High time for some more shots of things growing in our garden!…
…and possibly some other random images that I have overlooked throughout the last couple of months. Let’s see what I can find…
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Well, here we are at the end of this short retrospective – one year on – of our 2019 trip to the UK and Greece. The Girl and I had a wonderful and memorable visit to Europe – a fine balance between spending time with loved ones and old friends, revisiting a bit of the old country and getting to wallow in glorious antiquity in a part of the world that neither of us had known well.
As is the way of such things, on our return to BC we immediately started thinking about and planning further excursions, little knowing that – along with everyone else – our future travel plans would all have to be put on ice for an indeterminate and possibly indefinite period.
The Girl and I loved Athens and you can read the notes of a year ago and view the photos that I posted here and here.
Finally – a few more images from those taken in Athens:
Tags: Europe, Greece, Holiday, Memories, Photo, Travel, United Kingdom
This time last year we had just returned from the splendid trip to the UK and to Greece that I am re-living vicariously through the medium of this journal.
The timing of this particular post is really quite apposite because – having rounded off our splendid reunion with the UK and headed south to join our cruise ship for the first phase of our Greek visit – it was no longer possible for me to publish posts to the blog, on account of the paucity and cost of the Internet connections on board ship. As a result I unleashed a stream of such postings after we returned to Canada – starting with this one.
I had visited Greece once before, though that time to a different set of islands – the Dodecanese. This time we would be mostly in the Cyclades. For The Girl this would be a first visit to any part of Greece and neither of us had been to Athens – where we would spend a few days at the end of our cruise. Much, then, to look forward to.
Now – with regard to the cruise itself the postings that I made on our return were really quite comprehensive and laden with (if i say so myself) quite lovely photographs. If the Greek islands are of interest to you do take a look around. As for this post – well – I will do my best to dig out any interesting images that did not make the cut first time around. I know that I took plenty – so I am hopeful…
These images are from our visits to Santorini, to Heraklion and Knossos and to Ephesus:
Several posts back in what is in serious danger of becoming a blog about gardening (a subject on which I am completely unqualified to write but which seems to be one of the few activities still open to one in these strange days) I spun a tale about the conversion of the redundant raised pond in our front garden into a new bed for plants. All that remained – I reported breathlessly – was to choose that which should be planted therein.
To give the gentle reader some broader physical context – this is what the bed looks like in situ:
As may be observed the bed is backed – and overhung – by a screen of five medium sized fir trees and surrounded by a cluster of evergreen shrubs. This whole acts as a handy barrier between our property and the road and gives the garden an agreeable degree of privacy. There is – however – a fair bit of ‘green’ going on.
What to plant there? The firs raise the acid level of the soil beneath them which limits the choice somewhat. We considered azaleas or rhododendrons (both of which we already have in fair number) or something with bright coloured flowers. The problem with the latter is that the contrast obtained thereby would last but a limited period each year.
We chose instead to offset the greenery with some burgundy/red which would provide a nearly year round contrast – and went looking for suitable low-habit Japanese maples (or acers should you prefer). Here is what we found:
The larger one is a Gloucester Red Select and the smaller one is a Red Dragon. Why did we not purchase two bushes the of similar size? Have you seen the price of these things? They will end up of similar stature and this way we get to see them grow and fill out over time whilst ensuring that they take on the shape that we want.
They both cascade nicely and will give us a pretty mound of burgundy – fading to crimson red in the autumn (fall) – to offset all of that greenery.
Now we just have to wait and enjoy the show from our kitchen window!
Tags: British Columbia, COVID-19, Gardens, Photo, projects
“Spring is nature’s way of saying, “Let’s party!”
Robin Williams
I was thinking just how lucky we are to have a spring garden. This is my favourite time of year and having a spring garden may well be a large part of that.
Then it occurred to me that I have been fortunate enough to have had – or have had access to – more than one spring garden over the years. “Mayhap” – I pondered to myself – “all gardens are spring gardens… or at least, coming hard on the heels of winter, that is the way they feel”.
Actually it matters not a jot and I thought that you – the gentle reader – might like to peruse some more images of nature’s bounty as it currently pertains in this neck of the woods.
Tags: British Columbia, Gardens, Photo, Spring
I have to admit to feeling somewhat guilty. Living in (semi) lock-down is tough – but it is clearly a lot tougher for some folk than for others. Some countries have much tighter restrictions than others to start with – and for those who live in urban environments with little room and limited opportunities to get outside – or for those who live alone in very rural areas and are keenly feeling the isolation… I can offer only my sympathies and support.
Here on the southernmost tip of Vancouver island we have good reason to feel fortunate. BC has done as well as anywhere to keep people safe during the crisis and our caring professionals are – as elsewhere – doing a fantastic job. Up here on the peninsula we live in a very beautiful place and have an abundance of space. We also have each other – which is the ultimate blessing.
I thought I would post some pictures from this neck of the woods. I hope that they give pleasure to some of you. Double-click for the full effect.
This little chap was outside my bathroom window for a couple of days. With the afternoon sun behind him he threw this silhouette on the frosted glass. I thought I should take his picture. No – I didn’t have a camera with me in the shower. That would just be weird! I fetched one afterwards…
Tags: British Columbia, COVID-19, Home, Photo, Vista
“Gardening is the slowest of the performing arts.”
Anonymous
Enforced inactivity (courtesy of the social isolation essential to the mitigation of the current pandemic) does have its upside. Sometimes it finally shakes one into commencing some project or other that one should have started years before.
Thus it is with our pond!
When we purchased our lovely home – nearly five years ago now – we observed that it had in the front garden (yard!) a small raised ornamental pond. As a water feature it distinctly lacked interest and its main function appeared to be to provide a breeding ground for mosquitoes and other biting things. We determined that we would get rid of it.
About a year after we purchased the property I bought a boat – the good ship ‘Dignity‘. In order that we might accommodate her (when not upon the saltchuck) in the driveway next to our house our landscape gardener friend from Saanichton carried out some groundworks to widen the ingress.
We asked him about our pond and he suggested that it should be no problem to demolish. As it happened he had with him his small backhoe loader – the sort of thing once known as a ‘digger’. He took a run at the pond in it and it simply bounced off – without leaving so much as a scratch mark. We decided that more serious firepower would be needed and resolved to temporarily park the problem in the bay marked ‘stuff for the future’.
Last year I decided that the future was now with us and that something must be done about the pond. Demolition proving too difficult a task we decided instead to turn the feature into a raised bed. This would mirror other existing such beds in our front garden.
I carefully siphoned the (revolting) water out of our water-feature. The next task was to punch a hole in the bottom of the pond at its lowest point to allow it to drain properly. Since the thing had proved immune to the backhoe the logical thing to do(!) was to attempt the job by hand – with a club hammer and cold chisel. The result – after several months of repeated hammerings – was a gratifying six-inch hole through to the earth below.
Thus it remained through the winter – until such point as we found ourselves isolated by the pandemic – at which time our thoughts (well, mine anyway) turned to gardening. I quickly discovered that I could order and pay for the necessary materials online. At the allotted time a week or so later a spotty youth in a dump truck approached the house in a gingerly fashion – as though it were a leper colony or somesuch – dumped the contents at the end of the driveway and accelerated away as quickly as possible.
Perfect!
It took but a short hour’s work to fill the bottom of the erstwhile pond with six inches of drain rock and to then top it up with fresh topsoil.
So – now we have a splendid new bed outside our kitchen window. All that remains to do is for us to figure out what to put in it. More on that later.
Tags: COVID-19, Gardens, Photo, projects, social isolation, Spring
“A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself.”
May Sarton
This is the third year since I ‘retired’ that I have been teaching during the winter and early spring months. As before my efforts culminate in mid-April and I find myself with time (apparently) on my hands and must needs change gear and find a different rhythm for the weeks and summer months ahead.
It is also – as I have noted before – the time of year during which our garden awakes, stretches itself, yawns and starts to demand attention. There is usually a gap of about a month between the first plangent calls and the point at which I can no longer ignore them and must start to do something about them. There follows an unseemly scramble to catch up and to prepare the garden to receive admiring (hopefully) visitors throughout the bosky summer months.
I must – in short – get busy!
This is – of course – a considerable ‘advantage’ during these times of pandemic. Since I must needs devote much of my time and energy to our verdant (half) acre(s) it matters little to me that we are in social lock-down. The effect is the same either way!
Anyway – here be some images to ‘set the scene’…
I thought that in these times of danger and all-round ugliness it might be good to post something pretty instead.
For those of us who get up on the early side on work days one of the rare joys of the the clocks going forward is that we once again coincide in the mornings – for a brief period at least – with the rising sun. I can’t resist taking photographs:
Not to be outdone the moon has of late also been putting in unexpectedly powerful appearances:
The Girl is slowly getting over her sinus infection. I am fighting off a mild attack of the sniffles (no comparison!). Let us cheer ourselves up with a quick miscellany of jolly images of sun-drenched Zihuatanejo (where the maximum temperature varies by less than 5 degrees C – across the whole year!)…
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