A garden's diary

March 17—Sunday.  Today we worked like horses preparing that space where our new trailer will be kept.  First, the fence had to be stained, inside and outside... 

What a difference paint makes!  Our crooked fence looks so much better now!  Even the odd old pieces we used along the new wood look great! I'm planning on planting an assortment of plants and vines all along the front, so I'm hoping it will look even better one day!

and then, it was that dog house from hell! 

We ended up having to cut it into large pieces so we could move it around. Sad, and strange that nobody was interested in it, even when we were giving it away for free.  People take too long to respond or start their own projects.  We couldn't wait.

It was such a cute little house too; and so well done. In fact, it was so well done, that it only weighted the weight of a real house! 

It only seems like yesterday when I painted it, decorated it, and then pretended it was a witch's house, right in the middle of my enchanted garden.

I wish we could had kept it, and made it looked pretty again, but our surroundings are always evolving, life happens, nothing ever remains the same, and this cutie wasn’t needed any longer. 

March 18—this morning I worked on finishing things up as far as cleaning that new area where our trailer will go concerns… I worked for hours moving stuff away such as concrete pavers and leftover blocks from old projects, pulling weeds, sweeping and organizing things that will be kept there, such as my garden tools, flowerpots, soil and things like that.     

The Fisherman came home earlier today so we could go to our local dumpster and dispose of part of the old dog house.  Then, we continued on working on its roof, cut it into yet some more pieces so we could finally lift them up, and chucked everything onto my truck, ready to go to the dumpster again tomorrow.  Phew!  We starting to see the light on this!

Today, I also started working on my little pond.  

This time, I wanted to do things right and finally got a pond form.

March 19—right at noon I meet with the Fisherman at our local dumpster so he could help me unload my truck.  All done now!  So happy!  This project was such a nightmare.

The new concrete is looking so nice.  Now that the old dog house is finally out of there, everything looks so tidied up—finally!  The space looks super big and nice… and perfect for a table and some chairs to sit down and relax, but of course, this area is only home to our new trailer now, which it will be here soon!

March 20—my little pond is done!  I decorated it with things strictly from the Dollar Tree store and it’s looking so cute!  I covered the bottom with some adhesive paper that I know it won’t last long, but I liked it so much I had to tried it.  Then, I threw in a few bags of green and blue pebbles, and added some seashells too.  

Around it I planted an assortment of plants... some Ostrich Fern bulbs that were so dried up the poor things, I doubt they'd ever make it; a peony and some Phlox.  I also transplanted some of the irises that were growing on the other side of the fence to this place, and I’m hoping that with enough time, my little pond will look amazing.  Once everything had flourished, of course, if anything would at all. 

I still need to add some smaller rocks all around.... 

and I think the blue adhesive things at the bottom need to be taken out!

Days are beautiful, the sun is out, strong and benefactor, and under my feet the ground is teaming with life... I can hear the bulbs and peonies singing!  Have you heard Nature's voice in your part of your world yet?

The concrete driveway

March 12—super cold today; cold as if winter had come back in full force.  Spring is still hesitating on the threshold and the garden holds its breath in expectation. There is the same bitterness in the air as one may expect in January, and the sky and grass have that same somber look as then.  Still… I went outside to work on the garden, just as I’ve been doing lately.

With the cold wind behind my back and ominous gray clouds above my head, I finished working on the last flowerbed under the north window, where most of the roses sit beautifully waiting for sunshine and warm days.  So that’s it!  The hardest part is done!  Now it is the minor stuff such as cleaning the back porch, retouching the paint on its floors, mending the fence where it needs to be mended, painting flower pots and things like that… and of course, planting…. planting planting! 

I can hardly wait for the plants to start coming to local nurseries! Birds and little creatures of the garden are as excited for spring as I am!

March 13—today, I finally decided to attack the back porch and clean the piles of dead leaves that get to accumulate behind and under furniture, flowerpots and such during our winters.  The culprit are the huge leaves of the grapevines; for each winter they make their resting place along the wall of the house in that part of the porch.  They won’t go away, or even move during high winds.  They just pile and pile up and stay there for months and months; always weighing down my patience.

Rigoberto, the concrete guy, came by today to start working on our new parking space.  I’m excited!  

   

March 14—did I say I was done cleaning the garden?  Oh that wind of the other day brought in so much leaves out of nowhere! So today I rake and collected two more of those huge bags of leaves, roots and whatnots that were scattered everywhere.   

I also decided that it was time to finally pulled out the mule pine that should had never being planted there in the first place, many years ago.  I feared the intensity of the job, due to what I thought were going to be huge roots, but to my surprise, it wasn’t as hideous of a job as I thought it would and the pine went out easily and without the least effort. 

Second day of the concrete project.  Rigo took out all the sod yesterday and today he started building the parameters where the cement will go.

After I collected more and more leaves off the garden floors today, I also tied back some of the long canes of the climbing roses, removed a few of the tulips that, for some inexplicable reason I’d planted in the wrong place last fall, and started working on removing all the rocks where the little old pond used to be.  That’s when I got the idea of making a new pond on the other side of the new fence now.  I’m already daydreaming with what I want to see there!  

Remember what the little pond looked like last spring?

March 15—The concrete is being pour today.  Rigo has worked so hard and he’s doing such a good job! 

This afternoon the Fisherman helped me with several of the projects that needed be done in the garden.  He helped me tied up and nailed vines supports to fences and walls, and he also cut down that tree trunk I let stand in the middle of the garden for way too long.  

This was the tree that was damaged by winds when we were renting our house and then later we cut down when we moved back here.  I asked the Fisherman then to leave the tree trunk alone, because I was envisioning doing something creative with it, but it never worked.  Last spring, I tried to cover this tree trunk with morning glories and moon vines on three different occasions, but these little seeds have a mind of their own and every time they flew away and reseeded themselves somewhere else in the garden.  

So now whatever was left from that tree is out, and I can hardly wait to plant something else in that spot!  But what?  More roses?  

The concrete job is now done!  Rigo did such an awesome job!  Soon our new gypsy caravan will be here!  Can hardly wait!

The color orange

Oh Winter, what can I say!  Yes, my dears, it looks like Mrs. Winter has decided to prolong her stay around here—a little bit longer, a little bit bitter, a little bit meaner, too.  If you pay attention to details and what’s going on around you, you may even see her quietly strolling the garden; the twenty-five foot taffeta train of her winter white gown sweeping off the garden’s floors, and dragging dead leaves and posthumous snows as she moves along. Oh yes, it snowed again a little bit last night and it will continued on snowing today too! 

And thus, is has been extra cold around here again, and the sky is steel gray and sunless and the garden is sleeping.  As you can understand, I had to stop my work out there and go back to my usual hibernating mode, and flannel sheets, and flannel nightgowns, and more hot coffee, and pretty coffee mugs. One of my favorite things to do on a winter day is going upstairs to my gypsy room and stay there as long as I can—reading, browsing over my collection of home and garden books and magazines, decorating, changing things around, creating, and so on and on… 

I had always thought that the round table in our theater room was too big and too out of place with the overall atmosphere of the space. It made the room looked too crowded and updated, so I took it out of there and it is now sitting here in my gypsy room—covered under a gypsy mandala to follow the rules here, of course!

This room is not only my gypsy room, you know!  It is also the backstage and changing room of the girls and the napping room of a certain Fisherman!  We all love it here!

It is sometimes my prayer room too, and the room where one of the most extraordinary miracles of my life happened a while back, in a time when I desperately needed God's reaffirmation.  You can read all about it here!

It is so peaceful here, so colorful and cozy! 

The geraniums by the window, are blooming!

I love my gypsy room, and one thing that this happy place has helped me discover is that my soul is drawn to the color orange. Whatever it is when it comes to color, I always chose orange. I’m attracted by the color orange and I am prone to choose it over any other color. I did a little research the other day on something called “color psychology”, or what our favorite colors have to say about our personalities and boy it truly described me!  

This is what I found out about the color orange:   

Orange, the blend of red and yellow, is a mixture of the energy associated with red and the happiness associated with yellow. Orange is associated with meanings of joy, warmth, heat, sunshine, enthusiasm, creativity, success, encouragement, change, determination, health, stimulation, happiness, fun, enjoyment, balance, sexuality, freedom, expression, and fascination.

Orange is the color of joy and creativity. Orange promotes a sense of general wellness and emotional energy that should be shared, such as compassion, passion, and warmth. Orange will help a person recover from disappointments, a wounded heart, or a blow to one’s pride. 

The meaning of the color orange is stimulating, vibrant, and flamboyant. While made up of red and yellow, it carries less aggression and fierceness than the color red due to its combination with the calming color yellow. 

Studies show that the orange color can create physical effects such as increased hunger, heightened sense of activity, increased socialization, boost in aspiration, stimulated mental activity, increased oxygen supply to the brain, increased contentment, and enhanced assurance. Orange also helps aid decision making, and enhances happiness, confidence, and understanding.

The color orange is a very hot color and often provides the sensation of heat. While orange is a common color associated with summer and the hot sun, often associated with being a main color of harvest and autumn due to the changing color of the leaves and pumpkins.

While orange does stimulate the appetite, it is a common color found in citrus fruit and is often associated with Vitamin C and a healthy diet. Orange is a popular color in restaurants to encourage the feeling of hunger and contentment.

The color orange has very high visibility and is often used to gain attention. It still gets your message noticed without the bold, in-your-face presence that the color red has.

The opening of the garden.

March 4—so it has started again: The spring cleaning of the garden!  

A good sun, strong and warm, came out today and the earth warmed up to 42 degrees.  So, I was left with no more excuses not to go out and start working the grounds again.  And thus, the job has started.  The garden has been reopened!  From now on I won’t stop.

Two of the old pink Know-out roses were taken out today too—pathetic looking little things, long due for the trash. Finally, they’re out of the garden.  Why do I keep waiting and hoping and waiting for bad plants to improve, or do better when they never do?  Now, I have a lovely space under the lilac tree for planting something else… but what?

March 6—today, I planted a clematis and a peony.  The clematis was planted by the New Dawn climbing rose at the entrance of the garden, and the peony in one of the beds, right where another peony bush stands.  I will have to remove a mule pine around that same area soon, because I don't like how it looks there; taking away precious space for something prettier, or better.  But I will have to wait until I'm done with the cleaning of beds.   

March 7—I’ve continued working in the garden every day this week; little by little and section by section.  Cleaning and clearing off its floors of the usual thick layer of debris, dead leaves, branches and broken pots and things that our long winters tent to accumulate each winter.    

All that grass growing along the fence and in places where they are not supposed to grow, I'm pulling out by hand... and I am also removing the viola papilionacea o wild violet that in certain parts of the garden spreads out like a ground cover.  This is a good time to do this, as these annoying little things have not spread out too much yet, and because the ground is soft with snows and rain moisture, it is easier to pull.  

 It took me awhile to pull them all out, but the garden is freed of it now.

As a way of an experiment, I’m only doing a light pruning on the perennials this year.  Leaving shrubs and trees to recuperate from last spring’s abuse.  Leaving most everything just as they are, and only removing the dead leaves from the rose bushes and maybe cutting off some tips to give them some shape, but nothing much. 

It always amazes me how awfully emptied of life and unattractive the garden always looks around this time of the year… but at least it gives me a clear idea of what I need to do there.

After two big trash bins a few large trash bags more, everything is starting to look awesome.  If not lovely, at least clean. 

Remember the little pond I created last spring?  It is no more. This is now where the new fence will go, as soon as the Fisherman finds time to work on it. I still have to figure out what to do with all those rocks.  Where should I put them?

...and, this is the crooked fence that Reuben built. You can't really tell by looking at the photograph, but it is lop-sided. Plus, he only build that much of a fence.  Now, the Fisherman has to extend it on each end to make it a ‘normal’ side to side fence.  For this, we’re using part of the old fence. So, it’s going to be something sorts of like a Frankenstein of a fence!  Hehe.  Not only we will have a crooked fence, but also the wonkiest of all fences!

This year I’m planning of filling several empty spaces throughout the garden and cover fences on certain areas with either some tall shrubs or vines.  It is still too early to know if the tree I moved at the end of last summer survived, and if the new tree that Joe planted for me at the beginning of fall made it or not.  I'm hopeful and eager to start seeing some life in them...  

Have you started working in your garden yet?