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The Legacy continues....

Lori

By Lori

25 comments


At the end of last March I wrote one of my first blogs on goY, about turning my garden over to someone else… I was a little emotional at the thought of leaving all that I had laboured to produce to a stranger. Well, I hope I don’t disappoint anyone…but…I’m over it!
I have put info and photos of my plants into the garden section…and will be working over the course of this winter to complete the profiles of each one…whether it’s tree, shrub or perennial; pond, patio or firepit! And it will be here on goY and nowhere else.
It is an opportunity for growth…I shall start again somewhere else…and along with all the profiling of this garden, I will be scouting real estate listings for my next one!! Who knows what is out there? It is exciting to mull over the prospects…but it is sad too. I won’t be able to take some of my favourites with me…they have simply grown into their surroundings and if I tried to remove them it would be a disaster. But I have learned what will grow for me here in my climate zone and I won’t make the mistakes I made here…so I’ll be ahead of the game that way.
I will grow roses in my next garden…I had been disappointed by the hybrid teas and grudgingly bought and planted an old rose…Now I know that I prefer floribundas and gallicas and the old French roses…I can start in with them and plan their spot from the start instead of jigsawing them into a landscape; the landscape will be about them!
Shrubbery… I’ve learned a lot here too! I won’t have a lot of blossoming shrubs, maybe just one or two rhodos, because I love them…and I will be taking my little rhodo waif with me, it’s bonded with me…I won’t leave it. I plan to use boxwood partitions… or perhaps a cedar gallery…rooms will be defined with tall plantings and the odd trellis or obelisk… and the pond will be something very close to natural… or as natural as I can produce…much as I like the reservoir type of pond I have now…I want to plant bog plants around the margins of a more natural looking pond.
I’ve also learned a bit about mosses and grasses…and I will not have a lawn!!
I hope there’s a lot of natural stone on the next piece of land I garden…it’s hard but healthy work grooming the rocks out of the soil!
I’m going to divide my peonies, delphiniums, daylilies, monarda, campanula, lobelia and hosta to have a major plant sale along with the jumble sale in the spring…I’ve joked with friends that I will need two moving vans…one for the house and one for the garden! The last time I moved I left everything…and gave away my houseplants. Not this time!!
I have my Dahlias, Acidanthera and Calla and Cannas all tucked up in the cool dark basement…will pot them in the spring so that I can move them more easily. I have seed sent to me by online friends that I will have to think about too! What a thought! oh dear what will I do with all the seedlings… wouldn’t it be nice if I could find a home with a green house nearby!!?? I can dream!
So, I have decided that change is good…and cowards die a thousand deaths, but the valiant only taste of death but once!! I will not dread the future I will embrace the change and work to make the best of it…
hmmmm…. I love the greenhouse idea…
LOL!

More blog posts by Lori

Previous post: Soils.... The Garden Basic...Absolute

Next post: A Pain in the Olfactory....



Comments

 

Change is good when it's needed.
When I moved it took 1 day to move the furniture and a week to move the plants, which I did on my own.
I hope you find somewhere suitable where you'll be happy, and you never know about that greenhouse.
Stay in touch with GOY after you move won't you ?

21 Dec, 2008

 

How exciting a new garden will be and good luck in your search.

21 Dec, 2008

 

Lovely photos.
Well-written blog.
As you say, you'll be at an advantage in having learnt by successes and failures in your current garden.
You have time to plan, and you can take some of your favourite plants to your new home.
Good luck with your plans and keep in touch when you can.
Merry Christmas. :o)

21 Dec, 2008

 

~why are you moving Lori?will you be moving far?

21 Dec, 2008

 

Like they say a change is as good as a rest, good luck with a greenhouse.

21 Dec, 2008

 

Keep in touch, won't you, Lori. We will all be wanting to hear how the move goes and wishing you happiness in your next home and garden.

21 Dec, 2008

amy
Amy
 

Good luck Lori and very best wishes for the New Year :0)

21 Dec, 2008

 

hi lori, i hope the new people appreciate what a lovely garden they have got.
but there is nothing like a brand new project to get ones juices flowing. hope your new 'blank canvas' meets all your expectations. plenty of pics before you start !!! have a happy xmas and a succesful new year......steve

21 Dec, 2008

 

Thanks Everyone! I won't be leaving the province and with any luck I'll be in a zone 6 or better...and I plan to spend a busy winter season working on goY, so I'm not leaving, friends, just growing into a new space..sorta...kinda...
I was about to start work on the "garden" page and reread the blog from last March...and realized that I'd grown up in the intervening months...change is good...and I'm looking forward not back. Thanks for all the well wishes my friends...you know that I send the same good vibes your way!

21 Dec, 2008

 

Lori, you are very wise to look forward not back. Remember with pleasure your old garden but don't waste energy grieving for it. As Steve says, you will have a blank canvas to play with to your hearts content. How exciting!! With the greenhouse, you could start with one like mine....unheated........it's great as a large cold frame for starting plants and in the summer I have grown wonderful cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, watermelon and cantalope in there. It's just built out of 2x6 and old rescued windows. The roof is corrugated fiberglass which is semi-opaque. Its not pretty but it works!! LOL.
Growing roses can be an adventure but Hybrid teas have to be the hardest to look after. Try some David Austins. I've been very happy with mine.

21 Dec, 2008

 

Thanks Gilli... I'm thinking the corrugated fibreglas sounds like a plan! I know you are out in God's country where everything grows well...I thought that the Austin's weren't as hardy as some of the other older roses? would they be ok with temps in the negatories? like minus 20 for a few weeks at a time? lol...brrrr... maybe I should emigrate to Arizona!!

21 Dec, 2008

 

All the very best with your move...good that your staying on goy

21 Dec, 2008

 

I've got 5 David Austins, Lori. I'm in zone 4b or 5a, I'm not sure which. We get temps down in the -20'sC. I just put protection on them over the winter and so far they have seemed just fine. My 'Heritage' is about 4 or 5 feet tall in the summer same with 'Gertrude Jekyll'. My 'William Shakespere' was new this last spring so this is its first winter but 'Tamora' and 'Abraham Darby' also seem to come through just fine. I don't prune in the fall but leave the canes unless they are going to whip around too much with the wind. I pile up either pine needles, fallen leaves or hay around the roots or a combination of all three, depending what I have. Either just pile it or I make little "fences" with chicken wire. In the spring just start pulling the cover off little by little over a couple of weeks and throw it on the compost pile. Once they are uncovered I prune back any canes that have been killed by the weather and give them a good spray with a fungicide and away they go!!
Some Austins are hardier than others but on the whole they aren't as fragile as they look.

21 Dec, 2008

 

Thanks Bonkersbon/Jane.... best gardening site on the web? leave? ...never! Enjoying the chronicles of Cyril too much!
I found a book at the library, Gilli, that has a listing of roses hardy in south-west Quebec (Montreal area) and some of the var's listed are resistant to blackspot... Do the Austins have a problem with fungus or do you use the fungicide as a precaution? One of the roses listed in the book, "Chaucer", (of the series same as "Wm.Shakespeare" I would guess) is an old French cup shaped, shrub rose in a light "rose pink" colour...the scent is of myrhh. I like the old roses because they have more foliage...they don't look like bare sticks with huge flowers pasted on the end of the cane!! Will also look for Shakespeare....what colour is it, red? Another that I found in the same book is "R. Carefree Wonder" I'm thinking very seriously about that one!!

22 Dec, 2008

 

Lori, your present garden is wonderful and I bet that your next garden will be even better :)

22 Dec, 2008

 

Thanks Mike!

22 Dec, 2008

 

I only just got to this blog Lori and absolutely agree with you about moving forward with what you have learned and enjoying the chance to apply that to a new garden. I have enjoyed being able to keep records of my gardens on here and looking back at them. Still won't know for a month or two if we are moving again this year but I'm ready for ir if we do!
Any news on a new location yet?

28 Jan, 2009

 

I know you have experience here, Gillian...Things aren't as advanced as I had hoped the search would be by this point. With roughly six months to go...I'm still biting my nails! Have seen a few listings that were tempting but it's still too early...buying is conditional on selling... time is flowing by and I'm trying to remain calm and stay on task, as slow progress is better than no progress (panic!) lol....

29 Jan, 2009

 

Well good luck with your search! As the weather warms up there will be more activity on the market I'm sure.

29 Jan, 2009

 

Thanks Gillian...: - )

29 Jan, 2009

 

i have looked at your garden lori and i can understand you being upset leaving, i love all your work and im sure you are now in your new place since writing this and are on your way to something new for your new place, good luck with all things new :o))

10 May, 2009

 

Thank you Sanbaz... I suppose this is a good spot for an update...Here we are in May...and no closer to moving than when I said I had "roughly six months to go"..lol. I was holding off with my planting etc. but my husband has determined that we should aim for mid-summer...So I'm going ahead...the garden may be a selling point. But I have plants that need to go in the ground and no more time to pot up and ponder! The moving van is going to be full of my garden too!

10 May, 2009

 

lol lori,, its a bad time for selling and buying houses at the moment everywhere, but will happen in the end, and while you are still there then you want to still enjoy your garden and it is still your home all said and done, good luck with it all lori :o))

10 May, 2009

 

Thanks Sanbaz...very kind of you. It will all unfold, just have to be patient and careful. Maybe soon I will have pics to post of the next garden!! wonderful thought...

12 May, 2009

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