In the interests of honesty I feel compelled to admit there are actually some areas of my garden that are pretty nice. Large parts of the back garden are in good shape, due to being worked on pretty hard in the last two years. It's the front garden's turn for a makeover this year. I've been working on redoing a large bed in the front to make it more in keeping with a prairie/meadow/drought-tolerant scheme, and it's been monopolizing all my time and attention. Fortunately, the back garden is in good enough shape that one day of weeding was enough to whip it into shape. It could still use some tweaking, but for right now, it's a very pleasant place to sit and read a book or sip a drink. Nigel does that whenever he can. I, of course, seldom do.
 |
| This is the view through the back gate into the back garden |
 |
| Looking across the stream into the northeast shady corner |
 |
| Directly to the right as you step through the gate |
 |
| To the left as you step through the gate is this path, put in last spring, that meanders in back of the stream along the fence |
 |
| The gravel path is currently covered in Douglas fir debris, but it's there |
 |
| View of the stream from the chairs |
A couple of years ago we installed the electric fence to deter raccoons from playing in the stream. It seems to have helped, I don't see evidence of them moving the rocks around or digging up the plants that are growing in it. I haunted thrift stores last year looking for cheap/chipped insulators to top the plastic poles as decoration, they don't serve a purpose other than that.
 |
| Sharp-eyed visitors will see this scenario |
 |
| There's another Jurassic denizen in the tree, can you see it? |
 |
| There are also rubber duckies in the waterfall |
 |
| Here's the beginning of a path that leads into the shady northeast corner |
 |
| It's a bit of a wild mish-mash but I like it |
 |
| Hart's tongue fern, Beesia, Heuchera, Arisaema ringens, Polypodium scouleri, Saxifraga 'London Pride' and our native PNW vanilla leaf (Achlys triphylla) |
 |
| Closer look at the Arisaema ringens flower |
 |
| This is the fence panel that was blown down in one of our winter storms |
 |
| Schefflera underplanted with Vancouveria, Hart's tongue fern, Ajuga, Hosta, Trillium |
 |
| Jeffersonia diphylla and Actaea with Mahonia, native bleeding heart, Hosta and ferns |
 |
| This year's experiment involves a raccoon poop deterrent -- a ring of Douglas fir cones and sharp pointy BBQ sticks at the base of one of their favorite pooping trees -- which worked to keep cats from using my raised veggie beds as a bathroom, so I have high hopes it will work here |
This is the area I wrote about in a previous post a couple of years ago
here titled Gardening My Ass Off Part I. Some day soon I'll show you what I'm working on in the front.
