March, and a New Season is at Hand!

Somehow, it has gotten to be March.

Yesterday, I went in search of signs of Spring. Although it is definitely still winter out there, there are signs of life, already... which also means that the time is at hand to start working outside, again.

As always, the forsythia is one of the first signs of spring. It's just starting to show a few bits of yellow.

I remember that, from being a kid in Denmark, too. When we could see the yellow of the forsythia, we knew that spring is not that far away.

Looking around, the lawn has that "lumpy" appearance that follows winter. We have moles this year, over between "BeBe's Island" and Magellan. They were very active a month or so back, but don't seem to be, anymore.

There is still standing and slow draining water over at the base of Orange's Hill. Clearly, the uphilll changes in construction and drainage now comes this way.

Looked for more signs of spring; not sure what this bush is called but it made for a pretty photo.

We've had a fair number of winter storms this year, and there are quite a few loose branches and twigs that need to be picked up.

There are also "dead things" to be removed, the old daisy stalks, and last year's dead irises. 

Never any shortage of things to do, when you have a garden!

Taking Back Our Garden from the Wilderness

Well, there it is, our lovely home in the afternoon sun.

Things have sure grown up, since we moved here.

What I suppose I will think of as "The Red Dragonfly Years" added a certain air of neglect... which isn't really neglect so much as a lack of time and energy.

I look forward to resuming the quest to create something that resembles an English garden. Or, at least, something that is our garden, reclaimed...

The lawn... and so many other things have gotten away from me.

Some parts look pretty respectable, all in all, like the lower driveway area. Nothing that a good lawn mowing can't maintain. Trim a tree here, cut back a shrub there...

We have a shrubbery!

I mowed today... or at least tried to get a little further along.

The thickness of the grass (and weeds) and the pervasive mist and rain have made mowing much like trying to create creamed spinach with a lawn mower.

Not proud of that thicket down at the end, though.

The foreground looks OK, though... even if it's mostly weeds.

At least Daisy has a place to poop, without getting her butthole in the weeds!

Eventually, I'll get to those weedy bits down there, as well.

But we have lots of lovely things going on, as well. And those are worth celebrating. I don't want to get all mopey, because I do love this place... and all it needs is a little more time and care. Funny... how important "time" becomes, sometimes.

The eucalyptus tree is blooming!

That's the second time, since we moved here.

Funny how eucalyptus trees aren't even supposed to grow here, but we have the 2nd largest eucalyptus tree in Port Townsend.

Eucalyptus trees also aren't supposed to bloom, here... so much for the whole "supposed to" gig... but we are well aware that we have a garden filled with "not supposed to's." I actually rather like that whole idea... and I am sure we will develop new "not supposed to's" in the years ahead.

Meanwhile, another not-supposed-to, also known as the Princess Tree, is now blooming quite well.

I suppose its only real "concession" to living this far north is that it sets bloom and leafs out much later than the native plants.

They don't really get a lot of snow in South-East Asia, but I'm guessing certain sub-varietals of these grow in mountain regions, and that's the kind we have out there.

Well, it's getting pretty late in the day, and I should get this out and published... another little reminder of our surroundings, and a snapshot of what is happening in the garden as time moves by.

Meanwhile, I'll close out for today with a shot of the first white iris of the season. Noticed it earlier, when I was mowing behind the labyrinth.

Means the rest of them can't be far behind.

Starting afresh...

And so, a new year begins. Somehow, it has become 2017.

This morning we woke up to the remnants of a few ice pellets that came down last night... seeing white on the ground for New Year's Day is something I have not seen in a really long time... perhaps not since I lived in Denmark as a child.

Thinking about my childhood, and walking around through fields and woods during this fallow time of the year... the colors then were as they are now; some green but mostly shades of gray and brown as things lie dormant.

Nature is alive, but not growing.

Around the garden, our resident mole seems hell bent on causing ongoing disruption in the labyrinth! Of all the places it could dig its tunnels, it chooses the labyrinth. Oh well...

Meanwhile, one of our forsythias seems to think it is spring-- a few yellow flowers a peering out. Reminds me that here in the Northwest we seldom see much of a really "hard" winter. Can't say as how I mind. The relative maritime mildness allows us to grow all sorts of things here, even though we are about as far north as you can get and still stay in the continental US.

The "microclimates" here never cease to amaze me. Just a mile up the road, there's actually a good layer of snow and ice on the road into town. Here? Just a few thin patches of white...

Well. One can but hope this will be a better year than 2016!

Winterizing the labyrinth

So it finally became time to "winterize" the labyrinth. Somewhat later than usual, since we now have the gallery, and have been dependent on Wednesdays-- our official "day off"-- to be nice enough to work outside.

A few random leaves remain...

Ironically, today was supposed to be rainy, windy and nasty but instead we were served up a nice sunny and breezy day.

I started up outside around 9:00am, wanting to get outside and "get things done," just in case the weather forecast turned out to give us the promised nastiness a little bit late.

There's a fresh dusting of snow on the Olympics, and it was surprisingly "fresh" out there as I started gathering tools for the day's work. Winter is coming-- there is little doubt about that.

The recent winds have pretty much blown all the leaves off our trees-- save for a few tiny clusters here and there-- so the first task at hand was to rake up all the leaves. That quickly turned into quite a pile. I had intended to haul them to the dump with some brush, but decided instead to pile them in the mulch/compost pile... putting a bunch of wet grass on top of them will keep them from blowing away later.

That's about 10 large plastic bins of leaves, covered with heavy wet grass

Truth be known, the leaves were already pretty heavy and wet from the steady rains for a couple of months... and they made quite a mound. I think I probably hauled 9-10 big plastic bins' worth over there.

The labyrinth was a bit rough looking when I started work. Not only had it not had much maintenance done since July, but a mole seems to have taken a liking to it... and a number of small mole hills had to be leveled.

Getting the labyrinth ready for winter is really a three step process.

First, I mow the grass... and quite a few weeds that have taken root. This also gets rid of a few loose leaves.

Second, I weed-whack all the brick lines that create the labyrinth pathways. That was actually a hell of a pain in the butt as I didn't just have to weed-whack, but I often had to stop to scrape piles of soil away, deposited there by the resident mole. Still not sure what (if anything) we are going to do about him.

Daisy has inspected the freshly "shaved" labyrinth and approves

The weed whacking actually took the better part of 1 1/2 hours, and also served as a reminder that I am NOT 29 anymore!

Once weed-whacked, the final step is to run the mower one more time-- with the grass bag-- to pick up all the loose grass and debris. The mower with the grass bag actually works as a nice "picker-upper" and the blade works as a  bit of a turbo fan to blow loose bits off the bricks.

All the heavy wet grass and dirt bits ended up as a heavy layer on top of the previously raked leaves. In a couple of years, it should have cooked down to a nice mulch we can use somewhere else.

I feel pretty relieved to get this done-- almost a month later in the year than in 2015. But better late than never, and since the growing season is now seriously over, hopefully little will have to be done before spring growth starts up again.

There are still lots of things to be done in the yard during the winter season, but this was the most urgent item on the agenda, and I feel happy to have gotten it out of the way.

Sadly, we have very little time to garden these days... other commitments seem to eat up all our daylight hours.

As I walked around, it was nice to see that these purple flowers-- purchased this summer from the "save me, I am almost dead" bin at the local garden center-- doing very well and still blooming. The entire plant has more than doubled in size!

Small victories...

Longer Days...

Sometimes, it's the little things we notice.

Like sitting at my desk and looking out, and then realizing that I can actually see what's going on, at 5:00pm... where just a month ago, it would pretty much have been pitch black.

There are many things about living here that reminds me of my childhood in Denmark... the weather and the light... and what grows here. Of course, some things-- like the eucalyptus trees-- don't grow in Denmark, at all.

So far, it seems to have been quite a wet winter, which bodes well for the year ahead. After a super dry 2015, I'm at least marginally hopeful that we won't end up with a severe drought situation again. The rain has translated into a lot of snow at higher elevations... which means there are decent water reserves on the ground. At Snoqualmie Pass, the December snowfall was the highest recorded in the 60 years they have been keeping track up there.

As of late, I have been starting to think about the garden again, and about what we might do this coming year. Last year was pretty much a write-off, in part because we had zero funds to sink into gardening, in part because we went to Denmark for 24 days in the middle of the peak growing time (June) so we decided not to do the whole vegetable thing, at all. We did put down some tarps late in the year to keep weeds from growing... not sure how effective that is turning out to be.

The only other "thing" going on out there is waiting to see if the Peony seeds we put in in the fall will turn into "something" when the warmer days of spring arrive. Growing peonies from seed is evidently not the way most people go.

Still contemplating whether or not to undertake the project of starting in on the garden beds.

Labyrinth Fall "Haircut."

Our labyrinth got its "Fall Haircut" yesterday-- it looks nice and "tidy" and hopefully will make it through till spring without needing any further work.

The labyrinth is really one of our favorite features in the garden. We built it after being inspired by a lavender labyrinth we saw on a farm we visited, near Mount Shasta, California.

Building it was quite a lot of work-- and took almost a full year. It has had a few years to mature, and the surrounding row of lavender plants have filled in nicely.

The ongoing maintenance is quite a lot of work, as well. We didn't foresee that the brick lines that define the labyrinth's paths would need to be weed whacked quite as often as they do. I think I had an expectation that "maintenance" would mean regular mowing (easy enough) and then using the string trimmer maybe once in spring, and once in fall. Not so much so. The bricks get covered by grass remarkably quickly, and I'm probably out there weed whacking at least once a month between April and October.

It's a lot of work-- the average maintenance session takes about two hours-- but well worth it.

Our Purple Flowering Tree

Since we've moved in here, we've been admiring the rapidly growing tree with giant leaves, located at the north end of the labyrinth.

A few days ago, we noticed it had delicate pale purple trumpet flowers, near the top of the tree.

A little detective work identified it as a "Princess Tree" or "Empress Tree" (Paulownia Tomentosa) which is actually native to China and South-east Asia. Although a bit of an "exotic" tree, this area would be considered part of its normal range.

Here in the US, it's actually considered to be an "invasive" species, as well as rated rather "messy" by many horticulturalists. Evidently, they are all but impossible to get rid of, once they have become established, and if you cut one down, it tends to come back with 100's of shoots from the roots. And not just "a little bit," but for years after the tree was cut down. The 2-foot long seed pods are also extremely messy.

That said, it's also quite popular for use in parks and decorative landscaping, being quite pretty as well as fast growing. I suppose we'd better keep our eyes on it, as these trees can grow to some 80 feet in height!

For the moment, though, we're just enjoying the pretty flowers.