In My Garden

I know nothing about gardening. I couldn't even begin to tell you what plants and flowers are in my jungle backyard...

The previous owner was a gardener. Could you not tell by the Monet waterlilies mural I had in my bathroom? She left us a wonderful legacy though...


...all these flowers that pop up throughout spring and summer and colour our world, with no help from us. She even had a sprinkler system installed. Now that is serious stuff.


This is as garden-friendly as I get. We picked up some flowers for our urns. I think they're Impatiens but the neighbour says they're Begonias. Whatever they are, I hope we don't kill them with our black thumbs.

In Full Bloom

Chloe isn't the only thing growing around the HandyLuster household. Our garden you could say, needs some attention. While HandyMan has been focused on clearing out all the boxes of hand-me-downs from Mama HandyMan, I've been trying to get dishes, laundry, and some blogging done in those brief moments when Chloe isn't asking to be fed/changed/held/rocked/played with.



So we've let Mother Nature do her thing. Apart from cutting the lawn, we haven't touched the garden since last fall! No weeds have been pulled nor bushes trimmed. And luckily, the garden hasn't died despite our black thumbs. You'll have to thank the previous owner Kiki for that. She was a master gardener so we a beautiful variety of flowers sprouting all summer long. Here's what's in bloom right now. I won't name names because beyond the roses and peonies, I have no clue what these lovely flowers are :-o




Yes, the giant rose bush is threatening to eat our car!

Goldfish - check!

Just when I thought things were getting quiet around here - what with the kitchen cabinets installed and just waiting on the final touches - a long weekend tempts HandyMan and I to get a few more things knocked off our To Do list.

We were on the hunt for transition strips and door and window casing. After less-than-fruitful trips to Home Depot and Lowe's, we headed to our new favourite lumber store Central Fairbank Lumber. More than a lumberyard, this place offers a plethora of doors, lumber, hardware, siding, columns, and mouldings mouldings mouldings. Best part was that they had free samples of all the mouldings so we took a whole pile to mix and match at home. We decided on a fairly flat casing and simple backband for the window and doors.

A little bit of clean-up in the garden unearthed a nice surprise. The previous owner Kiki had a little water feature, but after we cleared it of its rocks and dirt, we discovered it was big enough to house a fish or two! We moved a rock out of the garden to use as an island and Mama HandyMan donated some floating plants. HandyMan picked up 3 goldfish at Walmart...though we worried the racoons would make a snack out of them :o\ Turns out, one of our fish met their fate not by a racoon -- but by our water pump! Yup, sucked right in... what a horrible way to go.

After that was all done, we still had quite a bit of time left in our long weekend. Check out what we did in the next post!

Why I'm Afraid of My Garden

Though it looks like a jungle, this is half of my garden. The previous owner of our house Kiki was quite fond of the English garden look and left us with a rambling, rolling, growing, thriving, mystical garden that we have absolutely no idea how to maintain. Mama HandyMan gave us some easy advice... if you don't like it, pull it out. I've already taken out the Lamb's Ear (sorry but their fuzzy softness just creeped me out). And may take out the purply-blue-spiky-headed thingys (not its technical name) which oozes some sort of nectar and attracts hordes of ants. Like I mentioned before, I'm good at killing plants - I'm just not good at keeping them alive.

One thing I do like about the garden is that it's full of surprises. I don't know what flowers will pop up next. Kiki was a master Conductor and orchestrated a spring floral melody punctuated by bursts of forsythia, soft tinklings of tulips and bleeding hearts, and the fortissimo beats of narcissus, crocus, and many others. I can't wait to see what's in store for summer!

Floral Homicide

I have a history of killing plants. Tulips, aloe, bamboo (yes, bamboo)... whatever it is, give it to me and I will find a way to make it shrivel up and die. I don't do this intentionally. I just have a problem with remembering to water plants or giving them enough sunlight or putting them in right-sized containers... basically, everything to do with ensuring the necessities of life for any sort of flora. Which is to say... I am very very afraid of my garden.

The previous owner was quite an avid gardener ('best garden in all of Leaside', so the neighbours tell us), so I have a beautiful garden filled with tulips, forsythia, a rose bush, lambs ear, Japanese Maple, a water feature, and all sorts of pretty things I don't know the names of. There is so much variation in my garden that it is a bit overwhelming. I can't take care of one thing... how am I supposed to take care of 50 different things :o\ So before I tend to my first victims - I mean flowers - I'll give you a look at the garden in its untouched state. All I've done is clear all the leaves from fall and remove any dead looking thingys. So far, so good...




But I do have one problem area... the little garden in the front is looking a little overgrown. Flowers are coming up, but they're accompanied by these very long grasses. Are these grasses supposed to be there? Should I trim them? Do I need to do anything, or leave them alone?? If you know, please give this girl a clue :)