Garden Art and More Plants

Another rainy day, and I was sweeping in the hallway when I remembered that there was a piece of sculpture I made a couple years ago lying under a dresser we want to sell, and I'd been meaning to hang it in the garden ever since the foundation guys left. So I hauled it out, we adjusted the wire hanger on the back to go around one of the metal support posts for the fence, and there you have it.

Here it is with the quince and a pile of weeds from my marathon weeding session yesterday (I'm good at weeding, terrible at picking up weeds).

Here's the piece a little closer. It was for a sculpture contest, entered while I was taking a ceramic sculpture class at City College of San Francisco, and I learned a valuable lesson from this particular work: you can glue pieces together after firing and that makes it a lot easier to construct than doing it all at once, the way I made this piece. Anyway, I'm quite fond of it and I think it works better in the garden than against a white wall in a gallery.

One thing I didn't get a good photo of the other day was the cherry trees putting out their first leaves. Here you go.

And the Asian pears are starting to put out leaves, too.

And I should note that the blueberries have more than doubled in size since they went in. I guess they do in fact like our soil. I'm glad because I really am not very fond of growing large plants in containers. I always think about root pruning and the efforts of hauling those things around when I see them.

As you can see, the Strawberry Free peach is looking like a little tree. Goldie posed with it to show you the size, but don't let that fool you: these peaches can grow to 20 feet tall. (I am going to prune them before they get anywhere close to that.)

This morning, the strawberry flower opened up. Yesterday we moved the strawberry pot up out of dog reach, and just in time. I can definitely say that yes, strawberries do like being planted in compost and watered almost daily.

The Cecile Brunner rose, still engaged in a death match with the wisteria, is putting out tons of buds. This will be the first big flush of flowers for this rose since we planted it four years ago.

On Friday I began the slow process of rescuing the plants that have been beaten into near-death by dog wrestling in the back shade bed. I moved the columbines and toad lilies into the Fern Walk, where they get the right sun and are protected from dogs by the side fence.

The columbines responded by looking one hundred percent better almost overnight.

The toad lilies are still dormant, but now they stand a chance of actually sprouting.

And for good measure, a photo of the larger of the two Mother Ferns, this one sited right under the exhaust for the furnace. Regular heat does seem to agree with ferns.

These bulbs were planted in our front yard when we bought the house, but they never bloomed, perhaps because before we came along, they got mowed over all the time. This year they finally bloomed, and they sure are pretty. I feel kind of bad for digging a bunch of them up and throwing them out in a fit of pique because they weren't blooming.

Technorati Tags: art, bulbs, ferns, gardening, landscaping, plants, roses, springtime, trees

posted by ayse on 04/02/06