We moved all the pots of plants we had been collecting from our old garden and other sources from where they had been living next to the garage to the gardens.
The first thing I planted was a rhubarb.
Jeff finished the fountain. We had the parts and the "urn" for about 5 years. We discovered that the pump we had was too small and had to buy a larger one. We found black rocks at Clear Creek Nursery to put around the fountain once it was finished.
Jeff also finished the gates. Here he is with the circle gate he made for the main entrance.
We have planted two types of cherries (Angela and Glacier), eight kinds of blueberries (Sunshine Blue, Northsky, Burlington, Jersey, Duke, Earliblue, Brunswick and Burgandy), asparagus, strawberries (June bearing Puget Summer and everbearing Seascape), an espalier apple with 6 kinds of apples, an Italian prune plum, raspberries (Caroline and a few brought from the old garden Tulameen (?)). That's just the fruit side of things. Besides these, we put in shrubs and trees including a multi-stemmed white birch, a paperbark maple (Acer griseum), two strawberry bushes, two lilacs, ceanothus, Dr. Merrill magnolia, Disanthus, Pieris, Parrotia, beautyberry, two witch hazels (Arnolds Promise and Diane), red twig dogwood, flowering red currant, ninebark. Then we filled in with perennials and it still looks pretty empty. Here's a picture from today.
As we plant, I have to weed which slows the whole process down. There is plenty of horsetail, shot weed, grasses,but the worst weed is Canadian thistle. It grows on a rhizome (who knew there was a thistle that did such a nasty thing) and is particularly bad in the bed in front of the front window. I am trying to weed it out, carefully going into the clay and getting all the roots I can find. I fear I may have to resort to chemicals on this one. Note the calla lily poking up through the thistly profusion in this picture.
There is one particularly hilly spot. I planted this in natives including red twig dogwood,mock orange, flowering red currant and evergreen huckleberry. I mulched with straw hoping that it will help with the erosion until the plants are growing well.
The herb garden is taking shape. It includes a bay laurel (from my friend Karla), three different rosemaries, thyme, chamomile, sage, chives, two kinds of parsley, marjoram, lemon thyme, tarragon, and fever few (from my friend Cami).
Well, that is a very quick update of about 4 months worth of work. I will try to be better at keeping things up-to-date!
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