My gardening and music colleague, Ginny, gave me a box of divided plants she had no place for in her garden. I was very happy to discover what was in the box, it was like Christmas! Some Autumn Joy sedum, bugleweed, yellow yarrow, a lavender and a couple of others. I got them planted in my side garden one day last week. I love that when (certain) plants get overgrown you can just divide them up and move some over to another area of the garden or give some to a friend.It means you’ll never have to buy another day...
Rainy Day
October 7, 2013June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
After reading a post by Mr. Money Mustache (MMM) called The Low Information Diet, I was inspired to try to limit my use of Facebook, since I’m somewhat addicted to it, and to spend more of my time in activities, as opposed to past-times. Ironically, the inspiration to change my habits comes not only from MMM but also from something I read on FB (thus the irony), which was about a study done on sitting. The results of the study were that too much sitting shortens your life expectancy. It stands to reason that sitting too much isn’t good for...
Lasagna Method Fail
October 6, 2013June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
Okay, the jury is still out, but I’m a little disappointed in the results (so far) of my lasagna method for ridding my front lawn of grass. As one reader put it, “you can cover up that grass with black tarp and red mulch and stones and it will still find a way to live!” Yes, thank you, Andrea, I am aware that grass is almost indestructible. I’ve seen “Planet Earth, The Great Plains”. Go ahead and watch it, you’ll realize that the struggle is futile! I’ve seen a few blades of grass around the edges of my new garden...
Praying Mantises!!
September 28, 2013June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
Yesterday, when my son, Travis, and I were doing a bit of gardening, I happened to notice an odd shaped leaf and as I continued to study it, it moved! If you didn’t read my earlier post about this, I hung an egg sac of praying mantises on my lilac tree back in the spring, without thinking much about it. In fact, I was pretty sure the weather was going to be too cold for them to hatch, but I was going away for a couple of weeks and I had no choice but to put them out, or let...
The Arts: Feeding your Soul
September 26, 2013June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
I’m deviating from my usual summer subject matter to bring up a line of thought that is always in the back of my mind: the arts as a career, is it worth it? The main reason I’m rethinking the whys and wherefores is that my children are both artists, and for their generation it’s even more challenging to contemplate a career in the arts than it was in my youth. Many people, some of my colleagues included, have actively dissuaded their children from pursuing careers in the arts, even to the point of refusing them music lessons as children. I...
Autumn Challenges
September 23, 2013June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
I’m ashamed to realize it’s been almost a month since my last blog post. This should be a good time of year to be doing a lot of gardening and therefore, for me, a lot of writing about it. However, I’ve been back at work for a couple of weeks and, geez, that takes up a lot of time! Plus, my neck and upper back have been a mess, possibly from over-using my lap top, maybe from practicing and playing too much, maybe a couple of long days in the garden contributed. Who knows? Anyway, I’ve been leery about doing...
Back care for the (Lazy) Gardener
September 3, 2013June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
I swung my legs over the side of the bed on Sunday morning and immediately felt a muscle spasm. I felt one more, then it subsided; so I rolled out my yoga mat and lay down, face first, to let my back relax. After a few minutes I tried getting up, and that was successful with only slight twinges, so I went to my computer and googled: back spasms. I found a 14 step treatment that seemed pretty good. Since my back didn’t stay in a spasm, I really only did the first two steps, which were lie down and...
Phase One Complete!
August 30, 2013June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
I’m excited to show you the “after pictures” of Phase 1 of my project. Before I go any further I want to thank Virginia, my colleague in music and in gardening, for her amazing help yesterday. I definitely recommend doing this kind of project with a friend. It’s more fun and of course, proceeds much more quickly. It also helps if that friend has a bit more experience with hardscaping than I do! The first photo shows the work site after Virginia and I removed the sod that lined the front walk so we could lay down the first row...
Neighbourhood Gardens
August 28, 2013June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
Before I start my big garden project tomorrow, I thought I’d share a few photos I’ve taken of a couple of neighbourhood gardens. The first two are of the side yard up the street that I mentioned in my previous post. The cosmos are splendid in both photos. In the first one you can see Japanese anemone behind the cosmos, but the photo doesn’t do them justice; they are among my favourites at this time of year; in the second you can see the phlox in the background, which is bi-coloured, white and pink. The other garden I wanted to share...
Garden Project: “Before” Pictures
August 28, 2013June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
Here are the promised “Before” pictures of my front yard. Tomorrow, with help from a friend and fellow gardener (thanks, Virginia!),and possibly from my champion digger husband, Dave, I’ll start work on my biggest garden project to date, including a small stone wall and maybe a rock garden. After some initial pondering and head-scratching, I’m confident we’ll come up with a plan. In the back of my mind I’ve been planning this for years, so it’s not quite as off-the-cuff as all that. I’ve never been one to sit down with paper and pencil to map out garden beds, etc.,...