It couldn’t have happened at a better time – the beginning of the Easter long weekend. Time to finally go into the yard and listen to the sound of the returning birds.
I took this photo from the second storey of the house to show you the big picture.
Here is the south facing side of the yard. Pretty empty, hmm?
And here is the north…
Here is a small sampling of the caragana runners that had taken over under the spruce along the west of the yard. 
Before we put the fence in last summer there was a chain link fence that ran under the spruce to divide us from the back lane. Along this fence was a 40-something year old caragana hedge gone rampant. We cut it down and had the stump man grind it out; however the runners remained.
While the toddler napped yesterday afternoon we hacked and clipped and loped. Hubby even cut down a dead tree and tore down a long-dead shrub with his bare hands and a few tools.
The best part for me, though, was when I pushed on a dead spruce and it started to wobble! I gave it a few pushes and…
Voila!! I winked at hubby and told him he could just call me Wonderwoman.
The Lamium maculatum 'White Nancy' I planted on the side of the house peeping out from under some well-established Convallaria majalis (Lily of the Valley).
Because our soil is such hard compacted clay (water pools on it), I didn’t have to worry about compressing it as I walked on it (or the gravel), so to top this luxuriously warm day off, we pulled out the wee toddler’s new play set and when we woke him from his nap he squinted at the sun and seemed hesitant to step out the door. (At just-turned-two, he is probably too young to remember anything but winter!) Once he tapped his way across the gravel and made his way to the play set, he too found the joy that is Spring.
Before we put the fence in last summer there was a chain link fence that ran under the spruce to divide us from the back lane. Along this fence was a 40-something year old caragana hedge gone rampant. We cut it down and had the stump man grind it out; however the runners remained.
While the toddler napped yesterday afternoon we hacked and clipped and loped. Hubby even cut down a dead tree and tore down a long-dead shrub with his bare hands and a few tools.
The best part for me, though, was when I pushed on a dead spruce and it started to wobble! I gave it a few pushes and…
Voila!! I winked at hubby and told him he could just call me Wonderwoman.
*hee hee*
Oh, and as I poked around the garden, I even found a sign of life
Oh, and as I poked around the garden, I even found a sign of life
The Lamium maculatum 'White Nancy' I planted on the side of the house peeping out from under some well-established Convallaria majalis (Lily of the Valley).Because our soil is such hard compacted clay (water pools on it), I didn’t have to worry about compressing it as I walked on it (or the gravel), so to top this luxuriously warm day off, we pulled out the wee toddler’s new play set and when we woke him from his nap he squinted at the sun and seemed hesitant to step out the door. (At just-turned-two, he is probably too young to remember anything but winter!) Once he tapped his way across the gravel and made his way to the play set, he too found the joy that is Spring.
"If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall." ~ Nadine Stair
Next up: After all my hard work yesterday, today I slipped off with a friend to one of my favourite garden centres to be inspired…not, ahem, to actually buy anything...
7 comments:
Yes, you are a wonderwoman ... but not in the bionic sense .. haha ... But snow in april?.. Hmmm ... cheers! ~ bangchik
Alas, I seem to recall there is sometimes snow in May...!
I must learn to develop the zen of patience :)
Your photos are descriptive and give a clear picture of where you are starting with your plans...I look forward to watching them develop! The wee one is a doll:-)
PS We are doing exactly the same thing in our back yard...the only difference here is that I haven't posted anything about it yet! I have to get on that! I find uploading and posting time-consuming; Blogger seems to take too long for me to organize my photos...I have to keep deleting blank space that forms every time I add another photo, and I'm so slow with it all as of late;-( Anyway, my goal is to keep it fun, and when it's a chore, I just take a break from posting;-) Take care, Jan
You do have one and I found it! This is great - sounds like when we bought our place. A horse path called a driveway, no flowers cause no one ever lived here that loved the place is my theory. No landscaping whatsoever. They shoved the earth back and built a house. So when I got it I had a bank a few feet from my back door. Good luck looks like you have great plans ready to dig into. It's a lot of work but ya sit back and look at all you've done it's more special.
Jan: I think it is going to be a long-term project. I look forward to tracking the changes from one year to the next.
Oh, and I took a quick skip over to your blog - it is so beautiful *sigh* I could wander around in it for hours... :)
RainGardener: You are right, it is going to be a lot of work over a long period of time, but I've never been more excited about a big job. I'm just gobsmacked by how much I love gardening. If you told me that when I was a teenager I would have laughed. Now, I can't fight it :)
A friend in the UK just told me about your blog as thought I might be interested in reading how another person living on the 53rd paralell manages to garden.
Snow is finaly off my south facing flower garden but the vegetable garden is part very gooey mud and the rest is still white!!
I look forward to reading about your progress
Alison
Alison: Welcome to my garden blog! I am so glad you found me. Yes, gardening at the 53rd parallel is going to be interesting. Like you, the “white stuff” is still hovering on the edges here. (We just had a heavy snowfall warning two days ago – although in the end it didn’t amount to much.)
I have a lot to learn, so I expect to make mistakes along the way. I welcome any advice you may have as I go along.
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