I have noticed one thing in common in the gardens I have done spring cleanups in: lots of rabbit poop! There seems to have been an explosion in the rabbit population in my Kanata suburb of Ottawa. I see quite a few rabbits on my evening walks through our neighborhood so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at the increased amount of their poop in the gardens.
The good news is that rabbit poop is great for your garden.
Hot vs Cold Manure
Cow, steer, sheep, or chicken manure is considered “hot” meaning it requires an aging or composting process before use. Otherwise, it will burn your plants. For that reason, be sure when you use this type that the label says “composted.” Rabbit poop, however, is “cold” manure requiring no such process before use. That’s because it is fermented and broken down in the rabbits’ gut before leaving its body.
The other advantage of rabbit manure is that it only has a mild smell to it. The smell actually brings back childhood memories of the pet rabbits my father used to bring home each spring at Easter time.
How to Use Rabbit Poop
Simply dig the round pellets into the soil between the plants, providing a nitrogen-rich fertilizer for your garden. You can also add a pile of poop to your composter as a nitrogen layer. Another option is to make compost tea by adding a pile of poop to a bucket of water. Stir it well and frequently for a few days, and then pour the “tea” onto your garden.
Any way you use it, rabbit poop is a free and convenient fertilizer for your garden!
Well, it appears my garden season is over for 2019. The increasingly cold, wet and miserable weather is telling me to give it up. It was a great season, with lots of garden successes to snap pictures of. When I remembered to that is.
Success with Annuals
Still one of my favourite annuals, these gorgeous cleome (AKA spider flowers) went crazy in a garden at the hospice I volunteer at. Unfortunately, they are non-hardy annuals in our climate, but I will definitely plant some again next spring. I like to plant as many colour variations that I can find, this year I used dark pink, pale pink and white…
annual multicolored cleomes
Other annuals starring in my garden successes included coleus (they come variegated in contrasting colours), miniature multi-coloured hibiscus (for a tropical look), portulaca (for full sun colour) as well as black-eyed-susan and sweet potato vines…
palest pink dwarf hibiscus with hot pink centers
burgundy and chartreuse sweet potato vines
Eye Popping Colour Combinations
Another of my garden successes this season involved the colour combinations I chose in several containers. Remember, the best colour combos are those that are opposites on the colour wheel. Don’t try to match your colours if you are going for the WOW factor, contrasting colours give more of an impact…
purple and chartreuse
orange and yellow flowers with burgundy grass
Container Gardening
The containers I planted for clients and myself were garden successes too. As described above, I aim for colour combinations that create splashes of bold colours…
coleus and vines
palm, nasturinium and vines
multicolored morning glories
These window boxes were created to add a splash of colour to the otherwise bland white older portion of the same hospice mentioned above. The empty window boxes came from a client that passed away a few years ago. I added perennials from my own gardens and a few annuals for contrasting colours, then attached six of them to the wall below the windows with brackets…
window box with annuals and perennials
Wedding Flowers
I attempted more wedding flowers this season and am happy to say these too were one of my garden successes. This time I had the pleasure of creating small tabletop arrangements. The biggest hurdle was the colour scheme. The bride and groom wanted blue and silver but anyone with a bit of flower savvy knows that neither blue or silver are abundant colours in gardens. Unless of course you want to order (expensive) exotic varieties from afar. They turned our well, phew…
Other beauties
My lily trees just keep getting more and more gorgeous every year. Their very first season they grew to about eighteen inches with a few blooms. This year I had multiple, thick, sturdy stems with tons of spectacular blooms…
white and pink lily tree
This time of year any nice days are a rare bonus, we were fortunate to experience a few last week. This picture shows a rose bush in a client’s garden that would just not quit. It is (was) so beautiful that neighbours thought the blooms were fake. When they saw me preparing the garden for the winter, one neighbour came over to comment and check for herself…
The winter of 2015 was so cold our buried water pipe running between the lake and our cottage froze in Ompah, Ontario. This has never happened before and the cottage was built way back in 1972. Apparently, the frost line was deeper than normal for this area of Canada this winter. Digging down to find the buried water pipe, we found the ground frozen solid six feet down! Fortunately, the soil at the cottage is sandy rather than full of clay as it is here in Kanata, although it was still a big job. This was just the beginning of our cottage renovations that just keep on going.
Replacing the Water Pipe
The good news is we had planned (eventually) to rebuild the patio, so the frozen pipe turned out to be the motivation to start the patio project. This project turned out to be an ongoing adventure, however, snowballing into rebuilding the patio and deck, which then lead to considering replacing doors and windows.
The pipe was rerouted so it no longer goes under the covered patio, but instead will be snow-covered for better insulation in winters to come. This first set of pictures shows the soil that was displaced while attempting to move the water pipe…
Patio Renovation
Next up was digging up the existing patio and expanding the width. length and depth so it is more comfortable. Eventually, we plan on replacing and adding to the existing patio stones so they extend out further than the deck above. Perhaps the addition of a hot tub is on the horizon too.
Deck Renovation
Then came removing the old deck, and discovering the damage caused by carpenter ants…
then replacing the old, chewed boards, footings, and joists with new ones…
Up next we added a waterproofing system to keep the patio dry, added the floorboards, then the posts and railings. Final results: an upper deck for viewing or sunbathing, and a lower, covered patio, perfect for storm watching, reading, or working in the shade…
Unfortunately, our cottage renovations have been put on the back burner because of a family issue. My father-in-law fell and broke his hip and the ensuing drama had us very busy. The side railings of the deck still have to be installed, including a hummingbird fence insert for a privacy screen.
New Windows and Doors for Rooms with a View
As renovations continued at our family cottage, our front door and bedroom window have now been replaced with patio doors, creating rooms with a spectacular view of the lake…
We enlisted the help of two sons and a friend to remove the old door and window, create the necessary rough-ins and install the new doors…
The process of finding, ordering, and getting patio doors delivered to the cottage was a frustrating experience. In this age of online shopping, it was next to impossible to see the doors in real life before ordering. Due to the possible extreme weather conditions at the cottage, we wanted something more durable than the base models available at local DIY stores like Home Depot or Lowes. Stores that specialized in patio doors could not show us any doors and were very confusing on the details of what we were trying to order. Thanks to the manager of theLookout Home Hardware Building Centerin Plevna we were able to order doors specific to our needs and even get them delivered to the cottage.
BEFOREAFTER
Now that this project is complete, we plan to add windows to the side of the cottage and replace the door at the side as well as the window at the back with patio doors.
When the exterior is complete, including new siding, the interior renovations begin…stay tuned!
Lumber Shortage Thwarts New Dock Steps
Anyone trying to complete a DIY project involving wood recently knows what I mean about a lumber shortage. I’m not sure just how widespread the shortage was, but we sure felt it here in the Ottawa area. Of course, the shortage is COVID related, isn’t everything bad related to the dreaded virus these days?
Last fall, when we dug up most of our cottage property to install a new water pipe, we decided to replace and widen the ancient steps and base to our dock. We figured we could get them replaced before cottage season began in earnest.
Enter the pandemic, throwing everything and everyone into chaos, even the best-laid plans.
Luckily hubby had some pressure-treated lumber stashed away, remnants from our deck project several summers ago. I won’t be living down this (only) advantage of his “discard nothing” personality anytime soon!
We were able to get started using this leftover lumber but had to wait (what seemed like) forever for the floorboards. I was finally able to locate some 12-footers we needed to finish the project this past week. Thankfully, our son has a large truck and could transport the boards from Ottawa to the cottage for us.
We finally completed the project, a few months later than planned. This base will look awesome next summer when the cedars are trimmed and a few of my specialties, planters full of colorful flowers, are added.
Back Veranda and Garden
On days when the wind is blowing off the lake from the north, we prefer to sit on the south, sunnier side of the cottage. A new veranda on that side of the cottage was just the answer. It also makes cleaning out the eavestrough easier for hubby.
Once the veranda began to take shape, I marked out a design for a new garden bed in front of the veranda. We removed the sod from the area, transplanting it to the slope that leads down to the lake. We also added stepping stones so we could easily cross the yard.
The pictures show the progression of both the veranda and the garden…
Ideas for more cottage renovations just keep turning up…stay tuned!
