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!

The Weekend

Lily


On Friday evening, Sean and Destini went to do their Christmas shopping and I watched Lily and Nicholas for them. It was the first time I have looked after a baby in I don't know how many years but she was wonderful. She didn't cry once. I was under strict instructions to keep her awake and that was no problem. Since Nicholas was staying with us Saturday overnight so Sean and Destini could go to the Bigway Christmas Party, he stayed Friday night as well. Then, on Saturday, John, Reena and the boys came out to visit. They brought Nicholas a sled and John took them out in the yard to try it out. Nicholas and Alexander had a great time...

Nicholas and Alexander


...and made plans for a sleepover. They stayed through dinner...

Tyler



...which Tyler really enjoyed. It was really great to have them all around the house. It was a fantastic weekend which we will repeat very soon!

A Time to Celebrate

On August 17, 2011, our grandson was taken from his mother by the Children's Aide Society and placed in foster care in Ontario. Since that day, my son has been in court in Ontario trying to bring Nicholas home. It has been a long, overly drawn out process made more difficult by his mother, unfortunately. But on Wednesday I was able to snap this blurry image at the airport gate as our boys arrived home. I would like to say it is over but it is not. There will be more court dates, more money, more work. But today is a day to celebrate and not worry about any of that. I was finally able to sleep the last two nights and I can't remember the last night I was able to just fall asleep when I hit the pillow without spending time tossing and turning and worrying. That part is over, thank goodness. Today is Nicholas' first day at school and Sean's first day back at work. They are settling into a routine already and Nicholas is very happy to be home. He has been smiling ever since he arrived and I have seen him two days in a row. It has been more than a year since I have seen him right in front of me. Let me tell you, over a computer or phone screen is nice but it is just not the same thing as having him standing right here! All I have to say today is whoo hooo! Welcome home Nicholas!! We missed you.

Homecoming...

Sean is bringing Nicholas home with him from Ontario! We can't wait for them to arrive and Nicholas will be so happy to see that his Ohio Buckeye that he planted with his Mushum is three times the size it was when he left. From the looks of him on Sean's iphone, it looks like his tree is not the only one that has grown... Nicholas comes up to Sean's chin already! Whooo Hooo! We are all smiles today :)

Window Watching

Hmmmmmmmm, I wonder if anything is ever going to walk by that window!

Solitary Man

Benedict always looks so solitary sitting outside in the cold all winter. In the summer he has lots of friends. Birds, squirrels and cats all stop to visit him and Wile E. often stops to chat with him - confused why he does not chat back! In addition to all of that, spiders love to live on Benedict. He has all kinds of nooks and crannies that are perfect for spiders to tuck themselves away into quickly. But in winter he is almost always alone, standing vigil. Except for today! I was out digging. Absolutely outrageous, I know. It is November 27 and I planted lily-of-the-valley underneath the weeping caragana in the sideyard today. This goes down as the latest date I have ever planted but the ground is not yet frozen and as long as that is the case, the littlest lily have a better chance being dropped in than sitting in a plastic bag in the basement. I hope they make it.

Mending Season

Sewing is another activity restricted to winter. I love to sew and always have. What I don't love to do is mend. Mending and sewing are just not the same thing. I have everything I need to make a Stanley Cup Champions quilt for Gordon and his Bruins and have been thinking about exactly what that will look like for months now. As excited as I am to finally get started on it, I have a hard and fast rule about the start of my winter sewing. Mending all gets done first. It is easy to find my motivation when creating something new but mending is a real chore. It takes everything I have to stay motivated to finish. One thing I learned from all my corporate years is that you do the things you hate to do first or they will forever be bumped off the list of things to do. Time for me to get patching.

Spring Cleaning

When I was young, the first nice days of spring were spent cleaning the house from top to bottom. My mother would throw open the windows and the cleaning would start. I actually enjoy cleaning and didn't complain because Mom would let me daydream all I wanted during the process. You could more often find me leaning out a window than dusting something. When I got older and didn't have my mother for motivation, spring cleaning was never something I could manage. I prefer to spend my first nice days of spring in the garden, even if it means poking around in muddy, half-frozen ground. So I do my spring cleaning in the dead of winter when my garden is sleeping. I started it today eventhough it was +4 and melting outside. There is snow so I can't dig and figured I might as well clean. So I did the shelves and thought of my mother and how I think she had the right idea... all this dusting would be more pleasant with the windows open!

It Must Have Been Love

I haven't been watching but this would have made it worth it...

Drew Ryniewicz performs It Must Have Been Love

Winter Passtimes

The forecasted snow did arrive on Saturday night. It started really late and ran all through Sunday. There was a lot of it. It took me all day Monday to get the decks, boardwalk and a path to the main pen gate shovelled. Tuesday was shovelling the path from the main pen gate to Mikaela's gate and another to the winter pit. I was going to shovel a path to the shop door too but the daytime temperatures have been beautiful the last two days and the snow is melting some. It is unlikely it will all melt before more arrives but it is already much less deep to walk through. If we get another warm day tomorrow, I am dropping the bulbs in. Meanwhile, I have been digging out all my winter passtimes. This year I added a new one... or Sean did. All the boys play Smurf's Village and Sean downloaded it to my phone, got the game started and connected it to Facebook. Now I can plant, grow and pick flowers all winter in my Smurf's Village. I can even take a photo of my gardens in the game and use it for wallpaper on my phone. I am actually really enjoying the game. It is the first game in years that I have enjoyed. Good, mindless fun. I think it is just what I needed to perk me up under the threat of -20 for the next several months.

Garden Note

Fall has set in and despite my relaxed timetable for gardening, I am actually closer to ready than I am most years. Must be the extended fall. There are very few plants left in pots and even less bulbs not yet in the ground. Today I planted hens & chicks with blue sedum (from the green pot) next to 'Big Daddy'. Unkown tulips are planted between the speedwell and liatris in the front garden. The sun stone, green pot and blue butterfly metal stake were brought into the house with the sand sun dish. The little girls metal summer pens are packed up and stored in the shop. The red sun pot and all of the plastic pots are in the shop as well. Snow was forecast for today but never arrived. I am really hopeful it will stay away another couple of days.

A Rare Sight

It is a rare sight to see Samantha relaxing on the dog crates during the day. She tends to roam the main floor at night when the dogs are sleeping, rather than when they are running around. She is afraid of dogs, strangers, loud noises, the TV, crumpling paper, the vaccuum, the toilet flushing, anything crunchie, dry leaves blowing in the wind and probably a huge list of other things I have yet to witness. She has dopey eyes, a monkey face and a tiny little meep she tries to pass off as a meow... she is the cutest thing! Perhaps age has mellowed her and we will see this new daytime Samantha more often.

Worth the Watch

This is very cool. Click to watch. Link goes to Youtube. One of my favourite new advertisements.

Shorter Days

The days are getting shorter but that just seems to have launched me into action. I have finally been getting the last of the bulbs and shrubs in. About half of the things going in for the winter are in and leaves are covering everything. One more day and Judy's garden should be finished and put to bed for the winter as well. Maggie is still suffering from her allergies and I am at a loss as to how to help her. Test after test and we still don't know what she is allergic to! Poor baby is what she is these days. She looks all beat up from scratching. Fall has definitely arrived and every day we go without snow now is bonus.

for Andrea...

Oh, you are so lucky, Andrea but first... where are you going to store 700 of them for the winter? What a nice problem to have. Remember not to store them in a refridgerator with fruits and vegetables. It will ruin the glads by spring. I am new to glads myself but I really like them. I plant mine like tulips; 3, 5 or 7 all in one hole. That way they grow like tulips - in a patch, although, they look more like iris coming up. I find patches makes it easier to stake them too. I can just use a peony ring or tomatoe cage. I am not that fond of staking. Since glads bloom later in the season and last to frost, you can put them all through the garden just like spring bulbs. It makes it easier to lift them if they are planted together in big patches or in rows but I don't have enough to worry about that yet. I put them throughout my garden and have no trouble rounding them all up when it is time to lift in fall. If I had 700 though, I might consider using them for a border or even in a wavy line through the middle of the bed or border. Enjoy your glads and post photographs next season, I'd love to see them.

Coral Bells

For years, I have been back and forth on coral bells. Mostly because they look like this in my garden and they look stunning in Linda's garden. If I could grow coral bells that looked like Linda's, it would seem well worth the effort. Plus, they often winter-kill in my garden. I am sure they are one of those plants labelled for my zone - just barely. The kind of plant that makes you wonder if someone is snickering into their sleeve when they label them! Of course, everytime I think of giving up on them, I catch a scene like this. With the light coming through the leaf, this little thing is a fall stunner! Now if I could only get it to grow taller than 3 inches and have more than 3 leaves.

Maggie

The last few days have been a whirlwind of animal care. Tuk has developed a rash on his inner thigh, Didi hurt her foot on something outside and Maggie's allergies are flaring up really bad. She has to get cream twice a day and wear a t-shirt. Although she prefers the t-shirt to a cone, all her confidence disappears when she wears it. The back actually says "Porchlight" but on her, no matter what angle you look, all you can read is "orchlight". I feel bad for her because she is really suffering with the itch of allergies but darn it... she is just too cute in her little t!

Time for Bed

It is time to drop the last of the tulip in, get the few shrubs still sitting in pots into the ground and get the garden ready for its' winter sleep. All putting the garden to bed really invovles is watering everything really well and tossing all the leaves from the drive and lawn onto the beds. We had three days of rain though and eventhough it did not rain today, it was grey and overcast so everything is wet. Before the rain came, I got this catmint bed and one other by the drive completed. I need the rain to stop long enough to get the rest done. It should take about 2 days total so I should be able to squeeze that in somewhere between now and snow. The upside is that at least I can skip the watering part. 

The Grackles Stop

On Thursday, Miles stepped out onto the back deck and discovered hundreds of Grackles in our yard. They filled the chokecherry tree and the drive and the campground and the shop yard. We haven't seen any since then so they must have been on their way somewhere.

John & Reena Host Thanksgiving

John & Reena hosted Thanksgiving dinner tonight and the food was excellent. Reena and her sister Sherry did all the work and all we had to do was play with the kids and keep them smiling until it was time to eat. Gordon and I caught a ride with Sean, Destini and Lily because Miles had to work and couldn't make it. We had a great time and brought a plate home for Miles that is in the oven now waiting for him to get home from work. It was good to see Reena's family and Jack and Myra again. That usually only happens at Christmas.

Baby Shower

Lily's baby shower was today at her house. I finally got to see both of her eyes open at the same time. There are two of them and right now, they are both blue. She got way too much stuff, the food was great and a good time was had by all. As usual, in those situations, I got home much later than planned so no gardening today. It was worth giving up for our baby girl though. She already seemed to be enjoying her new playpad.

Fall Colours in the Yard

The yard is showing signs of fall everywhere. I came around the corner to find the sun hitting these willows seemingly to remind me that winter is coming. The boardwalk Dogwood is also turning and everywhere you look in the Valley there are reds, golds and oranges. 

Lily

Our first grandbaby girl, Lily. Mom and baby are both home and doing great. She is beautiful and surrounded by boys! Of course, Sean is already wrapped around her really long finger. After three visits, she finally showed me her eyes today. She is a sleepy one with lots and lots of jet black hair.

Fuzzy Friend

He had a little bug friend with him and they hung around for a little bit. Then the bug went one way and he went the other.

Shade Bridge Garden

This was my shade bridge garden. Aptly named because it was shady with a bridge separating it from the front lawn. The largest tree that provided the shade had three main trunks and last year, one broke off at ground level so we had to cut it up. The rest of the tree seemed stable but we did wonder if it was going to get weak from the loss. Then earlier this year, half of the tree beside it came down in a thunder storm. Last week, the rest of the largest tree came down and yesterday, the rest of the second tree came down as well. So, shade bridge garden no more and we will have to see what the sun brings here. I am thinking there are at least one or two plants that will have to move but spring will tell. Gordon brought a chain-saw home for the weekend and tomorrow we will be cutting, stacking and burning to create our new sun bridge garden.

Hot Afternoons

Hot afternoons are hard on plants and all things furry. The dogs are living in front of the fans!

Fade to White

My 'J.P. Connell' fades to white. It started out as a yellow bud and then turned into a beautiful yellow rose that I did not get a photograph of. This season has been a bit strange for bloom time and length and this is his first year in my garden. I think the two factors combined made him fade to white much quicker than he would in a 'normal' season. Turns out I love this white flower with the yellow center quite a bit so it all worked out. I can just see him climbing the trellis with 'John Davis' next season. Although it will take them a couple of years to fill the trellis, in my mind they are already there.

Bonus

Look what my viola are doing!

The Little Engine that Could

I am really impressed by this little spiderwort. It has been dug up and moved 5 times in 2 years yet here it is getting ready to bloom for the second time this season. Apparently, it has forgiven me for my fickle planting habits.

Quick Note....

The Phlox is 'David' and is blooming now. The lily from Linda are all planted and mapped. Orange are in the nursery. Prairie Coneflower seeds are harvested and half are delivered, just have to mail to Linda. Watered today because I stopped believing the forecast since this is the fourth day of forecasted thundershowers and not a drop of rain. Decided the sprinkler would be more reliable in the heat we have been having in the afternoons. Everything is wilting out there and the river is overflowing so we can probably swing a little guilt free irrigation.

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.

Jake on the Glass Truck

His favourite thing to do is climb in or on vehicles and he especially likes it when a new vehicle stops by that he can explore so I am not sure why he is looking so angry. Unless it is because I was trying to get him down just before I grabbed the camera. The glass truck didn't seem the safest place for him to explore but once I discovered he was too high for me to reach up there, taking photos seemed to be the next best option.

King of the Castle

Sometimes it is important to be king... even if you are the only one in the castle!

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!

Opus One

My 'Opus One' had three blooms this year and they are just finishing up, as are the 'Stargazer' which are the last of the blooming lily in my garden. Both are oriental lily which are not really hardy here. They grow and once established they will bloom well but they never get as tall as oriental lily are famous for. In fact, the only time I have seen an oriental lily blooming over my head was in Linda's garden in Nova Scotia. Oriental stay short in my garden. Funny thing is... I prefer them short. Not sure if it is a 'what I am used to' thing or not but I find lily blooming over my head is a little intimidating. Not sure why because I am certain they are not going to attack! Maybe it has to do with my aversion to spiders dropping down from above and how lily are great spider hiders. Regardless, I do love the orientals as long as there are not too many planted together. If they are all together, I find their smell cloying and cannot remain standing near them in the garden without feeling slightly sick. They also take some time to be established in Zone 3. This particular lily was brought from Linda's garden in 2009. Last year it had one bud that dried up and fell off without blooming. This year, it has three blooms and they all opened wide.

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.

'Golden Wave'

My begonia 'Golden Wave' are blooming in the love bus now. I got them in really late this year and was worried they would wither before they bloomed so I was happy to find them today. I did not notice them right away because the flowers open small and hang under big, umbrella leaves. These beauties are my favourite begonia. The flowers are pale pink on the outside but open to reveal an all yellow inside. They hang in little bunches of three or four and they look so delicate eventhough the stalks tell a different story, standing thick and strong. They are well worth the over-wintering effort!

Front Garden

Being an avid gardener, I hate to admit that my front garden is a mess... and I really mean a mess! I have done nothing with it since we moved in except for going on a rampage last fall and chopping down all of the bush that was off the front deck along the path. We never spend time in the front yard so the back was always my first priority. Turns out, after 8 summers, it has been my only priority. Since I had dug up so many plants for our planned move, that now have to go back in, I decided that this year I will get some control over the front gardens. I have put in three new plantings in the last few days and I have the rest roughly planned out. I am hopeful that next year there will be beautiful garden photographs to post that are all taken in the front yard. Wish me luck because I have decided that next year is going to be the season that I don't move anything. So much has been moved over the last 2 years that nothing has had a chance to reach its' mature size. Next year, nothing moves unless it is way overgrown or dying. With luck, that will mean nothing moves once I am done this fall.

Animals, wild and otherwise...

I came upon Hannah sleeping in the bird sanctuary the other day and as I snapped a picture, she got up for this halloween stretch. The top of the ladder has always been her afternoon napping spot. In fact, that is why the ladder is still in the garden. It was right in this spot when we moved in and she used it every day so we have never moved it. Hannah can always be found napping in the garden. I had a more unusual occurance the other night when Gordon and I went into the city mid-evening. The road was full of frogs! It was awful. Impossible to miss them and they were even jumping up and making "thud" sounds as they hit the car when we went by. They were all over the valley bottom on the roads. The grids and the highway. They were gone by the time we came back from the city and I hope it doesn't happen again. It was no fun at all. On a better note, the 'Alexander McKenzie' rose I transplanted last week is doing great and the colour looks awesome with the speedwell purple that it is planted next to. Now I am just waiting to find out what colour the liatris planted with them is. Any day now it should open.

Embracing Change

Heliopsis 'Loraine Sunshine', monkshood and Linda's red daylily are just a few of the new plants in my garden this season. I also reduced the size of the sun gardens by more than half and surprisingly, I am really enjoying that because it has meant that it is almost always completely weed free! Taking the rock edge away where that garden meets the lawn has also made it easier to keep a clean edge. Overall, I am happy with all of the changes in the garden this year and am planning even more. Today I have been clearing out at the front of the house for my new rose garden. The excitement of the day, despite the blooming flowers, was the little female finch I had to save from Penny and Hannah on the front deck. She hit the window and by the time I got there, Penny had her in her mouth with just a wing sticking out and a high pitched tweet coming from inside. Fortunately, Penny dropped her as soon as I told her to but by then, Hannah was running towards us. It was a bit of a panic but I managed to get the bird into a tree and after awhile, she flew off. We spent the afternoon cutting up the latest tree brought down by the prairie winds. That makes 3 this year. Another change I made today was the blog background. I did that in honour of the awesome skies we have been enjoying here. We are in the land of the living sky here but the last few days it has been more incredible than usual. A very pure, bright, clear blue that I have been unable to capture in photograph and do it any justice at all. We see a lot of sky here. It goes out for miles and miles. So it takes something special to get me snapping the camera upward. The colour has been so crystal clear, I find it impossible to even describe.

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.

Roses & Coyotes

We finally finished uncovering all of Judy's roses and found this little beauty today, rose 'Remember Me'. It is my favourite orange rose to date and if it ever sends out a sucker, there will be one in my yard. I am willing to wait. It was also a day of Coyotes. I came around the corner after the metal shop to see 5 Coyotes with breakfast. One of them grabbed the breakfast and ran North while the other 4 took off South. I am sure they got back together after I drove by or one of them had a really big breakfast! It was very cool though. I often see them in pairs but never before in a pack.

Dragonfly

I love dragonflies! I think it is unfortunate that in most cultures where they appear, they are associated with evil and the devil, often seen as sinister. I prefer to agree with the Japanese culture where they are held in better regard, being seen as symbols of courage, strength and happiness. The shape of the archipelago of Japan, as seen on a map, is said to be that of a dragonfly. One of my favourite songs is Ziggy Marley's Dragonfly, which is worth a listen for the lyric alone but the music will have you bopping. Of course, the benefit of the dragonfly in a garden is obvious. Anything that feeds primarily on mosquitos is always welcome in my garden. That is why I was so happy this morning to find dragonflies swarming in our yard. It started yesterday when was walking Mikaela and it seemed like there were a bunch of dragonflies following us all along the summer road. Then, this morning on our walk, I realized that it was not that they were following us but rather, that they were everywhere. Not just along the summer road but all over the acreage. I am sure they would have been counted in the thousands. Brown-gold with translucent wings shimmering in the sunlight.  Although there were several powder blue damselflies among them, the dragonflies definitely stole the show.

A job complete!

Since we decided to move, my "to do" list has grown to 8 pages. 6 of those pages are big jobs that require a lot of time. Many of those jobs are the kind that need to be done in a specific order. A few of them also involve waiting on tradesmen and ordered materials. So it is rare these days that I can say I have completely finished a job. The excitement of that has me madly typing a post on my coffee break before I go dig up more tulip. I am happy to say that the sun gardens are completely finished. Nothing left to do but stay on top of any new weeds and since that can't be done before new weeds grow, I think I can officially say we have one job complete.

Changes

It has been a week of change here. Last week this view was all iris. This week, the iris are just about done but the roses, poppy and daisy have started. The buds make me think that by next week there will be daylily and spiderwort added to these blooms. My garden has never looked better. All the early flood water and later sunshine have really made a huge difference.

Lone Agastache

When we moved here, there were several Golden Agastache planted in the lower level boardwalk. This spot was mostly shade with very little sun shining through to it. After the first season, all that came back was this lone plant growing out from the crack between two rocks. I have tried to move it to a happier place several times but it never comes back where I move it to and it always comes back in this spot. Again this year, he has appeared here. Apparently this is his favorite spot in the garden and if he is going to stay, this is where he wants to stay. So now I have resigned myself to accepting that and all I do is wish him luck each spring when he starts to poke through. At least his flowers fit in here.