Weekend Report

by Cynthia MacKinnon-Morris

The previous weekend was spent, in large part, driving a large truck to and from the "ROCK" place. We had a window of 2 hours to get our loads, have them weighed, then unload at home. There was an unanticipated slowdown, however. At a busy intersection (fourway stop) between us and "ROCK," a group of people were collecting for MDA (and not the mescaline and amphetamine sort). They stood in the middle of the road at all four stop points and offered pails in which to toss your donation. Nice idea. Of course one doesn't like to bypass without giving--which I guess is what the Harley Davidson bikers Association was counting on. And, we did give. The issue was that we made six or eight passes within that 2 hour span. Our intentions were not to 'give' each time, plus we were under the time-gun and this slowed down traffic a fair bit. Scott was at the wheel and I just averted my eyes; we did think that perhaps they would recognize us: "Oh yes, those people gave already." But no, bit of the guilt-trip-look each time we passed and then, one burly-women called after us: "It could be you next!" Great. I knew we should have broken our donation down into singles!

Anyhow, our first trip load-wise, was uneventful--except for the 5 or 6 tries Scott made backing this truck over the sidewalk and up to the rock garden area to dump the 2 tons of pea gravel. I am not entirely sure why this was necessary but it may have been due to .... well, okay, I haven't a clue. It did look professional though Scott! And off we went to pick up (and drive the MDA gauntlet) the one ton of sand and mega-tons of flagstone. The flagstone had to be unloaded pieces at a time and some of it was pretty heavy--the rest was small annoying pieces. The clock was ticking and the Stiltskins changed jobs--me on the truck and Scott setting flagstone on the driveway. Phew! done finally. Out of sheer desperation, we dumped that load of sand right on the driveway. The rest of the weekend was spent wheeling and raking sand and pea-gravel--for the flagstone foundation and the rock garden. Not very picturesque--thus, no picture.

The only noteworthy outcome of the weekend was the new-found play area for the kitties. They were in seventh heaven! The sand pile presented many opportunities for fun--and just in case the reader suspects other uses for the sand pile? our cats are whimpy! They scratch furiuosly at the door during the evening as if there were a lion on their tails. Open the door and swoosh--------into the litter box. Sometimes, if a bunch come in at the same time, we have a queue at the box. Go figure. They do, I must note, have two litter boxes in the garage (it's accessible from outside), but I guess there is no place like one's own special litter box. When, I wonder, will they realize that the outdoors is one big litter box just a-waiting for some action? And while I am on this topic, one more thing. I bought some lovely fountain grass and planted it. So, what do you think they use as their grass-resource? I try to point out that there is a sea of lush green grass all around us, but oh no, got to eat the expensive stuff. We have decided to plant some catnip and oatgrass seeds on the south side of the house and let them have a free-for-all.

This weekend was one of excitement (landscaping type excitement). We spent Saturday at nurseries--well, one nursery to receive free advice, otherwise we hit grocery stores and hardware stores--the Stiltskins are not made of gold you know! Pocket books lighter, we returned home victorious.

Sunday was the big day. Scott puzzle-pieced together half of our patio with flagstone while I tried frantically (AGAIN) to eradicate the Chameleon plants.
I carted out more loads of pea gravel (we were generous in the estimation of our needs) and actually exposed some of our lovely rocks in the rock garden. This is a close-up of one of our prized fossil stones.
Then I began the process of digging, adding good soil to the not very good clay, and planting. What I thought would be an hour's job turned into an hours' labour. Very quickly the pea gravel was hurting my bare knees, plus I was tiring, so the neighbours got to see me lying on my side, perched on an elbow, in the gravel bed. Just my moaning alone (about the amount of unexpected effort and time) added an additional hour onto the job.

I had gone to the 'nurseries' armed with a list of plants. We came away from the 'nurseries' with different plants. It got so difficult to read the darn tags and match with the list, that I gave up. As an anchor, we got a dwarf Alberta Spruce (Scott's choice); he also likes the look of dwarf creeping Juniper so in it went. We added some colour with: Salvia (purple Meadow Sage), Lavandula (Silver Edge Lavender), we had already planted the creeping Phlox on the berm but added another couple pinky-purple plants: Delosperma (John Profitt) and Sedum (Autumn Joy). Scott likes yellow (Green Bay Packer colour) so in went another couple sedum (Stonecrop) and Coreopsis (Tickseed). For some interesting foliage Campanula (Bellflower), and Blue Fescue (I love grasses). This is a side view of the rock garden: My personal favourite are the Sempervivum (Hen & chicks). My grandmother, Hattie, had these planted in front of their little house and they always fascinated me. We would take the little chicks and stick them in a bare section of garden and voila! they would grow like magic! The other thing that made them special was that my grandfather thought that flower gardens were frivilous and Hattie wasn't allowed to keep much of a garden. He said that the only decent flower out there was that of the potato plant. So, these little plants were Hattie's pride and joy. My own hen/chicks that I planted last summer are thriving and I wanted to continue their growth in our rock garden as a memory of Hattie.

To end this week's garden journal, here are a couple pictures of our little rain forest garden along the north side of the house.

I took these photos just minutes before the sun went down--which is the only time of the day that this garden receives direct sunlight.