Gardening! It's a lot of work

We have been going garden crazy lately.  We've been in our house a year and have slowly been working on the garden.  Sometimes it seems like we have gotten nothing done but after taking these photos I realize we've done a lot.  So I'll take you on a garden tour.  Above is a planter David built for me in front.  The front has the best sun but is cemented so David built this temporary planter until we can get something more permanent done.  We have basil, parsley and chives in this one.  Next to it are out tomatoes.

 

Also in the front we had to cut down this rubber tree.  It was poorly pruned and we discovered this puppy grows like 5 feet a year so this was our last chance to get rid of it before it got too big.   I bought some stuff at Home Despot to get rid of the stump.  When I got home and read the directions it said to drill holes insert toxic gunk wait 4 weeks and set the tree on fire.  Whhaaaaa  um not so much in dry N. Cal right next to our fence.  I looked online and discovered that you can drill holes and insert epsom salt to make sure it doesn't come back.  David is still after me to bring back toxic stump stuff.  I told him I don't have the receipt.  He said he doesn't care he doesn't want the money he just wants Home Despot to be responsible for the disposal of toxic goo.

 

 I got this cool planter from my mother in law.  It sort of defies gravity as the pots are just held in the notches of the wood.  So far so good no tragedies.  The front of our house is really lacking in color so the Zinnias add a little something.  We are planning on re-doing our fence this summer and will eventually plant ....

 

New Guinea Impantiens.  I noticed these in our neighbors yard.  They get really tall and seem to do well here.  So I asked if I could take a clipping.  These guys rooted like gangbusters.

 

David did a ton (and I might actually mean a ton) of work adding another tier to our yard.  We are on a steep slope so our yard has a number of tiers.  This one (I hope) will be the last.  Lots of digging and woodwork.  We filled this one in with Cal wildflowers.  Had to rope it off from Miss dog (in background) who seems to want to Christen any new garden with a big dog log.  Urgh.

 

This is the only permanent raised bed we've managed to build.  Peas and favas are going crazy.  I'm giving them a week or so more before I dig em out and plant cukes.

 

This will be the site of the next raised bed.  In the meantime, David gave in to my need for flowers and we planted sunflowers (and a few favas to break up the soil and add nitrogen)  Again to keep Miss dog out we used the absolutely vicious fronds from the palm trees that fell over the winter.

Here is a pic of our waterfall.  Miss dog had herself an escapade of chasing our frog down it and brought all the stone down in a landslide.  Fortunately none ended in the pond and the frog survived.  So we had to relay all the stone.  Which is actually a mighty tricky task.  Trying to figure out the aqua dynamics of any one rocks requires the waterfall actually be on.  So we stood in the water hauling around rocks to see if the water splashed out or into the waterfall.  We will still have to cement this, but I've gotta do some research on what kind of cement won't kill our goldfish.  Hmmm I'm thinking that's probably the most expensive kind.

 

This is Davids current work in progress.  Now that we have the tiers set he's trying to figure out a walkway.  I'm not sure about the big square stones, but I love the river rock.  We're thinking we will fill the gaps in with thyme and baby's tears.

 

I'll leave you with a nice pic of the pond.  They water hyacinth are finally looking ok.  I had to haul out a bunch and clean them up from frost damage over the winter.  The fish seem happy and are apparently spawning if all the flipping and splashing is any indication.

Welcome to my garden.  Always something to do.