The slope

There’s a rumor that there will be a stone wall build in the slope, which means that there will be no more slope (I’m all for it) and a little bit more lawn. I thinking a small shrubbery thingy at this new little bit of lawn to create some more privacy because there’s none of that now and a cute little garden gate. And hopefully a small shrubbery-ish area will attract birds.

Roses…

(Rosa rugosa "Wasagaming" picture found here.)

Into roses right now, they attract butterflies and birds into the garden making good shelter and provide food. But, depending on what rose you pick, they take up a lot of space and they should. The huge rosebushes or the ones covering a wall, arch or an entire house are my favorite. Just a small bush is dull but if you have a rose all over the fence running wild it’s amazing.

It might be an idea for The Slope… I’m not a huge fan of the idea but it’s better than what we have now so.

I have a few spots where I might be able to plant a rose… but what rose? I need a light color rose that can handle shade and smell divine, hardy and strong climbing. Oh and maybe plant it with some honeysuckle!

Today

Planted five ”Beauty of Livermere” that I sowed this spring(two or perhaps even three are in questionable condition) by the Inka dude the other day, just saying so I’ll remember it. Have be digging a little and pulling weeds, it’s nowhere near perfect. I would need some kind of stop, an edge of some sort of prevent the weeds from getting “back in”.

And, I want to replace the stone “wall” we have here with something stronger and better, something a bit more reliable. I want the stone wall to be instead of The Slope and perhaps a low fence on top of it… The Slope is a problem… tricky tricky…

My garden rooms

At first you just plant some bulbs and some perennials you don’t know the name of, then, slowly almost sneaking up on you, you start to name certain areas in the garden.

In my garden I have The Front Yard, dull badly planned flower bed with two bleeding hearts (Dicentra spectabilis) taking up most space and they bloom pretty quickly and become very boring. This spring was great with lots of tulips (that the deer didn’t eat for some strange reason, was it because I planted garlic there?) sticking up from a sea of forget me not but then there wasn’t much going on. Must come up with something, perhaps move the bleeding hearts and plant roses instead.

(It was hard to find a picture of the front yard, that how bad it is. I had to reuse a picture, in the spring it’s pretty okay. Spring 2008)

By the two wooden pillars to the balcony there’s honeysuckle and the other pillar there’s a clematis. They are pretty mistreated and have nothing to climb on.

Then in the front yard there’s this The Slope where nothing but weeds wrong, horrible. I want to build a stone wall and then have a low fence on it and then a nice hedge.

(This is what the slope looks like when you’re standing on the road, so beautiful! Summer 2007)

Then there’s The Tea Corner, two climbing roses, ‘Flammentanz’ and a pretty boring flowerbed where I planted a nice lavender edge this year, let’s hope it will be nice next season (garden people say season and not year). Other than that there’s just a peony which I thought I had killed but apparently not, a ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ and some Miscanthus giganteum which is probably the most exciting thing in the Tea Corner.

(Most parts of the garden are pretty in the springtime. 2008)

The Backyard is where the greenhouse is and where the berries grow, raspberries (yellow and red), redcurrant, gooseberries (which no one eats) and a vine with horrible white grapes. It’s a complete mess back there and this nasty weed that I believe is sent from Satan, Snowberry Symphoricarpos albus. Not sure if I’ll ever get rid of all of it. Then there’s this big oak throwing acorns everywhere and you have to pick all of them up by hand because they will grow and then it’s not as easy to get rid of them.

(A funny looking opium poppy the white cross makes me think of the Danish flag. 2008)

Then there’s The Terrace which is made of wood so most pots there, a small patch of grass but it’s just roots and a thin layer of dusty soil, a large oak with a swing-ish rope that my grandpa made back in the day. This fall we planted a rose by the oak so let’s see how that goes. Got lots of lavender babies, they are easy to sow so I’ll plant some by the rose and see if they want to grow.

(A red Pelargonium against the blue house. 2007)

That's my garden rooms, The Front Yard, The Slope, The Tea Corner, The Backyard and The Terrace.

Today

I started cleaning up, making the garden ready for winter. Got all the dahlias I grew some seed this spring and cutting all the leaves off and putting them in labeled paper bags, hopefully some of them will live through the winter. Some are really big and it’s not THAT cold during the nights yet so they can stay in their pots or flowerbed but the babies got bagged. My favorite is an Oxford baby with really dark foliage; I hope the flowers are just as nice. And I hope I'll have some seeds of my own to sew next spring. (If I get any seeds I'm willing to share)

The raspberries are absolutely everywhere, must find something to prevent them from spreading but so far no luck. A plastic rain barrel is the best thing so far but it was way too expensive, especially since I plan to cut it. Anyway, trimmed them and some of the lavender, planted cuttings in individual pots and dug them down under the rhododendron (which I hope to edge with boxwood, love edging).

And took a picture of the last poppies for the season, I think...

Some kind of Papaver rhoeas but which I don’t know, I do have to get all the seeds since I want only blue and pink in The Backyard. Red is best up close so The Front Yard and/or The Slope