Starting the Garden

We arrived in Ontario on August 1st. Lots of work to be done, unpacking, sorting out where things go, and getting some work done on the house. All the workmen are super busy here, given the wet spring that caused so much damage to lots of properties. It seems we can't get anyone to do anything before September and possibly October.

And to our shock, one week after arriving, a bulldozer appeared on the empty lot next door. Within four hours, the lot was cleared of brush and the crab apple tree in the centre, and the next day another bulldozer arrived to dig the excavation for a new house. The owner came and told us things would be noisy; she has decided to put up her house, after her husband passed away last month.

This is what we see now when we look to the east in the morning sun.

                                            

                                            

This changes a lot of my garden plans. The new house is on our east side and her garage wall will be 12 feet from our property line. That is quite a lot of space if you live in the city, but here in the country, it is close. The most significant effect is the blocking of morning light to a large portion of our lot. So plans for a colourful flower bed on that side have to be shelved and I am looking at plants and shrubs that like a part-shaded location. I'm not sure exactly how shaded it will be and may have to wait until the house is up to know for certain.

That has not stopped me from buying plants however. I discovered a lovely nursery in Eganville, called the Temperate Garden, and I got two hydrangeas there plus an astilbe, a fringed bleeding heart and a wisteria. The owner convinced me that I would love it and it grows fast.

Then we took a trip to Parry Sound on Saturday so that Nick could get a new motor and boat trailer and on the return trip, we found a beautiful nursery just full of amazing plants, shrubs and trees. I got two climbing hydrangeas there, plus a clematis, another hydrangea, periwinkle and a pink rosa rugosa.

Now the planting begins in earnest. First up is a fringed bleeding heart planted in a corner of the front garden. This will receive morning sun for several hours and the columbines that I planted in May have done well and flowered.

Then I dug down in the bed next to the chimney to see how far down the soil goes. I encountered lots of stones that had been dumped in there on purpose. I figure there is at least a foot of soil to be had so to this I added compost and top soil and planted a climbing hydrangea. This is my favourite plant at the moment and I wanted to get it started asap. They take a very long time to get going; the one I have in my Halifax garden took five years before it produced a blossom. I read somewhere about this plant "first it sleeps, then it creeps, then it leaps". I hope the conditions here help it to move along.

In a corner by the back deck, I planted a clematis although I have no idea what type it is as it had no label other than clematis. In front I transplanted a deer-eaten hosta from the front garden. I have read that clematis like their tops in the sun but their roots in the shade, so having something to cover up the lower inches is a good idea. As for the deer, I think the new dog will keep them at bay. We will also be putting up a fence around the back yard once we know the dog is coming.

This next photo shows the side of the garage wall; it faces east and just escapes the looming shadow of the new house next door. It has overgrown and shabby shrubs there so I am removing them one by one and will fill this with some nice sunny plants. 

I began by planting a second climbing hydrangea near the front of the garage. This is insurance in case the one by the chimney doesn't do well. This one has a lot of room to grow and better soil so it should be okay in this location.

It has a lot of work to do though. All that expanse of wall to be covered. I told someone at the nursery that I have to work fast. At my age, I don't know how many years I have left; these things have to be planted and they have to start growing fast before I get too decrepit to do much gardening. Therefore I am concentrating on perennials and will be using lots of mulch to keep the weeds at bay.

One plant that I have inherited is this daylily. I am not a particular fan of daylilies, but this one has a lovely pinky colour with gold in the center and I am happy to leave it just where it is. This is a back corner of the garage facing the back yard. The rest of the bed is in deep shade due to a large maple tree right next to it. It has three peonies in it at present; I will try to remove those and plant them elsewhere.

And yesterday my grand-daughter Hannah helped me to put together these raised beds. I found the instructions on YouTube, on a channel from WIgardener. He has the greatest videos and I followed his instructions exactly. These were built with construction grade spruce. The length is 8' and the width is 3'; the height of the boards is 10". These will be for vegetables next summer but I wanted to get them in place because I have to build up the soil in these beds. I am hoping that I can get some from the pile next door. They have a lot there, surely they can spare me a few cubic feet of soil. I plan on adding two more raised beds next summer, but thought I should just start with two for now. The plan is for veggies to grow up netting that will be attached to the garage wall. The other bed will have smaller veggies such as lettuce, stuff that doesn't need to climb. Or it may just all be tomatoes, who knows?

 This next photo is the front of the house, the window is the main living room window. This bed has gone to pot and there is a shrub on the left that I don't really like. I think I will dig it up and replace it with a hydrangea. On the right is a sorry hydrangea that is dead on one side. But the other side is flowering. I hate to throw out anything living, so I looked up how to take stem cuttings and get new plants from the old one.

So these are the shoots prepared as numerous YouTube videos instructed. Cut a shoot with no flower on it, remove all the leaves except the top two, trim those in half, gently shave the stem, put on some root solution and pop into potting soil. Then place in a transparent container in a shady location outside. You also have to mist the plants so that they are moist and they will basically grow in a terrarium for several weeks. At that point, there should be roots formed and you can gently adjust the plant to normal conditions. It will take many months before they can be planted outside, but what do I have to lose? And it will be very satisfying to know that the old plant lives on. 

The shrub on the left is the one I want to remove. It seems to get bigger and bushier every year and I haven't seen any flowers on it, so it has got to go and be replaced by another hydrangea.

This is the front garden on the north side of the house. The two windows are bedrooms. My plan is to have a deck built here that will extend the front porch. It won't be the entire length of the house, but will go to where that sad cedar tree is now growing. The deck will be low, just about a foot off the ground so that it will provide lovely seating on hot days. This area is shady for most of the day and looks out on the lovely birches and maples and single oak tree in the front yard.

This is a large maple right by the driveway. This location gets both morning sun and then a few hours of afternoon sun. I am thinking of planting a wisteria here to climb right up the maple.
I am waiting to get some advice from my son-in-law who was trained as a horticulturalist, now turned math professor.

 So those are the plans thus far. I still have a number of plants to get into the garden over the next few days. I want to get them in the right spots so am taking time checking out the sunlight in all the locations. So important to have them sitting in the right spots. Water can be provided, but light is beyond my control.

It is just so pleasurable to have a spot to do all this gardening. I tried hard in Halifax but with a combination of poor soil and almost total shade, my gardening efforts didn't amount to much. I hope to have a sea of colour here in this Ontario garden.