take care of my garden

I planted a ginkgo tree yesterday; a gift from a friend at work! I realized yesterday was my grandmother Camilla’s birthday (she passed away last year) and she loved ginkgos! So I “named” the tree Camillicus Domesticus; a nickname my grandma had for herself. She was a science teacher in Nevada for many years but also an amazing home-maker so I love that nickname for her.

Max helped! He watched me unwinding the coated wire fence and when I went over to a new post to start attaching it he stretched the other end and held it up which made it easier for me! I transplanted a couple more canes into the “new” row so besides the three new Tulameen canes I have six more transplants. Curious to see if any of the transplants bear fruit this year (the newly planted canes flower the first year but typically don’t fruit). Since I cleaned out all the doggone buttercups I have a lot more space to the north. I am going to add some compost and plant squash, zucchini or pumpkins there I think. I can’t believe how gratifying it is to go out in the backyard and see the new, orderly fence and all the happy plants inside it.

put up last night around the raspberries. Finished digging up all the buttercups/weeds around the edges of the raspberry patch as well! “Transplanted” two sprouts to make the beginning of a new row. These new canes had sprouted too far from their original rows and would have been removed anyhow. So if they take root and prosper that will be fabulous! Of the three varieties we have (Heritage, Tulameen and Chilcoten) there is one which has round, deep-red, juicy, large-seeded berries with a truly amazing taste. Trouble is I can’t remember which variety that is. So if I can move new canes/sprouts successfully, I will “propagate” my favorite variety this way!

are nice when the days are getting longer… I worked in the yard last night after logging off the laptop: I got one part of the fence around the raspberries rebuilt. Then Max and I threw tennis balls for the dogs to fetch until they were tired. I am going to transplant some of the raspberry shoots and see what happens. Word is “rain” for tomorrow so I want to get another portion of the raspberry fence redone tonight if possible.

The bed in the front is ready to plant sunflowers and sweetpeas. Trimmed the dead lower branches off the tall fir in the backyard (using the “serious” ladder) and crunched everything down so it would fit into the yard-waste bin. Cleaned out the raspberry patch; I’d kept the rows themselves weeded but the buttercups and grass had made big inroads. Max came out and wanted to help weed. I’d planted four new raspberry canes in February, which look like sticks in the ground so there were a few educational moments showing Max the label on the canes and the little, green sprigs that meant they were plants we wanted to keep. What worked best was for me to dig under a big clump of weeds and have Max pull them up, shake off the worms + dirt, then he’d throw the weeds in a big bucket. There’s a small bit left to dig up – then make a nice, new fence for the whole area. There’s enough space between the last raspberry row and the edge of the patch to plant (I’m thinking) carrots? It was a great gardening weekend!

even though I’d been good about shaking snow off the climbing Cecile Brunner it finally fell some night during the two week snowstorm we had. I spent just over an hour yesterday cutting down and tying up until the rose was in good shape again. I know we will have a frost or several still this winter but it seems no matter how hard I cut back this rose it just thrives!

Got the raspberries all pruned back and cleaned all around the canes. There’s still a lot of mulch from last year. Still I’d like to pile a little more on for winter. Need to mulch around the fruit trees as well – and prune back a few more shrubs.

the pansies in the big pot by the door got fried in the heat we had yesterday. They’d been blooming their little hearts out since winter – so I decided it was time to re-pot with something summer-y. I got some red geraniums yesterday afternoon and after the sun went down and it cooled off a bit I yanked the pansies out and planted the geraniums. As I was enjoying how nice they looked I remembered that the Ocean Lodge in Cannon Beach had red geraniums in their window-boxes! No wonder I felt drawn to plant them!! The sunflowers are 3’ high now! Both pots of nasturtiums are growing well and so are the sweet peas. Usually sweet peas would be blooming by now but I planted these really late as we had that bizarre frost in April! My aunt dropped by on a whim yesterday and said as she walked up the driveway “how nice your yard looks!” yay!

The sunflower sprouts are over 3” high so I thinned them out to their final spacing. Started weeding the raspberry patch. The doggone buttercups have gone crazy in there! Paco dumped a whole lot of mulch around the raspberries a month or so ago, but it didn’t kill the buttercups they just kept growing. The net effect is I have to dig 3” deeper (through the mulch) to get them up by the roots, drat. The 3 fruit trees are doing great; gave them some Miracle Gro yesterday.

The sweet peas did actually sprout! So many of the sunflowers sprouted I gave some to our neighbor; the sprouts are about 2” high – I potted them yesterday afternoon and they look happy still today. Ditto with the nasturtiums; I think almost every seed I planted sprouted so I put a bunch in a small pot for the neighbor as well. I got a huge section of the front weeded and ready for a pebble mosaic border. I saw a fabulous pebble mosaic by a guy who lives in Oregon (Jeffrey Bale) who writes for an swanky gardening magazine. That article plus finishing mortaring the pebble paving stone got my enthusiasm up!