It is late and I have been working on the pond today building yet another insane bed and bog. I was putting these in the new waterfall area and as I worked the fishes played at my feet. This was a surprise and delight to me. I have not had fish before this summer and I had no idea they were so friendly. I actually had to shoo them out of the way several times so they wouldn't get hurt. Who knew sushi could be so cute.
This is a new view that has just begun to bloom. The daisies were supposed to be 3 feet tall. They are 6 feet. Viva La Horse Poo!

Ahh, and this was how DH spent some time on the Fourth of July. When I told my son we should get dad a hammock for Christmas he scoffed. Oh but I knew this day right here would come. hehe
There will be none of this tomorrow however. We have rented a truck since we stupidly don't own one of our own and, will be picking up load after load of bark, more golden horse poo, wood and straw bales. The plan is two loads of each and that means unloading two loads of each. Nope. No hammock time tomorrow.

I have been having a great time watching this little guy join our garden this year. I had no idea he was even in the area and then one day there he was with his faithful mate by his feathered side. We have had an astonishing amount and variety of birds come to the garden this year. Every day I head out with my coffee in one hand and the camera in the other. Well OK, that's after I have fed everybody with fur, feathers, and fins first but then I'm right out there with the coffee and camera. hmm. where it sits on the table while I go get carrots for the horses who have now seen me and are waiting by the fence. But then it's right out there with the coffee and camera....

Well, time to get some rest so I am fresh as a 6 foot daisy tomorrow. Don't want to be cranky while I'm shoveling horse poo. sigh. I miss my high heels.

This little corner by the new waterfall was a wonderful surprise to me. I don't remember planning it this way. I probably just tossed some seeds in and hoped for something to take hold. What resulted was this beautiful combination of white alyssum and pink mix candy tuft.
I had just recently removed a large half log that was hiding the pond liner from the middle area of the photo. I replaced it with one of my insane beds. It is ultimately on top of the liner but I used house insulation as a base. It is wicking water up from the pond to create a water table for more of the same candy tuft and alyssum. There is a good layer of excellent soil on top of the insulation. Rocks and logs create a barrier to keep the soil from drifting into the pond.

It has been very hot here in the PNW for the past few days. We just aren't used to this kind of thing and begin whining when we don't get rain daily. Well, that's a wee bit of an exaggeration. This has just been an unusual season. Spring was unusually warm and dry and then it just jumped right into full blown summer. We can expect a week or so in late July to reach upper 80s and to be dry but we have already done that and then some a few times already and it is only the 4th.


I have been watering my little gravel beds with dedicated consistency and they are doing just fine. Since there isn't any water table at all beneath them they have a hard time staying moist in this kind of heat. The beds in the back have a very good water table and I have not had to water them once this season! I am hopeful that one day after years of adding soil to the front beds that they will develop something of a moisture trap. I can hope can't I? Until then I have decided the hose actually does belong in the driveway and not neatly coiled up somewhere. I have started thinking of ways to decorate it so that it becomes a piece of garden art. Like some sort of colorful interactive garden snake. The design department is currently working on some ideas.

The other day I added a new impossible bed. Plant pocket is more accurate. Since everything is bedrock I have to find all kinds of ways to create water table substitutes. This is onto of the big rock that I am turning into a second waterfall. I lined the area with black plastic and built up with rock to form walls. Then filled it with a layer of driveway gravel from the trench project. I used some scavenged dirt from the hill side and a good helping of a very rich dirt mix I made a couple weeks ago. The made dirt was a mix of peat moss, homegrown compost, manure, bagged compost, chopped organic matter and some clay like fill dirt for binder.

I have planted it with a variegated Ivy, various trailing sedum, Candy tuft and Alyssum. Right now I think it looks to "round" but then again the rock is bowl shaped there. What can you do? I am thinking that as the plants fill in the roundness of it will diminish and it will look more naturally blended in. I still have to figure out what to do with the foam sealant at the bottom where the rock and liner meet up. Another day, another project.

I hope to make some time tomorrow to post updates on the gravel trench bed. I'll probably do that when I slink inside to avoid the heat of the day. I am such a wuss.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Fourth of July. This is a great country we live in!

A few good reasons to garden

These were just a few of the reasons for gardening that I found today. It has been a very warm and dry spring for us in the PNW. Usually by now we are eager for the 4th of July because that signals an end to the rain and the start of summer. It has been so much like summer already that I am wondering just what I will have left to flower and look forward to in the garden. Everything is about a month and a half ahead of schedule. Then again I really should admit that I am basing my wealth of meager knowledge from one year of gardening. Ok, you can stop laughing now. Maybe by mid July it will just be greens. Maybe in my desperate need for color I will buy a bunch of annuals to get through. Or maybe, just maybe, I will find that the plants know just what to do and will put out more flowers the rest of the season. Happy thoughts. Yes, I will think happy thoughts.

It was a quiet day today. The sun shone but just enough to make you love summer. The new fish have learned who brings the food and follow me now like eager puppies. The squirrel who lives in the cedar tree outside my bedroom window has decided to make me a friend. Well at least he listens to me now when I tell him to quiet down. The Stellar jays grow more and more bold, lining up above my head to watch as I fill the feeders. The humming birds are fearless and abundant as they fill the garden with their antics.

It was a quiet day today. I clipped back spent flowers, cleaned pond filters and pulled algea. I let the sprinkler trickle in the beds and added to the compost pile. I wrote a letter to a new friend and thanked Microsoft for spellcheck. The dogs napped in the shade, snapping at the occasional errant bee. The pick ax lay untouched next to the gravel ditch I started to dig out for the new bed. It will be there tomorrow. I will think about it then

It is evening now and the frogs are singing, the honeysuckle is drifting in the windows and the waterfalls are soothing. Tomorrow will be a less quiet day.

A night visit in the garden

I just spent some time out in the garden tonight which I have not actually done before. We don't have lighting out there yet so there was only the fading light in the sky for illumination. We have worked so hard and for so long that I have not had the physical energy left at the end of the day to venture back into the gardens at night. With only the stars and moon to see by I was able to see the gardens in a whole new way.

In the daylight I see what still needs to be done and what just isn't working. How this plant is doing or that one needs trimming and so on. I look for the best photo ops I can find or the newest birds and butterflies. What I don't do is just BE. I don't let myself see just how much is actually growing out there in what was just three years ago a deep gravel patch.

Tonight I was able to simply see not the individual plants or flowers but the whole of the garden. In the fading light you only see the shapes and masses. You can smell the flowers, the honeysuckle, hear the frogs and the sounds of the waterfalls tumbling and splashing as the breeze blows through the trees. At night you can't see what you need to do or haven't done. You can only see what you have done.

It was a good night.

Acts of insanity

Today I began pick axing the gravel driveway in what will become a long narrow bed to separate the driveway from the garden. It has long been a thorn in my side that the driveway ran right up to the garden and all down the length of it. I can't move the driveway nor can I afford to continue encroaching on it. I was stumped for some time but I think I have decided on the only option there is. I will dig out a long narrow trench along the length to fill and mound with soil. Then I will plant.... something ? in there to visually separate the two spaces.

The gravel is unforgiving. The only reason a human being would be out there swinging a pick ax at it is because they were wearing striped pajamas and chained to their neighbor who was also wearing striped pajamas. I however decided that I am unwilling to look at that gravel driveway even one more day. So pick ax in hand and the chiropractor on speed dial I go out there to fulfill my mission. It will be 60ft long,

1-2ft wide and as deep as I can get it. After about a foot and a half you just start hitting bedrock.

I know I'll love it when I am finished but right now I am pretty sure I need professional help... and I mean the kind that can prescribe psychotropic drugs.

An easy read

This bench is by the little pond and I took this picture last June. It was the first year we had any plants in and I was so excited to see them. Last June was cool and rainy unlike this year's hot and dry month. I had been reading the book The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes. It is about the political decisions that helped prolong the Great Depression. Unfortunately that was a very precient choice in reading material.

The big pond was still a month or two away from going "online." I had gotten the little pond up and running in February and was so happy to hear its waterfalls. It was wonderful to be able to curl up with a blanket and read on that bench as the water played next to me.