09 Winter - Canterbury Bells

At the start of March, Phil bought these canterbury bells from Trader Joe's on Masonic.

They were in full bloom, wilted a bit in the kitchen while I waited for good weather to trudge out into the gardens, then sprang back to life as soon as I planted them near the base of the terraces. The plant is about one foot tall and twice as wide with six nearly identical flower clusters.

In the six pack to the right in the nursery, you can see several tiny canterbury bells I started from seed in mid February. The dry weather over the last year or so has been hard on the delphiniums, so I plan to distribute these throughout the front and back gardens where the delphiniums have died off.

Nursery

Here you can see growing inside the nursery Phil made for Christmas, 2007, six packs of canterbury bells, winter sweet peas and stock. The columbines planted in the six pack to the far right haven't come up yet.

The bottom row has two pots with clarkia, which readily reseeded itself from fall, 2008. Out of view are six little pots containing a red echium each. These are the descendants of the nine-foot-tall mammoth, commonly called "Tower of Jewels," which grew in the fride (FRont sIDE) garden in 2008.

The second photograph shows the view of the terraced gardens from the nursery. Everything's pretty much dormant or growing steadily for a spring show. The fountain works rather well now, though there's still a leak somewhere.

Phil loves the cala lilies near the blue base of the waterfall.

The tinfoil you see hung from string is the most effective way I've found to scare birds out of the yard. It's a bit unsightly, but not nearly as bad as bird netting I used to string up like beleaguered tents across the backyard.