Farewell Holidays, Hello Springtime...sort of

On New Year’s Day I took down all the Christmas decorations. It has always been my intention to do this on that day but in past years I never got around to it until January 2nd as, if the truth be known, I was usually too hungover to bother with it on the 1st. This year was different.

For two reasons. The first was that we woke up on December 31st and celebrated the New Year as it arrived in Asia - Manila/Hong Kong time, which was 8:00 a.m. here on the Left Coast. Morning cappuccino, a view of the Hong Kong fireworks on YouTube (well OK they were actually posted from last new year’s but who cares about those details) and it was all over. The rest of the day felt like January 1st and it was early to bed, stone cold sober. No muss, no fuss. I think I'm on to something.

The second reason for getting right on the dismantling of tree, swags, lights and the rest was that I am now in serious springtime preparations. Begone Christmas, time to let in spring. The days are getting longer and in another month or so the garden centers will be opening for the season.

When I lived in Ontario my life’s ambition was to spend the entire month of January in the house. The snow and cold were a nightmare and who cared that the days were getting longer when outside it was a horror show. Here, on January 2nd it was 7°C at 8:30 in the morning, the grass is green and some of the early flowering shrubs are budding and almost ready to go. Gotta love it, and believe me, I do.

The GreenHouse makes a huge difference to my wintertime health and happiness. I usually spend an hour or so in there every day puttering (pottering), making notes and dreaming, listening to music or Stephen Tobolowsky podcasts. I’m keeping the temperature between 10-15°, although it will go higher on a sunny day, keeping the fuchsias in green leaf. Some are showing new growth which I’m clipping to propagate. Seedlings of F. Miss California, F. Seventh Heaven and F. Dark Eyes from the mother plants are started as well as various vegetables started from seed - spinach, lettuce, arugula, Italian parsley and basil. The cuttings I took from Helix hedera (ivy) in the fall are growing nicely, which will save a few bucks when I use them in various pots of The Pot House.

Dennis "helping"

In December we hired Gord the Landscape Contractor to do the hardscaping in the backyard. The old concrete patios were removed and replaced with stone bricks, pathways through the beds were laid down and sod removed from future flower beds. They built new gates on both sides of the house, extended the fencing along one side of the house, built a side pergola to create my outdoor staging area for The Fuchsia Ranch. It was all finished by December 23rd and I’m thrilled to have it all done. Howard and Dennis are now out there daily, double digging new flower beds. Soon all we’ll need to do is go power shopping in the garden centers and plant, plant, plant.

Side of house as it used to look, busted gate and all

Found space - the new outdoor staging area for The Fuchsia Ranch

Number 1 Son was here for a few days at Christmas which was enough of a gift, but he also offered to build me benches for the new outside staging area. Steve is a carpenter currently living in Ottawa (although he is threatening to move back to British Columbia in the coming year). The day after Boxing Day we made a daring raid on the red cedar lumber store near Parksville to buy the wood, dug out the power tools and workbench from the storage area and in a few hours it was all done. I had been wondering who I was going to find to build them for me and lo and behold, the answer arrived in the form of my handsome, talented first-born. Must be Ganesha, once again, working his magic in the background.