Busy, Busy (photo heavy!)

We've been quite busy tackling our summer "to do list" these last few days, and we've realized that we won't be able to do all those things we hoped to do. 

Unfortunately, the vegetable garden will have to wait another year. We're still planning on throwing down some hay and burning the garden plot to bring everything down to the soil. Once that's done we may try to even out the area and lay down the weed block. But the actual building of raised boxes may have to wait until either later in the fall, or next spring. In the meantime, all those fruits & veggies we started from seed have been moved into larger containers, so we should still get some fresh produce this season. We gave new life to our old ikea plant stands. It's amazing what a good sanding and some stain will do. =)

Carrots, peppers, strawberries, broccoli, and flowers

Broccoli, zucchini, basil, and lots of tomatoes in front,

with some flowers & maple tree seedlings

Part of the reason we've decided to put it off, is not only the expense of our very ambitious project, but also we're planning a BBQ to celebrate Canada Day this year. As the flower gardens are still in a state of weed-infestation, we thought it better to deal with those first. Our new gardens are doing well, the gladiolas have all grown, we have some dahlias growing as well, the Japanese maple is recovering nicely, and the day lilies are getting ready to flower.

The Japanese maple

Day lilies

we may move the group on the left next year...

Finally, I've started to tackle our shade garden yesterday. We picked up an Echinacea (purple cone flower), a purple Salvia (ornamental sage), and two hostas. I started by removing the buried rock border, and taking out some of the plants I wanted to keep. The garden is not only filled with grasses and some weeds, but also Solomon's Seal and TONNES of lily of the valley! There are also some ferns and a couple of hostas as well. Here's my progress so far:

My plan for today is to hopefully get this garden close to finished. We'll still need to pick up some annuals to give it some colour, and put the rock border back into place.