Strawberry picking in our front yard

Do you remember our native front yard garden? I have to share with you one of the great benefits of having a no-lawn front yard. Here it is; delicious, wild, organic strawberries that we picked today.

When we took up the lawn on our front yard, we had a small sunny area where we were debating what to plant. I envisioned some wild flowers, but Misha kept insisting on covering the whole area with Ontario native wild strawberries. I must admit I gave him a hard time about the 'strawberry patch' as I thought they were too low for the area and took up one of the most lucrative spots in our yard. At that time, little did I think of the great benefits of them actually producing delicious berries.

In the end, the wild strawberries worked out well as a ground cover. They are very low maintenance, spread fast and survive well under our Norway Maple.

Today was the harvest day and we filled our bowl with tiny, red berries. They take a while to harvest as they are small and hide in bunches under the leaves.  However, it was rewarding to harvest food from our front lawn where two years ago we only had grass growing.

The berries are delicious, sweet and sour, just like the cultivated varieties, but better.

We are debating what delicious culinary recipe to use them for. Might freeze them until we make up our mind.

Mia

Privacy screen in our backyard – The cedar battle

A relationship is made up of compromises; we all know that. However, a different vision for the garden can lead to some quite heated discussions; at least in our household.

You might remember that when we bought our house the first thing we did was to plant these cedar trees. I hoped that they would provide much needed privacy in our backyard. Misha wasn’t that keen on the idea so he only agreed to get a few of them. This took the cedar line less than half way along the fence. Here they are.

After two years, it has become obvious that having cedars half way along the fence doesn’t solve our privacy issue. Also, the fence line looked unfinished and it still exposed the neighbour’s unsightly pigeon coop. So, I proposed to Misha my idea: let's buy more cedars and plant them all the way along the fence. 

He didn’t like my idea at all. His vision included flowers along the fence that he had already planted. After two months of discussing, arguing, reasoning and negotiating, Misha finally agreed, with a heavy heart, to plant more cedars. We went to Home Depot to pick out the tallest cedars we could find.

Emerald cedars at Home Depot

It took us several trips to get them home as we could only fit four into our car at one time. Misha never gave up fighting for his vision; after each trip he would say "Don't you think that's enough?", but I persevered.  We planted lilies, poppies, irises, and wild flowers in front of the cedars to tone down their formal look. Here is the before...

...and after.

I love these cedars; they provide instant privacy and the neighbour's pigeon coop disappeared into the green distance. Misha gained a huge gold star in our relationship book.

Mia

  

My new obsession - Flower pot gardening

I am obsessed with flower pots. I love that you can create a little colourful garden oasis in them, whether you live in an apartment or a house. Flower pots for me are the ultimate reminder that summer has arrived.

The most exciting part about creating a flower pot is picking out the flowers; there are so many choices and so many colours. We started our flower hunt at Home Depot where we picked up some classic yellow/blue pansies. 

I wanted to add some more textures and greenery so we went to Sheridan Nurseries for a bigger selection. I must admit that I got carried away by seeing all the flowers; I couldn’t hold back.

Sheridan Nurseries

We picked up five additional annuals including my favourites, Silverdust and a yellow Poppy. The only rule I kept was to stay within two main colours, yellow and purple/blue. When Misha saw my shopping cart he started to get worried that our pot might be a bit too small for all my selections.

When we got home I was eager to get started with the planting, despite of a light drizzle. We placed the pot in it's final location and filled the bottom up with stones for better drainage.

Then came the soil. We used all purpose soil in the bottom and triple mix soil at the top.

I played a bit with the flower arrangement...

 ...and then it was time for planting.

I watered the flowers well...

...and this is how our flower pot looks one week after planting.  Every morning I take a quick look at it from our bathroom window, just to soak up the beautiful colours and check how the flowers are growing.

Flower pot - Snapdragon, Dianthus, Poppy, Silverdust, Shamrock, Ranunculus, Pansy, Marguerite

This was our first adventure into annual flower pot gardening and I love it so much that I am already planning our next flower pot, and a window box, and a smaller pot, ... and ... 


Mia

P.S. I will post an updated photo of the flower pot in a couple of months. I can't wait for them to grow.

Apple tree pruning - The official start of our garden work

Pruning our apple trees is our first official gardening day of the season.  Last year I did it myself, but this year Mia insisted on helping. She felt I had been too extreme and not provided her enough shade to lay under the apple tree. I did most of the lopping with the shears and Mia followed up by trimming the smaller twigs with the secateurs.  We're getting better at this; it took us half the time this year; only 2 hours for both trees.  Looking forward to lots of delicious apples this year.

Pruning our 50 year old summer apple tree

This is my yearly ritual; throwing my hat through the Granny Smith tree.  When I first researched how to prune an apple tree I found a video of a crazy English farmer that said you should be able to throw your hat through the tree once you are finished.  Mission accomplished!

Granny Smith apple tree pruned in bowl style and the hat goes through!

Rain barrel in the front yard - Curb appeal faux pas or not?

We installed a rain barrel in the back yard and have been contemplating putting one in the front as well. Our Norway Maple is a very thirsty tree. It sucks most of the water from the front yard and its canopy acts like an umbrella deflecting water out to the edge of the yard.   Our hope is to divert water from the roof onto the front yard to provide additional moisture for our native woodland plants. Our only hesitation was the aesthetics of the barrel in the front. A plastic barrel sitting in one’s front yard is not the most appealing look. See what I mean?

We are also still conscious of our neighbours’ scepticism of our front yard native garden project and a rain barrel in the front does not help. Despite this concern, we went ahead and bought another rain barrel from the Toronto Botanical Gardens.  They had the best price and we like the idea of supporting them.  We chose the terra cotta colour to blend in with our red brick. Mia was confident that we could integrate the barrel with our native garden. 

How we did it

The rain barrel came with a tap I inserted into the small hole at the bottom, a debris trap that sits in the hole in the top and an overflow connector and pipe that attaches to the hole on the back side of the barrel near the top.  

The first step was to unscrew the elbow and the drain pipe extension from the down spout. Next I placed the barrel in the area that we wanted it.  Our neighbour had some broken patio stones she no longer needed and I used these to create a solid base for the barrel and to raise it up to improve flow from the tap.  I placed the barrel on the patio stones to accurately determine where I should cut the downspout.

Next, I eye-balled where to cut the downspout using the old elbow joint and a piece of drain pipe.  It is critical to maintain an angle downward to the top of the barrel. My trusty hacksaw cut through the drain pipe quite easily.  Mia helped hold the drain pipe steady which made the cutting easier.

After that, all I had to do was attach the old elbow to the cut downspout and cut a piece of the old drain pipe and attach it to the elbow to reach to the barrel.  Then I connected a new elbow to direct the water to the hole in the top of the barrel.  I secured the pipes together with drain pipe screws and all we had to do was wait for rain. 

We covered the barrel with a cloak of our Prince of Darkness Clematis to help camouflage it. 

We added some ferns and plants to make the corner look luscious and green. The barrel blends in well and we have no regrets in installing it in the front yard. Misha

Apple tree pruning

We were fortunate to inherit a garden with two fully grown apple trees. In early March, prior to taking possession of the house, we received permission to prune the 48 year old summer apple tree and the much younger fall apple tree.  My paternal grandfather had been a fruit grower as one of his many vocations.  He always had fruit trees at his home and even grafted different varieties on one tree.  With this genetic heritage, casual exposure in my youth and extensive internet search I was ready to tackle the pruning project.  There was much discussion throughout the process as to what and how much to prune; I wanting to prune more and Mia wanting to prune less.  I kept quoting an outspoken English gardening guru on a u-tube video who said, “You should be able to throw your hat through the tree when you are done!”   I kept throwing my hat through the tree to convince Mia we needed to prune more.  She was not impressed.  Our first pruning experience was great and we ended up harvesting enough apples to store for a few months. There is nothing like a fresh, organic backyard apple on a hot summer day. 

By Misha

Before- Apple tree in need of pruning

After - Pruned tree ready for spring

Trellis making

Our beautiful climbing roses on the side of the house were becoming overgrown with hanging branches and so large we couldn’t walk by them; not great for the roses and also not the sight you want for your new house. We decided to do something about it.

Before - Rose bushes in need of support

While at Home Depot, Misha wanted to buy some ready made trellises and install them right away. I thought that this was an opportunity to make something from scratch and learn in the process.  We decided to pick up some wood and nails and make our own trellises. We created a fan shape for the design and finished the wood off with Tung oil. It took us about two hours to make two of them and we installed them with the aid of our neighbour's power drill (our lightweight B&D drill was not up to the task) and concrete screws. 

Getting ready for installation

In the end, all we needed to do was to weave the rose branches through the trellises. The final look is great. We have received a couple “it looks so professional” compliments from friends.  Can’t deny it, it feels good to make something with your own hands.


Mia

After - Trellises up and ready for the roses

Build a twig fence

During a visit to Canada Blooms, http://www.canadablooms.com/show we saw a twig wall at one of the displays.  We liked the look and the fact that it provides great habitat for birds and bugs.  We thought we would try to build one to help cover the plain concrete wall of our neighbour’s garage.  The only tricky part of building it was finding enough appropriately sized twigs and poles. Misha, always on the lookout for found items, spotted some tall cedar trunks in the yard of a neighbour who was more than happy to part with them.  We used a simple stack construction with the twigs from our apple tree pruning to build the wall.  We plan to grow some vines on it to make it a green wall.  We love the rustic feel of it and it is my favourite lounging spot in the garden. Posted by Mia.

Before

After - Twig fence ready

Cedar screen

The view to the neighbour on our south side is quite open and we wanted a screen part way along the backyard for privacy.  We struggled with what kind of shrubs to purchase as we wanted an intermittent screen.  We considered white cedar, black cedar, emerald cedar and junipers.  In the end, we settled on the emerald cedars despite our concern that they were too ornamental.  They started looking a lot better as the price dropped at Home Depot from $30.00 per tree to $10.00 per tree.  We ended up getting 7 and are really happy with them. They are easy to maintain and look bright green all year around. 
By Misha

Before - Fence in need of privacy

After - Cedars just planted

One year later - Cedars growing well