END OF THE MONTH VIEW - june cottage

Sharing with End of the Month View & Floral Friday Fotos, Nature Tuesday

RAKE IT BABY, RAKE IT - a visit to the ontario cottage

Last weekend my husband and I, both on business trips to different cities, were able to meet at our cottage in Ontario for an unexpected weekend with friends.  

Big property and only a few days - where to start?

With a rake.

Part of the magic of Periwinkle Hill is that for most people it does not look like a garden, it just "is".  But of course us gardeners know that if I did not rake the Periwinkle it would eventually suffocate. Horrors!

Next week the Periwinkle will bloom and then of course the Kedron daffodils will follow the Trumpets, the ferns will unfurl and on the season will progress.

Tip: keep a bud vase with you when raking through daffodils. Some always snap, even under my tender touch with the rake, and into the vase they go, ready to spread their spring cheer inside.

And the dry creek bed?

Right where we left it.  

Raking the moss border of the creek is even more delicate work than raking Periwinkle.  

And while we are on the topic of raking stones, this shot makes it clear that it is worth it although at first it may seem excessive.

Do you not agree the raked stones really add something?

I put a fair amount of work into lining the sides of the gravel path with moss, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Red Trillium by the hundred and ferns by the dozen.

Without a good raking all but the pushiest Trillium are hidden.

Raking Trillium is the most delicate work of all because breaking off even a single leaf can cut the life of the early blooming spring beauties short.  

After a few hours the connection between the path, creek bed and Periwinkle is once more clear.

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Sharing with Fertilizer Friday

SEPTIC GARDEN

There are lots of options for septic systems at the cottage, not many of them pretty.  Ours is not so bad, buried tanks somewhat above ground given the slope. A wooden retaining wall that jumps out at me as unnatural. 

Functional? Yes.       Fashionable? Hardly.  

There is something unnatural about perfecting straight parallel lines, like right angles they are exceedingly rare in nature. I need to plant vines in front of it, I am just having trouble deciding which: Virginia Creeper? English Ivy? Shade tolerant Clematis??

  Nothing deep rooted should be planted above them but that still leaves plenty of options. The pink flowers below were part of a wildflower mix the previous owners added years ago and the majority of the daisies are ones that I have transplanted from the side of the road, mostly last year after trying a small number 2 years ago and being happy with their success rate.

There were a fair number of Trumpet Daffodils blooming in the septic garden before this photo was taken. 

And afterward Black-Eyed-Susans from roadside harvesting and Purple Coneflower that I have transplanted from the city where they were seeding into The Strip where I did not want tall plants growing.

Now that I have discovered the world of seeds I will take some Echinacea and Rudbeckia seeds with me for this space when I am at the cottage at the start of May. It may officially be too early to direct sow there but I only have one shot since I live at a distance and it is definitely worth that shot. 

DRY CREEK BED - part 1 of 2

For the first few years there was not too much 'garden-esque' south of our path other than the spring daffodils and some Periwinkle.

2007-2010

At the bottom of the stairs, a relatively prominent place, I began adding ferns alongside the path to green it up and provide some fill between us and our neighbour. 

June 2010

Many, many transplants later things were looking great.  The flat exposed stone in the center acted as a boarder keeping the Periwinkle in check, but it also became covered in a slippery and slimy leaf mulch.

June 2011

When more stones than expected arrived to bolster the slope in the Driveway Garden I saw an opportunity. 

At first I spaced the stones apart slightly; I liked being able to see the flat rock beneath them. 

However the best way to get water to my newly planted ferns was across the creek, a dangerously ankle-twisting proposition, so I added more stones.  Tightly packed stones do not move around nearly as much.

May 2012

Last year I extended the creek up to where it runs into a fairly large boulder where it feels more natural that it somehow disappears. 

July 2012

In part 2 I talk about what after I did after all the stones were in place to "dress" the creek.

TAKING MY CUE

The space between our laneway and our driveway is a great example of my goal to make the cottage feel exceptionally green and alive but not necessarily feel like a garden at all.  

It is also a great example of taking my cue from the existing space.

The goal: make the top like the bottom for a seamless green view from here to the bench at top centre

When we moved in, 'Periwinkle Hill' (above) already existed, Lily of the Valley, Daffodils and all.  What a great view from the bedrooms!  A green standout in the middle of the brown forest floor.  

The space above the driveway on the other hand was just regular forest floor, all leaves and branches.

I started by thinning the trees.  Those under the electrical wires went first, followed by those that were 'twinned' or clearly too crowded.  Then I swept out all the leaves, dead branches and twigs and proceeded to transplant hundreds and hundreds of Periwinkle plugs.

A tip on transplanting Periwinkle (and I assume other mat-forming ground covers): take from the edges of your clump where they just pop right out of the ground vs. the middle where they need to be wrestled out on all sides.

Day after day, summer after summer, I took Periwinkle from where it had been spreading into the driveway and moved it up the hill.  

In the  fall I added 2-3 types of Daffodils with various blooming times and Wood Ferns from the forest. When possible I planted some poking up between rocks (above) because it makes it look like they were there first.

I also transplanted Lily-of-the-Valley from down the hill to up the hill. I was careful to get it on both sides of fallen logs (above)  to convey the idea that it had been there for years. The patch is a carefully planned vertical zigzag that is meant to look random as if it had been slowly making its way downward for years.

I started in the middle of the hill until it was appropriately dense and then worked my way outward with the Periwinkle, rather than making the whole hill lightly covered. I wanted to have impact relatively fast and the way to do it is to concentrate effort.  It is frequently a debate I have with myself when tackling a large area: fill the entire designated area lightly or concentrate in one area and then spread outwards?  

Eventually though (after hundreds and hundreds of transplants) I became satisfied that within a few years this area would be as I envisaged it (just like Periwinkle Hill) and allowed myself to move on and tackle other areas.  I do not really know how fast Periwinkle grows so it will be an interesting experiment to see how quickly we can get that top part looking as luxurious and green as the hill below and merge it all into one big garden - that we just happen to park in the middle of.

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Sharing with Nature Notes, Fertilizer Friday & Outdoor Wednesday

ROAD KILL - not what you are thinking

I think fondly of the trees I have taken from the side of the road as "road kill", as in 'if I don't take them they will one day be killed for growing too close to the road'.  The same goes for under hydro wires, where they are all just buying time, blissfully unaware.

The other day I grabbed four pine and a spruce.  One of the pine was already damaged, having its leader somehow removed.  I've planted it in the background although a little research shows its prospects are not strong.  Look closely and you can see the damage in the "before" photo below.

I've committed to this tree, and I'm going to try something different and see with a little help if I can't get it to grow another leader by splinting a branch up and cutting off the others at that level. (thanks eHow) 

It will be a fascinating experiment.

Here is one of the places between us and our neighbours where I've added 4 evergreens and will be adding in about 4 more today.  I'm going to over-plant since I'll be happy if they grow relatively slowly, after all, we don't want them to reach maturity with bare branches towards the bottom, we want them to provide dense cover so we see less of our neighbour's cottage.

P.S.  I know in my last post I said I had other priorities now that we are moving and time at the cottage is limited, but I have revised my list to include adding in more trees between us and our neighbours on both sides - now that is a long term project!

FLAGSTONE PATH

Two years ago in 2010 we noticed what the woman at the garden centre humorously dubbed a 'cowpath' between the bottom of our staircase and the steps down into the water.  Bare patches of mud in the grass from heavy foot traffic were making their mark so we added the darker stone  - just a suggestion of a path.  I quite liked it.

Very minimalist.

2010

Last year we added in the rest of the stones when we realized we still had a pile of flagstone from the backyard left over in the city.  The stones are all on the ground but not all securely dug in quite yet, though it is top of my list to finish this up now that I have added the ground covers between the stones.

April 2012

I have added three varieties of Creeping Thyme near the front in full sun and toward the back some Scotch Moss  and its darker cousin Irish Moss. 

Since I don't know for sure which will survive best from this mix I only planted about half of the space between the stones and plan on waiting until next year before I fill in in the rest, after the results from this test are in. 

With our move now scheduled for this summer I may have to fill in everywhere before I go.  I can already see which ground covers I prefer since the spring's planting.
In order to give the perennials a better chance I am carving out the grass between them.  I'd rather have some dirt showing in the short term than have the plants struggle against the grass. 
Tedious work, but someone has got to do it - and that someone is me. 

In retrospect, leaving grass between the stones would have been fine, but I wanted to play with ground covers, so be it, there is no going back now! 
I hope it looks amazing one day...

FIRE PIT - high and dry

When we first bought the cottage we didn't truly appreciate a number of things about it until we had lived here for a while, like for example the fact that we are in a bay and boat traffic tends to be on the other side of the lake. 

Another one of these unappreciated things was the fire pit.

This is what it looks like now:

And this is what it looked like at first, in 2008:


At first it was just a concrete slab in the ground at the edge of the water (well, edge of the water for most of the summer anyway!).   A great base for a fire pit no doubt, but quite overgrown since the previous owners weren't big on using it.  For the first 2 years we cut back the bush around it and I planted daylilies along the water's edge, the ones in the photo above were the original lilies that inspired me to replicate them throughout the Lakefront Garden.

 Then in year 3 we added a circle of rocks around it.  Technically not required to control the fire, but boy did it make a big difference in the appearance. 
It just looked more like a fire pit.

In spring 2011 the water was really high and the grass around the fire pit was sodden.
Too wet to use the fire pit! 
Disaster.
We love having a fire so much that we had them in the middle of the lawn that spring, we just couldn't go without.

So later that summer we had a lot of small stones delivered, and I mean a lot.  As evidenced from the truck leaving a massive mound of them in our driveway. 

Enough for the fire pit and the path to the driveway.

And the space under the deck between the North Deck Garden and South Deck Garden.

Everyone pitched in, from the youngest to the oldest.

And now that it is done, we no longer climb into bed with black feet at the end of the night, we can fit in more chairs (since we moved the big rock back), the kids can sit at our feet and roast marshmallows and those stones definitely won't catch on fire.

We love it.

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LAKEFRONT GARDEN

While most of my gardening happens in the shade, the "Lakefront Garden" is the exception.  It is 100 feet of shorefront above the retaining wall.   As you can see, it was originally home to driftwood, some ferns and lots of opportunity when we bought.

Summer 2008

 

Spring 2010 

Here you start to see the daylilies, which form the backbone of the garden, filling in.

In this garden you'll also find:

• Sundrops that I transplanted from the Lily Garden last year where they add a great splash of colour before the daylilies are ready
• Yellow Loosestrife (not invasive according to the website) which are a great height for mixing in with the daylilies and I love love their bright yellow flowers.  They bloom slightly after the Sundrops, so together they combine to have a dash of yellow for quite some time here
• Oxeye daisies, which I gather from the roadside and which the Ontario government considers a weed

• Pink Hardy Geranium
• Blue German Iris
• Blue Siberian Iris

March 2011

As you can see, in the spring it can flood, submerging the plants in icy water, but they don't seem to mind, thank goodness.

August 2011

Mostly common orange, but also some other colours I got from a Vessey's assorted grab bag.  I think we are really lucky to have such a gorgeous wildflower, but I've read that it can be aggressive compared to hybrids, so we will have to see if it takes over and snuffs the others out.  I certainly hope not because I love the mix - mostly orange, with an occasional surprise: