Morphing into a Japanese Garden

This year, we seem to be moving and changing and trimming things  all over the property.  Our  Japanese ornamental maple  in the front of the patio was originally living in a 12 inch pot!  After setting it free 8 years ago it seems to have reached its full potential.  I am learning how to trim it "Japanese" style.  It is a work in progress.

Gardening with Kitty Company

I'd be a lonely gardener without my  Gypsy.  On my days off I live in my garden.  I have coffee in the garden; breakfast and lunch; and spend all day almost, in my garden, or at the pond (unless the weather is bad).  Am I lucky?  Oh yes, every minute of every moment that I spend in the garden I am joined by my little Gypsy girl.  Smoke is not at all interested in gardening, so he is never anywhere to be seen.

But I mustn't forget Jake, the doggie.  He joins me as well.  It's just that Gypsy can get into the small places where Jake can't, and then voila - there she is.

A Man With a Splitter

This contraption makes it effortless to split your firewood.  A friend of Chris's lent us this splitter to tackle some big alder we recently took down.  

Alder is not the most sought after firewood, but hey, it's free and it burns. Neither of us have the back strength anymore to physically use an axe or maul for splitting big rounds of wood, especially when there are knots in the wood, so this it for sure the way to go.

Horticultural Euthenasia

The first thing that they tell you about pruning is that much like a bad haircut, a botched pruning job will grow out eventually.  It’s unlikely that a person will kill a plant with poor pruning.  It may look really bad for a while, but it won’t die.
Well, I am here to tell you that I am dying inside after my botched Amandi Clematis pruning job today.  Seriously!  It was disaster. And it will not grow out!!
I have a 6 to 7 year old Amandi that has never been pruned.  It runs alongside the bonus room and has gone wild taking over the whole side and front of the house, and taking over the Wisteria as well.  It covered an entire window and just needed some pruning back.  I should have taken a before photo but did't think I would need to.  Here are a couple of pictures after I first began pruning it back from the front of the house and from within the wisteria:

Well at some point I cut the wrong old wood and the whole thing crashed to the ground.  Like an umbilical cord cut from the mother vine, it was done.  The problem is that there is no going back now,  This was my most prized vine, with such fragrant blossoms each spring.

 This was a thriving, happy vine, and it felt like it might feel being part of assisted suicide!!  The best I could do was to take some cuttings from some of the new shoots that lay in a mass on the ground.. I had soil, sand and rooting compound so gave it a go.

Will any of them take?  I won't hold my breath, as the Amandi vine is very hard to grow from cuttings. Pruning is not going to be part of my future.