2015 – Wellyssa's Womb

I feel a Labyrinth coming . . .

future home of the Labyrinth. These two Grey Gleam upright junipers will delineate the opening into the space.

The new Labyrinth hedge plants will eventually provide privacy from the street, making the Labyrinth secluded and private.

Fall Color

Finally, the fall color I’ve been waiting for!

THIS! This is the fall/winter color I’ve been waiting for!

I’ve been designing elemental gardens at the edges of the main sacred space, between the Dragons. I’ve been having trouble figuring out what to do for water. What I want is a shallow fountain that will continually circulate water and mist it downward from a trellis-like support above. I’m still trying to talk my husband into that idea.

I set up some temporary bird baths to bring water to the area instead. Then I noticed that the city was cutting down a large dead cottonwood tree at the end of the block. So I asked Jester (who’s time I paid for) and my fired Don to come over and help me get enough log segments out of the ditch under the tree to make a better display in the water feature.

We dug holes to stand the logs in, according to the individual size of each log, added some gravel for drainage and tucked in the logs.

Don and Jester unloading the logs and setting them in the holes

cutting to size and cutting off the pockey parts

I filled a set of fancy matching pots that I have been saving for the right project with spring bulbs, and then tucked them inside of some larger black plastic pots, adding mulch for insulation between the pots.

Stumps in the ground, pots filled with bulbs, waiting for spring.

The fancy pots will get dug out of the bigger pots and placed on top of the logs. Their flowers reaching upwards and green vines hanging down mimicking water flow. we’ll have to see what it looks like.

After the bulbs faded, I replaced them with annuals. (2016)

WARDING

Dumbledore merely touches the wall of the cave and says:

“This place has known magic.”

My home and garden too, are magical places. And magical places attract all sorts of energy, both light and dark. Stronger warding is necessary. I purchased an entire pallet of Selenite slabs to be spaced around the entire boundary of the property. (This was an investment – I’ll just say that.) The boundary was then woven and connected to the central stone. The stone was placed energetically, and not quite in the center of the garden, but that’s where it needed to be.

The black stone on top is an apache tear

The central selenite anchor stone for the warding grid –

The entire coven as well as some of my students came out to spend 4 hours setting, charging and connecting the stones. The Ward is up, no evil shall pass into this little slice of sacred paradise.

And in the North

The hedge on the north edge of the driveway

I transplanted the two scraggly cyprus shrubs to the more protected north side of the garage. we’ll see if they make it. Concrete mushrooms – brighten up this shady area.

Building the Fire Circle

This project took 3 weekends. We acquired ALLthe lumber for FREE from the Vestas Wind Turbine bone yard. Apparently, the big turbine engines, which run the wind machines, comes into the U.S. from Sweeden on giant wooden pallets. Not like a standard pallet, these pallets are made of 6×6 hardwood timber and riveted together with nuts and bolts. Very heavy.

You can go out to the bone lot, check in at the gate, and carry off anything that will fit in your truck or trailer. Seriously, I wanted to haul a semi-truck load of wood outta there – but – then we’d have to do something with it, and Brian’s got a huge to do list in front of him already.

Measuring and marking where the bench legs will go

we’re using rebar drilled into the ground to hold the benches level while the concrete sets.

Benches painted to match the house, Weed fabric installed, then 3″ of crushed granite, 3/8″ size

3 sing to me	4 of your desire!	5 Circle round
2 the ring of fire		6 1-2-3
1 Circle round	8 So Mote it Be!	7 As we will it

Edging the Lawn

The Shirobana Spirea border I planted around the lawn is finally looking like something. It has been slow to grow.

The north lawn, bordered by Shirobana Spirea

Looking east, across the lawn over the rock berm

The Blue Spruce is beautiful! she’s about 25′ tall and 15′ wide now.

I wanted them to grow together, but I think I’m going to need to add more to get them to do that.

Butterfly Garden – Better and Better!

Everything takes soo much time! But I finally feel like I’ve accomplished something when I look out the back window at the garden. Sometimes, I look at the garden and all I see is the weeds; sometimes all I can see is what is still missing. I have to remind myself where I started.

Here’s where I started – in case you missed it in my previous posts:

So now, onto what’s been accomplished in the Butterfly garden!

Walker’s Low, Pink Diascia, Shasta daisy getting ready to bloom, Jupiter’s beard andpenstemon finished blooming

Mid-summer-White Daisy, blue sea holly, dwarf red rose, crocosmia lucifer, and butterfly shrub and goldenrod coming into bud.

Looking south/west from the butterfly garden, through the dragon garden, towards the orchard.

Fall: the Maximilians dominate the scene, russian sage, sedums, daisy and dwarf rose are still blooming.

Spring Color

The tulips by the cupola have multiplied nicely, time to divide and spread them out a little this coming fall

I love the orange and purple tulips under the Linden. (I added some Ostara eggs to the Linden, since I no longer have a big enough tree in the front yard.)

The giant alium came up beautifully. They’re about 24″ tall and 6″diameter

This spring is really beautiful. There is more color year by year, not enough yet, but it’s getting there!

I planted some new Iris on the berm surrounding the Fire Circle, in colors of red, gold, yellow and burnt orange. They’re sparse this first year, but they’ll spread.

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.