jeepers, creepers

I thought I should report on the front path to our house.  It's not a very inspiring part of the garden, more of a chore to take care of.  It's involved lots of destruction, cutting down plum trees and ornamental plums.  They were pretty, but they constantly just into the narrow path and they were so shaded by the birches they'd go mildewy by the autumn.  So now this is all that's left - three lovely birch trees with camellias at one end and my kaffir lime at the other.

But I'm slowly starting to integrate some plants into the bed.  One annoyance is that blackbirds love kicking the barkdust into the path so I'm planting some creepers to keep the bark in place.  The first thing I planted was some cuttings of Kenilworth ivy.  Remember these?  Back in January they were little threads I'd pinched from a crack in the sidewalk.  Now there are three or four lush clumps already forming little purple flowers (you can't really see them in this photo).

But I also decided to mix it up with some native violets.  They're shade-lovers and look remarkably similar to Kenilworth ivy; if you look closely the leaves are shaped slightly differently.  I had to buy these but split the plant into two before planting it.

In addition to some creepers, I'm slowly planting some taller shade-lovers along the fence.  I've planted some cuttings of plectranthus but so far one died and two aren't thriving very well, we'll see how they go.  But I also bought a little white calla lily.  It's flowering for the first time now.  It's tiny now but one day will be a big, lush clump!

Hopefully one day this walk will be a lush, beautiful welcome walk to our house.

the pretty and the ugly

Took a few photos of this and that around the garden this weekend and things slowly awaken to spring.  This is in the big square raised bed (formerly goldfish pond) that holds a rapidly-growing vitex shrub.  I planted dichondra silver falls two years ago and it's spread beautifully (the light blue, small leaves).  This autumn I noticed some common violets coming up in the back corner of the bed and thought, why not?  They're a bit weedy but they love the shade and they're hardy.  So I let it grow, and got a surprise - it's a white violet!

Also in this corner of the world, the oakleaf hydrangeas are starting to wake up.  I love how they keep their burgundy leaves all winter long, only dropping when the new leaves emerge.  And the first flower heads are already starting to develop!

I've also seen the first flower heads forming on my new daffodils, I can't wait to see how they look!  And my good old clivia have put up their flower heads too (no photos yet though, there's not much to see).  Although our unseasonably warm week is over and it's back to winter temperatures, the plants are still gearing up for spring.

And so are the weeds, if they ever really stopped.  I'm sure every gardener has at least one "ugly corner", that bit they wish would go away, that bit they try not to look at.  This is my ugly corner. 

Ever since last year's flooding I've had a lot harder time keeping the weeds down; the mud and debris from all my neighbours deposited weed seeds between every pebble.  And this part of the garden, next to the compost bin, hot water and clothes line, has never been very pretty.  First I let the self-seeding alyssum go because at least it was something pretty.  But now it's gone crazy and so have all the other weeds.  I don't like letting weeds go nuts, because once they seed they never stop coming.  I really need to spend the time to rip it all up.  Maybe next week...