Tuesday, July 14, 2015

My Northern (slightly feral) Garden

My Northern Garden 2015
Welcome to my home!
Since no one said no to a garden tour in my last post, I'm taking it as a 'yes please' and giving you a tour!  As you can see, I have a very well manicured yard!

My Northern Garden 2015
This is the stone retaining wall with an infestation of wild rose.  I 'trimmed' this area this spring by the fancy 'whatever survives the rake gets to stay' method.  It's actually a good source of rosehips in the fall, and I'm hoping to do some preserves with them this year! 

My Northern Garden 2015
My planted garden leading up to the door.  This garden has been here forever, but I dug out the old dirt and replaced it with new rich soil this spring.  I love the rock tiers!


My Northern Garden 2015
"Vintage Mix"  So pretty.

My Northern Garden 2015
Aster, about to bloom.

My Northern Garden 2015
Baby's Breath.  Surprisingly in purple, despite the 'white' tag.  I'm good with it, because it's pretty.  The white bits are some Lobelia that's not doing so well.
These are some of my favourites in it so far.  I've been waiting ages for the Asters to bloom, and it looks like one is finally about to!

My Northern Garden 2015
View of my lovely grass lawn.  Or erm, tree- and rose-shoot lawn.  And a couple of pots with Petunias (one of my favourite flowers).  I love sitting out here and reading and knitting.

My Northern Garden 2015
This is some sort of bush that grows behind the chairs.  I just noticed that there's some sort of berries growing on it.  Wonder what this is!  CAN I MAKE IT INTO JAM?!  Needs further research.

My Northern Garden 2015

My Northern Garden 2015
There's a ton of beautiful wild flowers along the side of the house.  Aside from the two above, there's also wild poppy, but it's done now.  I love the variety of wild flowers we have here in the Yukon.

My Northern Garden 2015
Backyard!  I know, it's horrible, but I blame it on renos.  The addition there will eventually be our master suite!  There's a sea of (admittedly pretty) weeds growing under that bay, but eventually I'd like to plant some tall flowers there.  The hot tub looks ugly, but it's glorious in the winter!  Nothing like sitting out in a hot tub under the stars and northern lights in -30C. 

My Northern Garden 2015
This is Fireweed, our Territorial flower.  It's my absolute favourite flower, and is entirely responsible for my new favourite colour.

My Northern Garden 2015
Chokecherry and Saskatoon berry bushes!  We also have a Chokecherry tree and Saskatoon tree in the yard, which is pretty cool.  I love the contrast in the leaves and berries in both plants right now.  I've made all sorts of things with these, including chokecherry syrup, saskatoon jam, and saskatoon pies!  Mmm I'm so excited for fresh saskatoon pie.

My Northern Garden 2015
And oh hey, there's my canoe veggie garden!  It's not actually doing as well as last year, but I blame the squirrel.  You can see the carrots in the front there.

My Northern Garden 2015
The onions on the other side are dying, for some reason.  At least the dill is doing well!  Doesn't the bloom look like fireworks?

My Northern Garden 2015
Broccoli across the top, with lettuce, radish, and beets across the bottom.  That big empty spot was supposed to be where I was supposed to stagger the radishes, but uh forgot.  I should get on that.

My Northern Garden 2015
Aren't these broccoli so cute?!  A man at the greenhouse told me they do really well here, and if I leave them over a couple of frosts, they'll be really sweet.  CURIOUS. 

My Northern Garden 2015
Kale and what was supposed to be spinach - which did well last year - but I fought a bitter battle with a squirrel this spring, and my spinach got caught in the cross-fire. :(

My Northern Garden 2015
Don't know what kind of tree this is, but I keep calling it a weeping willow.  Looks more aspen or something, but whatever.  The bush to the right blooms pretty pink flowers in the spring - you can see them in this post.

My Northern Garden 2015
And last but not least, the dead bush that lives below my sewing room window.  I'm going to rip this out and plant raspberries!

I hope you enjoyed the tour around my yard.  I certainly did - it made me look at everything closer, and now I want to know what everything is in it. 

8 comments:

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    1. I should've know I was going to have problems with them. I found a stash of fresh pinecones dug in that section of the garden this spring while I was tending the soil. Tossed all of them away. Next time I'll stack them in a neat pile and then HOT PEPPER THE HELL OUT OF THE TOP LAYER OF SOIL. Little jerks even destroyed the webbing on the bench there, and snapped the ropes I'd tied around the canoe to give it support. *grumble*

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  2. Beautiful! And I love your canoe veggie garden. That is fabulous.

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    1. Thanks! The natural soil in the Yukon is generally really thin, so your choice is digging up the clay and sand and gravel and working to establish good earth via replacement...or find/build a container or raised garden. This seemed like a good use of an irreparable canoe. And it was free to boot!

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  3. Lovely yard! That looks like a weeping birch-we have two of them. They don't lose their leaves right away in the fall, but wait until the first or second snow fall to dump them. If you trim it in the summer it leaks sap like crazy, so prune in the late fall or very early spring.

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    1. Oh sweet, thanks for the id and advice! You're right that it has a delayed leaf drop - which is annoying when you try to rake everything up and you can just tell that tree is laughing at you. :D

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  4. There's a free, rambling feeling about your yard/ neighborhood. I love that and your canoe garden!! Maybe you should do a dye garden too! I plan to try one, but you'd probably have better luck in your climate. I'd love to see what colors you'd come it with.

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    1. Our growing season doesn't last very long though. We can have frost into June, and as early as August some years (but usually September). My garden did really poorly this year unfortunately, but it's all a learning experience, and maybe next year will be better. I'll have to do some research on dyeing gardens though, that's a fun idea!

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