A busy few weeks but lots of rain. Almost everyday since mid September we have had rain.
Our water tank got fixed on schedule. The driveway suffered from contractors vehicles and a 6000 gallon water tanker to get us started
Gravelling the paths continued one barrow at a time until the rain got too bad and I stopped at number 100. The Shady Glen garden got renamed to the Sunken garden after my wife too a look and realized how high above the cleared forest area the path was. As I could not get the wheelbarrow down to the Sunken Garden paths I chain sawed a pathway through the trees behind the bottom round pond (about 60ft along from the upper path) as that was at a lower level with the Sunken Garden path. So the idea was to push through the forest with this new path, turn left at the bottom and then link up with the path in the garden. It is going to work and will be a great feature and makes everything accessible by wheelbarrow. I will be laying 24 inch logs in the mud across the path width and then covering them with gravel to get some firm base. All things came to a stop with the rain and a sore midriff muscle. Doctor said go on light duty so no gravel has been moved for a couple of weeks.
Plant life goes on. I've sinned a couple of times at our local plant stores buying Calatheas, ferns, philodrendron, a couple of pothos vines. The friend we visited during our water outage invited me back to pick up more plants she was removing so I have more Coleus among others to many to list.
Between showers last month I was able to clear and weedwack some of the garden paths in areas that are becoming overgrown. I put too much focus on the Sunken garden and other areas are out of control.
I fear that I'm slowly losing the battle of keeping the entire 3 acres trimmed and tidy. With the continuous rain and shorter days I'm not putting in the time I did years ago. This could be all in my mind because I did a garden tour with a couple of friends a few weeks ago and they were in awe of the plants and the whole fantasy environment. So maybe its not so bad.
This friend who visited wants to get started with bamboo so he will be coming back to cut down canes that he can use to propagate his own clumps. Waiting for the rain to stop for that project. He will repay me with labor.
In years gone buy I had hundreds of pots of orchid cactus that for one reason or another has been reduced in numbers so I have excess of 8 inch hanging pots. Started selling those on Craigslist this week $15 for 20. One buyer came to pick up today. Turns out she is an avid gardener who was in the business of selling Pitcher plants. She has a group of friends who are gardening fanatics down near where the eruption took place a couple of years ago so I invited them for a garden tour when the weather improves with the condition that they all bring cuttings or plants for my garden instead of paying a fee. Ha Ha, another innocent source of plants.
Last Monday we had 6 inches of rain within a few hours and the weight of water on the plastic potting greenhouse roof collapsed a third of the structure. When the rain stops I will be taking about half of the building down and rebuilding what I can. I might reduce the size by half, forcing myself to have less bench space to maintain. We shall see.
Forecast if sun and drier conditions by mid week so we shall see. Long range forecast is for a wetter than normal winter starting mid December. More photos next time. Enjoy reading all the blogs.
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