Bienvenue À 2010
an other year starts
A winter with crazy weather ; extremely warm and dry for us, but cold and wintry in the more temperate climate south of us and Europe:
Images courtesy of the NCDC
check out; AccuWeather.com - Brett Anderson | My Spring Outlook
But I still got a lot of skiing in everyday until St Patrick's Day, except for 2 rainy days,
and made a couple of trips the usual fall one to Las Vegas last week of November and a cruise in January. The cruise was great from Santo Domingo to Santa Lucia, Martinique, Guadeloupe, St Martin, Tortola and back to Santo Domingo. We were in port usually from 8 AM to 5 PM so it gave us lots of time to explore in the morning come back to the ship for lunch and go to the beaches in the afternoon ! It was so interesting I want to do it again!
Just back from my annual trip to Holland to get into the "spring" of things, two weeks of biking and visiting gardens , but then its just one big garden anyway.
and it seems like spring is already here in Montreal.
A country of Bikes
Boat race in canal in Utrecht:
The biggest Japanese Garden in Europe, in Belgium:
Von Gimborn Arboretum; heather garden, I never knew that there were so many varieties:
Again I visited the Appeltern Gardens with over 220 model gardens over 15 Hectares, I took over 1000 pictures!
Checkout their website: http://www.appeltern.nl/welcome.html
And I visited may more gardens.
more to come.
As always I'm looking for more projects for the summer.
I have three Gazebos to start with ,two waterfalls, and one backyard water garden.
Email me, at nwl @ videotron.ca
gazebo #1
Here we are adding a gazebo to a deck that we built 4 years ago;
before;
Just the planting to do.
Inside:
view of ceiling:
with windows:
view from inside
Gazebo #2
A demo at Pepiniere Cite des Jeunes
Prefabricating floor and roof panels built on ground because its easier;
putting up trusses
Ready for roof panels;
more to come
Gazebo #3
I think I have to change my moniker from waterfall builder to Gazebo builder,
here is the next project this summer:
After reinforcing, scrubbing down, sanding, and refinishing a 15 year old existing deck to receive a Balinese Style Teahouse
Right Here:
Proposed project, by combining 2 photos:
Getting the basic structure in:
roof braces:
the Tromp d'Oiel was centered without knowing!:
Roof boards in place..
only some plywood and shingles left.
ready for the weekend;
with shingle, finished just before the rain;
now we have to stain it....
notice the touches of Chinese red. I've also incorporated that in other spots around the back yard!
I'm also adding to the Japanese garden we built last year and redoing some of the border gardens.
more to come
The next was a waterfall, into a pool: Laval
before:
First level :
starting week 2:
after letting cure for 4 days
next level:
wrapping the upper level in a rubber liner:
planting
Finished:
letting all the fresh cement dry, so no water flowing.
With water flowing;
note back hedge is in.
side view;
more to come
CREATING A NEW FRONT ENTRANCE
Surrounded by a rockgarden, we built a landing and brick walkway incorporating natural stone steps.
we built this one backwards because the upper areas were more important than the lower areas
and we needed access with large equipment to bring large rocks.
All the rocks came off the site.
upper landing during construction 
upper
landing finished 
walkway during construction 
all rocks came from this site
bottom landing 
finished
looking from bottom up 
A revamping of a backyard, Beaconsfield;
before;
We added on to the waterfall rockgarden, extended the patio, and ripped out the plastic edging to put in a rockgarden stones edge.
the beds were surfaced with river stone and next year we will add more shrubs.
In the front we added to the walk going to the backyard:
.
next year we redo the entrance to the front door;