Here’s a street-side view around the property, that is, from the street looking in – north/west around the U shape to the south/west. (The rear of the garden does not border the street.)
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Street-side
Category: 2014
2014 Miscellany
Roses
I am still trying to figure out which roses will do well here, and how to make them happy. Truth be told, I think I’m just a bit negligent and/or the roses are a bit persnickety.
I bought hardy, one 3-4, shrub roses only. So if these babies don’t make it here – I don’t know who will.
Here’s some pictures of some of the better bloomers. I always seem to miss the best shot; the garden looks spectacular and then I go, I’ll get a picture tomorrow – and well, you know how that goes.
Paint
Yes, house paint DOES have something to do with a garden. If the house is ugly, it takes away from the beauty of the garden.
I have disliked the paint on my house since the day we moved in. It did not look anything like the paint sample we choose at the builder, and when I said that, they said it was too late, they would not repaint the house for us. So I’ve been waiting and hoping for the first paint job to fail so we could finally repaint in colors I liked.
We painted the bay window purple. The HOA had a fit, and we had to repaint it to match the house body color. Soo upsetting. I am continually amazed by how boring most people are. But the two tone paint with the sage green dividing trim really helps to break up the huge expanse of boringness on the south wall. The same is true of the North wall and fence.
You might have also noticed that we installed roof solar panels this year also. We refinanced the house to pay for them – really expensive. But we felt like we needed to do our part to save energy and reduce our resource usage, especially since this is such a big house. Our power bill is $19.19/month. That is all state and federal fees and taxes, no actual power usage.
The funnest part is that every month we get a statement from the solar company telling us how many trees we saved. Yea!
And YES! I’m tooting my own horn, cause it was quite an investment.
Here there be dragons!
I’ve always had an affinity for dragons, movies about dragons, books about dragons, art with dragons, statues . . . . Dragons are magical, mystical creatures. 
Most say there’s no such thing as dragons – but I know different.
There has been dragon mythology in many cultures throughout the centuries:
the Ekheket of Egypt, Drakon KohlKikos from Georgia, the Druk from Bhutan, Fafnir from Scandinavia, Kukulcan from MesoAmerica, Kur from Summeria, the Python from Greece, the Stoor Worm of Scotland, Vritra from India, and many more. That many people can’t all be imagining things!
I have seen some fantastic dragon sculptures in expensive gardens and in magazines. I’ve been keeping an eye out for some to put in my garden.
I purchased the heavy concrete dragon heads at Echter’s Gardens (www.echters.com). They were sitting there on the floor with the rest of the statuary, just 4 of them, and I needed 4 of them. So I stood there guarding them for almost 15 minutes when a lady walked up and started looking at one of them. They’re sold I said. She looked up at me with dismay, but i gave her the look – you know what look I’m talkin about. I will Kill you if you even think about walking off with one of MY dragons!
Finally a clerk came by who could help me secure them and get them on a cart. No one was going to walk away with one of them while I was running around trying to find a cart. They are MINE! They sat around in the garage for a few months before I figured out what I was going to do with them.
I found these extra large planters at Home Depot, this year. I was admiring them, wondering what on earth I would put in them, and then I noticed that one of them was sitting there upside down – that’s it!
These are not pots, these are going to be plinths. So I bought 6 of them, actually, I bought 8 of them – when I brought the first 4 home, I broke 2 of them just getting them out of the back of the truck. They’re surprisingly strong sitting upright, but on their sides, they burst into a dozen pieces. Luckily, Home Depot was kind enough to give me free replacements.
My dear friend D jumped at the chance to paint them for me: They are painted in the traditional magical colors of the elements. I did the painting on the dragon heads to match the plinths.
The black/grey/silver plinth with the water can on top represents the feminine energy of the Goddess. She stands at the North entrance into the Dragon Garden.
The Red/yellow/ gold plinth with the fire pot on top represents the masculine energy of the God. He stands on the south side of the entrance.
The dragons are situated in according to the directions on the compass, east, south, west and north, with the entrance on the east side, between the God and Goddess. There’s a 6′ diameter sunburst in concrete in the very center of the space, and the dragons are anchored in the corners in square flower beds edged with hyssop herb. (I’m intending to prune the hyssop like a short hedge.)
So, yes – HERE, there be Dragons!!!
A little help
The best soil in the garden is in the herb garden. But from time to time I need to dig out the used up soil and add 3-6″ of new, nutrient rich soil. This is a big job and would typically take me a full week of back breaking work. But thanks to some community volunteers, we got it completely done in about 6 hours.
First we pulled out all the dead plants and weeds from over the winter;
then we dig out the old used up dirt and haul it to the dirt pile out back to be blended in with compost later in the year;
during the process Miss Bear was sitting beside the garden at the table preparing early season herbs that were being harvested. Here she is sorting and tying comfrey leaf so it can be hung to dry;
finally, new garden soil is brought in from the giant pile out back, and some is also sprinkled on top of the existing perennials, taking care to shake it down between the stems all the way to the base of the plant.
A Long day, but soo worth it. Thank you everyone! Happy happy herb garden.
Bridges
I’ve always been enamored with bridges in the garden. Usually you see them built across a water feature, or from one level to another level in the garden. I asked my husband, Brian, to build me a couple of bridges to help people get from one side of the dry river bed to the other.
I spent quite a lot of time digging through the boulder pile at the rock yard looking for wide flat river stones to put in the river bed to act as stepping stones. I leveled the ground under the bed in these places set the stones and tucked the smaller stones up around the larger ones. viola! Easy passage from one side to the next.
(You can see the flatish stones I pulled out when we put the bridge in, sitting to the left end of the bridge in the picture above.)
But no, people still had a difficult time getting across the stones. I have learned that not everyone is as sure on their feet as I am, and a couple people stumbled trying to maneuver the stepping stones, and then another person was temporarily on crutches and the stepping stones were impossible for him, trying to place the crutch securely between the river stones.
So after we had spent time and money building the large vegetable garden, we needed to spend more time and money installing bridges. But it’s important to me that my friends and visitors to the garden have easy access, so the bridges went in.
It’s also easier for Brian to get the mower from one side of the yard to the other, without having to worry about nicking a blade on a stone.
I have debated whether to install railings on the bridges or not. Part of me wants to find something interesting and decorative, and part of me thinks it will just be too visually busy.
I have to admit, I like the garden better WITH bridges.
got Crabs?
After the long, white and brown winter, the crab apples explode into bloom. I need to get me some more!
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Adventures in canning
Yes, of course, I can. I have a vegetable garden, an herb garden and an orchard. How would it be that I wouldn’t can some of my beautiful bounty?! Besides, I was raised Mormon, and in southern California. We canned everything! It was the responsibility of every household to have a two year supply of food.
What we didn’t grow in our own garden (Mom did all the planting), we gleened from the fields after the harvesters went through. I remember going through the fields to pick potatoes, tomatoes, strawberries, peas, onions, carrots . . . Then we would go to the LDS storehouse and unload fruit off the trucks. I especially remember the apricots we helped to process one year. They would get poured out of boxes from the trucks and spilled onto the end of a conveyor system. We were all spread out from the beginning of the conveyor to the end. Some of us picking out rotten apricots, some of us splitting them in halves, others pulling out the pits, and then finally others turning them all cut side up and sweeping them into a box where they would go into the warehouse and magically come out in Deseret Industries cans of “Canned Apricot Halves.”
My fingers were so sore and raw from digging out pits that day, but we took home cases of apricots and other fruits as our share of the harvest, for working at the warehouse. Our family also went to the local apple and peach orchards and picked fruit. I remember climbing the big apple trees and shaking the branches, my sisters running around under the trees picking the apples up off the ground.
Good times and memories. Results of my first harvest:
I also put up a case of pumpkin soup, loads of pickled cucumbers, green beans, and I froze tons of kale and chard. As I am posting this in 2019, I don’t remember everything I harvested or canned that year, but thankfully, I had some photos. But it was a bountiful year, and a very successful first harvest. Mom was proud.
The Orchard 2014
The orchard was planted in 2006. 12 trees, all little ones, less than an inch in caliber. Look hard . . .
2009, the trees are finally beginning to look like trees. No fruit yet.
2010 – Sour Cherries!
The orchard finally looks like an orchard. I’m soo proud of myself for getting all the rows perfect. You can see the straight lines from all angles. tee hee hee!
The orchard finally produced a good quantity of fruit in the summer of 2014. The trees had been large enough to produce fruit since about 2012, but every year the flower buds got frozen by untimely spring frosts. It’s disheartening to watch, but I don’t have a way of covering the trees or providing heaters in the orchard like large California growers do. I remember visiting the Orange groves in California when I was a child. You could see the rows of propane heaters set up in the intersections between each group of 4 trees. OMG – I can’t imagine what that costs. So finally, fruit in 2014!
