Ground Force Strikes with a new Garden Design.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday and Monday, August 5/6/7/8th.

One half of Nancy's garden has been infected by the gardeners scourge, namely,  ground elder, bishops snare,  bishops weed, gout weed, goat weed to give it just a few of it's common names. The official Latin name is Aegopodium Podagraria. You wanted to know that didn't you? Earlier in the year two young gardeners tackled it and dug out the offending weed from the bed. The problem was the roots had grown through the established plants and so it grew back with vengeance and rampaged back through the cleared patch.

Roses here  have seen better days.....

...and the ground is infested with ground Elder or Bishops Snare.

 Having given the subject some serious thought and knowing Nancy is, by her own admission, no gardener. I sounded out my radical plan to Nancylee. The only way to tackle the problem that I could see was to totally rip out every thing in the affected patch.   Cover the soil with a weed barrier membrane and cover the lot with decorative stone. We could then introduce colour back into the patch by some decorative pots that Nancy could easily manage.

...going...

...going..

It was a radical solution that involved some hard work. I wasn't sure how it would be received. Although no gardener, Nancy loves her roses and clematis. However Nancylee thought it a workable solution to getting rid of the offending weeds and managing the garden. So next morning bright and early! we started. Bag after bag of green garden waste was filled as we slowly worked across and ripped every plant and root out. Soon the sun became too hot and we had to pack up for the day.

Gone!

The Under Gardener's shattered!!!

Days one and two involved ripping out all the well established plants with all the offending roots we could see this also meant removing the retaining wall as the weed had managed to get through the wall in several places.  By the end of day two we managed to strip everything out,  level the ground and replace the two layers of the stone retaining wall. At the end of day two after cleanup showers we headed off for the evening meal at Number 9 resturant in Lansdowne.

Day three Sunday, shopping day. Nancylee's friend Sally, who has just extensively re-landscaped their whole garden, gave us  IP addresses for stone and plants. Early morning and I did an internet search but couldn't find any other sites with what we wanted. The stone place was in Burnaby, just north east of Vancouver, not too far away. 

Northwest   Landscape and  Stone Supplies

 We found it easily, by accident, just as we thought we'd missed it. If you want stone , They have stone. As many different varieties as you could think of. It was a massive place. We chose the stone we wanted and went to see about payment and delivery. Ouch what a shock! We left, empty handed but with the girl assistants advise to go see another place much further along the same road.

 We found the place. Southwest Garden supplies. First impressions were, we're not going to find what we want here, but we did and the price was a fraction of the posh place. We did a deal and they agreed to deliver early in the next morning. We also found a lovely ten year old dwarf cut leaf red acer called Red Dragon.

We headed back to Richmond to meet and eat with John at Browns Social Club in the Ironwood Plaza. Lunch time, Sunday lunch. A much different tradition here, not Sunday roasts anywhere. Food here is good anyway. After lunch we give the Acer tree to John to take home and head off once more to Phoenix Plants. It's really the end of the season for buying plants. We more or less found what I wanted and did a deal.

Acer Palmatum - 'Red Dragon'

'Red Dragon' is a fabulous, superior new cultivar from New Zealand. This deep purple-red dissectum keeps it tremendous deep color in sun or shade better than any other red dissectum. The color holds better than some of the most outstanding dissectums such as 'Crimson Queen', 'Garnet', and 'Inaba Shidare'. Even the award winning Tamukeyama cannot compare to Red Dragon when it comes to holding its color. The young leaves on this cultivar are a bright scarlet color in the spring, becoming dark burgundy as they develop. The rich color holds well until it changes into an outstanding flaming scarlet in the fall. The growth habit is like a dwarf form of 'Crimson Queen'. 'Red Dragon' is a well branched, cascading mound reaching a height of 5-6 ft. in 10 years, and 7-8 ft. in 15 years. It needs some protection from cold wind and summer drought. 'Red Dragon' makes an exceptional small garden, rock garden, or container plant.

Back at the Hacienda, Nancylee and 'Himself' cut and laid the weed barrier membrane. An important part of ridding the area of the offending weed. It can't survive if it can't shoot up new green leaves. Then we positioned all the plants in the places we wanted then to eventually be. There needed to be a rethink first though as the old rose arch we hoped to reposition near the chimney stack for the new clematis to scramble over just did not fit right so the whole design had to be quickly re-thought. 

Re thought design

 Next morning we're all up early. All the bags of green waste was put out for today's  recycling collection. We wern't sure they would take them all but they did, thank goodness.

The stones arrived promptly at 8.30 and were tipped out front on the drive all one cubic yard of them. We set about easing in the frame for the clematis, in place, not easy, as its aging and a little rusty but we wanted to keep it. Plants next, all bedded in with new compost and bone meal to give them a helping hand. Then the stone. Reinforcement muscle was drafted in and it was all shovled into buckets and carried through the house out to the new bed.

.

one cubic yard of tumbled pebbles carried through mainly by John

A welcome  refreshment break. Coffee, tea ,ice tea and biscuits supplied by  Nancy.

Very Zen!

They look good wet! just as well here!

Almost finished...

 There was far more stone in our purchase than we really needed. It gave us the opportunity  to increase the stoned  area to around the base of the lilac tree, just in case the weed make a dash for open soil! Almost finished by 11.30am. Just a few finishing touches to go. The watering pipework to sort and pots to plant up. But we've done enough  for today. We all have a lunch date with Ralph and Daniel. Dim Sum at Jade in Richmond.

John, Daniel and Ralph at Jade.

....and for those of you out there who think we do nothing but go out and eat....... I say, well why not!!! So many different places to go to......

 Tonight though John and 'Himself' have gone out on a Pub Crawl. Beer tasting! Nancy and I are eating at home ....leftovers of course.....with wine.