So Much Dynamic Fun

Backyard bed in bloom

I love everything about gardening except the weeding. I love the fresh food, the planting, the picking, and the preserving.  But mostly, I love the evolving design.  I think that I could have been an interior designer in another life, but that sort of design is so static. My garden changes every day this time of year.  I had two busy days without much yard time on Monday and Tuesday, and today I went for a look around and everything is different. Let me show you my favourite parts of the design right now.

In the Front

View from the front step in May

Before the yard really gets going, you can just see the bones. This is my front yard in May. There are rock paths and sprinkled rocks throughout the yard.  These are the elements that will anchor the design.

As the spring progresses and the plants grow, the front yard goes in waves of colour from yellow, to yellow and red, to yellow and purple, to yellow and orange.  Yellow anchors the colours just like the rocks anchor the design.  For comparison, here are some June pictures of the front yard's colour and design.

Stone steps with greenery

Thyme between the stone steps

Orange tulips from the yellow red colour palette

The rocks that looked so barren a month ago are now floating in composition of green and rotating colour. 

The front yard also has rhubarb and fruit like saskatoons to add to the colour and texture. These same plants, along with the cherry tree and climbing vines, add height and variety.

Rhubarb flowering

Saskatoons

The Backyard

My back yard is a mix of vegetable gardens and perennial design.  It has a less vibrant (Mike thinks much less interesting) colour pallet that I find tranquil. It has purples, pinks, whites, blues and yellows as its base.  This time of year, the stars in the back are iris, flox and lilac. Take a look at the April pictures,  May pictures and June pictures to see the overall progression. Like the back there is great height in the green walls, little garden rooms and rock providing bones.

Grape on back fence

Allium, clematis and iris in bloom

A sea of anemones

Not Yet Swing of Summer

Mike's favorite rose

My job keeps me very busy, and when it doesn't, I do. When summer comes each year, I start it in high gear. My yard is great for me because there is always something to do, and at the same time, there is nothing to do.  I spend the kind of time I never spend during the year just wandering, sitting and dreaming.  I also spend some of it deadheading, weeding, and projecting.  Fortunately for me (and for Mike) my yard is pretty small, and there is really very little left to colonize.  It forces me away from the working and into the slowing down to smell the flowers, in a way that my mother's acreage never does.

My yard is at its most beautiful right now.  Each bed has at least seven types of perennials blooming. Other than the elm seeds (which I continue to hate) my weeds have slowed down.  I spend quite a bit of time sitting in the sun and admiring, usually accompanied by homemade iced-tea or Leora's strawberry and basil infused water. This summer I feel a strange mix of slowing down and uncertainty.

The picking is still pretty slow. I am currently eating cherry tomatoes, greens, strawberries, rhubarb and herbs. I just finished making a tabbouleh for lunch to use up a couple of cups of parsley. That means I can really enjoy cooking with fresh ingredients, but there is no big press to harvest anything. I have been cooking and picking this morning because we are waiting to hear from the vet.

When Mike and I travel with the girls in the summer, it is usually at this time because the harvest hasn't started.  We were scheduled to leave to visit my youngest sister and a her family and our cat became very sick, so we have been waiting.  Test results were due in today, but when we called the vet, they didn't have them yet.  If the results were were pills, or a delayed surgery we'd get to leave tomorrow and I would spend the day packing very quickly.  If not, I would be very sad both for the cat and seeing my family, but I would be in the yard and home in a time I am rarely here.

Instead, I am waiting.  Did I mention that waiting is not really a good state for me?

Rain barrel distribution system

The vet has kindly agreed to call the lab and see if she can rush things for us. Lyla has been vomiting less, and we are no longer giving her all the medication, which is positive.  However, there is just nothing I can do.  I read in the yard for a while, then I cooked, then I weeded and now I am still waiting.

I am no yet in the swing of summer but I really want to be. Perhaps a project is the ticket.

A number of years ago our friend Brad recommended we put in a drip watering system for our square foot beds.  It was a good idea as we always spend a lot of time carrying buckets, but I really wanted to use the rain barrels.  This week Mike has developed a drip system that attaches to our front barrel and it works really well. The hot bed on the south side of the house stays lightly damp all the time and the plants are supper happy.

 Maybe if I go sit with them for a bit, I can get in the swing of things. Check out Mike's pics of the set up (and the great cover he sewed to keep the cabbage moths off of my square-foot bed in the driveway). Both projects were very satisfying in their own ways.

Straw to protect the strawberries

In case you are interested, some other projects of the last few days include mulching, dealing with aphids in the greenhouse, and transplanting.  They were all great distractors in the swing of summer until this day of purgatory.

I really am going out the yard now.

Looks Like Green

In my last post, I was writing about how early planting looks like mostly like dirt. Two weeks later, the yard is a beautiful, lush green. I sit on my patio and look at a mix of blooms and food I'll get to eat.  I am already enjoying asparagus, spinach, lettuce and a variety of herbs, but I'll have strawberries and beans soon. The yard is feeding me in so many ways.

One of my favorite things once the yard greens up is how I can put things together to create a specific feel that I want. There are a number of things I do to create the look that I want:

Color:
My backyard is all in pinks, purples and white, so all the colors blend well. I have a wide variety of textures and heights so that color appears like accents in all the various main parts of the backyard.  My front is the same, but the colors are oranges, yellows, reds and whites, so the palette is much more energetic. In the back, the color provides contrast and calm.

Bloom time:
My beds are planted with perennials that take turns blooming throughout the sprint and summer, so that there are always flowers to look at. The picture on the left is a bed that currently has tulips (white), phlox (purple and pink), chives (purple), irises (white) and columbine (pink).  In less than a week the tulips will be gone, but two types of purple iris, white bell flower and pink roses will bloom.  As they finish up, lavender and pink peony will start.

Layout:
I use a variety of levels so that the plants draw the eye around the yard, or into certain sections at certain times. I also have leafy screens, arches, and trees/bushes that create hidden sections or areas with specific purpose. I don't really have many "outdoor rooms," but I do have zones. Sometimes I use formal levels (like on the stairs to the patio in the picture on the right).  Other times I just have a variety of plants that create the stepping up look. In the back, most of the beds are edges, so they move from flowers that are 10 cm. in the front about a meter in the back.



The picture on the left in a classic example of that stepped layout.  It boarders the play area, screening the play fort and the trampoline. It has two types of clematis climbing it (the purple is currently blooming and the white will bloom in August) and layers of other plants in front.  This type of layout helps to make it feel like you are surrounded by a verdant landscape even though you are just in a city backyard.


I have attached a couple other pictures of interesting examples to show some key concepts. The one to the right is an example of thick layers of greens to create different textures for the eye to look at.

Here are two examples of creating spaces that are zones but not really rooms. One is a planting bed made out of old bricks under a tree (left).  The other is the dry south side of my house where quack grass was struggling (below). This bed turned this small space from an eye sore to the most productive growing space in the yard. Cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes and squashes ripen here first, and live longest in a mini-zone 4, when the rest of the yard is a 3A.  The reflected heat off the wall and the shelter provided by the two houses create a very productive little alley a meter wide.

 I love the look of the rich greenery and the way in which the space is laid out throughout the yard. It is a great combination greenery, color and productive spaces that make the most of a pretty ordinary rectangle that is my yard.  It is funny how two short weeks turn it from dirty and work-filled, to green and tranquil.