Garden Gnome's 2008 Garden Adventures

23 May '08 7:46 pm

And as for Weebles the Unobnoxious: what a lovely photo! Isn't it strange how animals who are usually loving can sometimes pick on another in trouble! Hope you are well on the mend, although a bite to the bone can sometimes take MONTHS to heal properly. Look after yourself - in fact, if in doubt do what Mom should have done: visit a doctor! Go, tiller, go!

24 May '08 9:41 am

Hee hee, Mark, I'm sure you could advertise for one of these, you know - room to let, blahblahblah.

I had a boarder once, a student who I was helping out, at the same time as I thought I wanted to have a perennial border (in my garden). And several friends thought they were the same thing, and conversations got very confused.

"Perennial? I thought it was only for this winter" said one.
"Oh no, at least three years, time to settle in, grow large and bulk out" I replied.

26 May '08 10:44 am

Boarder or garden, garden border or flower bed? Deb, being of good farming stock and living on the family farm when she was small, tells me a garden is where vegetables are grown and a flower bed is for flowers. I often rankle her because I have this habit of calling any ground that I grow any plants in a garden, and she sets me straight.

I guess it's my simple way of looking at things. I have named all our gardens to make it easy to talk about them and there is a new one going in the front yard this season.

I'm curious as to how you other gardeners refer to your growing spaces. Please post an explanation.

Yesterday we all gathered in the front yard as Mom and I planted our Dinner-plate Dahlias and some Gladiolas. All large plants from the greenhouse that we grew from bulbs. It was a grey day with no sun. A terrific wind blew up from the south-east and soon it was raining on us as we planted the last four plants. Quite a storm blew in, although no lightning or thunder.

Today it's raining and my hip is hurting, so I am taking the day off and recouping. I think I'll go out in a while and start the assembly on the big tiller. I got all the tines and parts cleaned and painted.

A few pix for you to see.

Christopher

26 May '08 11:32 am

Well it's either this or get my tests graded .. Anyway, what to call the beds/borders/gardens/rooms/areas/parts where we garden? I find I have names both for 'rooms/areas' of my garden and for the paths and 'beds/borders' that divide it up. The whole area in the back I refer to as "my garden" and the "side yard" is something you have to pass through to get there.

My garden is divided up into 3 big 'rooms/areas': the "Gravel Entry Garden", the first area (covered in -you guessed it- gravel) you enter when you come in through the gate from the side yard; the Pond Amphitheatre (the 40 by 40 foot area directly behind the warehouse with a pond in the center surrounded by a path); and the Circle Lawn (which is about 20 feet in diameter and surrounded by the corner deck, greenhouse, shade structure, tool shed, garden bed and begonia area). There are are other, minor areas between or near these, such as the "Broken Concrete Courtyard" between the Gravel Entry Garden and the Pond Amphitheatre (which the backdoor opens out on to), and, the "Y" a small area where the back path widens out just past the center archway before it comes to the Circle Lawn.

You know I just took some pictures from the roof yesterday to photograph the 'Kiftsgate' rose which is beginning to bloom in the front hedge. So why don't I go load some of these on my thread and if you like you might be able to better see what all these place names refer to.

I look forward to learning how you decide to name the parts of your garden, and good luck with that hip!

26 May '08 6:00 pm

Well now-I never fail to be amazed at the imagination and the ambition and the visualisation and the general optimism of your place,GG,Deb,and Mom.....it may look like a mess,but you can see all sorts of possibilities,and with our eyes closed and similar imagination,I guess we can too .We are with you all the way,folks.
(Do you reckon you will ever be finished?)
Dixie.

Garden Gnome's 2008 Garden Adventures

Love the obnoxious border!

An obnoxious boarder?

Rainy Day Update.

Hi Christopher and hello Deb, nice to meet you.

Garden grows