*Spring delayed...is spring denied* 2017

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Hello GoY gardeners!
Spring in Eastern Canada has been cold, wet and windy. June has given us a bit of sunshine, so I’ve braved the bugs to bring you some pictures of what’s going on in my little patch.

The Hazel thicket has a carpet of foam flower and Jack in the pulpit…

These are the rocks/boulders which help to anchor the huge firs along the stream… I’m busy planting the understory, cleaning and culling so that it will mature easily without disease which can be fostered by crowded spots. Along the stream the ferns are now accompanied by hosta, hemerocallis, geranium and astilbe.

Last season’s work on the streamside has produced some better vistas. How I love my weed whipper… it tames things in areas where I could not possibly use a mower.

Last spring I traded some irises with a friend and it’s a joy to see them blooming… and my favourite, “Double Your Fun”, is not the first to bloom this year… one of the new ones which I have no name for has taken that place of prominence.

This years Jack in the Pulpit is happy in a niche, and not too far away I found a clump of new JITP babies..

In May we had the first severe storm of the season, and it sounded like a freight train approaching. When the winds finally broke over the ridge they took down two huge poplars, practically at our back door. I watched in horror as I heard the rush of the wind and the crash of breaking branches. It was blown over exposing it’s roots and lifting the soil off the rocks underneath. The power of nature can be terrifying. the next pics are of the tree and the vicinity.

Two other large Poplars were ruined in the fall of the first one… one split strangely, directly above the path. When the removal starts it will be a staged operation because any misstep could mean a log on my head!

Yearly, all the deadfall from the winter before has to be removed or you cannot walk in the forest!… the mess this year was the worst I’ve seen. We will have wood for the winter.
The last pic shows my progress at clearing a walkway up the hill… Some of the logs will be fashioned into rustic benches.
Clearing out the scrub and mess improves the area for young trees to assert themselves and helps keep the senior trees undamaged by falling branches and windfalls.
I’m always inspired by the giants. They’ve been standing there for a century or more! Imagine that!~

• 4 Jun, 2017
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