Man Up, Petal
The rains are coming.
And though it will be welcome for the new additions to the garden, it is not great for the older parts from a n aesthetic perspective, because things are just starting to bloom - like our fantastic pear tree! While it doesn't grow edible pears as they are tiny, for (literally) a few days every year, it is absolutely filled with gorgeous blossoms and in the sun, it is a joy to behold. But if the rains arrive, it destroys them and we miss that little window of beauty until the next year at least. This is our fifth year in the house and we have caught the rain twice already. If we get it again, it will mean that we have missed out more than we have received.
The weather is the weather.
But just in case, I went and took a few pictures from around the garden of the blossoms that are out with the pear about to open, the cherry open, the apple not yet ready, the forget-me-nots sprinkled under the apple trees, peonies on the way, the daffodils from Easter still going strong and of course - the ever-present dandelions, which the bees like.
Today, I started digging in a shallow trench around the house where there is currently grass, so as to build a flowerbed that will be filled with snow-in-summer groundcover. This will run two sides of our house and is about a half meter wide and I am lining it with heat-treated wood. I did the short section of the house today, which is about 9 meters, moving the cut grass to fill a bare patch in another place, and lined it with wood held in place with wooden stakes. I am making the stakes myself with a mitre saw, and it seems to hold. I have done similar with most of the garden beds so far, that have straight lines.
If you are wondering why we are only putting in groundcover in this area, it is because the roof is sloped and the snow in the winter falls down on two sides of the house. This is broken by the bar on the roof, but it is still very heavy and I don't think anything that is too fragile will survive it. Hopefully, the ground cover will, and for the earlier spring, we will drop tulip bulbs in anyway to bring in colour.
While I would like to keep working on it this week, rain or shine, I need to get more wood and potting soil and unfortunately, the brakes on my car have gone and won't go to the service in time. Since we have a million and one things this week spread all over the place, we have borrowed my in-law's car for a few days, but I am not going to use that to pick up wood and soil. It is nice to drive a very comfortable car, but we are only driving it as we need. I say "we" but my wife doesn't want to drive it at all. So, some of the gardening will have to wait.
I can still dig the next side trench though.
Yippee...
And now for some photos of flowers.
See you at the bottom.
That last one is of a pigeon nesting in one of our apple trees. I used a longer lens as I didn't want to disturb her sitting on the eggs. My daughter and I spent an hour watching her build the nest from our loungeroom window, with her birdman pulling twigs from our garden and gently dropping them to her through the branches. My daughter was pretty happy. However, we don't yet have anyone living in the birdhouse we made together, but today as I was working, a little bird came to visit three times over the space of a couple hours, checking the house out and then flying to nearby trees, checking the surroundings for signs of danger. Hopefully they move in!
That would make us all happy.
It is probably a good thing that I can't do too much work over the next few days, because my body is pretty sore in weird places, as it isn't accustomed to getting into the weird positions of gardening, pulling trees, or digging holes.
It will man up in time though.
Taraz
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I just did a bunch of ground cover work myself. Once it's done you'll be happy. We have a ton of clay near me which was a pain.
The clay sucks. Our yard is full if it too, which makes me sceptical we will get done of the trees to grow.
We had to add soil and compost which was a bit more than I wanted to bite off
sorry about the terrible autocorrect, I was writing from bed without my glasses on! :D
Yeah, we had to add additional soil and will have to fertilise for a while
Oh man I feel you on the soreness from the garden work. We just have to keep telling ourselves the activity is good for us and the results will be worth it.
So many blooms this time of year really helps us shake off the winter. I tske solace in mowing the dandelions as i know i have a tree with 10000 flowers right in the yard with the other blooms.
Damn! That tree is chockas with blossoms!!
One foot in front of the other. I was listening to something today while working about being relentless. I don't think I am with most things, but I can be stubborn.
It is an old guy super power.
What on earth is that? I've never seen flower heads as dense with bloosoms as those.
I limit the time I spend out there to cut down on soreness. One hour, tops, and in I go for a nice tea break.
At first I thought apple, but the leaves are the wrong shape. A bit different to our pear too.
Ufff your clicked pictures are so beautiful 😍 thanks for this beautiful content share with us 💖
You have so many flowers already; I'm surprised by this. I thought you had just started gardening out there, but I see you've been at it for a while, or the previous owner had done a good amount out there. Fruit trees! What is that blue flower?
There's nothing like flower gardening for manning up.
The old fruit trees have been in for a long time, probable well before the last owners and are flowering - the daffodils my wife put in a while ago. The little blue ones are wild forget-me-nots. They are cute. There are also pink mixed in there also.
The dandelions are all me ;D
Our favorite neighbour feeds birds so our street is most of the time full of their songs. Also birds(?) brought a few flower seeds to her yard. So she has a few flowers she never planted. It seems that birds are grateful creatures.😛
Birds in the yard are a good sign I think. I like hearing them sing and watching them go about their day.
It reminds me of an old woman near my school who had watered a beautiful large marijuana plant in her front yard, without knowing it. Kids would walk past taking flowers.
Beautiful photos. May, the time of blossoming, nature is very beautiful at this time. And the smells. Contemplating this beauty and breathing this air is much better than spending time in the office.
We have some lilac plants around that smell so great when they are in flower!
Some smells take me back to the past, to my childhood. Where the world was much brighter than now. My receptors were better :) Now my mind is better than then, but not the perception of this world.
It seems Finland is coming two months behind Istanbul :) Trees had already blossomed here, and the cherries in my garden are going to be red :)
The temperature is dropping again - it is around 12 here today! :D
Will be 28 here on Friday :)
All of these photos make it a sense of gentleness and life.
It's pretty crazy how fast the work catches up with you as you get older! I have started taking a couple of anti inflammatories after I mow the lawn each time now because I know otherwise I will be sore for days! Those photos turned out great and I hope you can get your brakes fixed without too much trouble (or cost!).
Looking very colourful :) and nice shot of the bird! Hopefully the little bird that's been checking things out moves into the birdhouse, could have been checking for danger or could have just been checking out nesting spots in the neighbourhood, hopefully the birdhouse is the best option XD
Hope the soreness doesn't last too long, did hot showers and stretching it out help any?