Our native Thimbleberry...which I find awfully pretty...and useful.....and NO PRICKLES ! I will cut around it to get rid of the Blackberries, but the Thimbleberry gets to stay.....well,really, I've come to appreciate my bothersome Blackberries anyway.....would miss them with cream and sugar if they were all gone and I'd rather gather them from the yard than elsewhere.....the neighbors were not thrilled that they could no longer harvest from my yard, though. The first time I looked out and saw the elderly man from across the road in my backyard picking my berries, it brought back memories of the Old Gypsy Lady in the Bay Area who was coming down from the hill behind us to help herself to my tomatoes...fencing went up promptly in both cases...

One pic shows that the bees are appreciative also...and I'm advised that life 'in the rough'...or with short toilet paper supply, the leaves are a good TP substitute...win / win all around !...lol.

Love all your tress vines berries fruit trees. outstanding variety.
We have a huge problem with native blackberry. They can cover a small building in no time. Wisteria can lift a small building off its foundation.

Hubs has built trellis for many climbers out of self defense to open doors to the house. I planted to many way to close to the house. Not to mention the weeping cedar I planted years ago...in front of the garage doors. We call it the car wash. Weeping Dedeor cedar ...



Front door




Time to hard trim the wisteria already.

Things that make ya go mmmm. If you planted a plant 30 years ago how old is it in plant years?

hahahaha...I have a Blue Moon Wisteria.....I can tell you for a fact that it can languish for 5-6 years in a 5 gal pot...I checked it yesterday, still alive...I will pot it larger, give it fresh soil, try to keep it going until I see if I will ever find a spot for it...my main problem is the color of this house and not wanting to repaint it yet...until it's breathing its last breaths...it got a new roof, but...so, yesterday I'm looking at our garage door...jer wants to build an open roof of sorts onto the opening so he has more room to work on things, it's his shop....but I was studying it and wondering if I could put that Wisteria across there...you convinced me, I don't think I will....this house is basic, a box, no character and I was thinking we might build an arbor across the front, but think I want green across there, think the Wisteria would be too much...and I love Wisteria......if it were white...lol..I saw a white one the other day, running up through the trees, gone wild...I need to go take a pic...

Wisteria are beautiful...in the right place, but not too many homes have the right space for such a huge vine, and they do need lots of time/trouble . I would love to have a patio covered with it, but at my age, I doubt I could take care of it, even if I had the room. I'm getting less inclined to use the hedge trimmer and chainsaw with every year. I'm going to pay a neighbor to do what I should be doing.

It's really not that hard to keep wisteria in check. I have a pole pruner and keep it pruned in late spring, summer and late fall.. then it doesn't get way to big and disappointing with no blooms. I also have a pole chainsaw both battery operated light weight. I will just slice thru a 2-3" branch in late fall just to keep pruning down. This has bloomed every year for over 20 years. I may be slowing down but this wisteria has always bloomed twice a year. Sometimes I wonder who has who trained.

I'm really struggling this year with not being able to do all of the yard and house....have a problem with length of time I can stand, but do all of my weeding sitting in the dirt...

Usually the inside of the house suffers in spring and summer. Here I have all winter to work on stuff inside. I work at a much slower pace now. Painted a couple of rooms and cleaned out stuff that we collect and got rid of all that clutter stuff. It's the garage that looks like a disaster area. Omg...

It's so nice to finally get outside When it's warm and sunny. Got to soak up a few rays for vit.D. Even last feb we had a whole week and a half of sunshine no rain. Very strange for here. I power washed the tile roof, it's a small section of the roof. Pizza Hut style. It took me a week. I get it done in small batches. There is a flat roof section that I stand on. Been doing it for years ... with 2 bad hips both have been replaced. One hip twice. I'd rather be outside scooping out the barn than stuck inside. Just saying....and I adjust my work load in smaller time slots at this stage of the game it may take me longer but I still feel like I accomplished something. In my 70's I'd never just give up. Unless I was 6' under.



Now the painter will come to paint and seal it,when we can get thru this quarantine. Probably by that time it will need another power washing .UGH....just saying.....

Let's not even talk about my burn pile in fall. It's a killer!

It does not matter how slowly you go.....Forward is Forward.......

Along with that line of thinking, I do appreciate the alternating weather this time of year...starting Monday, we here will get a week of wet, during which time I will try to do some inside cleaning...cannot stand to do that on a nice day......

I can't stand house cleaning on ANY day !

my wisteria is in bloom

I'm okay with it if I let it get to the point where it feels like a 'project', but I've learned that the only way I'm really into it is if we're creating something 'new'...we've added a wall, or torn one down, creating something 'new' stirs me to make everything look good.....the best friends are other gardeners.....friend Bex was coming by a couple of days ago and I could say "It's not raining, the house is dirty and there are things I'd rather do outside.....",,,as opposed to the neighbor who does not garden or get outside, in fact had said she did not like being outside....that one came into my house and the first thing she did was wipe her finger across the dust on top of a lamp and look at it.....what I wanted to say was 'don't ever do that again...'...instead I asked her if she dusts a lot...she blithely said, "Oh, yes...every day....".....speechless.......

Looks beautiful at your place, Dick.....I just can't see where to plant one at mine....sigh....

Take another look at my Cistus corbariensis...again, I know...but she's just so beautiful, rain or shine.......

Rained all this past week, Rain tomorrow...Today ?...Carpe Diem......

Ah...the BUSY season...body aches, back does not want to stand up and hands are full of Blackberry prickles...
A new surprise popped up, I've never had Snapdragons, pretty soft, yellow and the Blue Hydrangeas starting their color progression.....

Physocarpa / Ninebark ......'Coppertina'






Blue Hydrangea, continuing......





This is a bit odd to me...I'm used to 'Hot Lips' being in her all red, all white forms or a combination of the two...this looks almost like Salvia 'Two Tone'....