That time of year...

Seems like I never get online until late evening and by then I am exhausted! That must mean it is spring in the garden :)

Everything is coming along nicely and so far, I haven't found any big spaces where plants were winter killed and I don't seem to be missing anything. The carnation were looking great and then frost came and killed them. They do not look like they are going to recover but I left them in and will keep my fingers crossed.

The bird sanctuary looks great. It is the only bed left to finish weeding but rain came several days ago and is expected to continue two more days. It means the rest of the weeding has to wait. I do hope some sunny days are coming. My tulips could have used it a week ago but next week, my iris will be needing it too.

Happy New Year !

It is almost all melted now but this was our belated white Christmas. The bird sanctuary was absolutely beautiful when we woke up yesterday morning. Even the piles of kindling for the firepit look pretty :) We had a great Christmas and Nicholas is here for a Harry Potter festival and is staying overnight. He is having dinner at his other Grandma's tomorrow so we will be on our own for New Years Day. It should be very relaxing and I am planning on doing some garden planning for the new kitchen garden. Miles has extra chain link from the dog runs and he is going to put it up around my vegetable patch. I am so looking forward to having a large kitchen garden. I have been reading about companion planting and have started my seed list. I have a lot of seeds here already and doubt very much that I will need to order any this year. There is so much to look forward to in my garden this year!

Happy New Year!

Frogs!

With all the flood waters this year, I have had an unusual number of frogs in my gardens. I have always had the odd frog show up in the sun gardens which are the closest gardens to the river. This is the first year that I have had frogs in the bird sanctuary garden and at the little house. The little house is normally a good distance from the river. Far enough that frogs don't venture there. This year though, they are everywhere and I come upon them often in the garden. When I get close, they get perfectly still. It makes taking photos of them easy and they love it when I am watering. Sometimes I talk to them quietly. I don't want Summer to notice them because it usually shortens their life expectancy pretty severely.

What's Missing?

The big space in the middle at the back will be an Ostrich Fern patch next year. I just planted all the root last week. It should fill that space nicely and make it so the Solomon Seal is not the only tall plant back there. So I have named this previously unnamed path... path to the fern. Seems odd this year when you can't actually see the fern but it works for me and it will remind me next year not to step on them before they are up.

The path to the fern is made of Bill's painted stepping stones. The sun is the first stone and is my favourite of the painted stones. Although the columbine stone runs a very close second.

A Permanent Home

The 'Loraine Sunshine' baby that came from Judy's garden this year has finally found a permanent home. I dug her up when she was quite small and I have been nurturing her along in a pothead all summer. Now she has her roots in the ground and a permanent spot. It is up by St. Francis in the bird sanctuary. In this spot, I can see her up close out the dining room window and she has lots of room she can grow into. I do hope she makes it through this winter!

Hosta for Kelly

Shipping tomorrow (regular mail); ‘Carol’, ‘June’, bonus dark, ‘Dream Weaver’, ‘Christmas Candy’, ‘Wolverine’, aberdeen solid and aberdeen variegated. Total 8 hosta.

Shipping next season because they are too small to divide; ‘Thunderbolt’ and ‘Guacamole’.

Never shipping because they are lost; ‘Fire & Ice’, 'Kabitan' and ‘Stained Glass’.

Note: I discovered aberdeen solid and danielle’s tall were the same hosta so danielle’s tall does not exist anymore. My flickr is updated for all of the above.

More Roses

It is definitely the season for roses and both Judy and I have many blooming in our gardens now. I have 5 rose shrubs that need to be replanted so I have decided to start a new rose garden in the unplanted circle at the end of the house at the front. Right now the circle contains two peony; one light pink and one dark, both double. Since all the roses I have to plant are pink or yellow, I am going to add them to that spot and have a new rose garden. It should solve the yearly weed problems there too. Today I finished the fence side of the path in the bird sanctuary and I also did about half the weeding in the Combine Garden before it was too sunny to keep working and I abandoned it until tomorrow morning. While I was weeding there, I came upon an empty hummingbird nest. It was just like the one from last year... full of Suzy and Sandy's molt hair forming a fuzzy, downy bed inside. Too cool. I found a mutant hollyhock in that garden too but did not get a picture before I lost the light. I will try to remember that for tomorrow when I am over that way.

More Fall Garden Record Notes

Another busy day in my garden. Fall chores seem endless but it was a beautiful day for gardening again and forecast is for a few more of those yet. Good thing too because despite getting a ton of work done today out there, I probably have twice as much to go before I can say the garden is put to bed for the winter.

Lifted Dahlia 'Parkland Glory', 'Ferncliff Cameo', 'Hy Cutter', 'Taratahi Ruby', 'Yvonne' and 'Wine & Roses'. My Spring map was good but not quite good enough. I have two Dahlia tubers of which, one is 'Taratahi Ruby' and one is 'Hy Cutter' but I don't know which is which. Good thing 'Hy Cutter' is white so it will go with anything and I will figure it out next year when they bloom.

Lifted Gladiolus 'Passos', Border Gladiolus, Calla 'Picasso' and all the Freesia. Potted up two more Geranium cuttings. Planted Speedwell from Judy which is different than the one I have here already. I put the Speedwell beside the two patches of German Purple Iris at the rock edge towards the Knautia. Planted Bouncing Bet in two spots: beside the Stargazer Lily in the Bird Sanctuary (to the house side) and right off the front deck beside the trellis where the Euphorbia was planted this year. Planted Monkshood beside (lawn side), the Knautia that went in the Bird Sanctuary. Moved the 'Angelique' Tulips marked in Summer to two places: in front of the furthest Delphinium in the Front House Garden and immediately right of the sidewalk where the bushline was taken down. Dark came too soon today. I was on a roll.

Nesting Again

Baby Hammy is still trying to build a little log house in the bird feeder. We keep trying to discourage it, he keeps rebuilding. I really hope he has built an alternate winter house somewhere because there is no way this is going to keep him warm enough in -50!

Garden Record Notes

It would seem that between my notebook, my maps and my blog journals, I have once again lost complete track of my garden. No time to figure it out now though. Still things to lift and plant. Was a busy day in my garden despite the cool weather and wind today. I planted the Knautia 'Mars Midget' in the Bird Sanctuary at the start of the rock edge behind the chiminea. Planted another patch of German Purple Iris beside the first that went in that same garden next to the new 'Henry Hudson' Rose. Planted the last patch of German Purple Iris left to go in at the Saxifraga 'Purple Robe' in the Sun Gardens. Put four of the Geranium cuttings into pots to root. Lifted 'Kari Fruit Salad', 'Babylon Purple', 'Baron Katie' (all dahlia), the yellow Calla 'Flame' and several of the Calla 'Crystal Blush'. I would have got them all but it appears I have lost track of a couple for the moment. Time to read my notebook. Planted my new Explorer Shrub Rose 'J.P. Connell' which is a yellow climber from Judy, in the Bird Sanctuary top level towards the house from the yellow/purple Columbine. It needs something to climb. I need to remember that.

Woodpeckers Return

Not sure where they go for the Summer but they are back in droves for the winter. So many of them, the birds are sharing the suet and one little guy had to wait in the hanging bird bath for a turn to eat!

2011 Bird Sanctuary Dahlia

Dahlia for the Bird Sanctuary 2011 in pinks: 'Ferncliff Cameo', 'Gerrie Hoek', 'Preference', 'Yvonne' and 'April Heather'.

Ta Da !

I am finished planting all 110 divisions from Linda and Kelly's Garden! I will be keeping my eye on all of them for the rest of this season but it is already clear that the Meadowsweet, 'Looking Glass', Japanese Painted Fern, Artemesia, both Liatris and all of the Hosta are going to be fine. I am looking forward to this Spring and the surprise of which made it through the winter. I am expecting that all three Spirea as well as the 'Annabelle' Hydrangea will not make it. They look terrible and I think shrubs may require a little more tender care than any of these divisions got. Chicks are mostly lost but I did find two pulled up that I have replanted since that post so there are 3 surviving. Not sure if any of them are the same or if they are all different. The rest should come along. The purple Liatris opened white today. No change from the bud colour. That is the only really strange thing that happened with the big Nova Scotia plant exodus.

Chick Flicks

Although hard to see, there is a little chick in the centre of that photograph. Me and chicks have a long and tumultuous history. In my city garden, the crows used to pull them up and then leave them laying in my rock garden, root upwards, to bake in the sun and typically be not-quite-dead when I found them. Chicks never did turn into hens in my city garden. Out here, I have faithfully added chicks every year because they are my favorite groundcover, coming in so many varieties that I can grow in this zone. I even managed a few hens here. But, alas, it was not to be. Chicks and I are in for a stormy relationship again. Baby Hammy (who is the not-so-bright child of Hammy the Garden Squirrel) arrived this Spring and seems to have been abandoned by Hammy. I think Baby is so annoying that Hammy ran away to keep her sanity. Baby is, aside from really loud, a little slow. He is trying to nest in a bird feeder but that is another story, for another day. Back to me and my chicks. Baby loves chicks too. Not sure why but he uproots them and leaves them. I had replanted three of them more than once after finding he had uprooted them. I even tried moving some but he has recently been joined in his chick adventures by a trio of Magpie. They are pulling them up and carrying them away. I have witnessed it with my own eyes. This year, I got several new additions to my chick list when I went to visit Linda and Kelly. Kelly graciously offered me divisions from some of his most prized plants which included his Painted Fern I am happy to say is doing well, and several varieties of chicks. The little beauty featured above is Kelly's red and when they are hens, they are groundcover to be envied. Chicks rock! She is, however, my last chick. Between Baby pulling them up and Magpies carrying them away, I am counting myself lucky Kelly's red is still alive. Barely. Now, I know there are things I can do to discourage the wildlife in the garden. For one, I could stop doing all the things I am now doing to encourage them. The crows in the city were the only ones that ever made me consider that as an option. Truth is, I will just stop planting chicks and start planting patches of hens. Hens in patches seem to be able to hold their own against the garden terrorists and I would miss the visitors if the wildlife left my garden. Even annoying little Baby Hammy who has really managed to grow on me despite all the screaming. He doesn't really like anyone else in his garden and does like to communicate that to all visible dogs, cats, birds and people but there is a real fuss if another squirrel should try and drop by! It is all very entertaining so I guess the ticket price is a few chicks.

Last of the Calla Updates

The last of the Calla 'Flame' opened and it is pink. They were supposed to be a red, orange and yellow mix. Not sure how I got pink but Calla do seem to change colour as they age so I may see red, orange or yellow on it yet and if not, pink is a bonus. The lemon yellow in front is turning red and a new lemon opened in one of the deck pots. Unless I have forgotten one somewhere, this should be the last surprise for Calla this season. Since they were all new this year, this will be their first winter in storage here. I have not tried to overwinter Calla before so wish me luck. I would be overjoyed if they all made it. I have a big plan for next year involving a patch of Crystal Blush that is going to look spectacular.

Can you believe it?

I came around the corner today and the Hosta 'Halcyon' is blooming in the Bird Sanctuary ! I think the 'Big Daddy' is going to be next. With luck, I might actually get that purple Liatris to open. Woke up early to pouring rain and thunder. It ended quickly though and I was outside before noon once it dried a bit. Good day in the garden but the bugs are getting nuts at dusk. Drove me in early for a long break.

Flower Power

A garden journal post with photo links so I don't forget to tell Linda anything :) I am always amazed at what continues to thrive despite my gardening philosophy of what can't survive on neglect should be in someone else's garden. I have no time for fussy plants that need any special attention, nevermind those that need to be literally coddled ! I am so glad there are so many plants that are not fussy. Although it looks like a pink Lupin patch, I planted yellow as well. Six buds opening today and they are all pink. The rainstorm turned the 'Therese Bugnet' into a pink carpet. I got a shot of Benedict's Abu Hassan open although it is just about done. I think if I blew on that flower the petals would fall but it is still stunning. The second bloom of the dark yellow Iris opened while the sun was out along with the red Columbine. The double blue Iris look very purple in the sun and the blue and whites opened on the other side of the entryway today. The mixed pinks - red, pink and white are opening but so far only a single white. The pink spirea, sanctuary peony, and white Bleeding Heart are all in bud. The peony are full of little red ants that bite and I keep forgetting that until I am getting bitten on the wrist, just above the glove. My first food crop besides edible flowers is Swiss Chard 'Bright Lights' and they are up. Miles' fern patch got cleared out a few days ago and it has grown to sixteen. Iris was the word of the day though and they are blooming everywhere. Oh, and you asked me to mention when my delphinium started. It was a busy day in the garden here. I couldn't use the shovel so I decided to use the camera.

Stormy Day Blooms

We had a Summer storm today. I was hearing thunder for a long time before the dark clouds moved in but when they did... yikes! Our power was knocked out so the lightening and thunder were entertaining. There wasn't much time in the garden before the storm blew in but I did manage to rescue some allium for Linda in the nursery.

Grand Opening

So much more is open today after 2 days of sunshine. This columbine, which is my oldest and moved here with me, is the first to open. The unknown red Columbine is getting ready to open though. (Linda, I don't think it is the same as the one I lost but it is still red. Looks like red and white or red and yellow). The creeping thyme, white spirea, several iris and all of the pinks are blooming. Although the 'Antoinette' are finishing, the 'Ice Cream' beside the Columbine are just starting to puff up. I seeded Cosmos today, got the rest of the annuals in, planted more Dahlia and got about half of the roses pruned. I am resisting the urge to go buy impatiens. I am not buying anything to plant until everything I have here is planted. Really :)

Turn and Face the Changes

The 'Antoinette' started turning raspberry and the 'Happy Generation' started turning red. The 'Ice Cream' tulips finally started to grow and open today so I expect they will change daily for awhile since they will look much different than this by the time they are fully open and (hopefully) taller. The 'Davenport' also started to open when the sun was out this morning. They immediately closed by 9:00 am when the rain came and the grey stayed. They say no sun until Wednesday now. Sunday was sunny and it made a real difference with the tulips so I am wishing for one more full day of it before tulips are finished. Annuals didn't get in due to rain. Lots of things postponed due to rain. I guess Wednesday will be busy.