Garden photos

I haven't had much time for my garden this year, but like all gardens it grows anyway.

This may be my favorite clematis (Niobe). It looks like velvet, and it really stands out amongst the cotoneaster.

The Rose Campion came back in full force, and I was surprised by the height it grew, which is why the tango lily is hidden amongst it. I may move it in the fall and bring all of the lilies forward.

I was also surprised (pleasantly) by the trumpet lily that I don't remember buying or being given so I'm not sure where it came from, but I love it.

It may be slightly neglected this year, but the garden is full of surprises for me.

long weekends

Friday started with a sighting of the pileated woodpecker that lives in the area. He (I've confirmed he is a "he" by the markings) parked himself high up in a tree just outside our fence. Fortunately I've got an amazing zoom and could capture a few shots of him preening. I think he's actually doing his prehistoric call in this shot.







It hasn't been an entirely a long weekend so far since I did work my first day at Karmavore on Saturday, but I only worked for 4 hours so it's hardly a shift. The time flew by even though it was relatively quiet. It's a nice store that is trying to bring in vegan products that you can't find anywhere else. The marshmallows seem to be very popular. They're more like gourmet marshmallows since some of them are flavoured (strawberry, cinnamon, and coconut). I tried the raw tiramisu. They received a selection of raw dessert pies in individual servings. It's a nice treat. I also bought the locally made vegan (do I even need to say that anymore?) Nanaimo bars. I'll let you know how they are.

As for the rest of the long weekend...

db and I kicked off the end of our Saturday (he went into work to do a few chores while I was working) with margueritas and were planning on a lazy evening at home until my friend RB called. He doesn't live far from here and I've been wanting to take pictures of his garden so off we went. We were greeted with more margueritas (it's the heat. It just calls for margueritas). RB's garden is full of lilies. It's his favorite flower and the garden is a show of lilies right now.




When you walk into the backyard you see the raised beds first that were once full of foxgloves and delphiniums but are now full of liatris (sorry no close ups of that flower) and lilies. There is always a lily in bloom.

His workshop/garden shed is in the corner of the garden. All along the fence is greenery and mostly many varieties of clematis. He has over 30 varieties (I think. He's lost count).












He is a bit of a bad influence and inspiration at the same time. Because he has all of these beautiful tall heathly looking lilies everywhere, I want to get more lilies. While it is nice to get new plants I don't really have the money for them. I'll wait until we own our own place before I go nuts, but then we really won't have any money for plants.















Along the back fence is a huge maple, but the plants seem to get enough light to produce five foot lilies and the black-eyed susans aren't complaining either.








RB had some beautiful photos from the morning when the sun was rising and casting a glow over the garden. We were late in the day, but I did manage to capture the sun set light on this lily.

The skies are quite orange in the evening. I can't say it's a good thing since the air quality is so poor right now. I can't remember the last time we had a day of rain. That along with all of the wildfires not too far away creates a strange looking sky.

It's difficult to see the mountains. Usually you can see for mile after mile after mile, but now the view is limited.


Tomorrow we're planning a hike. We wanted to go to Joffre Lakes, but because of its proximity to Lilooet and the Pemberton valley that's not a great area to be in right now. We're going to try something a little closer to home. I'm afraid the views won't be as spectacular, but it's always nice to get out for a hike.

Right now I think we're headed to Ambleside park for the craft market that's on this weekend. Again I have no money, but it's fun to look at the one-of-a-kind crafts.

Garden day

Sunday was all about gardens. I know it was about Mother's Day for some of you, but I can only call my mom since she lives so far away. Seeing as I'm not a mom myself (unless you count the cats, which I do), I didn't really want to go to a popular Mother's Day destination, but it was the Geranium and Pelargonium Club's sale and it was being held at Van Dusen Botanical Gardens.

We didn't go into the gardens itself. Mother's Day was not the time for that.

This photo is near the entrance in the parking lot. It looks very enticing and now I know I'll have to go back to Van Dusen for a tour.









All entrances to major attractions have totems and Van Dusen is no exception.

It does look relatively quiet, but believe me it was teeming with moms and their families.

There wasn't much left at the sale in the afternoon of its last day. If I hadn't worked Saturday I would have gone earlier for more selection. However, I found some beautiful geraniums (hardy geraniums that include a white double, called Double Jewel, and a phaeum, called Samobor) and a scented geranium that smells of nutmeg.


After I'd made my choices, we had planned to go to the Sustainable Expo, but because it was such a beautiful day, we decided to spend the time in our new garden that needs a lot of work.


This isn't our garden. This is one of the pathways leading away from the Van Dusen parking lot. The rhodos lined the whole path.










Okay so here's part of our garden. There are several raised beds as you enter the garden that leads to our door. Each bed has a rose in it (varieties unknown since they were already here).

Here db has joined in to help me weed the dandelions out of the area. They were abundant, but I had two tools to try out from LV tools. The Dandelion Digger and the Grandpa's Weeder were the two tools. I preferred the digger because it was less cumbersome to use than the weeder. Also, the weeder took out large chunks of earth so it left more of a hole that looked a lot nastier on the lawn.
I found that the digger did equally as good a job and it was light and easy to use.

Into the earth it goes.














It's hard to tell here, but the plant is being lifted out easily. The cup part of the tool presses against the earth and the plant lifts out.












Here's the result. It's hard to tell because of the out of focus foreground, but there is a significant amount of the taproot removed from the soil. Yay!

And so it went dandelion after dandelion until the trug was overflowing, and then I had to stash the rest of them alongside the house until I get some yardwaste bags.





Here's the view from our kitchen looking west.














Here's another view looking in the other direction (south).

db took the Christmas lights down that were left up by the last tenant.

As you can see from these last two photos, we do border the forest. One of the really nice aspects of this position is that we get to hear lots of birdsong.
While out in the garden we heard this very loud crazy sounding call that neither of us had ever heard before. I looked up to see a sizeable bird and it looked like he had a red head. It was definitely a woodpecker, and not just any woodpecker, but a Pileated Woodpecker. They are about the size of a large crow and have a striking red tuft on top.

Fortunately, I had unpacked the binoculars and left them near the door. The binoculars gave us a good view of him (I later confirmed it was a him since only the males have the red streak on the face). It was the largest woodpecker I've ever seen.

Here's an image to give you an idea of what they look like. I don't have a telephoto lens so I did not take this picture.

Amazing looking aren't they?