Garden Accent Heaven hosted residents from Fairwinds  Brighton Court retirement community who came to visit Linda’s Serenity Garden on Monday July 25th. The ladies had a enjoyable time walking through the garden and asking about the various flowers and other plants.

This was my own creation to combat the cold wet spring we have had and still get some tomatoes!  The tomatoes will grow up the netting between the two poles.  When it is cold, the tent over the plants keeps them happy and growing.  When the sun is out, I can roll up the sides of the tent, and let the bees come in to stir things up a bit!

Photo one shows my favorite netting ordered from Abundant Life catalog.  It lets me easily reach through the large spaces to pick my successes!

Want to know how I secured the row cover to the netting?  I used a needle and thread and did a simple long basting stitch across the top!  And the clothes pins keep the sides in place on those sunny days!

If these sewing terms are new to you, check in with your Gramma!  You need to call her any way!

This photo shows one side of the row cover rolled up. Notice the large square pattern of the netting. The netting extends between the two poles and is seven feet high and six feet long. The netting extends below and above the gathered up row cover.

Both sides of the netting rolled up.

Both sides of the row cover dropped down for the night to keep my tomatoes about 5 to 10 degrees warmer.

The other side of my row cover tent.

Cold weather protection.

When you live in the Pacific Northwest and this spring has been as cold and wet as last year, what is a gardener to do?

My winter reading of all those garden supply catalogs has paid off!  Under that cover are egg plants, Sweet Basil,  cucumbers, and zucchini squash, all plants that like hot weather.  The row cover raises the temperature 5 to 10 degrees during the day and keeps the plants warmer at night as well.  One more tactical move was to lay “green mulch”  down before planting which also keeps the ground warmer at night and during the day.

Bob cut PVC pipe the right height, stuck them in the ground, and the tension against the sides of the raised bed is perfect.   All I did was cover the hoops with row cover material.  When the plants bloom, I will need to remove the cover so the bees can do their thing!

I do not have to deal with too many insects so I was not concerned

Another variation of cold weather protection.

about a really snug fitting cover without holes.  I used medium pieces of wood to weight down the edges.  Did you see the old fashioned cloths pin hooks to keep the wind from blowing off the cover?  Pretty clever, huh!

Both the green mulch and the row cover were purchased from Growers Supply catalog.

Clivia Lillie from Africa, bring inside for winter.

I absolutely love flowers!  I have them everywhere.  Which translates in to “I have to have a way to say no” to all the beauty available in catalogs and at nurseries.  I had to set some parameters for myself.

I have a fairly small yard so only the smallest dwarf versions of shrubs can be considered. Being more diligent in purchasing plants that fit my light conditions was another given.  I needed to control my successes and failures better.  When buying perennials in season, most plants are $10.00 to $25.00 and that is for the more common ones. Some budget controls are in order.

No matter how much I might long for all the flowers in the catalog, I narrowed my selection of plants to blooms and seeds that attract birds, especially hummers, bees and butterflies.  I have selected plants that bloom at different periods during the summer to keep a food supply for the hummers. If the bloom has a fragrance it is more likely to find residency in my yard.

I try to reserve some space for winter interest with texture variations, height, or being an evergreen plant.

My mother had many iris so I have to have them, violating all my parameters.  And then there are the lilies with so many colors, blooming periods and varied heights.  Needless to say, I have several Oriental Lillies for their heady fragrance and long lasting blooms.  I planted a couple more this spring.  After all, they were on sale!

When I garden, I make my own rules and then bend them just a bit here and there when my resistance is low.  Mostly, every gardener needs to enjoy each and every plant.

Row of Day Lillies along front walk way, continuous blooms all summer.

Asiatic Lillies.

Asiatic lillies.

Asiatic lillies.

Tiger Lillies

Tiger Lillies.

Fragrant Nicotiana placed by the back door, started from seed.

Highly fragant Star Gazer Oriental Lillie.

Tall pink blooms are Bee Balm, simply loved by bees and hummers.

Asiatic Lillie

Iris

Just one inch from our front door, Mr. & Mrs. Robin built their nest! Now mind you, those

Robin sitting on her eggs.

pieces of drift wood collected over the years have hung peacefully by my door for five years and no other local birds have bothered them.  What’s up with that?  Being the genius nature lover that I am, I had to give the robins credit.  They choose a place that faced the warm morning sun to start out the day, and, protected from the excess afternoon heat.  The nest is also under the eave keeping it nice and dry.  Mr. & Mrs. Robin were not taking any chances of another wet spring in the Pacific Northwest!  We don’t  use the front door too often so they took a chance it would all work out.

Soon there were three eggs!  But, oh, the courtship and protection stage!  Mr. Robin was attacking anything within his rightful territory, including our two cars, and our neighbor’s two cars on both sides of us!   Mr. Robin would see himself in the reflection of the glass windows, mirrors and even our office window.  That imposter robin he saw in the reflection had to be chased away!  So Mr. Robin would flap against the car windows and mirrors and our office window relentlessly.  Robins have been known to seriously injure themselves with this behavior, even to the point of their own death.

We choose to park our cars on the street to give Mr. Robin some peace of mind…..and to keep the bird poop off!  One neighbor would just wash his car every morning before going to work!

My looming dread was that Mrs. Robin would be scared off so often that she would fail to keep the eggs incubated sufficiently enough to hatch.  We would turn off our head lights when we got close to our house so she would not be disturbed.  Then slink around the bushes to the side of the house and go in our back door.  Pretty funny behavior on our part!

Chicks Hatching.

Robin in our driveway with worm to feed its chicks.

Chick looking to be feed.