A spectacular day in the garden

Two new rain barrels – we had enough rain to water the changed plantings today.

Finally hanging the hose so we can walk passed the tomato plant that is taking over the left side of this corner.

We have lived in this house for just over a year now.  Last summer we had a jungle to hack through in the garden: 21 large rose bushes, two over grown butterfly bushes (under one I found a hydrangea), untold numbers of spiraea that had seeded themselves throughout the yard and candy tuft smothering everything in the front flower bed.  Thankfully I have had spectacular help in my husband and my daughter in removing most of the above mentioned plants.  During the last few weeks my husband has valiantly weeded the nearly empty front beds while I have been crushing grapes; between the empty lot across the street and the heat we had quite a crop of weeds all summer.

Hiccups along the way – like splitting an irrigation pipe while digging a hole for the black lace elderberry.

We removed so many spiraea from this bed last summer! Rearranging the plants to begin filling in the big holes today.

Today: mid-sixties to low seventies, sunny but comfortable and we were both home which made for a fabulous day to work in the yard.  We moved about ten large potted plants and several smaller ones from the old house that were still in pots.  Now that we could see most of the flower beds we could better determine where the plants we brought would fit.  Removing all but four of the roses meant the herbs could be close to the kitchen around the back patio. The black lace elderberry is also now at one end of the patio, but we had to work hard to put that plant in the ground.  The irrigation pipe isn’t consistent from one end of the yard to the other – this we learned today.  The columnar yews are planted to either side of the living room window, with one of the remaining roses left in front of the window.  The large front bed has been rearranged and some poorly located plants have been moved to begin to fill in the street side of that bed.  We plan to put in a front patio at the back of that bed, so we can sit in the afternoon shade; hopefully that will happen next Spring.

The small ‘woodland garden’ corner with the white pine, ferns, columbine and hosta.

Where we had to remove the dogwood in the back last spring we put the white pine, ferns, hosta and columbine for a small ‘woodland garden’.  It is so nice to look out the kitchen window and see the neatness of the flowerbed now.  It had been full of old strawberry plants, weeds and landscaping fabric harboring lots of slugs; that is what is filling the trash can now.

Ten year old Syrah from Forgeron Cellars – the best reward at the end of the day!

We are by no means ‘done’ but we put all but one of the potted plants in the ground, we removed lots more detritus and salvaged a few other plants that were struggling to grow in awkward spots.  There are muscles we typically don’t use that hurt already, but it was worth the effort today.

Dinner: neighbor’s cucumber, our herbs, crab from the Puget Sound and pasta with our choices of wine. Excellent.

Happily, we had a 2004 Forgeron Syrah open on the counter, so I had a lovely glass of wine once showered.  Hubby chose a 2013 Amavi Semillon.  To cap everything off, we threw together a pasta crab salad from fennel and chives out of our garden, a cucumber from the neighbor’s plant, and crab that my Aunt & Uncle were so gracious to provide us.  Eaten on the back patio, overlooking some of our hard work made for a delightful evening.  My partner in wine is also my partner in life; it is so great to enjoy working hard as much as playing hard.  Hubby, you are the very best!