Shakespeare Festival, Day 2

Shakespeare Village



A little lesson in fencing.
Donna's new little "puppy in training" for Guide Dog for the Blind. Puppy's name is Loraine.

No Gardening! Shakespeare Festival Days!

Care to joust anyone!
Shakespeare Festival at Ardenwood today! Lots of fun! I had forgotten my earrings today so I bought some while in the Shakespeare village. There were so many vendors and players I saw only about half of them. Later I was stationed in the Patterson House Guest Bedroom for 2 hours of flow-through tours.

It will be a repeat performance tomorrow. I plan to bring the credit card!

Here comes the Queen!

The Small Garden Room

What I am going to do about my little garden room. It is a small area and is a little crowded right now. I did have a medium sized pond that developed a crack so I pulled out the liner and have been slowly filling in the hole with dirt.

The pond below is no longer there.

This part of the area is a small patio and a small pond.

I am thinking of creating a tuberous begonia display in part of the area where the larger pond was and taking out the patio near the small pond and creating one near the tuberous begonia.

The Weed War has begun!

Those little weed buggers are popping up! And in the Baby Tears area about 50 nasturtiums popped up overnight and they already were a couple inches high in a day. Well, that bunch is gone but I am expecting to be kept busy for awhile. I would love to let them grow but they get loaded with thousands of these ucky black aphids that leave a black soot on everything besides ruining the nasturtiums. So, that's it with the nasturtiums. The Baby Tear area also has lots of baby tears that I am letting grow back after they had been burned back from the June hot spell.

And looky here! One of the baby poppies I just planted decided to bloom! This is a California Poppy "Red". Makes my heart beat faster!!

I am exhuasted

After all that work of digging and pulling to get those volunteer agapanthus and volunteer plants out of the planter box yesterday my arms and legs really don't feel like doing anything today.

I did go out and turn the 2 compost piles. I also put little fences around the Olive Tree area because Joe, our old aussie, is in the start of the "apple season" in which he picks off apples and buries them all over the yard. He has been trying to use the nice loose dirt in the flowerbeds, right where a brand new plant has been planted. That did it! Up go the fences until the plants can defend themselves on their own!

Planter Box area is cleared!

All the overgrowth is gone from the Planter Box.
The Olive Tree area is all planted.
And the back flower bed is planted. The red flower is one of the new alonsoa's I got from Annies to go with my apricot alonsoa.
Another view of the Back Flowerbed.

This "Leonidas" rose bush never really lived up to my expectations, but it was experimental when I bought it so it was iffy. It was supposed to be a real coppery color, but it never really did well, let alone give me the color I was looking for. But for some reason this year it decided to really start perking up and although the color is getting closer it still is more orange than copper. But it does look really pretty this year....don't ask my why!!


Now, the next area to work is the Side Flowerbed. Currently the 4 o'clocks think they own the place and have reseeded to rediculousness the past few years. I have started to cut them out now that they are done blooming for this year. Time for them to know their place!

Where have all the snails gone?

Normally we are constantly battling snails. We go out in the summer time at evening and do snail picking as they cross the paths to get to our plants. This spring we would find a few in the building block holes in the blocks along the veggie beds. I would feed them to our turtle, Housie. But since June, I have found about 10 at the most! Where did they go? --Not that I want them back, especially with all my baby plants I have just added to the garden.

Skunk Proofing the yard

After years of having skunks visiting our yard and spraying our dogs we finally figured a way to skunk proof the back yard. The skunks would dig under the fences and the dogs would get sprayed. We would put a bunch of bricks and building blocks in the holes and they would just push them aside the the next night. We would be doing middle of the night doggie baths with tomato juice or "Skunk Off". They would still stink months later when they would get wet.

A neighbor gave us some house siding made of fiber/cement 10" wide about .5" thick. We slid the boards under the kick board, half on our side, half on the neighbor's side. The skunks would try to dig under the fence but would hit the boards. They would not try to dig 5" back from the fence and go under the board.


The only time we have had a skunk since was when there was a spot they could crawl under the gate. That has now been fixed. We put a row of bricks a little higher than the gate. No skunky visitors!
They did try though! Here in the hinge corner of the garden gate a skunk had tried to dig through but the brick up against the gate kept it out even though it dug down about 5 inches.

The Planter Box Area

The Planter Box area is at the bottom right hand corner of the site map.
Before pictures
From the Olive Tree Area
From the house
Really overgrown and lots of volunteer bushes
So far after several hours of work

All planting is done....for now!

Wow, that was a lot of planting to do. And guess what now the heat is leaving again and will be 20 degrees cooler for at least the next few days. That will be great for all the newly planted plants, it will give them a chance to get used to their new home without getting dehydrated.

Out of all the plants I have planted this month the only one that has had a problem is the columbine. Its leaves got a little fried when it was really hot but now new leaves are all growing in.

I started cleaning up the planter box area this evening till it got to dark to see what I have been doing. It is in pretty bad shape. There are 5 semi dwarf apple trees which are hard to work under. Then there have been several volunteer woody bushes that have grown up in the back and we have just pruned off. They need to have their roots taken out. The apple trees are starting to drop their apples so I have to sort through them as I clean up.

It was work day in the garden!

I started early this morning by turning both my compost piles while it was still cool, then went on to start planting all the plants I have gotten in the past several days. It warmed up quickly so I saved about 2/3 of them for this evening when it is cooler. Wow, that was tiring and I still have 7 plants to go for tomorrow. I will have to get out there early because I am due at Cathy's house by 9 am for an IEP meeting. OHHHH, the garden is going to look great as these plants grow up!

Today - Annie's Annuals!

I met Jen this morning at Annie's Annuals Nursery.....we were there when the gate opened. We were again awed by the special and different plants they have in their sample flowerbed! It really gives you an idea of what will go together and of course. it makes you hunger for them ALL!

So now between yesterday and today I have a LOT of planting to do. The Olive Tree area will be finished, a few plants will go in the Back Flowerbed.
To be planted tomorrow many of them are multiples:
















Nemophila menziesii 'Baby Blue Eyes' and 'Snow White
Since the compost needs to turned also I am going to be sore by the end of the day......hot tub, get ready, I'll be looking forward to you!

A Visit to Regan's Nursery

Cathy needed a "morning off" today for some adult time off from the children so Dad had some kiddie time and we ....well, where else better to go than to the nursery! Regan's Nursery in Fremont, CA. A special nursery, very helpful and knowledgeable, quite a selection, and close!

We had a great couple of hours roaming and buying! I haven't planted my treasures yet because I knew I will be meeting Jen for Sun. morning at my very favorite nursery, Annie's Annuals. I will come home with more plants and I will have to determine who goes where.

I brought home:
Gaura lindheimen, white
Gaura lindheimen, pink picotee
Fern Woodwordia fimbriata
Papaver commutatum 'Ladybird
Lamium Maculatu, pink pewter
Fuchsia 'Angel's Earrings
Agatach Giant Hyssop
Stratosphere 'white butterfly flower"

These will go in the Olive Tree area.

A walk about through the garden

This morning Joe (our old aussie) and I did a walk about in the garden bright and early. It is going to be on hot side today but not as bad as yesterday....amen.

We turned the compost pile. It hadn't been turned in 4 days because we have had a rather hyper, oversensitive batch of bees in one of our hives. They didn't realize they had to SHARE the yard and they were like they were on permanent PMS. So after some time of this we had to do a bit of natural selection last night. We didn't want neighbors having problems and these gals were getting worse rather than better...so they are gone and the compost got turned. Our other hive is so sweet and busy, not busy-body so we get along great.

We checked over the new plantings in the Olive Tree area.

Joe had to check them out really closely....before he decided to take a nap right on top of them!!
I guess it was a little power trip on his part. I let him know THAT was not the place!

Then we went over to the veggie garden and did a little grazing....

We checked out the new compost pile and the back flowerbed and baby tears area. All was well and it was starting to get pretty warm so we retreated inside.

Ahhh! A nice cool breeze!

It is a beautiful, normal, San Francisco Bay Area evening during a hot spell.......it cools off in the evening! When it breaks the norm and doesn't cool off in the evenings after 2 or 3 days of hot weather, it is not a pretty sight! Anyhow, all is well now. Actually Labor Day weekend is supposed unseasonably cool, down at 70 in the hottest areas in the valley....That means probably around 62 degrees here.

Well, all the new plants are doing well. The newest planted ones really appreciated the shade I gave them on these hot days.

Tomorrow I will plan on posting photos of the Olive Tree area although it is not finished by far.

Done planting

Well, I got all the little ones planted. I put some card tables over them to give them shade tomorrow so they won't get burnt from the sun.

I think I am going to head for Pacific Grove for some cool ocean breezes tomorrow!

It is frying here again!

It is too hot to garden and I had asked for moderation!!! Then this weekend is supposed to be chilly again. This is getting old. But I will take the cooler and skip hot. I just can't work out in the heat.

Well, I guess the real problem is that my Annie's Annuals order came and it is too hot to plant them. They would just fry. So....I am planning to wait until this evening when the sun is going down and then plant them. Then, since it is going to be hot for 2 more days I will put up some shade so the little babies won't have such a hard time till they get used to their new home.