How do I love our library?

Let me count the ways.

1. Joy of Gardening

2. Food to Live By

3. Creative License

4. Anything Bill Bryson

5. The Green Gardener's Guide

6. Mrs. Miniver

7. Lambsquarters: Scenes from a Handmade Life

8. I Love Dirt!

I came home on Saturday to find a stack of holds that my husband had picked up for me. The only trouble is that there are just so many books to read and not enough time. I already had...ahem, quite a few on the go.I think Samantha was a little scared when she saw our book shelf of library goodies. ;-)

Flowers for a rainy day

It seems impossible to walk around the garden without taking pictures. Today, on one of our rare, rainy days, I am able to look at my pictures and remember the warm sun and sweet air in the garden.
This lilac was pulled out of a friends garden a few years ago. I had pretty much given up on it ever flowering when, surprise! This year it flowered and since it's close to my veggie garden, it provided lovely scents as a reward for my weeding.

I always forget these little spongy things flower. We have been spreading them around the yard and I love the little hits of yellow in the Spring.

My columbines are getting huge. They are filling up the garden nicely and seem to stretch up above all the other plants and say "see me! notice me!"

Tiny little iris from Heather. I'm always so hopeful when I put plants in the ground and darn near giddy when they flower.

One of my favourite columbines, with a daisy wanting to be noticed as well. I have noticed that the quiet, understated daisies are slowly trying to take over my front grass. I say my only option is to remove the grass around them and let them have their way. Hopefully my husband hasn't hidden my edger yet ;-)

The future looks sweet! I know I'll have to thin them out but it will be so hard. Look how cute and fuzzy they are!

Rhubarb cake recipe

See ladies, I can provide recipes too. ;-) Here is a link to the rhubarb cake recipe that I used last time.

rhubarb cake

I love the Best of Bridge series of books, so much yummy stuff in there. Since I already deleted my pics of the cake I will have to make do with more flower pictures. :-)

Works in progress

Every year we make small changes to our yard. Every year we make new plans for our yard. But honestly, I never really noticed how much our yard has changed until I recently looked at some photos from when we first moved in.

Here was our front yard with it's tiny little bean shaped garden, filled with rocks.

Then I met Heather. Heather came over with her edger and some plants and showed me the beauty of edging. I, always a diligent student, practiced until I perfected my edging. Then I kept going, edging more and more, and here is what we have today:

But this isn't the end of my edging career. This garden will grow bigger. It is it's destiny.

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And here is the left side of our back yard 5 years ago.

To the left is the tree we planted shortly after we moved in. To the right is the tree that was already planted when we moved in. We nick-named it 'Sticky' because it seemed to be one of those leafless trees... which we realized meant the tree was dead so we had to pull poor sticky out.

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Today:

Sorry for the sunspots and please ignore the blue tarp - it is hard at work composting. Now we have more trees and more flowers and the plan is for more and more garden.
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5 years ago:

Today (actually, about 10 minutes ago...):

Lots more flowers, trees with leaves!, and my new blueberry field. And lots more new and exciting ideas planned for the future.

More alliums.

Here you are, Katherine, a picture of a bunch of the alliums in full bloom.And here is a close up of one just beyond peak bloom, I love the contrast of colours.I will remember to save seeds for friends, I will remember.

Rhubarb cake

I love this cake. It is simple to make and delicious to eat...what more could you want from a cake? And if you ask me, rhubarb was just made to go with brown sugar and cinnamon topping.

Rhodos

Last summer I saw a post on freecycle for rhodos that had been pulled up. Well, I can't resist a plant in need so I contacted the person and arranged to get them. Now, I am the sort of gardener who believes that - if you water them, they will grow - but even I was a little unsure about these bare-rooted rhodos. They had been out for several (hot) days (wasn't it, Rebecca?) and when I got them their little curling leaves looked pretty sad. But with some peat moss, water and mulch they seemed to be doing just fine. And now look at them.You would think that they have always been here.

Here are our old ones on the other side of the pathway. (plus a volunteer Bridal Wreath Spirea in there)And tucked in back near the fence is this purple rhodo which is just coming into bloomAnd my mulch helper? From thisto this. He was wearing sandals. :-)I just noticed that the picture of the front yard above (with the pile of mulch) was taken a few weeks ago, look at the change in that short time.My goodness but flowers are magic.

Current pictures of the veg. garden are over here.