Up the garden path

Okay, strictly speaking not the garden path, but the path from the house to the driveway.

Back in May, this thistle grew to a height of three feet before I finally stopped walking around it and actually pulled it up. 

Having done so, I looked up the path and found myself thinking: Wasn’t this path originally much wider? When exactly did it become so overgrown with weeds? It’s a gravel path. How is it possible for there to be so many weeds?

The answers to these various questions are: (a) yes, (b) slowly over several years and (c) nature – as became clear on closer inspection.

Down on my hands and knees to start the weeding, I realised:

-       Over the winter lots of pine needles fall

-       Lots of rain falls on the dead pine needles, turning them into a mushy pulp

-       Moss grows on the mushy pulp

-       The combination of moss and mushy pulp is all the encouragement many weeds need to sprout.

There you have it. Botany 101.

I could, of course, have simply sprayed the whole path with Roundup. (Oh, ha, ha. As if that would ever happen.)

I managed to weed (and widen) the path for about the first ten feet from the house, then Juneuary set in. Too wet and too cold for weeding.

This week I finally got back to and finished the job.

Quite the difference, n’est-ce pas?  (Roxie is clearly impressed.)

And in semi-path related news (well, the path is in the photo), a reminder while I was eating dinner last night of one of the many reasons I love living on Gabriola. I looked up from my book to see this.

Bambi eating weeds ten feet away from me? Fantastic! (Bambo rampaging through the garden? Not so much.)

The miracle of the garden swing

Stella is a lovely cat in many, many ways, but she hates to be picked up and cuddled, and she is definitely not a lap cat. (Roxie on the other hand is good with both.) Occasionally, when Stella is beside me on the sofa or on the bed, she will deign to rest her head on my leg. A major concession.

So, imagine my surprise just now. I’m stretched out on the garden swing reading a New Yorker article when Stella gets up on the swing and stretches herself out on top of me, purring up a storm. Unprecedented and quite wonderful. Pity I eventually have to get up for a bathroom break. Will this, I wonder, ever happen again?

Or will she move back to what has become her summer home?

As Catherine can attest from her recent visit, Stella loves the turquoise bench, shifted from its place in the garden to the top of the rock garden. She’s always out there when I get up in the morning and quite often there when I go to bed at night. Definitely Stella’s bench. Roxie doesn’t get a look in.

Which is okay, because Roxie, thinking perhaps that she really is a tiger, prefers to hide in the foliage.

Spot the cat.

Easier done than finding the snow leopard in this photo a friend posted on Facebook recently.

Can’t find it? Click here. 

Back to the swing now. Will Stella rejoin me? Watch this space.

Feline fun

I look out the window this morning to see Roxie rolling around in a planter of (until she started rolling around in it) new mint growth.

I could understand if I was growing catnip (perhaps I should), but mint? Who knew?

Down in the garden I find holes dug in the vegetable bed. It’s true that when I dug the bed over last week I did find some cat poo. I was hoping the nicely laid out markers would be sufficient discouragement.

Apparently not. Stella, bless her, has never shown any interest in using the vegetable bed as a giant litter box, so I’m guessing this is Roxie’s work.

Fetch some old netting from the shed and spread it out on the bed.

Hopefully this will prove sufficiently discouraging.

Elsewhere, lots of blossom on the pear tree. (Still no sign on the apple tree.)

And one of the wisteria planted last summer is definitely springing back to life.

It’s getting exciting, folks.

You can never have too many roses

Today it is Roxie who is keen to help out in the garden.

We begin with a general inspection. What’s this I see?

Oh, my goodness. One day after transplanting the raspberries to better soil, one of them is starting to flower! (Okay, okay, yes, it might have started to flower today anyway, but a woman can dream can’t she?)

And what’s this?

A flower on the California lilac (formerly known as the Ceanothus) already? With absolutely no buds anywhere else? How can this be? Or is this one flower actually left over from last year? How can that be? Around the garden there are bees already buzzing. None are interested in this one flower. All are hopefully poking around in the tulips and hyacinths, destined to be disappointed. (Note to self: identify and plant an early flowering and bee-friendly shrub.)

This morning’s job is weeding the rose garden. Then it’s time (finally – I dug the hole last summer) to get the already budding clematis out of its pot and into the ground.

 

Then it’s time for my first al fresco lunch.

Life can be tough on Gabriola.

On my way back to the garden after lunch, I empty the compost bag into the wormery.

It’s been a while, so I decide to check the lower tray.

Hurrah! A tray full of lovely, smelly, nutrient-rich composted soil. (Note to self: remember to crush egg shells before adding and forget about avocado pits – the worms will never break them down.)

I should, of course, dig this into the vegetable patch or add to the various berry beds. Do I do this? No, I don’t.

The first few fistfuls are packed around the roots of the lilac tree in the hope that this might encourage it to blossom without Krys here. Then I spread composted soil around the roots of all the rose bushes, hoping for a bumper crop of blooms this summer.

Only after fortifying the roses do my thoughts turn to fruit. The apple and pear trees get a dose, as do the two dwarf blueberry bushes.

I mean, let’s face it, if it comes to a choice between food and flowers, it’s no contest, right? As Wallis Simpson once more or less said, “You can never be too thin or have too many roses.”