It feels like our garden is behind this year. It’s not because this year started out a lot rainier than most, no, it’s because our next door neighbors decided to replace their fence and thus the fence between our two properties had to be replaced, so we spent about two months waiting for it to be put in.

Our garden was on hold for a good part of that time. Oh I did regular garden maintenance on it, such as pruning the roses of dead branches after the long cold winter and making sure the garden beds weren’t full of weeds. However, I didn’t put in any new perennials or plant any annuals until after the fence went in. The shared fence didn’t start going in until the 6th of June so I’ve spent the last two weeks playing catch up with my garden … oh and giving the plants along the new fence tender loving care since new post holes and a big trench had to be dug which likely disturbed some of their roots.

I’m exhausted … but I have to say, here on this first day of Summer, that my garden is starting to look the way I want it to. I must admit that a few weeks ago I was certain that my garden would pretty much be a write off this year. Oh and when the fence was going in I thought that my roses were going to be damaged. I have some very special roses along that fence line – Prince Napoleon, Sympathy and my gigantic William Baffin. I’d hate to lose any of them, but of the eight roses along that fence line Prince Napoleon and Sympathy would have been the worst ones to lose. As it was, we had to lean a few of the roses over while the fence work was being done and Prince Napoleon was leaning right over onto other roses and plants. I thought it was a goner for sure. As it is, it has a terrible case of Black Spot right now because of lack of air circulation due to basically lying on other plants for a week.

Since we’re in Garden and Yard sprucing up mode we sanded off the old paint on the doors of our storage areas under our enclosed back porch and I spent several hours yesterday repainting them. Wow .. everything looks so nice and new now.

Perhaps by this weekend I’ll have slowed down from my outdoor activities and I’ll get around to moving some of my photos from my camera to my computer. If I do I’ll post some pictures of the new fence and how the garden looks now. It does look pretty good if I do say so myself.