Sitting on the Fence

We finally got around to replacing the bamboo fence that blew down last winter in one of those infamous Gorge Howlers (50 mph winds that blow out of the Columbia Gorge and make you think your house is gonna fall down). There's a lumber yard near Stark that has some nice pre-assembled cedar fence panels (hard to describe, but they're 3ft high and 4 ft long, and all you need to do is drive some posts between them and attach). It took most of the afternoon to acquire the materials, re-dig all the holes, and pull up weeds, but we were able to finish the assembly in one day because the strip in front of the house is only about 18 ft. (had to wait to pour the concrete for the footings until the next day). We've already had several compliments from people passing by.

I'd really like to convert the median into a perennial flowerbed (so I don't have to mow it anymore), but lack the time and energy to go out and get a truckload of mulch, so it probably won't happen this year. Sigh. I'd much rather have a bed of flowers than random weeds that I have to keep whacking down.

The front of the house, I mulched entirely, the way we used to do at Declerye (only I used cardboard instead of newspaper to smother out the grass--it seems to work a lot better), but around the time I was working on it, the California poppies were exploding and shooting their seed everywhere...so now I have a mulched bed that's full of spring bulbs and California poppies that have pretty much taken it over. And that's fine with me. The poppies don't leave much room for weeds to set up shop, and I find their feathery foliage and orange flowers rather attractive. So the yard has a meadow-like appearance.

The native shrubs (currants, thimbleberries, salmonberries, elderberries, etc) are all flowering or starting to set fruit. The currants bloomed first (back in April) and attracted tons of bees and some hummingbirds. (I recently learned that the color of the flower gives you a clue as to what color the berries will be...the white currants have much paler flowers than the black currants do.) The brambles are starting to bloom now. The thimbleberries have big white creamy-looking flowers. The salmonberries have dramatic purple pendant flowers. Elderberries have kind of an interesting smell to them that I couldn't begin to describe, but I'm guessing is used to attract pollinators, as the flowers, themselves are pretty non-existent...they look like funny 5 point stars and don't have any petals.

The sage that's been in a container ever since I bought it at the Grange Co-op in Ashland went into the ground last fall, and is looking much healthier. It looks like it's going to flower pretty soon. In the backyard, I used to have a huge happy sage bush almost as big as the one we had at Declerye (courtesy of the previous residents), but my dog took a hankering to it, and she ate the entire thing...I don't know if any of it survived to make a comeback at all. (Thank goodness she doesn't seem to like Rosemary or Oregano or mint.)

I bought some more raspberry canes to plant in the backyard and am going to try my darndest to screen them off so my dog can't eat them...she things brambles are excellent snacks, and will nibble them like a deer down to the ground...little rascal! (My dog is such a little herbivore that sometimes I suspect she is part goat).