A Tale of Two Arbors

After extending the garden by the shed I wanted to add another arbor so there was a beginning and ending to my garden path.

This lovely white arbor caught my eye and it looked so pretty I ordered it without giving it a lot of thought.  Twitchy impulse fingers.

The assembly was absolutely awful and took forever using a lot of tools, glue and several creative curse words.

Once it was up it just didn't suit my garden.  Too white and the materials were not well-suited to growing vines, which is the whole idea.  Thankfully my daughter was wanting such a thing for the side of her house and took it off my hands.

The second one is exactly like the one at the other side of the yard and works much better.  Plus it was much nicer to assemble.  Thank you Menards!

I planted a Virginia creeper  that has variegated leaves on one side, hoping to cover it quickly.  I want to add some clematis next year also.  I transplanted the red climbing rose to the other side which will give it more sun.

Long Live the Queen

Garden addition

I've been doing a lot of digging lately and in this blog I'll share the latest garden development.

It's been fun looking  back at the progression of the gardens.  Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the yard when we first bought the place.  It was all quack grass, creeping charlie and bare patches of dirt.  Some would say it was ugly ...I saw a blank canvas.  This first photo is from May 2018 when we added the raised bed on the side of the shed. The back is still just with the decking.

The initial garden was just around the tree.  

This got expanded in 2019.

Later on I added a secondary garden island figuring he could mow between them.  Keep a visual record of that "grassy" area on the side of the shed.

He recently asked if I could combine them because it was difficult mowing between them.  So I connected the two gardens and added pavers to create a path.  I didn't think to photo that development.  I added pavers to create a little strolling lane through the garden.

Then I asked if I could extend this combined garden up to the shed.  Permission granted and the shovel came out.  On Thursday at 9 am the area from the mailbox to the end of the shed was just grass. See the photo above if you need to. I started digging that up to prepare the area. Then I went to buy pavers and bark mulch.  I grabbed lunch for us on the way home for a quick meal and then went to 101 Market for top soil and a few starter plants.

I dug in the five (40 lb) bags of top soil into the existing ground and placed the pavers.  Got the plants planted and laid down the bark mulch. Watered everything in and cleaned off the pavers.  It was 3:30 pm when I put everything away and went into shower.  Garden in a day.

It's not completely done yet.  I ordered an arbor to place at the start of the path and will add some clematis if I can find the ones I want, otherwise that will have to wait until next year.  The bird bath may have to go due to space constraints.

Long Live the Queen of Gardening

What's Blooming Now?

It's early June and some of the plants are just starting to show their buds.

The rose on the side of the shed is doing wonderful and I hope it time it covers the trellis

This is the back of the shed.

Here are the Asiatic lilies.

There are three clematis on these trellises but they are so tiny you can hardly see them.  However one produced a huge purple flower that I couldn't resist sharing.

If you look closely you can see the purple bloom on the right side.  The plant is only a few inches tall.

Even the cactus my friend Larry gave me has new growth.

These little pavement roses are starting to bloom as well.

It's fun watching things blooming at different times.

Long Live the Queen

Fairies Abound

We had fairies living with us in Wisconsin and they seemed to have found me again.

This is where they live most of  the  time, in this little cabin in our little woods.

I don't always see them, but sometimes I hear them laughing, so I know they're there.

Apparently they are like humans and like to get away from it all once in a while because I discovered their campground on the other side of my garden. 

It's not very far away, but sometimes you just have to get out of the house.

Ooops.  Clotheslines are not allowed in the park, so I'm going to have to ask them to dry their wings inside.  No photo as it seemed like an invasion of their privacy.

Long Live the Queen

Garden Expansion

Left Brain mentioned that he would like to have me plant the area between the two gardens as it's hard to mow in there.

I don't know if he meant for me to take it as far as I did, but I saw a green light for more garden space and went with it.  I interpreted it as stripping all the sod up to the shed, so that's how I spent my day on Friday.  Nothing a couple of Aleve won't take care of.

Since I had so much fun putting in the first pavers (note the sarcasm), I decided to add them here also.  Hmm, I might have to order another arbor for this side of the garden.

This will look really nice when the additional plants are added and the ground cover fills in. 

Long Live the Queen