Ottawa jardin

I recently spent six weeks hanging out in the nation's capital, visiting with a special jardin and its chat.  Was supposed to be working, but did some playing too, and some weeding and pruning. All accompanied by cocktails. Here is a snapshot of a spot in the Ottawa garden that gets a warm glimmer of sunset, and has a nice anvil to hold your negroni.

July sky!

The annual Canada Day project

This is a small pile of dead buttercups. It represents just the first 10 minutes of this year's July 1 long weekend project. I confess, I only spent the better part of a day doing this, and my back and shoulders and arms are now telling me that was quite enough, thank you very much! 

Supervised by Oz, who was a little concerned I might be heading toward the catmint with that trowel... 

...I headed under the apple tree, by the back deck, to deal with this:

It's actually really pretty, right?  Except that this lovely little shady bed was being absolutely choked by those sweet buttercups.  The keen-eyed among you will also note the handsome variegated leaf of the devil incarnate, goutweed. Believe it or not, there is very pretty fern, lilly-of-the-valley, geum, saxifrage, and sweet woodruff under there, along with the hellebore and brunnera.

Here's the discard pile by the end of the day ( well, photo taken the next morning, but still):

And here are the views all that digging opened up (note one sparkly blue toenail for scale):

The poor old sweet woodruff is pretty trampled. I'm hoping with some warmth and water (and no buttercups) it will make a recovery.

And the catmint got off unscathed.

Well, that's alright, then.