Coming up roses, part 2

As reported last month, the roses are coming back nicely. Most of the bushes have buds on them.

  

Some are almost ready to burst into flower. Hurrah!

I want to give them as much encouragement as possible, which means surrounding them (and the lilac, which has now had its first dose of Dave’s magic “make flowers” cocktail) with compost and/or sea soil. What I don’t want is the compost and/or sea soil being sprayed all over the rest of the slanting bed when I water them.

I know! I’ll make rock circles around them to keep the good stuff  where it needs to be.

I survey my handiwork. It’s okay and it should do the job, but I’m just not quite sure. I go inside, make myself a cuppa and come back for another look. Nope. Just looks like a job half done. And it’s not as if I have any shortage of rocks, is it?

Much better. Settle myself on the swing with Stella to admire my rocky rose bed. Oh, that smug feeling of a job well (rather than half) done.

Elsewhere in the garden: Came back into the house Monday morning after watering the garden to report thrilling news to my visiting friend Catherine: the regular peas are sprouting! She shares my excitement. It is after all what we gardeners (both proper and useless like me) live for, is it not?

This morning there is further excitement. Despite the fact that one of the cats (my money’s on Roxie) keeps trying to use the veggie bed as a litter box, a row of beet leaves has appeared! No sign yet of carrots, lettuce, spinach, rocket or squash, but it’s still early days, isn’t it? (Or isn’t it?)

Fingers crossed.

The ceanothus is a buzzing

Honestly, it’s all go in the Gabriola garden. I will, I promise, do a longer update soon, but for now…

Remember this hole?

Well, thanks to the wonderful Cec Ashley, I am able to acquire that yard of sea soil.

The photo doesn’t really do it justice. That’s a lot of soil.

Which is just as well, because filling that hole requires a lot of soil.

And this is what it looks like now. On the left is a wisteria which is just about to bloom. In the middle a lilac tree which, small as it is, I am promised will bloom next year. On the right (temporary filler until I can identify a flowering shrub able to thrive on partial sun) some of my favourite fuchsias.

Elsewhere…

The ceanothus is a buzzing

Every blossom has a bee

And I’m prepared for Christmas

With a partridge in a pear tree.

I dig landscaping

A rainy day keeps me indoors, offering a chance to do some much-needed housework and to catch up on the blog. Hmm. Which shall I do first? Three guesses.

Well, ladies (I say, suspecting this blog has no gentlemen admirers), it’s been a busy couple of weeks.

When last we met, I was digging a hole. Ya gotta love the diversity of Gabriola soil. It can grow pebbles, stones, rocks and boulders. Thus, as previously noted, when you say “digging a hole”, what you actually mean is excavating rocks and boulders.

These are the rocks from Day One. I quickly realised they need to be spread further around the garden.

Not only will this give you an idea of quite how many (although not all of the) rocks have been excavated. It’s also an amusing example of how unfamiliar I am with the video feature on my digital camera.

Then there was the question of what to do with all the sand surrounding the rocks and boulders. It will never support life, but it has to go somewhere. I know, I thought, I’ll shift it over to the front of the garden in an attempt to level it off a bit.

Stella is incredibly helpful. She quickly grasps the problem. No sooner have I dumped the first couple of wheelbarrows of crap soil to the other side of the garden, than she craps in it to start fertilising it for me.

Eventually I figure out the futility of what I’m attempting. By adding a row of bricks, I can actually create a tiered effect. And heaven knows I have a lot of surplus bricks.

I know I said no stinking boulder would defeat me.

But I have met my Waterloo (and I’m not Wellington). This hole is now as large as it’s going to get. The landscape fabric will simply have to be wrapped around this monster before the topsoil is added.

By this point I am on a digging/excavating frenzy. I need more space for bee-friendly plants. Where else can I start digging?

I don’t know how clear it is from this 2010 photo, but the rear section of the garden (like most of the bloody garden) is sloped. What I need is a large, even bed.

And look what I accomplish in just one day! The photo may not do it justice, but I now have a de-rocked and turned-over bed running most of the way along the rear section of the garden!

The next morning, Stella, by now so used to spending our days together in the garden, shoots down the path ahead of me and gets there first.

At some point I am actually going to have to buy things to put in the new bed and the big hole, but I just can’t stop digging/excavating. I’ve decided I want another fruit tree and the big hole doesn’t get enough light.

I start digging behind the ceanothus, quickly finding my way blocked by the roots of the giant cedar chopped down many, many years ago. Unlike rocks and (for the most part) boulders, there is nothing I can do about huge bloody roots. Start digging nearby. About six inches down I realise I’ve found another large boulder (although not in the Waterloo league). Spend most of the morning digging down and around it.

I finally get to the point that I can roll it around a bit, but I simply cannot lift it out of the hole.

Stella checks out the boulder, but has no practical suggestions to make.

I am not going to be defeated by this fucking boulder. I go into the house and ring my Phase Four neighbours Cec and Joyce Ashley.

Both these fine people were in Inherit the Wind. More importantly at the moment, Cec (back row, far left) is a carpenter and builder who may, somewhere in his well-endowed home workshop, have something to help me get this fucking boulder out of this bloody hole.

Cec arrives 15 minutes later with a pick axe and a shovel, neither of which are required.

Before I can say “Be careful!”, he simply lifts the boulder out of the hole. Blimey.

After this strongman feat, he and I sit down on the bench and chat for a while. At some point I admit that I had been planning to contact him anyway for another garden-related favour. Now that I’ve created a reasonably level bit of garden, I’d really like to put another raised bed in so I can transfer the strawberries which are overtaking the big raised bed. In my haphazard fashion, all I’m envisioning is four planks, which I figure Cec could screw together in 10 minutes.

“I could build you a raised bed,” Cec says. “No problem.” My hero.

The next morning he arrives with, not four planks, but actual proper raised bed materials.

An hour later I have a strawberry bed. Fuck me. Oh so easy when you know what you’re doing. (Before starting on the strawberry bed, Cec inspects the existing bed and pronounces himself well satisfied with Glenn’s levelling job.)

While he’s building the bed he tells me that you can get a yard of high quality top soil from Wheelbarrow for $88. Sounds impressive. I ask him how much that is. Eighty-eight dollars, he repeats. Suddenly we’re in Abbot and Costello territory. No, I clarify, what volume. Oh, says Cec, eight feet by five feet by two feet – and that will fit his trailer. He offers to take me down there to pick a load up next week. Well, that would be a lot cheaper than buying hundreds of bags at $6 per bag. I accept this very kind offer.

When he is leaving, I thank him profusely. “Any time,” he says. I laugh and tell him he’d better not say that or I might just take him up on it. As I said on Facebook yesterday, Cec Ashley totally rocks. (Or should that be boulders?)

Oh, look. It’s stopped raining and the sun’s come out. So much for the housework.

Oh, my aching arse

Two days of crouching and stretching and bending have left my under-used glutes screaming in protest. However…

the boulders are no longer in the hole and…

the hole is getting bigger and bigger.

I was going to try mixing some compost into the sand (which is basically what the soil back here is), but I’ve decided, to hell with it, I’m going to invest in some landscaping fabric, fill the hole with top soil and have another bed which is actually capable of supporting life. (Note to self: Ask Krys where she got the landscape fabric.)

Elsewhere (get your magnifying glass out again)…

Whether you can see them or not, beet leafs begin to appear.

And carrot leafs.

And peas!

And what’s this we see?

When she was here, Krys told me about her mum’s system for starting new bushes from old. Cut off the end of a branch, stick it in the ground and put a mason jar on top of it. Mini-greenhouse effect, as it were. So, given how much the bees love the ceanothus when it flowers, I’m thinking it would be good to plant more.

After all this digging – and to compensate for all this butt ache – I think it’s time for a large gin and tonic.

Bollocks. Lots of gin, but no limes and no tonic. Very bad planning indeed. A spritzer will have to do.

Rock garden

I’d forgotten (having for some reason given up on it in 2010) quite how much fun one can have digging up rocks for three hours.

Especially when one’s excavation involves rocks this size. (Shades of Catherine’s comments about the Canadian Shield.) For some mad reason I am determined not to be defeated by boulders, so I’m going to be back at it tomorrow.

Get your magnifying glass out for the next two photos.

The lettuce and rocket are sprouting!

And the first rose bud has appeared.

It’s all go now.

A day of landscaping (I guess that's what you'd call it)

Start the day with an attempt to do some digging in the area I want to define as the shrub beds. It’s quite a bit higher than the rest of the garden, so I’m thinking a clearly defined step might be a good feature. Rocks, rocks and more frigging rocks, some of which are too big to be incorporated as border edging. Oh, fuck it, I figure. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em up.


And so I turn the biggest of the rocks I’ve been breaking my back digging up into steps. Photo doesn’t really do this new feature justice. It actually does look quite nice – almost as if someone planned it.

Also looking very nice is my beautiful new rose bush.


In about a week this is going to be stunning. Oh, shit, shit, shit. In a week I’m going to be back in Vancouver for a week, decorating the new apartment and getting Mike moved. Bollocks. Pat will, I know, water the garden for me while I’m away, but he’s not going to take photos of the rose bush in full bloom. Buggeration. I can but hope the excess of bloom will not be short lived.

Survey my vegetable patch. (I suppose, technically, the inclusion of cherry tomatoes makes it my fruit and vegetable patch.) What’s this I spy on the red pepper plant?


Can it be? Yes I believe I spy red peppers forming. Ha! I’ll believe these tiny things will turn into actual edible red peppers when I see it. Still, you never know. There’s a first time for everything. Perhaps this will be the year I actually get red peppers off a red pepper plant.

Glance guiltily over my shoulder at the area which I long ago earmarked for my raised beds. Well, it ain’t going to magically rototill itself, much as I’d love it if it did. Many, many years ago, working in the Greenpeace Vancouver office, I wandered into Catherine’s office, noting as I did, that her desk, like mine, was covered with piles and piles of files and reports and papers. Told her what we needed was a psychic filing fairy who would come in the middle of the night and file everything on top of our desks in exactly the place we would file it if we ever had time. Now I find myself wishing for a psychic rototilling fairy to pay a visit to my garden. I could cross my fingers and hold my breath, but eventually I’d just pass out and still the raised vegetable patch would remain shamingly nonexistent. So I go inside, leave a message for Mike’s friend Kelly, asking if she could possibly bring her lady size rototiller around some time this week. It’s gotta be done.

Make myself a cup of tea and head back to the garden.


It occurs to me that, much as I love this mug, I should find something with a more gardening-related philosophy.

The deer have not decimated Mike’s flower pot overnight (although some bastard insect has been nibbling one of my basil plants – may be time to get the slug pellets out). However, flowers in a pot outside the back door do not a garden experience make, so, true to my word, I spend some time with the secateurs and shovel trying to widen the path to the garden. At some point, possibly after there is something to sit on in the garden (other than the poor weather beaten and bruised bench with its several missing planks), it really would be nice to be able to get Mike out into the garden. As the ground is uneven, he will probably need to use his walker, so a much wider path is required.


The process reveals the mother of all rocks (rather what I expect Catherine’s piece of the Canadian shield might have looked like), which was so overgrown with sorel and covered with twigs and pine needles and cones that I’d completely forgotten it was there.

The process also involves digging or dragging up the sorel roots which crisscross the path. It is while I am doing this that the stupidest thing I can imagine happening happens. I’m tugging and tugging on a particularly stubborn root. When it eventually gives, my head snaps back and my glasses go flying off my head and into the undergrowth. Not quite a needle in a haystack job, but it does take me half an hour to find them. Argh.

Enough for today.

I need a plan

Let’s face it: I need a plan. This whole garden project has slipped into the lackadaisical, the outdoor equivalent of picking things up and putting them down again.

After yesterday’s pine cone scavenge, I stand at the entrance to the garden, look vaguely around, think about digging up the half assed tiny raised beds I made years ago out of some half assed bookshelves I’d built as a room divider which became surplus to indoor requirements.


Try lifting one of the planks, realise they are now fairly well embedded, decide to leave that for now, look vaguely around again, think perhaps I should do some digging over in the other corner to give some added definition to the rose (such as it is) bed.


The shovel keeps hitting rocks, which I pull out (bloody hell, there really are a lot of rocks in this soil), thinking as I do so, that this might be a good place to plant some herbs, as it is one of the first corners to get the sun (if and when it ever puts in an appearance). Quite like this idea, so persevere, despite all the stones. Get about a foot and a half down in the digging over of this tiny patch and hit something bigger than a rock.

Oh, bloody frigging hell, it’s a massive tree root. Is there any point in trying to plant anything here? Kneel on the ground staring despondently at my not very big patch of dug over soil (the quality of which I’ve done nothing to check on, despite Peter sending me instructions on how to do this weeks ago – must dig out that e-mail and take note). Give up and go inside. At least Treme is on this evening, so there’s something good to take my mind off how crap a gardener I am. (Can’t believe they killed off John Goodman’s character. Guess that’s why he’s always appeared as a guest star in the credits.)

And now I’m listening to the weather forecast: thunderstorms predicted for this afternoon. Well, I don’t care how wet I get. I am going to the garden shop today to buy some herbs. Getting something – anything – other than my little lilac tree and sad rose bush (and bloody weeds) growing in the garden will, I’m (fairly) sure inspire me to greater things.

I’m going to have to write to Peter, despite feeling so lame about how little progress I’ve made, and get some advice. I need a plan.

Digging it

So, yesterday, in between running errands for and with Mike and before the thunderstorm started, I manage to put in a couple of hours digging the weeds out of what once had been the bed for my rose bushes and lilac tree.


Even with the weeds gone, it’s difficult to spot the one struggling to survive rose (hence the helpful box frame around it).

Although I have yet to decide what I am going to plant to replace the dead rhododendron which once marked the grave of my cats, crazy Clancy and lovely Jenny, I figure I might as well de-weed it, too.


I can’t believe how many rocks I have to dig up. I remember from past experience that some of the ground is quite rocky, but this far exceeds my recollection. Mention this to Mike when I go inside later. Of course, there are a lot of rocks, says the man who actually dug the grave in my absence. He’d put them there to stop other animals digging up the grave. Well, duh, why didn’t I think of that? A rock garden is certainly a possibility, though I now have my eye on a tri-coloured rose tree which the internet gardening centre claims deer don’t like.

Today I decide I really should do something about the pine cones scattered all over the garden. Assuming I ever track down Billy, the failure to appear rototill guy (unfortunately Pat’s lost his number and can’t remember his last name), rototilling pine cones into the ground is not a good idea. It’s hard enough to keep a lid on proliferating pine trees without accelerating the process of germination for them. Not that I particularly want to halt the proliferation of pine trees on the property - I just don't want them in the middle of the garden. Call me old fashioned, but the only trees I want growing in what little garden space I have need to bear some fruit in return for their squatting rights.


Full marks (but no prize) to anyone who can guess how many pine cones I plucked off the ground.

I’m sure there are still a large number lurking out there, but it’s hard to tell. The bloody weeds need whacking again (bastards) and I still don’t have a working weed whacker. You’d think, after all the trouble I went through to whack them in the first place, the weeds would show some respect and slow down a little, but, oh, no, they’re very naughty and want whacking again.

I can’t face going back to borrow Sally and Jamie’s weed whacker (although somehow constantly borrowing every other garden implement from Pat doesn’t bother me). There really is nothing for it: I’m going to have to make a trip to Nanaimo, which is never an appealing proposition. I’m with Bob Bossin: It’s so nice not to be in Nanaimo. (Wish I could find a full version of this most excellent and very funny – if you live on Gabriola – song, but all I could manage manage is the sample. Still, wouldn’t want to infringe on Bob’s copyright.)

However, Nanaimo can wait a couple of days. Tomorrow I am going to one of the garden shops and I am going to buy some herbs. If I don’t get something edible growing in this garden soon, my head is going to explode. I may go mad and buy some flowers, too, just to get some colour out there.

PS: The answer to the pine cone question is 435.