Sunday, June 20, 2010

Gardens and Gazebos

So where has the Witch been lately? I’ve been out in the ‘back 40’ planting out the gardens, fighting huge swarms of black flies and wild wind storms. I’m now a super hero Witch of some sort.

The garden has taken a big set back because of this weather. I’m just really pissed because it almost killed my Moon Flower vine which I have been babying for weeks inside. I had just put it out in a ceramic pot on the back deck and given it a nice little cedar trellis to climb its way onto the railing and then the next day we had high winds with gusts up to 100 kph. The poor little vine lost more than half of its leaves and was looking pretty pathetic. Luckily, the nursery had some still in stock and I bought two more. Maybe giving the first one two friends to play with will help it recover. The wind also destroyed a few plants in the veggie gardens, a pumpkin here and a sunflower there, but for the most part the rest were okay.

This is my first Moonflower on the day I planted it. Little did I know what was in store for it.
The plant id tag for my Moonflower.
The gazebo is making slow (painfully slow, but don’t tell him I said that!) progress. All the foundation stones have been placed and installed. He has cut some scrap posts to set the pattern ring on level to check the placement of the post blocks. Good thing too, as they needed some tweaking. We’ve started buying some lumber and boy, is it ever expensive. We’ve spent over $200 so far for wood and another $175 on the stones and other stuff. We might be eating hot dogs instead of steak this year.

The test posts have been cut to level up the test ring. That’s some of the actual building materials he’ll use laying on top.
I’m really wondering what the next 2 months will be like because that’s our window for summer and then afterwards you might as well get the snow blower and driveway marks ready. Hubby is now on vacation for 5 weeks so hopefully the gazebo will start to take shape. I start vacation next week for 2 weeks and I can hardly wait. The countdown is on. I’m also planning on making Canada Day Cupcakes and proudly flying all the flags I’ve got. I just love this country and I’m very proud to have been born and raised here.

I’m sharing some photos of wild lupines growing in the ditches and a bouquet of flower I picked from around the house. The Witch’s Island is a beautiful place at this time of year.

Bleeding Hearts and Lily of the Valley make a colourful bouquet.
I’ve added some Lilac to this vase.
The lupines grow all along the roads here and last for most of June.
Lupines range in colour from white to dark purple and looks their best when the colours are mixed together like this.

4 comments:

Canadian Saver said...

The countdown is indeed on for your vacation!! How many weeks do you get? I still can't believe your DH gets 3-4 weeks more than you!

At least you are starting on the gazebo so there's no backing now :-)

Lupins are my favorite!!! Soooo beautiful this time of the year... The spread like crazy, I don't know why I never tried planting some here...

The Witch said...

Ha! He gets way more than you know! He gets 7 weeks of vacation every year now PLUS a week of pre-retirement every year for the next 3 years and then 2 weeks of pr-retirement in the year after that for a total of NINE weeks that year! I get 3 weeks of vacation now plus ten days of personal time which is supposed to be used as sick time or for appointments and such but it can't be scheduled as vacation unfortunately.

We've tried collecting the seed pods from the roadside lupines and spreading them in our ditches and the field but they seem reluctant to start that way. They spread where they want and that seems to be that. I've started some in the house this year and I'm going to put them in the front ditch sometime soon. I'll let you know how (or if) that works out.

Sara said...

Wow, gorgeous flowers.. I love the color!

Sisters of the Blog said...

What beautiful flowers! We had spring start early, so our lily-of-the-valley is all done now. :0(

I have tons of lupine growing, and you're right, it grows where it wants to grow. I felt so guilty digging out two large plants that were in my vegetable garden, but they were crowding out other things. And, there are easily 100 lupine plants outside of the vegetable garden. I wasn't sure how they'd grow this year so left the ones in the vegetable garden until i saw what came up where.

I'm hoping your hubby can make great strides with the gazebo, and i'm sure a summer of hotdogs will be worth it once it's done!

megan