Sooooo Happy!

The above is Victoria's weather forecast for this weekend…so why does this make me so happy? Because I've been craving sun (haven't we all?)!!! Just when it feels as though SAD (seasonal affective disorder) is about to dig it's yucky claws into me, we will have sun! And not only sun…but sun on days when we'll actually be able to take advantage of it - whoop!

This also means we'll be able to get a big chunk of our backyard garden plans complete - yay! Before we moved into Hatley Ridge we lived in a north facing condo…not stellar conditions for growing a container garden ;p We do have a really big yard in our Kingston house…however, there was so much yard, and so much going on it was too hard for us to maintain it…and it basically all went to crap. High maintenance gardening is not us…there was just too much weeding involved, and not enough RELAXING.

In our new home, the backyard isn't very large…to some this might be a little crummy…but for us, it is PERFECT. Large enough to have some green space and to have a tree, a patio, even a small deck…and of course flowers! Lots and lots of flowers! At least that is the plan:


It will definitely be a bit of a process, and we might not be able to get it all done this year (the deck/pergola *might have to wait until next summer…)…and although we are hoping to buy semi-mature plants, it may take some time to totally fill out, but I’m excited to get them into the ground!

Here is a picture that I smooshed together of our entire backyard - we'll call this the "Before" picture:
***Click photo to enlarge***

Back to the "Plan":


Here's a legend of sorts for the flowers we are planning:
= Peonies - 3 plants of Sarah Bernhard pink peonies (I *heart peonies!!!)

= Camilllas - Either OR

= Roses not 100% on type or colours…possibly pink/white/cream/yellow? - who knows!

= Hydrangea - Either OR

= Dahlias - Likely some sort of pink

= Lavender - We've already purchased this pink-ish "Tinkerbelle" lavender bush:

= Dogwood - This is a flowering tree that was planted when our house was built…the plan is to move it once we build our little deck (where the dining table will eventually go :).

The only plants we actually have are the peonies, lavender and the dogwood tree. We're heading to Costco's garden shop this weekend (it recently opened for the season) and a few other nurseries…so you never know what plants we might fall for. I do know that we'd like to stick to the white/purples/pinks/creams though ;)

We'll likely also do some container planting later on in the summer, maybe some tomatoes…a few flowers etc.

Our plan might not seem like a lot of work…but having started it last weekend - manual labour is hard! ;)

Patrick began the extension of our patio stones to the fence which involved heavy lifting followed by pounding the stones into place. Cutting away the sod for the flower beds is pretty tough too. It doesn't help that our backyard seems to be solid CLAY. Our poor sod is struggling with pools of water on it right now from all the rain. So this will also likely involve some intervention of irrigation and sand. But, I am positive that when all the work is complete it will look great :)