Revisiting

Journal Entry No.8
A Gardenful

       I'm not going to make excuses for not updating in about a year, but since this is a personal blog and I doubt anyone is actually reading it, there's no need to explain really. I like to keep this blog for myself so I can keep track of my journey as a gardener and try to remember things that are easily forgotten. It's always the best moments that stand out in my memory, like how well the mystery hydrangea performed in the "courtyard" memorial bed (main photo). This hot pink hydrangea languished at my parents' house for several years, I plunked it in my side garden and it's absolutely flourishing! This was a nice surprise because I've been struggling with fussy hydrangeas for some time now. They usually want more sun but loathe the heat. At least two different hydrangeas were wilting in the sun last year and they required a beach umbrella for protection, which honestly feels excessive. I'm moving my one Wee Bit Grumpy, a memorial plant, to the back bed in hopes it might prefer the partial shade. The problem with that bed, however, is that it doesn't get so much sun that flowers will be plentiful and large. I have a Bloomstruck in there that does okay, it puts out blooms but always has a kind of skimpy look to it. I previously removed the Everlasting Revolution hydrangea from the shade bed to the courtyard garden in hopes that it will finally bloom again, it did not fair well in the back garden beds, even with a little dappled morning sunlight. These are all big leaf hydrangeas with varied tastes in lighting requirements, some are happy in one bed, others not so much, it feels like a game of musical chairs... and no, the nursery care tags are never accurate. 

    As for lighting requirements I'm also learning that my new rhododendron isn't particularly thrilled with it's bed and it will have to be shifted to the opposite side where it will get a whopping two hours more sunlight, although I'm not sure it will be enough to get it to flower. It's healthy, it didn't put out more than one bloom cluster, but there's plenty of new growth. The leaves, however, tend to cup downwards which usually indicates a lack of water but I know that's not the case so I'm assuming there's a need for more light. I wish I could keep it in the back bed as I like the height and look of it, and there aren't many shade friendly plants that are taller than two feet, at least not in any of my nurseries. 

    Spring was a welcome sight and I was thrilled, we had a dreadful winter with record breaking snow, every day I'd wake up anticipating the snow melting and snowdrops peeking through. Once the season shifted the temperatures weren't as high which permitted longer bloom times. I didn't have as many tulips or daffodils this time around and I'm assuming some have died off. Only one group out of my four mini narcissus plantings has survived. Otherwise, the garden foliage looked green and healthy, lawns looked lush, and the flowering trees held on a little longer than usual. We made our annual pilgrimage to a nearby town to enjoy the spring flowers in April and it was dreamy. I noticed with temperature fluctuations some plants bloomed earlier than usual whereas others, which normally came first, came later. The cool air also prevented me from planting seeds until much later than I have in the past. This might work out for my pumpkins, which I hope will evade the notorious squash vine borer! I swore I wouldn't plant pumpkins again because it was such a pain in the ass to deal with those dreaded maggots, but I loved the look of the small ornamental pumpkins hanging from the trellis. I hope it will be a good year for them.

    We're doing more vegetable gardening than before. We've planted roma tomatoes, carrots, strawberries, yukon gold potatoes, small striped pumpkins, jack-be-littles, chives and sage. Last year we only tried potatoes and they were mostly small and had scabbing (dehydration), we grew them in a large raised bed planter that apparently didn't get enough moisture. This year I'm trying again but with fewer starter potatoes and in a small planter so I can control the water levels better. I'm trying new fertilizer and composts in the planters and I hope this contributes to healthy growth. I don't consider myself a green thumb yet as I'm constantly learning new things about my garden and myself. Every year is a new adventure!

    We've been doing a lot of landscaping this year which will have to continue into the fall. The beds are quite high due to soil and debris build up so we have to get creative with our edging approaches, mostly we're building small retaining walls out of slate, river rock and cinderblocks. It's not easy to see but the Alice in Wonderland themed bed has a new retaining wall behind it where we also had to make a fence repair. I added weed barrier there and hope to prevent anymore bishops weed from crawling through. Another big project this year is that we'll be filling in the pond with soil. My husband discovered it's officially pooched and not worth investing in. We'll now be landscaping that area to be a walkway and we might put grass back in there or some kind of aggressive ground cover. Speaking of which, we are still fighting desperately against bishop's weed! I'm removing it from the back bed in the far left corner where the rhododendron will go, and eventually an extension of the brick paver patio will be made there which hopefully in itself prevents spreading. There's no hope that our new neighbor will eradicate the bishops weed behind the pond so I plan on planting tight compact and large plants, like hostas and ferns but also ground cover and maybe, just maybe that'll keep it at bay.

    Our newest additions to the garden this year are an eclipse hydrangea...not that I need more hydrangeas but I couldn't resist its black foliage; some more lamium, japanese forest grass, pulmonaria (twinkle toes, the same as before), and a fire island hosta which sadly doesn't stay hot yellow! Some nice surprises this year were that the pulmonaria and bleeding hearts are reproducing in droves, so there will be plenty of filler with the seedlings, and the overabundance of columbine, that I can use when landscaping the previously unused back left corner. Another nice surprise is that after four years my irises finally bloomed. I planted the orange and I believe the purple is my "black iris" that was thought doomed, the yellow iris is apparently original to the property. I love irises and was devastated that I could never get them to bloom, I'm not sure what did it, but I'm happy they've finally shown their beauty!

    Below are some pictures of the gardening beds which desperately need editing. In the Alice in Wonderland/Nori memorial bed, I've already pushed the corabelle to the back, but the columbine will have to come out of the front where it's seeded and be moved elsewhere. The balloon flowers will be shifted back, and more creeping phlox will be added to the front.

    In the other bed, which I simply refer to as the "back bed" I'll be pushing one of the bleeding hearts back, removing the rhododendron to the other bed, pushing some of the hostas further in and moving the white variegated hosta elsewhere. I'd like to transplant some painted ferns into this bed and find a taller plant to replace the rhododendron. 

    I've redone the "courtyard" side garden where Baba's memorial bed is. I'm trying natural mulch this year with our fallen leaves and thus far it's working well to inhibit weed growth and maintain moisture. I took the Bloomstruck out (pictured in front of the dragonfly) and I switched it with the Everlasting Revolution hydrangea. The soil has been amended so hopefully I get nice rich colorful blooms. I will take out the Wee Bit Grumpy in the fall, and I'll try propagating from it again because I'm happy to have more of this hydrangea. In its place I will be planting a Smoky Amethyst Sedum which also reminds me of my beloved cat. ♥

    

Happy Gardening!

Summer and Fall Recap

Journal Entry No.7
A long hiatus

I feel perfectly awful neglecting my blog! But to be fair, this past year I spent far less time in my garden and twice as much time trying to do things for the house. Even now I'm "housebound", we're currently faced with a possible leak/condensation problem, and with the prospect of more rain on the horizon I feel my anxiety growing. Usually I take this time to start planning out the new garden goals for the year. I hit none of my goals last year. At all. It's amazing I managed to rake up the leaves in the fall. 

Our personal lives took a hit late last winter, hubs got laid off and things were intense for several months. We are okay right now (touch wood) but our priorities changed. There were fewer leisurely pursuits between us and the focus shifted on that which had to be done versus things that could be deferred to a later date. Oh, how I wish I had done several things in the garden. For starters, not trying to be shady, but I really want a privacy wall built around the deck. Our neighbors had their deck renovated and it now sits above fence level so we have zero privacy. I'm sure it's awkward for them, too, but I find I'm less inclined to spend anytime on my deck because it now feels like a performing arts stage. And their kids are small and want to talk to me when they see me and well, damnit I just like to be left alone sometimes. The backyard is an oasis. A retreat. But last year it felt different. The plan is to erect either a trellis attached to the deck, or a hedge row tall enough to obscure the view of our deck. The hindrance here is that if I do put in some cypress or the like, it will block any sun from reaching one of my only sun beds. There is much problem solving to be done in regards to the deck...Which is aging terribly, hubs did his best to "rejuvenate" it but it already looks like shriveled up driftwood again. I just don't have the funds to replace the deck this year, or probably the next six years.

The other major undertaking was that I was supposed to overhaul the side garden. I have to take out the ninebark, and level off the garden bed, replacing it with a concrete pad. I have a fierce goutweed problem. I'm told the only way out is to tarp it, but half the neighborhood is covered in this crap. We tried tarping for two years and all it takes is one rogue goutweed and it explodes. Last year was truly exceptional, we have never had so much rain before, and apparently it was perfect for the weeds. I tried to get out and weed whack but it was overwhelming. My garden looked atrocious. It really made me long for the flat, empty, uninspired backyard we had in our first rental. One day I'm going to have a blank slate for a garden where I can plant whatever I desire and hopefully won't have to contend with seventy varieties of weed (we live near a naturalized woodlot so a lot of weirdness spills into my garden and it's near impossible to control).

One thing I can say I mastered last year was the memorial garden for my late friend. Honestly, every garden in my backyard is a memorial garden, it's beginning to look more like a cemetery every day! The goth in me is proud. :) I think memorial gardens are a beautiful expression of love and I'm not planning on stopping them anytime soon! It's a great way to focus one's attention, too, you can't ignore a memorial garden! This wasn't a planned project, it just felt like the right time. You see, we had this sad, scraggly little side garden bed that had been long neglected. In fact, I believe when I moved in the only plants in the bed were yellow tulips and I think that might have been due to the squirrels more than anything. I half heartedly transplanted some hostas into the bed in the spring, but it really needed polishing off. I don't know if I needed a reason, but it seemed like the prefect time to close a chapter in my life, I had grieved the loss of a high school friend for over a decade and it was time to let her go and allow her to rest. It was time to dedicate the space to her. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do so I just sort of winged the whole process. Luckily my parents' neighbor was landscaping and pulled out a few dozen really good bricks from their own yard, we repurposed these to build a small retaining wall around the bed. We then filled the bed with gravel. I buried my friend's ashes beneath a rose - I selected the Martin Frobisher rose because it was the only really pretty fragrant rose left at the nursery, and it's named after a privateer, or a pirate. Yep, a pirate rose. For my goth friend who shared my dream of becoming a pirate. I can't make this up lol, it just worked out that way. I hung a pretty medallion on the gate next to it. I often think of her when I see it. It feels like the perfect tribute to her. I also buried her pictures and a few of our shared items in a box with her ashes. It was a proper burial. Apparently not illegal, either. Who knew?

The summer was surprisingly cool and oh, how I welcomed that fact. I'm sure the lakes stayed cold. It was too cold to swim. I shed no tears. The fact most of summer felt like autumn was dreamlike and awesome. I will say the foliage in autumn was not as good as it had been the previous year. Our rain and humidity levels were atrociously high and as such we had mass amounts of fungi and molds. The trees were badly damaged as a result and most leaves dropped at the first frost.

Plant wise my new Rose of Sharon - planted where the cherry tree stood - put out its first blooms. They were gorgeous periwinkle flowers but sparse as the plant is quite young. I look forward to it growing proudly in the sun bed and adding a bit of colour at the end of the deck. A few of the coral bell seedlings took root, the pulmonaria on the rocks performed exceptionally and I will now be planting more of them there in the future. Likewise, I'm working on transplanting and expanding the ground cover by the pond using creeping sedum. It looks like moss in the spring, utterly captivating and thankfully likes to choke out all the weeds. My plan is to get it growing all the way around the pond. After some research we found it's unlikely we'll ever get the waterfall going again, so I have to make new decisions regarding that in the future.

I've added a few of my plant successes in the photos below. My highlights of the year that aren't pictured would have to be the impatiens, I plan on buying more impatiens and adding them to the preexisting beds in containers, it fills out beautifully which is a nice treat when other plants fail. Like the daffodils, my double bloomers failed to show themselves due to the warm winter temps. This year proves to be similar thus far so I'm not expecting miracles in the spring. I hope all is well with those who read this!

With kindness.

Happy Gardening!

Spring Tidings

 

Journal Entry No.6
A Joyous Spring

Spring has sprung and it's a bit too quickly for my liking. I remember a few weeks before Easter I had feared my tea party would be snowed in! I couldn't fathom sunshine or green grass much less flowers. And yet, Easter came and went, and with it were crocuses and wood squill, and early daffodils.

Unfortunately just as quickly those blooms have faded and gone to seed.

Easter was a beautiful weekend spent with family. I threw the first annual tea party since before COVID-19 and it was amazing to have both grandmothers in attendance. The kitchen was well decorated in Easter decor with paper banners and decorations. We nibbled on baked goods and hors d'oeuvres and sipped fruity black teas. They regaled us with stories of Easter with their own children, dressed in their Sunday best, with little ribboned bonnets. And the two grans sung Easter parade in a duet, it was a sight to behold. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! 

That was on the Saturday, Easter Sunday was spent catching up with my bestie and strolling through the park. The weather was fabulous. I had no idea it was going to explode into a summer rush of temperatures in the high twenties. Apparently neither did my plants! The siberian squill bloomed and is already fading and going to seed. The much anticipated viburnum, the first plant to bloom and produce scent in the garden has already bloomed and begun dropping in only four days. The crocuses only lived two days. The tulips five. I normally get twice as much time to enjoy my flowers but this year the heat has put the pressure on my plants and caused everything to speed up. I'm very worried the flowering trees will bloom too early, as we're facing freezing temperatures tomorrow. We drop from 28°C to 6°C and then and overnight on Monday of only 1°C. I hesitate to think what our farmers are going through.

This is our plight. Global warming is a real problem. We've already been hit with wildfire warnings and there's a no fire ban. I can't make heads or tails of it, so we decided to at least enjoy ourselves. I sunbathed a little and yesterday we took a day trip out to cottage country to shop and eat by the lake. I dipped my toes into the frigid waters, it was gorgeous! We even visited an apiary where we purchased some honeycomb and ginger honey, and fresh farm eggs. I got to see their chickens at the front of the store pecking and scratching away at the garden. They were bathing in the dirt. It was lovely. And for a time I could've sworn it was already June.

I hope that temperatures stabilize. I hope we have normal, inclement spring weather, and my flowers have time to be appreciated.

So far the viburnum, aconite, wood squill and a small narcissus are the only flowers in the backyard. I have something growing in my memorial bed for Nori, it could be bluebells or a kind of wild tulip, I'm very excited to find out. I'm also nervously awaiting my daffodils, as I've had no indication of any blooms so far. I have planted this year's vegetables, and I'm waiting for the seedlings to take hold.

There will be a lot of work ahead of us, and much to document!

Until then~

Happy Gardening!

Summer Recap & Other Things

Journal Entry No.5
It's Raining!

You read that correctly, I am sitting in February and it's raining. I love it. I even dreamt that I woke up, ran downstairs and proclaimed to my husband, "It's raining in February! I love it!" Because rain and February are rare instances in Southern Ontario. In fact, the whole winter has been a bit screwy. While we aren't out of the woods yet, we've all been fairly surprised at the lack of winter. But what it lacks in quantity it has certainly made up for in quality. When it has snowed it's been blustery, frigid cold, with heaps and heaps of snow to shovel. I'm not sure what the perfect winter would be. This is like a bizarre trade off where we get several weeks of warm spring like weather in exchange for a few brutal winter ones. I think I can handle that, all we've done is bunker down during the worst of it. Now that temps are rising and there's no longer a -25°C wind chill I've been able to go for my walks again and I'm losing those pesky Christmas weight pounds! And all of this balmy weather has me thinking about the garden, what's to come and what has been. I never did publish a recap on the end of summer so here it is!

My last post was in July, so there are few months to look back on. July was the height of the bloom period for most of my garden. Many plants ran through their cycle and by August others were beginning to take hold. I had struggled with plant loss due to a rather large rodent colony that had taken up residence beneath my deck. As luck would have it my neighbors installed a brand new deck of their own, which lead to a lot of construction noise and vibrations. I wasn't thrilled that I lost the use of my backyard for several weeks (my side garden abuts their yard so I was directly in line with all of the activity), but the noise was a blessing in disguise: I noticed a marked improvement with the rodent activity, it must've scared a number of them off. Better still, after construction halted, I noticed an uptick in predatory birds! Bonus. This created the prefect opportunity for my remaining plants to thrive. I can only hope we enter in the new year with this luck.

Last spring I endeavored to plant annuals by seed. I had no experience with this sort of thing and results were a mixed bag. I struggled with properly thinning plants out, I think I might have over thinned some, where others looked wild and unkempt to the point I couldn't identify which was flower and which was weed, so I left them alone. It's painfully obvious that I struggled with the Candy Tuft and Alyssum. I did not get those magnificent croppings of full bushy growth. For the effort I think it's better to buy those at the nursery instead. Several plants never made it past seedling stage, the Sweet Pea was one of those. The Scented Stock barely made it's presence known. Even my pansies didn't fair very well, although they are somehow still surviving in the garden bed so perhaps this year will be their chance to shine. The most painful experience was when I lost my Teddy Sunflower seedlings to slugs and rodents, even with protective cloches. I did everything to save them. It was disheartening to say the least.

The things that did manage to grow from seed, for the most part, didn't grow in the way that I had envisioned or hoped. I had some Chinese Forget-me-not that bloomed in the late summer into autumn. The flowers were beautiful shades of uniformly soft blue, but they were leggy and falling over top of other plants. By the end of the year they looked a tangled mess. I don't think they received enough sunlight. I might try planting them again this year but further into the sun bed. Likewise my Zinnias produced flowers continuously but the blooms were very small and the stalks long and leggy. I think I'll try planting Zinnias again but perhaps purchase young ones from the nursery. I can't help but feel things lagged due to a combination of our unpredictable weather and the time I chose to directly sow the seeds. I should have started them indoors first. My mother had assured me my Four o'clocks would flourish but results were all over the place. Those in the deepest shade bloomed best and grew to two feet tall. Those that were located in partial and direct sunlight did not grow more than a couple of inches and never bloomed. And to add to that they were not Four o'clocks but more like 9PM to 7AM's, if I got up early enough I might catch them in bloom. As such, I don't think I'll revisit those flowers, their foliage isn't so fancy it makes up for the lack of blooms. 

My success stories were unexpected. I had planted Moonflowers in the spring, greatly anticipating white dinner plates on my trellis, but instead found Flying Saucer Morning Glories! They certainly were a UFO. I don't know if I was sold the wrong seeds by mistake or some combination of soil acidity caused them to turn this way? It was utterly bizarre but they yielded great blooms. I had also planted Heavenly Blues in the same container and they looked lovey together. They did become quite unruly and began to strangle each other out, so this year I plan on building a larger trellis for them to climb and hopefully plant the right amount so it doesn't go haywire. My other triumph were the Marigolds that I had grown from seed. I had somehow managed to produce several plants with enormous yellow heads which I could see from the back windows. I loved to look out and see them swaying in the wind. They looked fabulous with the purple aster that I had unknowingly nursed back to health after I planted it in my garden for fun. I can envision a whole row of aster wrapping themselves around and supporting the yellow marigolds.

All that being said, I have struggled with my garden. I'm finding some plants will need to be transplanted elsewhere if they do not produce again this year. I've already shifted some into other parts of the bed and I was fortunate enough to get several seedlings of Lungwort, Coralbells, and Columbine to spread out. This year I want my focus to be on mostly store bought annuals. I had a great year with my petunias and impatiens, and I was amazed at how easily they can "fill" the gaps in the beds. Since the neighbor removed the mulberry tree, and we cut down our cherry, the beds will receive different quantities of light. I think it's best I play it safe this year and get a feel for the change before committing to new more permanent plantings. I'll see if I can control my impulses when out shopping! Easier said than done. 

Happy Gardening!

BloomStruck

 

Journal Entry No.4
The Summertime Swing

In my last journal entry I talked about a number of things afflicting my garden. While there have been some improvements, this year still feels like a bizarre unfolding nightmare, and after speaking with my neighbors recently I realized that this isn't my battle alone. This past weekend we flushed a skunk out from underneath our deck which then attempted to take residence under my neighbor's deck. I am awaiting my other neighbors return from their vacation to notify them that they also have yet another skunk living under their shed (which is situated directly beside my courtyard garden, so it's been leaving turds all over the place). Our house is literally flanked by skunks, as you can imagine, I seldom get the opportunity to open my windows anymore. And speaking of our skunk, it was only a few weeks earlier that I had to flush out a groundhog from the same space under my deck! It had dug a large hole beside the extension foundation which is obviously not good. We backfilled it with gravel and reassembled the deck on a very hot afternoon. I was not pleased. Which reminds me...a few months earlier than that we had to racoon proof our roof after one squeezed into the extension! The wildlife has gone, for lack of a better description, ape shit. Perfectly ape shit. I don't know where any of our natural predators have gone. We once had a number of very large predatory birds nesting in the area and I have not seen one in ages. My husband theorizes that the construction has scared them off, and has allowed our rodent population to proliferate, which explains the incessantly increasing number of chipmunks, squirrels, moles, voles, shrews and what have you.

We did set up a number of snap traps. Now, where I live it is illegal to trap and remove animals from one environment to another. I think this has something to do with maintaining eco-systems. Some people believe it renders the animal "homeless" and causes it to die a slow and painful death because it can't adapt to its new surroundings. Either way, I don't want to get fined, so we endeavored to use snap traps and we have experienced some success with them. Unfortunately it's both time consuming and gross. I'm at a point where I go out every few days, set them up and empty them a few times that day, and then I take a break from it. I'll have a few days where I see no rodents scurrying about, then they appear to forget all about the traps and come back. It comes and goes in waves but when I manage to get the numbers down I see improvements in spades. Less holes dug, less destruction, more flowers! I still have to drape my rose bush in netting, though, and it looks awful. I sincerely hope next year we see an upsurge in predatory birds and things go back to normal. 

Some good news is that my hydrangeas are mostly performing well. Namely the Wee Bit Grumpy and the Bloomstruck I planted last year (photo above). Also my Invincibelle Limetta looks quite lacey and contrasts beautifully with the variegated hostas and the magenta and fuchsia flowers I've planted nearby. I'm sad to say that my Princess Diana daylily was beheaded so I won't be seeing any blooms this year. My pink astilbe, which promised several heads of blooms for whatever reason flopped over and dried up (despite the foliage being okay?). I also have doubts my Visions in Red will bloom, either. The forming buds have dried or stopped growing entirely. My back garden beds look sadly sparse. The balloon flowers on the other hand are full and blooming in excess! They bring a lovely touch of periwinkle to the back garden which matches my patio rug. I will be buying more of them and filling in the spaces where nothing seems to grow. The daylilies that came with the house are also blooming nicely this year. After we take the cherry tree down I imagine this will only improve with the amount of sunlight they receive.

I have much to do in the garden but our primary focus right now is finishing our basement. It's been a massive undertaking spanning two years. This is okay because we are in the midst of a heat wave and I spend less time outside when it's unbearably hot. Today we're facing humidex temperatures of 40°C. It wasn't so bad this morning but once the sun rises the cool humidity becomes thick and unbreathable. Thankfully it rained yesterday so no need to water the plants. We had a terrible dry spell recently, I shudder to think about our bills lol.

For now I am awaiting the blooms of my Mango Salsa OsoEasy shrub rose, and a bushel of Chinese Forget-me-not which looks so lovely in its uniform periwinkle blue. Also, the morning glories I have planted throughout the garden are starting to produce. It took longer than I thought but I'm thrilled to see them! They are one of my favorite flowers. I'm trying Moonflowers this year and I'm positively excited to see what they look like. There are still adventures to be had in the garden! Not much longer now and it will be autumn, so I take my wins where I can get them. 

Happy Gardening!

Beauty Bush

Journal Entry No.3
Beauty Bush: An Evening Stroll

The above photograph was taken while out for an evening stroll a week or so ago. My parents own a beauty bush, so I instantly recognized this flowering shrub cascading over the walkway. It was in full bloom, resplendent and sumptuous! And the scent was intoxicating. Unfortunately beauty bushes are just one of those plants that are so ephemeral they end before the begin, much like tulip magnolias. I could already spot the blanket of confetti forming beneath it, but this does not undermine its beauty, it only adds to the shrub's ephemeral, delicate quality. 

I have had a trying few weeks since my last journal entry. There have been triumphs and absolute disappointments. Let's start with the good before descending into the bad. For one, I am thrilled to see the return of my dianthus. Last year our neighbor took the initiative and began cutting down the invading white mulberry. It is about two thirds of the way complete but I have significantly more sunshine in my bed than ever before. As such, I've seen a renewed life in many of my previous plantings. The lush magenta blooms of the dianthus are plentiful and eye catching. I have decided, as such, that I will be adding more dianthus to this bed next year when the time for revision arrives. And revision is inevitable. I have planted far too many plants too close together, again. I tend to make this mistake in the spring because I underestimate the growth rate of the pre-existing plants. I plan on bumping back and dividing the hostas, pulling the dianthus forwards, and not planting so much along the fence line. I used to think dianthus was a rather boring plant but now that I've seen what it can do I can envision a long and full crop of them bursting with colour. Most of these changes will begin in the fall. 

I have plans to change out the pavers in the courtyard garden, which will give it a refreshed aesthetic but it will also allow me to correct drainage problems and create the clean edging that I've been craving. Over time our pavers have sunk and shifted, and the flower bed is now too high which causes the unsightly mulch to migrate onto the patio stones. I had planned to undertake this project in the spring but we have the gas company coming in to replace the lines so I'll have to wait until fall. I'm going to recycle the old pavers onto the other side of the house where there is an atrocious amount of weed growth. Grass doesn't grow there, only clover, so I'm hoping that by laying down the pavers and some substrate it might correct this problem. My husband and I have also discussed at length the possible benefits of pouring a cement slab by the driveway gate, it would address the overgrowth problem while providing us with extra storage for a small trailer hitch or another shed for garden tools. We currently use our only shed in a mixed way, we use it to store both seasonal décor as well as tools and it's getting quite crowded. With the inevitable creation of more garden art I will need additional storage space.

On a pleasant note, my hydrangeas are  developing blooms in spades. The Annabelle I planted last autumn is producing copious bloom clusters, my mother warned me that it would, she has one that's about six feet wide and four feet tall. Mine is easily twice the size it was last year. It doesn't like the afternoon sun, though, which is a shame because it's the only sun it gets. When it's not wilting under the sun's rays it perks up nicely and makes for a good full shrub. Baba's hydrangea is starting to turn colour (photo left), I will post photos when it changes completely. This is a new hydrangea cultivar and I'm excited to see it in person for the first time. For now it has only slight kisses of fuchsia. I love the contrast of the variegated hostas with the hot pinks in this part of the garden, and I'm really hopeful that the shrub clematis produces many dark purple blooms this year given it's already three times the size it used to be. The spring blooms in my garden have all but dropped which leaves my Nori memorial bed looking somewhat barren at the moment. I have a lovely pink lily coming up, I did have three but...they were eaten.

Which leads me to the bad news. It's as if some horrible storm is brewing in the garden this year. Pests abound. Sun and rain have created perfect weed growing conditions but somehow it's also been a breeding ground for animal pests. I don't know what tipped the scale in this direction but the garden is overrun with snails, bugs, voles, chipmunks, and squirrels. The only thing that hasn't shown up, knock on wood, is mildew and disease. But it has taken a devastating and literal toll on my health. Every day I come out and something has been destroyed. The chipmunks have eaten many of my plants; they chewed the buds off my rosebush so that it never blooms, killed the only viable teddy sunflower I had - which was beneath a cloche, dug up and eaten all of my spring bulbs, dug up and killed various plants by damaging their root systems. It has been an outright nightmare. They, and possibly the birds, have eaten the several thousand cherries I had growing on my tree, and I find that odd because it didn't happen last year. After that painful discovery the only hope I had left was my peach tree which is now dropping peaches left right and center. I tried to protect it with a bird net which has helped keep the pests largely at bay but my peaches began oozing a clear gel and now I find them dropped and scattered about, rotting at the bottom of the net.

It has been a slew of disappointments and I can't help but take it personally. Every time I come outside something that I was greatly anticipating to see ends up beheaded or killed. I've lost a good chunk of change on it, too, which coming from a single income household that's not a very nice thing to go through. I don't want to fork out a few hundred bucks every year to feed the wildlife. We're taking what some may view as rather extreme measures, but we will be setting out not so nice traps. At this point if it's a rodent I don't feel like treating it any differently than the mice in our extension that we've been killing for so long. Chipmunks have destroyed the water fall feature, are destroying my shed, and chewing on the outdoor electrical features. They've got to go. All touchy feelings aside... When the stress landed me in the hospital this last weekend, I promised myself I wouldn't let it go any further. 

Hopefully once we can get their numbers down I might reclaim my garden and stop hemorrhaging money. There are times when I go to bed worrying that they're going to dig up my cats' ashes, or ruin the memorial plantings or destroy my garden art. What was a soothing and productive pastime has been a great source of anxiety for me. I am not going to abandon my garden of course but while we eradicate the rodents I think I might take a break, turn inwards for awhile, focus on self care and just accept defeat this year on some things. It's not how I envisioned 2022 coming in.

How are you dealing with garden pests? Any tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated.