Tiny rock garden

Sunday was a glorious day between snows. My friend B came over to use the studio to make some jewelry components and we also went out to breakfast at Schmidts.

Wonderful Sunday breakfasts! M and J and I have been going out to Sunday brunch a couple of times a month. I always feel like a Princess when I get to go out to brunch.

So after a wonderful brunch, we all came back to hang out in the studio and chat while B made stuff. It was fun to hang out with a couple of other women artists and noodle around. My husband and I are generally so focused on getting our orders done and out the door that there is little chatting and less noodling. After J left, I decided that it would be a good day to stick the $20 worth of plants I had bought last Sunday out. The plants have been sitting outside on the east facing porch and the rock wall that the plants are going into are on the west side of the studio. The rock wall faces east and is about 10' tall. The studio is built inside the foothill and we had a man come blast out a level area to construct it.

It was quite an adventure, but that's another blog.

So I found what part of the wall I see when I am sitting at my bench and looking out the windows into the wall. It sounds dumb to put 3 huge windows that face into a rock wall, but it is very cool. So where the rocks have tumbled and fallen the wall is rough and has a lot of nooks and their attendant crannys (one mustn't have one without the other!). I found 3 good places where there was enough of flat areas that I could build up a bit of a retaining wall and pile soil in behind to make a place to plant.

I put in a mixture of perennials and annuals. I hope the annuals are good at self-seeding. I chose 3 main colors of blooms: magenta, orange, and white. There is a tiny bit of intense blue as well, but that should just be an accent. California poppies, white pansies, and lobelia in blue and magenta are the annuals. A couple of kinds of thyme, rock cress, and something with tiny white flowers on a tall stock are the perennials.

I already am insanely in love with it. I can see the big white pansy faces really clearly and the other things aren't quite in bloom yet. But the different types of foliage are clear. And it's there deliberately.

For an number of years I have looked out these windows and seen only weeds. And have berated myself for not planting things in this fabulously beautiful location.

And now I have. Yay me! Yay to M for getting me started planting again!

I don't know if I'll manage to get any veggies into the old bed but I am okay with that. I got something growing again outside that I planted.

It snowed yesterday about half an inch. I went and looked at the plantings. The water that seeps into the ground flows through the cracks in the rocks. There was a tiny little waterfall that fell into the northern most planting. Very amazingly cool.