhood will keep blowing weed seeds into my yard. I KNOW the birds will keep pooping weed seeds into my gardens. But I can’t stand it – I have to do something. So I am putting fabric down where ever I possibly can. So Far I’ve gone through 600 feet, at 12′ wide.

Fabric laid down in the pathway, and under the mulch on both sides. All the way to the edging of the Blackberry trellis to the north, and the wildflower meadow to the south.

I put fabric under the fire pit before the gravel was added (I don’t have a picture of that step)

There is fabric on both sides of the blackberry bed, and moving under the border of the bed into the next garden area

The entire garden of Pain is covered in fabric: 2 layers under the central hardscape walkway, and 1 layer on both sides of the walkway, with holes cut around the trees and roses.

Weed barrier under what will later be the Willow Woman sculpture

I laid down two layers of fabric through the north walkway. This area is not finished, but the fabric will give us a dry surface to walk on in the meantime.

The future fire feature at the south edge of the dragon garden

All the mulch was raked away to one side of the space, and then the fabric laid down, mulch spread out on top, and the fabric laid out over the other side. Holes were cut around the low lying squash beds, and an additional 3″of new mulch added on top.

Lillacs

North side Lavender Hedge. (It's hard to get the whole hedge in one picture, but there are six shrubs in this hedge.) — North side Lilac Hedge. (It’s hard to get the whole hedge in one picture, but there are six shrubs in this hedge.)

This was as great year for the lilacs. The made it through the spring frost, and are really strong. There is a 6 bush hedge on both the south and the north side of yard. I love that they are medium sized, although I can’t take credit for that – I bought them at Home Depot and they were labeled: Lilac. so I have no idea what variety there actually are. I’m going to try to find out, because I’d like to add some more in several places in the garden – but only if I can find this medium sized variety – no monsters here.

Bottle Wall project

I’ve been saving wine bottles for a year. Storing them by color in large plastic pots on the side of the house. The neighbors must think we really drink a lot around here. But every time we have a Sabbat I collects 3 or more bottles. Pagans love to drink! I saw a wine bottle project online and just had to do one. It really creates a nice delineation of space between the vegetable garden and the main sacred space/Dragon Garden.

Brian and I dug out the ground, made the frames and laid the concrete. Then we pounded in 16 5′ sections of rebar per side, 4″ through the concrete and another 6″ into the ground below.

Next, my friends Glenn, AzureIris, Persephone, Lupin and James helped me wash bottles and organize them in a wave pattern on the rebar. We used three different sizes of plumbing washers and clear silicone to place spacers between the bottles.

Bottles installed on the east foundation

This will keep them from chinking together and also from coming out of alignment. Then we had 2 weeks of heavy rain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Bottles installed on the east foundation

Finally, Brian and I were able to get the top rail on. It’s just another 10′ piece of 5/8″ rebar. We used a bar bender to carefully shape the rebar to fit the curve of the design. (pain in the ass). Meanwhile, while it was raining, I ordered some metal finials to go on top of each row of bottles, above the top bar, to finish it all off. The finials are rusting nicely now.