A pretty Blue Bell Yahoo ! I Grew you!

The exciting part of gardening is seeing things you planted a year ago come up again. Well last year my obsession was the blue bell. Every where I went I saw them and wanted them in my garden. The sweet little blue bell who knew you were so desirable. I guess the feeling of nostalgia over came me. In the house I grew up on Fulton in West Van we had plenty of blue bells all in the front left part of the garden. As a child, I remember seeing them when I was playing or helping my mom in the garden. So last year when I was reunited with the blue bell; I knew I had to have some in my garden. Luckily, I was able to buy one lonely blue bell at the Hospital thrift store plant sale last year. So this spring, I was thinking where are you blue bell?  Well out of the ground and to my great surpise there popped out my Blue Bell.

Pretty Blue Bell the one and only!

White Bleeding hearts...oh so unique!

Tulips happy colour!

Wild bleeding hearts

Graden blooming- lush and green!

According to the internet, the formal name of the blue bell is Hyacinthoides non-scripta (formerly Endymion non-scriptus or Scilla non-scripta) is a bulbous perennial plant, found in Atlantic areas from north-western Spain to the British Isles, and also frequently used as a garden plant. It is known in English as the common bluebell or simply bluebell, . In spring, H. non-scripta produces a nodding, one-sided inflorescence of 5–12 tubular, sweet-scented violet–blue flowers. It  is particularly associated with ancient woodland where it may dominate the understorey to produce carpets of violet–blue flowers in "bluebell woods".

Remembering.....

Last week was the fifth year of living without my mom. It has been a tough few years. Everyday I miss her. Our family misses her being the matriarch of the family. Odelia misses the strong grama that spent hours with her.....So to celebrate her life we went to Georgia Beach and put flowers in the ocean that we chose from the garden. I think mom would have liked that. It was also special to do this with Penny my birth mother. It was a very special day for all of us. We also were creative by painting rocks that we chose from the beach. It was a sad but good day as the sun shone down on us; I knew mom was looking down on us smiling. In fact, at one point on the beach a duck took a flower and swam away and then went under the water. We never saw it again. Perhaps a spirit visit from Paulean. Love you mom!

Gardening and gardening

      I have been out in the garden trying do the spring clean with Dave's help and even Odelia for a few hours. It has been alot of work and right now I can see the results of all our hard work. Yahooo!!     











I planted, with Odelia's help, our veggie seeds a week or so ago and boy have they taken off.


  Seeds growing after one week!

                                                                          so exciting!

                                                                This is after 10 days!

                                         Got a few pots for planting on sale at London Drugs!

                                                        Here is the Flower bed all cleaned up.

                                      Here is the plum tree and veggie beds ready for planting.

                                                                Lawn mowed yesterday!

                                                                  Veggie Bed Ready!

View of the garden from back steps.

Back bed under the willow with more soil and some ferns...waiting for bleeding heart to come out...it is white

Fern and flowers to add colour to the back entranceway.

Tidied up driveway with some soil, bamboo and drift wood

                                                       Front entrance views....so pretty

Lilies that tell us spring is here....

Pretty little walk way from front entrance with purple primulas and salomon seal growing...

Dave and I prepared the veggie beds with compost, soil and peat, and weeding.




 

So soon I will plant our veggies in the ground.

The rest of the garden....well weeding and moving plants around, and  adding some new things. Today I added more soil to areas that have poor soil and well poor back.

Daffodils blooming...

The pond with the frogs talking up a storm these days.

Odelia planted Primulas that dot our garden with colour.

I have cut back all the dead bits and racked out areas. Of course it is not perfect but it is a big garden so you have to let a few things go or else you would kill yourself.




 Dave cut back some cedar branches yesterday and the view of the ocean and Vancouver Island is better. He also cut back some bamboo and blackberry prickles that spread like weeds.



I have enjoyed adding a few more plants to add to the garden like a Camelia, Azalea, Hydrangea, and a few other shrubs to fill spaces.



 Dave moved some ferns from the back woods to parts of the garden too.





I also found some seeds my mom had kept so I spread them all around the garden in hopes some things beautiful and surprising will come to us from my mom's collection. I think mom would be proud of how hard we have worked and how beautiful the garden is looking. Next weeding and did I mention more weeding and wedding....ugh! Lots of work but lots of pleasure and rewards too!




 

                          Our happy home and garden!