Despite neglect

Despite the months and months of neglect, the side yard is still doing what it's supposed to. The lavender is blooming and the oregano/marjoram is, too. I was so pleased to notice that when I put the compost out this morning that I picked a stem and now my pockets and their contents smell pleasantly of lavender. What a delightful offshoot of taking the trash out.

Well, taking the compost out, anyway. The bin was so heavy that I could barely shift it. It goes out every 2 weeks, so this represents a good chunk of our leaf-sweeping. Hopefully the backyard is tamed now and we won't need to take much more out of there. The front we've only gone over once. My neighbour has about a dozen bags of leaves out this morning and there is a suspicious lack of leaves in the street and all around. I think he's been clearing for everyone. It's his style. We maybe should have a good go at our front and side, just to give the grass one last back-scratch before the freeze sets in, but there isn't anything that is in catastrophic need of clearing. The tree in front still has a good percentage of its leaves, anyway. The maple in back, on the other hand, is almost completely denuded.

Side blooming

The herbs are blooming now. It's a treat (as I mentioned) to have the lavender flowering, and the thyme is flowering, too. The oregano will be blooming shortly.

A first

The lavender has flowers! I am very happy about that. I cut it back quite severely at the beginning of last summer and apparently that was a terrible mistake. It's now established enough to put out pretty little purple things and I'm a happy camper. But I am also so basically vicious and destructive in the garden that I am already thinking "maybe that means it's time to divide it". I should just lie back and enjoy the show.

Autumn Clean-Up

Yesterday, I raked leaves and put them into bags.  After finishing clearing the "lawn" (don't worry, "clearing" should have been in quotes, too, as of this morning), I turned around and saw the leaf-littered side yard and decided to tackle it right away.  Usually I just let it sit and be leafy all winter long, on the theory that the leaves are mulch and prevent weeds from taking an early hold in the spring and keep the ground moist if there's a dry spell.  But there's this tar spot thing and I thought I couldn't leave them be.  

So, I put on some thick gloves and clawed around the base of all my plants.  It was quite nice sometimes and quite nasty at others.  The thyme greeted me with a lovely scent which lingered in the air.  I thought the lavender would be even nicer, but it had been beset by some kind of mushroom which then rotted at its base, so the lavender smell was overpowered by that dusty fusty musty mushroom smell.  That became quite familiar to me.  There were a lot of those little nasty spheres which actually turn into a sinister black powder when they decay.  Nothing eats them, so I am quite certain that they are very bad.

After the leaves that had fallen from the trees were taken care of, the side still looked a bit ragged.  The glads, irises and daylilies were all past their peaks, but still somewhat clinging to life through a few yellowing spears.  I got rid of the worst of the yellows and then cut the rest short.  I don't think there is time for real new growth before the winter and hopefully they'll concentrate on their bulbs for the rest of the year.  

I pulled up the last of the dead marigolds and zinnias, the dead nasturtiums and the gone (never really arrived, actually) scarlet runner.  I left the gazanias, of course.  I can spare another few hours to clean them out when the time comes.  I can't believe they're still going.  When I got them, I said "Hopefully, they'll last for a while".  Five months is, indeed, a while.  I'm more than slightly satisfied.

I'll take pictures later, after I've put in the last of the bulbs.  Yes, that's right.  I haven't finished planting those bulbs.  Sigh.

Culinary Herbs

The garden at home is not really meant to produce edible things.   Too many dogs relieving themselves on the leaves, too many passers-by using the soil as an ashtray, too many chips of paint from an uncertain era dropping from the house.  Nonetheless, there are a few herbs in there.  I grow herbs mostly because I like the big green patches that they can produce.  The walking thyme, for example, can get where it wants to go in no time at all.  The lavender is not fulfilling my dream of fragrant drifts throughout the beds, but it keeps growing and I like that about it.  The stuff I've been calling mint isn't mint after all.  Probably oregano.  I tore a chunk of it out this evening.

It was muscling in on the gladiolus territory.  I love the herbs and their obliging way of growing healthily in whatever there is, but I can't let the glads get suffocated.  I'm quite emotionally invested in the glads. 

Last weekend, I brought home from the plot some strawberries and some chives to plant at home.  Chives and parsley are culinary herbs I would love to have patches of at home.  

I never use a whole "bunch" (as defined by the grocery store) of chives, and I often don't use up all the parsley, even though I do try.  The obvious answer is to grow them myself and take small bits when necessary.  

I would be delighted to get an indoor herb garden going, but there is the question of which window is Chutney-the-cat-proof.  The chives I planted at the beginning of this year were growing alright but they got a mysterious mould-like substance in their pot and I didn't dare let it linger.    The undead basil is still growing on the window-ledge.  I even pinched it to encourage it to grow out instead of up.  It will need to go out soon enough.  

I should try again with the indoor garden, but in the meantime, I have some chives to keep me going in the summer months.  Let's hope that they survive. 

after

I'm back (although not yet back to gardening).  

I did see some absolutely wonderful other people's gardens while I was gone.  Probably I'll put some lessons learned from them into the blog after I've had a chance to filter the ~2000 pictures I took.  However, this blog isn't about other people's consistently marvellous gardens.  This blog is about MY inconsistent gardening.

The garden, having been neglected these two full weeks, is looking mighty fine even if I do say so myself.  My dire predictions of missing everything were absolutely wrong.  The grape hyacinths are busting out beautifully.

The daffs are STILL GOING!! 

Better yet, no-one has obviously stolen them.  A little while ago, a strange man suggested to the sweary one that he should steal flowers from the derelict school up the street.  Now, I have to admit that the thought did cross my mind that they have a really fabulous daffodil garden going on and presumably when the bulldozers finally arrive, the demolition crew aren't going to painstakingly rescue all of those delicious bulbs.  I have yet to work up the nerve to make a midnight raid.  I keep thinking that really, it would be like a public service to dig up those lovely perennials; the taxpayers' money went towards making that garden!  Surely it shouldn't be wasted along with the building.  Of course, given my inconsistencies, I am not the most worthy recipient.  Also, if my garden were awash with daffodils and the school garden had a my-garden-sized hole in its display ... I think someone would be able to put two and two together.  At any rate, I still have daffodils in my garden.  I haven't checked on the school.

The tulips are out, now, too.  

Even the late tulips at the dark end of the garden are starting.  I can't remember what this one was called, although I think it might have had something to do with a WWI battle site.  I do like it a lot, though. 

This has in the past been the best time for the garden.  I think I may have fewer tulips coming now than there were in previous years.  This may be due to some aging of the bulbs.  It may be due to my appalling habit of forgetting where the bulbs are and digging them up over the summer.  (They are then subjected to the indignity of sitting out in the open for months until I remember to plonk them into the dirt somewhere ... anywhere.  I did even forget to bring one bunch of unfortunates in out of the sun for really quite a shockingly long time.)  It may be because I haven't done much to make the soil nicer for them in the past few years.  The excellent tulip-obsessed blogger yarnstorm puts in all new tulip bulbs every year.  This shocks my frugal soul (what does she do with the "used" bulbs?), but you can't argue with her results.  

Of course, the real question is: "What survived?"  It's not enough to have a couple of beautiful tulips.  If I am going to be a gardener, I need to be able to grow stuff in more than one way.  

First of all, let me explain.  While we were living it up, sweltering under sun-drenched 30+ degree weather in Paris, back at home the temperatures were hovering around zero and steel-grey skies poured oceans of chilly rain onto the ground.  We didn't miss spring here because it delayed itself for a couple of weeks.  Our maple tree is in full flower.  The other trees (lindens, maybe?) aren't even that far along yet.  The natural world in this city looks very fresh and green, just like early spring.  

All of those hot-weather plants I dumped into the ground weren't going to enjoy the cold nights, I thought.  Little did I know that winter would return.  

Nonetheless, it looks like maybe the nasturtium is clinging to life.

There is the barest possibility that one or two marigolds will have survived the shock.  

The scarlet runner beans by the house are possibly going to make it in the long run.

The scarlet runner beans on the guy wire (the whole point of the srb's) look very much like they won't make it in the long run.  

The lavender, which I savaged, seems to have recovered enough to be producing plump leaves.  I would love to grow large quantities of lavender.  It's not really hot and sunny enough here to do it well, though.  

All in all, that's not the weed-ravaged nightmare I was anticipating.