Ferns

Our yard has a somewhat chilly, half-shaded nook where nothing's really going on now plant-wise: in the corner to the right of the pines. I'm thinking of planting ferns. The internetz tell me I'm not insane and that they're a perfectly reasonable choice, so maybe I'll actually go for it!

Spring cleaning continues

 I'm still not entirely well after overdoing things in the garden and losing my voice entirely on Monday, but, well. I was going to go for a nice little walk, peeked into the yard, thought "I'll just rake the lawn while I'm here" and ninety minutes later I'd cleaned the whole place and put in fertiliser. Oops.

Who can stay away from all this green!

I'm thinking of putting up proper trellises, cutting down the vines entirely and letting them regrow with more support. Is it too late for that this year?

Look how tidy! 

Even the front yard is looking nicer.

Best foot forward

Being sick for a few days gave me a chance to get to grips with gardening shows and vlogs and instructional videos. It was illuminating to watch how people actually interact with their gardens and what their plants and spaces mean to them. Until now, what I've been feeling myself has mostly been an abstract sort of desire to have a space where I can enter to be refreshed by beauty. Monty Don made me realise that actually, it's possible to just love plants, that that's a valid way to be attached to your garden; as is love of weather gadgetry or love of wildlife or love of a particular type of garden.

One important takeaway from the shows has been the idea that it's your garden and you do what you want with it. It's not like children or pets, where your task is to help them become what they want to and need to become. A garden is yours. If you don't like that tree, get rid of it. If that branch is tripping you every time you walk past, cut it off. If you sort of like those flowers but want to get something else this year, you just do it--you can always do it over next year. Less with the supposed to and more with the just do it.

And so I trimmed the living daylights out of this.

Cleaning frenzy!

I got the sunnier flowerbeds cleaned and dead stuff removed today, and the yard is looking much nicer. Clipped off a few rose stalks that had snuck to our side of the fence from the neighbour's big bushes and, in a reverse procedure, trimmed the pachysandra before it could spread all the way to the public footpath just outside the fence. The lawn is dotted with holes I dug with the "dandelion drill" to exterminate the pesky things; I've got to say that if there's only one plant you reliably recognise and know how to deal with, it helps if it's dandelions!

Like zombies, the first flowers are beginning to push through the soil.

Today's efforts were hampered by a cough and a sore throat, which I'm studiously ignoring. Not quite sure if it's a great idea, but hey, at least I got some stuff done.

Panorama of the yard in its current state. Yes, that's snow.

I was watching a UK gardening show that cheerfully stated: "Our growing season is from April to November, by mid-April you should definitely be getting the first crops." Felt like giving them the finger. Our front yard's still full of snow, and everything will be dead by the end of September.

Adding soil

Mrs T said, among other things, that it would be a good idea to add some topsoil in the flowerbeds and put in some spring fertilizer. On Saturday, then, we bought a bag of soil and another of fertilizer--I mean, how hard could it be?

Ahahaha yeah right. Do I take the old bits of plants off first or leave them to enrich the soil? Do I remove old soil? How do I put the new soil on, can I just dump it on top or do I carefully apply small handfuls and tamp it down? Do I put it all around the plant, right up to the stems, or, um, not? How far out should it reach? How deep?

My plants are f-ed.

I didn't even get to the fertilizer. Should I have put that in first, or at the same time, or on top?

Honestly, it's like learning to cook without knowing how to boil water.

Weeding in the Springtime

I removed the first "weed-like things" (as Mrs T called them) and startled a giant beetle that promptly went into attack mode. My subdued exclamation and dignified requests for it to retreat (no, I did not yelp and flail, Your Honour, definitely not) were met with disdain, so I stepped back and waited for the beetle to remove itself.
I now remember why I never liked the outdoors much.

Mapping the current status

T&T who sold us the house came by to introduce us to the plants, which was awesome. I made a map and jotted down instructions. It's all perfectly clear now, isn't it?

The insidious lure of gardening

It took 30 minutes to go from "I'll take this cup of coffee to the backyard, sit in the sun and do nothing" to "whew, there's that flowerbed nice and tidy!"

I really need proper gardening gear. The sellers left us some implements, like shears and trowels, but I have to go buy gloves and shoes and a hat. Couldn't possibly do without.

Fixin' in up

What search terms do you even use to find out whether and how thoroughly you're supposed to clean the flowerbeds in the spring? I went for "kukkapenkin siistiminen keväällä" ("tidying flowerbeds in spring") and the second hit was titled, appropriately, Kukkapenkin kevätkunnostus (fixing up your flowerbeds for spring) which gives a good overview. (1) The first hit was to an article warning people not to do it too early or too thoroughly or you'll ruin your garden, true to the Finnish mentality of never do anything in case you screw it up.

We went shopping on Saturday and bought a pressure washer, some deck cleaner and tinted wood oil. This is why:

The deck isn't in great condition and needs to be sanded and oiled. The fences could use some cleaning, too, but I have no idea if using a pressure washer on painted wood would just strip the paint off.

(We think this might have been a gate originally, but it certainly won't open now and there are bushes and things on both sides.)

I'm all fired up now to start cleaning things, but of course I've promised to take our resident Horsey Girl to the Tampere horse fair today and Firstborn rides along to visit her friend.

--
(1) I find my materials in Finnish because it's likely to produce more relevant hits than English. There "may" be some gardening stuff in English that's more relevant in, say, Surrey or California or South Africa than it is in cold, dark Finland with its acidic soil.

Herbology 102

I've put a name to at least one of the plants, thanks to my friend, Madam Garden Guru.

 This thing is Heuchera (tarhakeijunkukka). There are two of these, and the other one's much greener.

This would seem to be Pachysandra Terminalis (varjoyrtti). So not strawberries! Thanks for this identification goes to my friend's husband, Mr Guru.

Leikkauksia

Aurinko paistaa. Talipalloissa pyörii sinitiaisia, varpusia, talitinttejä, punarintoja, jopa mustarastas tuli osille. Ikkunan takana istuva viherpeukalo miettii tätä: Lehtipensasaidan leikkaukset. (Artikkelissa on myös hyviä linkkejä muihin kuin pensasaita-asioihin.)

Tehtävä: etsi kuvasta lintulauta. Kuvassa myös: osa puheena olevaa pensasaitaa.

Nähtävästi kyseessä on sen verran iäkäs pensasaita, että se ei vaadi järeitä toimenpiteitä vaan lähinnä trimmausta. Internetz ehdottaa myös, että aidan profiilia voisi kaventaa niin, että alaosa ei jäisi niin varjoon... tai ei nyt suoranaisesti ehdota, mutta antaa ymmärtää sen olevan mahdollisuus.

Fertilizer win

Should I try that?

(found at https://scontent-arn2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/29598169_2355861157764724_8937266423844782310_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=5d4e787b9cee54824c12a4332ff48ebb&oe=5B2EE242)