Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

 

The people who built, owned, and lived in our house, for the first ten years of its life, made an agreement with the neighbours to build a fence. It was right on the property line. Then the neighbor planted a cedar hedge on his side of the fence. A few years after we moved in, the fence was rotted and came down. After the cedar hedge filled in, it made a higher and nicer fence. We planted a boxwood hedge to fill in the open gaps at the bottom of the cedar hedge and it was like that until a few weeks go.

We have new neighbours and they have their own ideas. One day he started hacking down the cedar hedge. After he had done substantial damage, he stopped when he realised the hedge might not be his. He discovered it was and soon the cedars were down and gone. That left a little boxwood hedge for privacy.

About a month later, this fence went up. It is right on the property line and in the process of lining it up, he dug up and moved our boxwoods six inches further onto our property to make room for his fence. He told me I could do what I wanted with my side of the fence.

So, I did. I stained it with some pricey Benjamin Moore stain on Saturday and it looks great. The new richness of the wood is preserved as opposed to letting it weather before it is preserved, which is something he will probably do because he is a young dad who is busy.

 

 

The fence is too low for my liking, but it is a solid barrier. Our garden is now surrounded by fence and I suppose the critters will no longer use it as a thoroughfare.

 

The photos are all the same fence, but the stain shows more red in the shade, and yellow/gold in the sunshine. It feels great to get that done before the wet winter takes over. It then would have waited until spring and the fence would have lost its newness by then.

Sunday Mornig

 

A beautiful Sunday morning and busylizzy beside her Mother's Day hanging basket and our Begonia BBQ. No, we do not BBQ Begonias, but we do use some old things as planters on our property. The big vine is a Hops Vine, which provides wonderful shade on hot summer afternoons and provides busylizzy with Hops Tea in the winter time.

Friendship Garden

There is a beautiful little garden, only two blocks from our house, that was built as a token of friendship between our city and a sister city in Japan. It is called the Friendship Garden. The price tag was over $1 million and because nobody uses it, it seemed like a waste. It backs onto our public library, which just recently also became a mini-campus for our local university. So, there is a bit more use, but when we go there, and we go often, it seems like it is our own private garden because we rarely see anyone there. It is a truly beautiful and tranquil escape from the noises and bustle of the city just outside its high walls. The waterfall adds a natural background sound and you can easily imagine that you are far from the city. Few people know of it, although we did meet a couple from Nova Scotia just yesterday, who were exploring it for the first time. Maybe we need to be tourists in our own town and discover other little gems like the Friendship Garden.

Home Grown

 

Here are a few photos of our home grown tulips on this bright spring morning.

 

What makes these photos unique is that they were all taken from indoors!

 

1. I have been limited in my movements due to a bad back.

2. It was very cool and breezy outside and I did not care to bundle up.

3. The flower bed was muddy right here and I did not want to track any mud back into the house.

4. I wanted some close-ups from low down.

 

So I opened the windows in our basement and took the screens off from the inside and there were the tulips staring me in the face with some great lighting as a bonus.  

 

And that is how you get outdoor photography from indoors.

More Glory

 

Each morning as I look out our bedroom window, I see a bit more deterioration of these beautiful blooms. They do not like the cold night of Autumn and it is only the warm days that keep them hanging on. This morning they were wrinkled and had dark blue veins running through the petals. Varicose veins of old age?

 

These are perhaps the last Morning Glory photos of the year. These flowers have brought us great pleasure and joy as they do every year. Having them in a spot where we see them as we rise in the morning was a bonus. There is no other flower that plays with the light like these do. Their clean lines and rich blues and mauves are highlighted by the inner light in their center.

 

There are multiple spiral buds left on the vine, even though the vine itself is old and dry, the leaves crumbling and falling off. A picture of life? There can still be beauty in age if your light shines through.

Hollyhocks

 

We have Hollyhocks growing on the south side of our house where they do very well. The stalks are about 10 ft. tall! Here is a photo I took just before the rain beat them to the ground the other day.

 

These flowers remind me of my mom who loved them and planted them all around our house in Lanigan Sask. We did not have enough water for them and they were stunted, but did add a bit of colour to the drab browns of a hot, dry Saskatchewan summer.

Garden Goods

 

I have been busy working lately and have been quite tired in the evenings so not much motivation to blog these days. I just thought I would say that for those of us who have veggie gardens, this is a great time of year. We have been harvesting carrots, beets, peas, cucumbers, and the zucchinis are coming on strong.

 

This is the second crop for these ever bearing strawberry plants we have.

The money tree we planted is not doing so well. I guess we need to spend a little more on it to get it going.

The End Of Gardening

 

busylizzy's brother has a five acre farm on DeFehr Road and was very generous when he offered to let us and a number of other city dweller friends do some gardening on his land this summer. He tilled the soil and later watered for us all, and we did the planting, weeding, and harvesting. Here are a few photos of our view from the garden as we finalized the gardening for this season.

 

We dug the last of the potatoes, onions, and beets, and picked up a few of the more than 50 pumpkins in the patch. The weeds have now taken over and it is a big mess but we all came away for an appreciation for George and many bins of produce, all organically grown.

 

We will not be back here, ever. No, there was not a falling out and no, we are not disillusioned about gardening. George has sold the farm and is moving on to other life adventures. This land has raised beef, goats, organic berries, free range chickens, and tons of every conceivable vegetable, and will continue to do so in the future, but not with our help. We wish for George and his family, a happy future in their new home on Vancouver Island where he will be taking more bounty from the sea than from the soil.

 

Meanwhile, we are on a steady diet of Yukon Gold potatoes.

Garden Status

 

The garden is almost 'done' for another year. These Begonias are still doing well but not much else.

 

Due to the heat this summer, our Cherry Tomatoes were sweeter than ever and we had more than we could eat.

 

The Hollyhocks are long gone, but the memories remain. We had one this summer, that grew to 12 ft. in height!

 

One of my favourites, Morning Glories, are struggling a bit in the colder weather but every morning there a few new blooms that try to open.

 

The best ones are on the south side of our property which makes them face south toward the neighbours yard and I cannot see into them unless I climb the hedge that separates us. Thus, the shot from the back of the blossom.

 

Today's Begonia that is looking a bit tattered. They certainly keep their deep red colour in spite of being here all summer.

Soon the colour will all be gone, except for a few leaves, and another summer will have come and gone.

Farewell Minter Part 2

 

This combination of colours is interesting.

 

These were spectacular!

 

Tiger Lilies, reminding me of Sask. where they are the provincial flower.

 

Shaped hedges with the wedding tent in the background.

 

The air was cool behind this aqueduct waterfall.

 

The water played with the light, making for challenging but interesting photography.

 

We happened upon a wedding procession, the best part being the pretty little flower girls and the ring bearer below.

 

Rubbing the gardener's head for good luck.

 

It was a wonderful afternoon. Next year at this time, when Minter Garden's is no more, we will at least have a few photos and some good memories. Thanks Bill and Ella, and Frank and Elma for joining us.

Farewell to Minter Gardens

 

Last weekend we went, with friends, to visit Minter Gardens. This is the last season for this popular commercial garden. The sun was warm, the buffet in the Trillium Restaurant was delicious, the flowers were magnificent, and the company stellar.