I go to yoga classes and enjoy them very much. In a life that is occasionally subjected to too much stress, my yoga classes never fail to soothe something in me. One thing I’m going to miss terribly once I move are these classes because I think the instructor is very important and the lady who teaches us yoga is simply wonderful. (Thank you Kelly) I credit her with fixing my back which was a source of periodic misery to me for about 20 years. No wonder I love this woman.

As soon as I realized that my attendance might be terminated by moving, I started to think about a place to continue my practice and while I need a spot inside, the simple truth is that my happy place will always be somewhere surrounded by plants and trees, complete with weeds and bugs. And so a part of my new garden will be my yoga garden. It will be built to surround a small patch of grass sized for one person lying down, but able to accomodate two sitting up. It will be, to some extent my secret corner. I’ll use shrubs and maybe a small tree to separate it from the rest of the yard and it’s occupants.

My first vision, given the idea of yoga, which says calm and quiet was a shaded retreat in mutued tones with lots of foliage, probably an oriental influence – which will work well because I can also integrate some of my bonsai into the space. Then I realized that the shady idea might not be the best. If I’m going to lie on the ground and practice my breathing, I’d rather be warm than cold.

As I understood that sun and warmth would be important – for at least part of the day, I realized that the muted Vita Sackville-West “white garden” appeal was really more of my intellectual concept of yoga and was not necessarily what I would choose in a retreat to make me feel deliciously happy. And that’s what I really want.

I’m going to hope for morning sun and afternoon shade. I still want my shrubs to help define the space and give me some privacy. It wont be a slam the door in your face, no one can see in and I can’t see out type of privacy. Afterall, this is going into my back yard and not the middle of a school yard. It will just be the kind of privacy that says to anyone who can see me “she wants to be alone”. Very Greta Garbo.

I’m going to add some colour for sure. I’ve no idea which plants will make the cut and much of that will depend on just how the sun will hit the space and if I can put some of the garden in enough light to support a few annuals, which pack the biggest bang for the flowering buck. That means I can look at some different salvias, some calendulas or zinnias and perhaps some of the newer gazania hybrids ( I might have spelled that wrong) I can run a rose or more likely a clematis over an arbour to create an entrance. Siberian irises, peonies and lavender might show up- just because they are among my favorite plants. I feel the arrival of a big blue hydrangea. Something that might attract hummingbirds would be cool too. If I can’t figure out the plant, I might just cheat and put in a feeder.

But it won’t be the cool, shady and sophisticated retreat I had first imagined. No. first I think I’d better make it honest.

Wow- I’ve been gone a long time. Funny how the things I love to do and the things I need to do don’t often appear on the same list. I’d like to change that.

This year is going to be so brilliantly exciting for me. I’m moving in the spring and as much as I love vegetable container gardening and think its a very important trend for the future of cities and city livers (not to be confused with chicken livers) I’m thrilled that I’ll be able to have an inground vegetable garden again. And I’ll be adding a few small nursery beds to fatten up some of my beloved outdoor bonsai trees including hornbeams (if they make it through their first winter) Amur Maples, Japanese black and white pines, Sargent’s crabapples and some lovely larches.

Late in the summer, if all goes well, I’ll get my greenhouse. It won’t be a big honkin’commercial size, but I’m looking at something between 8×12 and 10×14- I just need to fit it to my site and my budget.

The yard that will house these wonderful things belongs to a house whose current owners have two large dogs and so the back yard, which isn’t immense but is a more than reasonable size has never had anything done with it. It’s a blank slate and to be able to plan from scratch is just a delight to me.. I’ll be adding a small private yoga garden and of course a patio for outside eating and entertaining and some perennial and annual flowers.

I’ll be incorporating as many food bearing shrubs and plants and trees- so I already know that blueberries will feature in the foundation shrubs and a hardy kiwi vine will make an appearance along with rhubarb and maybe a peach tree.

As a rental gardener I handed out pieces of favourite plants every time I moved so there are some daylillies and a peony or two whose offspring will return to my garden in the next year or so.

Happy New Year to one and all. I’ve been waiting for this one all my life.

One of the (not completely ) answered questions for my summer vegetables in containers project was picking the best ones to grow.  I was looking for a combination of decent yields for the work and – I guess you’d call it -functionality.  I wanted vegetables that could be eaten immediately or could be preserved or could provide a sustained yield for a long time.

I also couldn’t choose all that many, because like the people I’m doing this for I’m pressed for time and space. Finally I wanted to work with plants that would let me test some different container styles – particularly for the soil less containers where I want to be able to check out larger single plant pots, smaller individual plants set into a pipe garden configuration and also I wanted to check out a “broadcast” planter box.  I want to check into cut and come again salad greens so I wanted the most surface area I could acommodate in the space.

Here’s the list so far- Cherry tomatoes, beans, acorn squash, picking cucumbers, lettuce varieties (loose leaf) and hot peppers.  If the hot peppers seem like a strange addition – all I can say is that they can be dried and held for a long time, I like the taste of hot peppers and I happen to really like the look of them too.

Although I’m kinda late getting off the ground, if I can I’ll try and also get some snow peas added into the mix and that will probably be it.

The seeds are sprouting – I dont’ have any pots and I haven’t built the hydroponic planters yet … got to get this in gear!

You want your backyard to look unique, and there are a number of things you can do to achieve this look. You can plant certain flowers, add unique lawn furniture, add a birdbath, and put down nice looking patio bricks. One thing that few people think of, though, is adding a bird feeder to the look. One of the most interesting and exotic looking bird feeders is an African bird house bird feeder. It looks so different from other feeders. It looks like an African hut with an ornamental roof made out of wheat or rye over a “house” of corn. Birds can come visit this unique home and stay for a meal—the entire bird house is made out of edible food, including Japanese millet, proso millet, sunflower seeds, corn, wheat, rye, canola seeds, popcorn, oat groats, and dried orange and apple slices. The entire this is fourteen inches tall and almost five inches across, large enough for several birds to eat at once.