The Great Catalogue Project

When I say great, I mean it in the sense not of "fantastic" or “flawless” or "awe-inspiring" scientific cataloguing by me. It's more in the sense of, oh my God what have I started, there's just too many thingies and seedies growing in this blessed half acre to identify. You see, H is an inveterate plant collector; he's invariably got cuttings growing in the heat mat and seedling tray. Or he's outside in the garden pushing seeds into the loamy muck, watering in the early morning or late afternoon, or cadging a cutting from the neighbours from some new plant variety he hasn't seen before. When we go for walks he'll often get distracted by a strange rose bush or ground cover and itching to get his hands on a cutting or two. I don't even mention the plant nurseries; he may have single-handedly kept the ones in the immediate vicinity alive with his copious orders over the years!

This is the current layout: at the back of the house is the Big Garden, also known as the Jungle. This is dominated by a dozen blueberries growing alongside various annuals and perennials: tulips, wild apples, the odd raspberry and blackcurrant trees, a glorious ornamental cherry, poppies and daffodils, hydrangeas and geraniums, a few unfortunately sickly rhododendrons, a couple of taro plants, bleeding hearts and many varieties of decorative grasses and pines. Near the kitchen we have lavender, chives and various ornamentals, perennials and annuals including countless columbines and some really outstanding alliums (onions).

Front of the house is a lovely, sunlit (if soggy in places) squarish garden where we now have two raised beds for growing vegetables. The first bed is flourishing with lettuces, chives, squash, asparagus, peas and beans. H built the second one just yesterday and today we plan to get seeds and plants from the nursery. I plan to make the second bed a tri-season affair planted with different things growing through late spring to late autumn.

Both beds sit on a sea of dandelions which have mostly gone to seed now, replaced by a sunny army of buttercups which H keeps threatening to mow down. I’ve begged him to keep them around for a while; they make me so happy just to look at them.

At the edge of the front garden the rather charming, weathered wooden deck. Here sit my tubs of herbs – basil, dill, rosemary, a handsome laurel, sage, a wildly growing oregano and so on. This is where I sometimes sunbathe – it gets tons of sunshine like the rest of the front yard.

The Great Catalogue Project consists simply of this: photographing everything as they grow, getting to know all their names, and putting them online in some form (on this blog or Flickr or Google albums). It’s going to be my mnemonic aid in getting to know the thousands of plants – so many beautiful ones, and mostly all new to me - that grow in this corner of North America which is now also my home.