The Golden Rain Tree

This photo shows the beautiful Laburnum X watereri or Golden Rain Tree that grows in our neighbour's front garden next to the fence that separates her garden from ours. At the left of the photo you can see one of our two Rowan (Mountain Ash) trees in bloom. The darker shade of yellow at the lower part of the Laburnum is a shrub called Broom which is in our garden. (Broom grows wild all over Scotland in the summer time.)

Patricia, our neighbour to the South, has a lovely garden. Not surprisingly, she spends a lot of time working in it. By contrast, I seem to do my gardening in fits and starts, sometimes going far too long between sessions, but some of the sessions last for days if not weeks. I do take short gardening breaks several times a week to do some weeding, watering, or deadheading (usually a combination of the three), just general "tidying up" when I have a few extra moments.

I first met Patricia 2 years ago as we were getting to know our garden, having just moved into the Rowans that March. Her Laburnum trees (there is another next to the fence in the back garden as well) were in lovely dripping bloom and I remarked to her that I had always wanted one as I found them so graceful and lovely. As there were no Laburnam trees in our garden, I said to Patricia that "The next best thing to having your own Laburnam tree is to have at least one in the neighbouring garden." One day in early summer last year, I was having a right good whack at the overgrowth in my back garden when Patricia hailed me to the fence. She said she had a "volunteer" Laburnam and was going to pull it out. She wondered if I'd like to have it. "Oh yes, please!" I replied. So planted the tree and assigned Erik Gnome to watch over it. In the autumn, I mulched the bottom of the tree quite heavily. It has done well through the entire winter seems to be doing okay.

During the renovation of the entryway/shower room area, scaffolding and debris came perilously close to the wee thing, so I went out and tied a bright-coloured ribbon to it and told the various workers to watch out for it. Patricia said she thought the tree would be a decent size within a couple of years. (They don't grow very tall or wide.) I planted it near the spot where we had a Ground Elder, known around here as a "weed tree" because it spreads like a weed and is virtually impossible to get rid of. Bill Swanson cut it down for me but couldn't uproot the roots because of the way they grow. I can easily pull the shoots off the stump but must keep at it. Patricia was happy to see the Elder go but there now is a blank spot where there used to be a nice privacy screen between our two gardens. The little tree is now a little over 2 feet tall with 3 wee branches. It looks like it could be providing some screening by this time next year.

At 8 this morning the painting crew came back to put undercoating on the outside of the newly clad front extension. They'll be back this afternoon to give it a coat of paint. They will also paint the entryway, hallway, and doors at that time. Unfortunately, the wallpaper still hasn't come in so we're on hold for that.

George and Co. are back to get on with the roofing. They made fairly good progress yesterday but it doesn't look to me as if they got as much done as they thought they would. It appears that over half the work remains to be done. Fortunately, the weather is to stay sunny all week and throughout the weekend. A cool breeze blew in from the north yesterday afternoon and evening and our temperature dropped from the upper 70s down to the upper 50s after the sun went down (at about 10!). We actually turned on our new gas fire for a while last night, which did the trick nicely. Today it's expected to get back up to the low 70s.

In the afternoon yesterday, Barclay and a helper came over to clean up and cart away the last of their debris. The patio has now been swept clean and so have the areas next to, in front of, and behind our garage. The skip out front is getting full again, but we suspect it will hold whatever remaining debris comes from the last bit of work to be done.

The remaining worktop is expected sometime this morning. We're still waiting to hear back from Bill about the studio cupboard. He has left messages but hasn't heard back from the joiner who is doing the fabrication. Fortunately, it is perhaps the least crucial item we've had to wait for.

We looked at trellis/planters and garden arches yesterday but decided to see what we could find on the Internet. We think we have found just what we're looking for (and for less money) but Don needs to get a few questions answered before ordering them. We did come home from the garden center with a new blue hydrangea, a large and full hanging basket (already planted), 4 window boxes to go on top of the stone wall around the sides of our front extension, 3 large bags of compost (potting soil), and 6 herb plants (basil, cilantro, and parsley). Guess this will be a gardening day.