Hello again, Hivers!
...Hive-ians? Hiveneers…?
Anyway, with today being the Summer Solstice here in the northern hemisphere, I thought I’d take you on a little trip through my garden. I mentioned in my last post that we’ve been working on beautifying our outdoor space, and making better use of it. That involved relocating our greenhouse, and digging ourselves a proper little garden plot directly in the ground, rather than using the haphazard beds strewn about by the previous residents, as well as doing a whole lot of planting.
In the front of the house we’ve been upgrading the curb appeal, adding some flowers next to the tree in the flower bed, as well as going up the walkway from the sidewalk to the front door. This year I decided to add a planter in there, though I may decide to move it, as it blends into the red mulch we’ve laid down.
This was taken in April, when things first started springing to life:
And this is now:
We also took a couple of the garden boxes from the back yard, and stacked them next to the front steps, to fill in the hole (you could see straight under the stairs).
That little gnome is Beezus. He’s the guardian of my flowers. He’s pretty awesome.
And to fill in some of the space beside the front porch, we stacked some wooden ties, and made ourselves a lovely little herb garden. Things are still pretty small, but I’m hopeful they’ll start growing vigorously now that summer has officially arrived.
I've kept the mint in pots, as it acts like a weed, spreading and taking over when it's allowed to be free.
Let’s not forget the hanging baskets that I planted, using flowers from a local nursery. (Previously, I’ve bought baskets already planted by them, but I can buy the flowers individually for less, and it gives me control over the design.) I only grabbed a photo of one of them, but it gives you the idea.
In the back yard, we’ve got some happy happy plants growing away in the greenhouse.
Tomatoes and peppers, plus fennel in the bottom corner
Already getting a couple of tomatillos, and a few flowers on my cantaloupes.
And next to that, running down the side of the yard, using up some otherwise useless space, we’ve got our veggie garden! The potatoes and onions are rather happy already.
Those are strawberries growing in the pot beside the greenhouse. I've never seen ones with red flowers before so I had to get it.
At the back of the yard, I have a hugelkultur which I put together last summer, using branches and twigs which I pruned from the then rather sad and neglected tree out front, as well as leaves we raked up, and grass clippings gathered from dethatching the yard. All this was covered with soil and then mulch, and I must say, the raspberries and rhubarb seem to be fairly happy with their station in life. I have noticed A LOT of ants on my raspberry canes, as well as a whole lot of holes in the creeping raspberry leaves, so I think I may need to make a trip to the garden centre to find some diatomaceous earth. (I’ve never used the stuff before, but some quick delving into the interwebs tells me it should do the trick… fingers crossed.)
I put a frame around it so that overzealous weed-whacking won't be detrimental to their health.
Also at the back, the one remaining original garden bed, which honestly only remained in place because I had planted horseradish in there last year, which seems to be coming along quite nicely this year. It was pretty stunted last year, and I decided to leave it in place in hopes of a happier plant this year… so far so good! The leaves are already double what they were in the fall, after an entire growing season, and one of the 2 even decided to flower! Pretty cool stuff, I think.
Behind the horseradish is a row of garlic, and a row of sugar snap peas.
I’ve been wanting a few more planters around, but haven’t decided what or where yet, though I did go ahead and get myself this pretty little coral "Chinook Sunrise" rose, which I’ve placed in a pot for now. I’d like to plant it directly into the ground at some point, but I don’t want to risk shocking it by transplanting it from place to place, so she’s living in the pot until I can figure it out.
Oh, I nearly forgot to add: there’s a bit of dead space between our house and the neighbours’... when we moved in it was filled with loads of weeds, piles of trash, and grass clippings. It was a mess! We’ve cleaned it out, and are trying to make it a pollinator-friendly zone, though it’s required a bit of trial and error, being a very shady spot.
Last year I planted a "Quick Fire" panicle hydrangea (front and centre), some creeping lemon thyme (in front of the hydrangea), and phlox (to the right), and this year I placed an astilbe bush near the fence (that you can barely see past the tall flowering weeds), which will hopefully grow to be large and in charge.
Here she is... I can't wait to see those fluffy pink flowers!
I’ve dropped wildflower seeds, and poppy seeds in the open spaces, but nothing seems to have taken, other than the persistent weeds. I’m not opposed to a few weeds, as long as they are providing nourishment for pollinators, and don’t try to choke out the things I’ve purposely planted… I’ll continue experimenting with hardy, shade-tolerant plants until something decides to take.