Perennial Restoration

I have spent three days reclaiming a perennial bed that was possibly never fully planted and let go for the last two years at least. It was completely filled with weeds and it took some looking to save some of the good stuff. The worst weed by far is Bishop's Weed, Aegopodium podagraria. That is the white leaved blob in the front of the bed next to the lawn. It forms a dense mat interconnected by millions of rhizomes. I am digging it out in chunks because it does not belong in a perennial bed being restored to a cutting garden. And I will no doubt continue to weed it out for several seasons to come.



And when I look up from my restoration (weeding) there is a view.



I wait for a load of mulch to arrive so this weeding procedure does not need to be repeated. It will be fully planted and paths will wind through it. A cutting garden with a view.

Conning The Spots

The plan was to paint the trim and the exterior of the front door and service entrance today after harvesting salad greens for the larder at the chef's house next door. The Spots like to go for strolls and have been down to the cozy cabin many times. After the harvest was washed and stored it seemed like a good time to bring them down for an extended stay at their soon to be new home.

The followed me no problem. Crawford had to inspect the cleaning and priming job and even came inside to check things out. Collar hung outside in the lush. This far from home they won't stroll back unescorted, weird cats, so when a wicked storm descended, the painting ended and the Spots ran for cover. Not inside mind you. They wouldn't come in. A quick inspection is all they have ever managed and if the doors closed them inside they freaked.

Once the worst of the storm had passed Collar came out of hiding and reluctantly came inside, only to figit and pace once the door was closed and a second storm blast arrived.



Crawford had hollered to be let in in the middle of the first blast of the wicked storm. He was more mellow, but still paced non stop. Weird cats.



Boy were they happy when it was time to go back home. Poor things had been traumatized by ferocious winds, lightning, thunder, flying branches and a very hard rain, then trapped inside a strange box to boot. I fed them dinner and they went straight to bed, safe and sound in their real home. This move ain't gonna be easy I can see.



A big branch, one of dozens that pummeled the ground had landed where I usually park my truck. Good thing my truck was at my house and I had planned to con the Spots into going for a walk.



It was breezy to say the least. I'll consider standing the sunflowers back up tomorrow after they and the ground have had a chance to drain just a bit.



That's just the way it goes up here, closer to the innards of the thunderstorms.



I try to avoid plant bondage as much as possible and in these conditions you really gain an appreciation for plants that refuse to flop over or can stand themselves back up after a vicious sideways blast. Gardy has enough to do without having to tie things up.

In Just Four Years

It is a pretty good thing that I was a naive greenhorn in all things construction, thinking oh it won't take long to build such a tiny little house, because if I had known it was going to take four long years to build the cozy cabin



I might have relented and parked a trailer down here.



Four years ago today I arrived in North Carolina to the big machines clearing a pad in the forest and digging in a "tater field" for my rock walls. Visions of a little cabin quickly rising in the forest danced in my head.



Four long years later, instead of a tacky trailer, a little gem that slows traffic and gets compliments from the locals rests comfortably in the forest. I built it and one day it will be mine. Right now the lawyer and the banker want to make the land transfer and the mortgage an ordeal. The object seems clear enough to me. I don't understand the slow muddled response from so called professionals in their fields. Their both thinking about the proper processes and procedures. I think the internal family nature of the deal has thrown them for a loop to certain degree. I breathe. It will get done in due time.

Meanwhile I am mostly moved in to Hale Mana. The little cabin in my head is now real.



I am the last resident to move in. Others have been living here far longer.



Did you know bats really will not wake up in the day time even if you pick them up and move them because they are in the way.



The insulated plumbing box was recovered with its bead board siding. All that's left on this project is a couple of small trim pieces that broke when I tore the thing open to find out what the problem was. With that done the cabin felt more complete. It was time for me to move in.



At least for those four long years I was able to wander a mountain top garden of wild cultivation filled with botanical splendors of every kind and every season.



There was grass in this garden, but you didn't have to mow it.



It was part of the exuberant chaos where plants seeded themselves and wandered about looking for better locations and nicer neighbors. Each of those four years was different. I lived in a garden with a mind of its own. This garden made the slow building process that much more tolerable.



By my first spring the roadside vegetable garden was ready to plant and this year will mark my forth season. More than anything the vegetable garden has been my salvation. It regularly produced a finished product, something that was missing in so many other areas of my life.



So I would strongly advise anyone else who is thinking of building their own cozy cabin that the very first thing they should do is Plant the Vegetable Garden. I was just extremely lucky to have full use of the wild cultivated garden next door too.

Soft Fluffy Pillows

Tonight I sleep in my new home for the very first time. Sweet Dreams.



Tomorrow when I wake up will be the four year anniversary of my arrival to the low spot on a North Carolina mountain top. Phase two of a new life begins at four.

A Stolen Bloom Day

I have had a lot on my mind of late and completely and totally forgot it was the internationally recognized Garden Bloggers Bloom Day today until I had finished my volunteer correspondence and wandered out in the web of gardeners to pleasure myself.



As the sub-title of this blog implies, I do indeed live the life of gardening and it just so happens the reason I was in West Asheville yesterday evening was to scout for potential gardens for the upcoming garden stroll.



What follows may or may not be gardens featured on the stroll, but if anyone should take an inquisitive walk through the real neighborhoods of West Asheville, you will indeed see blooms and sights like this.



Good thing I took pictures yesterday because it started pouring, even hailing a bit, and hasn't stopped since I left work late this afternoon. There will be no bloom report from the low spot of a North Carolina mountain top for this Bloom Day. You see enough of that anyway.



Let's go to West Asheville for Bloom Day. Ok mark this down to go chat up the gardeners later.



And we stumbled upon a sunset view.



There are quite a few real and avid gardeners in this urban community.



One thing that sets the hardcore gardeners apart is that in these very tiny urban front yards the front lawn is a thing of the past. There is no room for grass unless it is an ornamental grass.



My gardener's eye looks for plants that could be blooming in early September amongst the lush summer blooms. Anemones, sedums, Joe Pye, Goldenrod, Ironweed , Asters, Sheffie Mums? Do I see any of that?



Here we have an entirely edible front yard. Call Fritz Haeg. The summer vegetables were just recently planted. Or you could call it the roadside vegetable garden with the wildflowers mixed in. Put my house closer to the road and there isn't much difference.



Oh nice. Mark this one down. This co-op housing development also had an extensive vegetable growing area.



Now I wonder what category Ms. Carol Of May Dreams, founder of Bloom Day, competitive rule maker and garden geek analyzer would have for the gardener who can readily steal Bloom Day worthy pictures from just going about their ordinary everyday life?

In West Asheville At Dusk

I Steal Moments

In the roadside vegetable garden as I come and go.



I started work today at a new client's rather posh estate. This one job alone will pay my mortgage when all the processes and paper work are processed and properly filled in, filed and recorded.

We wait on the slow lawyer to do the actual transfer of the land. He is slow and needed a stiff nudge today. The new property has to be legally recorded for a mortgage to proceed. Home owners insurance was purchased today. That was also needed for a mortgage to proceed. I have gathered my meager income reports and other needed papers for the mortgage process. In some respects I don't count for much. Thank goodness I have a co-signer with a substantial income.

Planning for the upcoming West Asheville Garden Stroll has begun and I managed to volunteer to be the chairman of the site committee. It seems far fetched somehow me living in Extreme West Asheville and all. We shall see.

I work work all the time now. Then I have to try and fit all this other stuff in before and after.

After work today I finished re-insulating the plumbing box beneath the cozy cabin. It is ready for the bead board plywood cover to go back on when I next find some spare time.



I steal moments in the roadside vegetable garden as I come and go because it gives me a great sense of calm. The tidy rows of vegetables are on a well scheduled process. I know what to expect and there are no forms to fill out for some pseudo authority figure. There are some annoying insects chewing freshly sprouted seeds and the raccoon has added a strawberry tax to the existing sweet corn tax later in the season, but I expect these things.



So I steal moments in the roadside vegetable garden as I come and go. It represents my sanity. Now how did I end up with so many sunflowers again?

An Interruption Of Flow

My beautiful red columns are a home owner's insurance design flaw. I have been rejected for insurance by two major insurance companies. Their reasoning is that the open foundation allows easier access for varmints to get in and the water lines are more susceptible to freezing causing water damage.

Well I never.

Let me just say that when I moved here four years ago the house next door with the closed in luxury basement accommodations was infested with mice. I took care of that. Its water lines freeze regular. The only water lines in a cabin without heat that froze were the ones in the wall. None of those in the floor froze. Closing in my basement patio won't help the shower water lines in the wall. The heat tape I added will.

I do have a few takers who will give me home owner's insurance at least.



It was ready, but I did not spend my first night in the cozy cabin last night. I followed my inner voice that said wait just a bit longer. Maybe in a few days?



A cheapo particle board book shelf was bought and assembled. It will do for now. I need places for stuffs. One day it can be replaced with a fine piece of wood furniture.



Some how the bedding, sheets and comforters are a bit off. It is a nice comforter with a Queen Anne's Lace pattern. It works with the floor, but not the blue walls. Maybe I'll have to repaint the loft another color.



It is still a bedroom in progress. At some point I need to build a closet and cabinet shelves for clothes. Right now the stuffs keep spinning around the room. It is not yet permanently set.



It is a work in progress outside as well.

I have planted delosperma and a sedum around my avatar. Both have multiplied, but neither of them have filled in as a short ground cover like I intended. Granted this bed has been rudely disturbed on more than one occasion. Perhaps a geranium will do the trick. Meanwhile I will gladly accept the wild Ox-Eye Daisies.



More permanent and substantial plantings continue to grow larger in this front bed beside the driveway entrance. The Calamagrotis acutifolia 'Avalanche' and Yucca filamentosa 'Bright Edge' have some promise as space fillers.



In the semi wild abandon you sometimes just have to take what you get and hope that it all works together. Pink, yellow and white is good.



My first planting of corn only had 80% germination and it is too late now to fill in the holes. The all important tasseling from a later sowing would be way out of sync. I will have to sex the corn myself anyway in a skinny row like this. I don't need out of sync corn to deal with too.



My lone astilbe, currently anyway, is doing just fine. I must have picked a good spot for it.



Some things just flow naturally. The chicory has filled every bit of bare space in the front roadside bed. I am a bit surprised it hasn't flowed much further yet. I don't think anything would look bad with chicory for a back drop or filler. I just loves my chicory.



Hollyhocks, Verbena bonariensis, Eremurus, Ox-Eye Daisy, Miscanthus 'Morning Light' and Juncus add to the scene right now. It all changes as the summer progresses.



The roadside vegetable garden with the wildflower and daylily surround aims for its peak summer display as the world flows by.



It won't be long now before that flow of traffic is interrupted more and more as cars slow to a crawl or come to stop to marvel at the bountiful chaotic beauty of nature slightly interrupted by the hand of the gardener.