2006 pix of yard progress since Nov 2002.

We bought this house in Nov 2002. Now in 2006, I have an acquisition of photos that show changes in the yard. Photos below are from 2006. I will need to backtrack to add slideshow photos from previous years.


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We bought this house in Nov 2002. In Spring 2003, began work in the yard, very modest beginning, mostly adding a few annuals, some containers, cutting back rhodies and some other overgrown mature specimens. For vegetable garden, I used split-bag topsoil, planting seeds directly into the split bags.

In Spring 2004, work in earnest began to shape up the yard, retaining the flavor of the original owners vision. Also did not want to take out, prune, remove plants until we knew what they were - using that axiom to wait a year and see what's what.

In Spring 2005, more work in earnest, serious pruning, removing, and began actually rearranging, creating and starting to claim yard more to our vision, rather than preserving integrity of original owners vision. Learned original owners stopped living in the house, using on occasional weekends, so yard upkeep had lost it's shaping over the years.

In Spring 2006, we are now engaged in claiming the yard as our own. We have been one-income family since May 2003 when I left my career employment. It has put a serious damper on spending so working the yard has been on extremely frugal budget.
Patience and bit by bit, plant by plant, back-breaking labor, we are very gradually getting somewhere towards our yet unrealized vision for the yard and house.


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2006 Specimen Acquisitions

2006 Spring/Summer season

Using this space to list plants purchased this year -2006;

- Eastern Snowball (bush/shrub) front yard

- Mugho Pine (2) Pumilio mugo pine front raised bed

- Hosta (Honeybells) side flower bed

- Achilbe (2) lower shaded rock garden and new wheelbarrow garden under maple tree

- Poker Plant lower shaded rock garden

- Coral Bells - Lilly of the Valley lower shaded rock garden


- Elephant ear lower shaded rock garden

- Primrose Beauty - Potentilla Futicosa (evergreen shrub/bush - creamy yellow flowers) upper sunny rock garden

- Rock Rose (evergreen shrub/bush) upper sunny rock garden

- Dwarf Periwinkle (evergreen perennial ground cover) upper sunny rock garden meant to trail down by fenceline

- Little Princess Spirea (shrub/bush)

- Hebe (check variety - tag said 'la favourite'

- Rubus - Emerald Carpet (ground cover - part shade)

- Sedum Gracile (evergreen w/ white flowers, red in summer)

- Nordic Holly (sun - sedum?)

- Southernwood Artemisia Abrotanum (sun, bitter lemon leaves, use in vinegar and salads)

- Sedum Aizoon (yellow flowers 10" long)

- Wormwood Artemisia - Oriental Limelight (sun 3-4' tall)

- Ice Plant (succulent purple/pink flowers ground cover) upper rock garden

- Cardinal Flower (perennial, part shade, poisonous)

- Verbena - Homestead Purple (spreading perennial, sun) upper rock garden

- curly grass (name not known, twisty, curly grass like plant)

- Guardian Delphinium (slugs ate it)

- Coleus - three varieties

- Hibiscus - Luna Red (2) (perennial) front window bed

- Sedum - Autumn Joy (2, one in 2005, one in 2006) upper rock garden

- Tree Mallow (evergreen perennial shade, delicate everblooming pink flowers) new shade garden in wheelbarrow under maple tree

- Bleeding Heart (bush) new shade garden in wheelbarrow under maple tree

- Close out nursery sale - Grayland - scented geraniums, peppermint, orange thyme, asters and ? = planted in white stemmed flower pots

- Geraniums (3) in rose pink shades, (4) in gold and rust shades

- Heather (3) upper rock garden, and two in camellia flower bed border

- Spring/Autumn Heather (4) whiskey barrel, indoors, and 2 in camellia flower bed border

- new whiskey barrel = Eucalyptus tree; foxglove; heather; beach transplants; yellow oriental poppy, spring heather

- new whisky barrel - upright = sedums, and surrounded on sides - need central core plant specimens and then extend this part of the growing out of barrell garden into grass yard.

- Eucalyptus tree - front yard

- Rose of Sharon - 5 dry root plants from Mom - not seeing anything

- Pussywillow tree propagation from Mom seems to have taken. She calls it pussywillow tree = ?

- Propagate experiments this year didn't work out using the root cutting formula. 2 Cotton lavender propagates seems to have taken.

- Lilac tree; lost two trunks over winter and new sturdy trunk is growing up from center

- Fuschia bush cut back severely and did not suffer - can be cut back severely annually

- vegetable garden was a bust this year - slugs!!! Ate 3 plantings of seeds = zuchinni, cucumbers, squash. Beets grew well and big this year. Tomato plants did well enough. Peas and carrots did well enough. Problem = old seeds and driest summer on record with no rain.

- Comfrey/borage planted 3 yrs ago continues to return annually. This year popped up everywhere inside vegetable garden bed and rock garden. Research = these are invasive and impossible to totally rid - underground root spreading system

- Japanese flowering cherry (upright) white blooms

- hybrid - 3 varieties Apple tree

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April 1, 2006 - Pruning n Trimming, Vegetable Garden - Garden Journal entry

April 1, 2006 - new spring season 2006


Giving the Harry Lauder Walking Stick tree a much-needed trim and setting out some of those early spring primroses and pansies launched us into our spring clean-up. After the winds and rains of winter, our yard looks strewn with debris and left-over projects undone from the end of last fall.


So, getting the planting station in the carport ready for a new spring workout, we got the area cleaned out. Since we tore out the carpet in the main floor of the house, it had been taken outside to the temporary place under the carport. Sweetie got it all hauled out and loaded into his little pick-up to go to the local landfill. Swept out the winter leaves, and tidied up the area. Found grandchildren's toys from last August when the family stayed with us....ahhhh, miss them all so much.


Pruned up the wild fushia bush and took down it's height. That and a hefty pruning of the Harry Lauder Walking Stick tree and we have some serious burn-barrel fires in store. Maybe our neighbor will be as accomodating as last year and haul it to his burn pile for disposal. First spring lawn mowing done. General clean up in the yard and it is already looking much better - ready for spring and new projects.


The kitchen vegetable garden needs tilling and new plantings and I'd like to expand the vegetable garden this year. My vision of it requires more back-breaking labor than either of us really want to expend, so looking for some easy short cuts to make more raised beds for growing more vegetables. I'd like to try the upside down tomatoes this year. I also thought of getting several half whiskey barrels and planting in them.


I've taken on gardening as a leisurely hobby, outdoor exercise and that great feeling of being connected to nature. But I've wanted to get serious about my kitchen vegetable garden as a means of producing some of our food. I'll NEVER want to learn how to do canning thought, but I'm receptive to the art of 'freezing' what I can of the harvest.


We had a small windfall of a bit of extra $$, so I went out to the garden store where I spent 4 hours just looking at every item; envisioning my entire spring and summer and what I could do; then did a reality check and made a list of what I most wanted right now that would fit the small bonus $$ amount. In my mind I spent several hundred $$ but my reality was quite different than my mental shopping spree. In my mind I had lined up to buy 3 trees, 4 bushes, a new wrought iron with canopy outside room, redwood patio set, water fountain gardens for several places in the yard, trellises, wheelbarrow, electric roto-tiller, red lava rock, mulching, mini-greenhouses in several sizes, several more whiskey barrel planters and hundreds of packets of seeds, bulbs and tubers. WoW - had a great time imagining all I could buy....but the few 20 dollar bills in my wallet just wouldn't stretch that far.


With carefully pruning away my mental shopping, I made a list of what I could buy with my real available dollars. I bought pruning shears (boring), potting soil (boring), seed packets (fun - but I had to put about 50 packets back - over my budget), a new tree = Mt Fuji white cherry, the usual assortment of primroses, pansies, and a few other 2' starter flowers, and I found 3 summer tops at price I couldn't resist so I treated myself.


It was time to refer back to my Wee Garden website and update it some, and I learned something about the climate zone where I live in Pacific coastal area. It's not zone 8 like the gardening books and USDA climate zone tell me; it's zone 5 because of the Pacific winds and climate zone. Well, the good news is that with zone 5, the last frost is later than zone 8, so the planting season is later. Might explain why all the seeds I've started for the last 3 years don't seem to germinate. I need to start them later and actually create a greenhouse environment for them of heat, light and moisture. Forget tomatoes, no way in the climate zone I'm in with short, short hot season can I grow them from seed. Sounds like my instincts to buy starter vegetable plants from the nursery is well-founded.


Now where's those grand-darlings to help me with my yard. They really were very helpful and willing workers with the taskings of the yard. Emily hauling off sod to the back, Drew using the big person shovel to dig a hole, their fascination with the worms when we turned the soil.....ahhhhh, I need my families to live closer. All this training them towards their own independence and they are all making their own lives their own way in different parts of the country. I miss them all. I always wanted to own acerage that would allow for building several homes in one place and having family close by but I'm also wanting mostly that they flourish in their own lives.

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