Christmas Trees, Poinsettias and cactuses

2010 Christmas tree

Our living room recently welcomed a new addition, a thick, beautiful  6 foot balsam tree which we bought at the boy scout lot in town.  Many people have turned to artificial trees over the years, but they never appealed to me.  People have asked me why I cut down real trees when I profess to be such a nature buff.  I do love trees and appreciate all their beauty and functions in providing shade, wood and especially their important role in the cycle of life on this planet: providing oxygen. On the other hand trees are a renewable resource. The trees in the Christmas tree lots are grown on tree farms specifically to be cut down at Christmas. No one is clearing existing forests or anything radical like that to provide Christmas trees. If everyone only bought artificial trees, the tree farms would have to stop planting and growing their tree, which would reduce the amount of oxygen produced on the planet, since these trees also produce oxygen in the time it takes them to grow big enough to sell. 

And after Christmas, if you dispose of a real tree properly, use it as mulch if possible, it eventually goes back to the earth as compost, creating new soil. An artificial tree provides nothing... except of course a nice place to hang your decorations while you pretend it's a tree!  Plus it requires a place to store it , and the  artificial  trees that wear out, end up in the land fills as garbage... 

Plus I like the idea of supporting the Boy Scouts association every Christmas with our tree purchase.

Poinsettias are another example of a plant that is grown specifically for Christmas time. I have bought 4 of those this year, one large red one, a medium sized pale reddish pink, and 2 small ones for several rooms of the house.   I have an old poinsettia in my bedroom bow window from last year. It has nice looking green leaves on it, (some new growth), but most of the red brackts have long fallen off. 

In the right conditions, it is possible to get the brackts to turn red again. They need to have long, cool nights and little daylight. They don't like too much artificial light, either. The gardening books will tell you to put your poinsettia in a dark cool closet  for 16 hours a day and bring it out for 8 hours of daylight each day. And they admit that even under those circumstances, it might not turn red.  Seems like a lot of work, so most people consider poinsettias 'throw away' plants. In my house, I don't throw away anything that's still growing reasonably well. (Unless it has a disease or insect infestation I can't get rid of!)

A few years ago when we were still living in northern Manitoba, I had a poinsettia from the previous Christmas on the cold window sill in the computer room between the curtain and the window, and it did turn red again, two years in a row!

My Christmas cactus is blooming now and has an abundance of big buds on it! It is looking quite gorgeous. I have had this Christmas cactus for many years and it often blooms again in the spring around Easter time as well, although not as profusely.  The tiny one that I planted from a slip that fell off the big plant also grew buds, but my middle sized plant has none. 

I think it had something to do with the location. The middle sized Christmas cactus was in the kitchen where it got a lot of artificial light and maybe too much water. I moved it to the cool bedroom bow window where the small Christmas cactus had been to encourage it to set some buds. 

One trick that often works is to withhold water for a month or 6 weeks in October/ November which usually results in flower buds.  Once you notice the tiny little budlets forming at the end of the stems, be sure to start watering your Christmas cactus again regularly. Then it's important not to let it dry out or the rest of the little flower buds will fall off.

So some gardening is still possible in the winter.  :)

Winter 'Gardening'

Winter Sunrise 

The 'gardening' is limited to indoor things right now, due to the extreme weather outside at this time of the year.  We had the most glorious 10 days of early November weather! It was wonderful to go out for a walk, with only a light jacket or fleece, no mitts or ear warmers required!

Then overnight we were hit hard with the opposite extreme. A deep freeze with snow almost every day which lasted almost 2 weeks. But we all survived that and now things are pretty much back to normal early December weather;  Nice enough to walk the dog along the deer trails around here as long as you are wearing snow pants, warm jacket, scarf, hat and mitts.

Through the kitchen window...

Looking for sunflower seeds the birds have dropped.

The deer are out in droves this time of the year. It is rutting season right now so a person has to be very carefully driving at this time. The deer often dart out in front of the vehicles trying to cross the road at the wrong time!  But I enjoy watching them feed on the hills around our acreage.

Mom and spring baby

We have 2 bird feeders which we fill with oiled sunflower seeds year round for the numerous birds out here. It is especially important in the winter when the food is scarce. The black capped chickadees are here all winter along with little downey woodpeckers, the odd nuthatch, magpies and blue jays. The bohemian waxwings often make appearances in huge numbers, but they are here to glean the dried saskatoons and chokecherries or mountain ash berries.  

The ladder back woodpecker and the blue jays are very aggressive at the feeders and for some reason they throw huge amounts of sunflower seeds on the ground. They seem to think there is just the perfect one in the pile somewhere.... The deer have discovered this little treasure trove and they come to check the ground under the feeders every day. I'm always thrilled to see them outside my window cautiously cleaning up the seeds they discover there. Sometimes I will even put extra seeds in an old baking pan near the feeder for them to eat. Of course luring them to our yard this way has its drawbacks come gardening time in the spring....

Mom and twins searching for seeds

Time to go!

Winter Wonderland

Even winter has its beauty...

back yard spectacle

Painted with Jack Frosts frozen colours

Hoary chokecherry tree branches

morning 

Front yard snow drifts

Slumbering flower beds

Geese on frozen Buffalo Lake

Even  Phoenix is biding his time until spring arrives and he can return to his summer activities, basking in the warm sunshine, sleeping outdoors and chasing mice. Until then, he hangs around the kitchen where it's warm. 

Porcupine Adventures

The cute little porcupine WAS living under our deck and continued to do so for over a week. It would venture out every day and nibble on the bark of the various trees growing around the deck. It sampled the dried berries in the chokecherry tree, but seemed to prefer the bark of the plum as it kept going back there. It climbed up the Mountain Ash one time, but after looking at the huge clumps of berries, it climbed down again without sampling them and went back to my poor plum tree.

I was concerned not only about the damage to the trees and also the possible damage to the cats or the dog if they got close to it.  I really wanted to get rid of this little creature, but didn't want to harm it in the process. How was I going to persuade it to move on to a new location? The dog wasn't much help as she had learned the hard way not to get close to porcupines ( thankfully) and the porcupine just ignored her presence. It was only a matter of a foot or two for it to get from under the deck to some of these trees; easy to avoid the dog.

When I caught it red handed eating more of the bark off my plum tree, I tried shaking the plum tree to get it down. At first it ignored me, but then finally it slowly climbed down and, yes, headed through the snow, right back under the deck stairs again.

The next day I went to the hardware store in town looking for something called "Critter Ridder",  a product that smells like fox urine and is supposed to scare the porcupine into leaving. (Foxes are supposedly one of the only animals a porcupine is afraid of.) But the hardware store had none. One of the clerks at the store told me to try water the next time I saw the little critter in my trees. She said porcupines hate water.

Sure enough, the little guy was back in his / my favorite plum tree munching away when I got home so I decided to try the water treatment. I got a large bucket full of water and used a cup to throw the water on the porcupine. It just turned its back to me and raised it's hair and little quills, ready to do battle. After 2/3 of the water was gone out of the pail and the porcupine was still in the tree but dripping wet, I gave up on that idea. I went around the tree to its cute little face and tried yelling at it, but that had no effect either.

Later when I looked out the window, the porcupine was still in the exact same position and I wondered if it was frozen to the tree with all the water I had thrown at it!

I tried calling the county office to see if they had an animal trap I could borrow. Borrow? Nothing! They wanted a $50 deposit on a skunk cage, the only thing they had. But the guy at the other end of the line thought that if it was a small porcupine, the trap might work.  His concern was, though, how do we get it OUT of the trap?  Then he had a brilliant idea. Use a fishing net to catch it  as porcupines are rather slow moving. Then take it 1 or 2 miles away to a new location. He never did say how to get it OUT of the net once we found a new spot, though...

The other suggestion was to phone the Fish and Wildlife office and get them to lend us a scare cannon, something that sounds like a gun shot that goes off every few minutes. Couldn't quite see myself putting up with that under the deck for very long!  I would probably have to leave myself!

When my husband came home from work, he was not pleased to see that his efforts at protecting the plum trees with the wire fencing had not stopped the porcupine from climbing back up there.  It was still sitting in the same tree finishing off the rest of the bark. It must have been a tasty plum tree!  He shook the tree violently and used a spade to try and dislodge the little guy. He was hoping to scoop it up in the shovel and somehow shovel it down our long driveway, then across the road into the large stand of trees there. (Couldn't see this working even as well as the fishing net idea...)

The porcupine had other ideas! It finally got tired of hanging on for dear life, so it dropped to the snow below the tree, and QUICKLY (so much for them being slow moving,) dug a hole and disappeared.... under the deck stairs.   I think, though, that this last incident must have had an effect on it's porcupine brain, because the next day, it wasn't hanging around anymore.  I noticed tracks in the snow at the far end of the yard right by the tree line going off into the underbrush.  Either it is fed up with all the interruptions during its dinner hours, or quite full of plum bark and looking for a change in its diet.  Whatever the reason, I hope it find a comfortable home elsewhere with plenty of food in a safe environment.

Juniper Wreath Creations and Porcupine invasions

Not much happening in the gardening department anymore...  A bit more clean up, that's about it.
We vigorously clipped our huge juniper bush as it has grown so large, it was making it difficult to walk down the steps beside the rock garden. What to do with the multitude of clipped branches?

I found my wire wreath frame in the shed and got out the horticultural wire, then proceeded to wire some of the branches to the frame. I have discovered the hard way that I need to wear gloves for this procedure. In the past I had come away with an itchy rash on both wrists where the juniper branches have touched my skin. I had no idea until then that I was allergic to the resin in the juniper branches. But they make such a beautiful wreath that I can't stop using them.

Some of the branches have beautiful small blue berries on them so I tried to use as many of those as I could... ( I have no idea if the berries are edible by any sort of wildlife, bird, mammal or insect.  They look very attractive, if nothing else.)  I also tied 3 branches together in sort of a Juniper bough and will put a Christmas ribbon around one end, then hang it on one of the posts of the deck. Next I have to sort out the wreath decorations and put some of them on the juniper wreath, and then it will be ready to hang up by the front door.

I googled 'Juniper berries' and discovered that Juniper Berries are used in Northern Europe and the United States in marinades, roast pork, and sauerkraut. They are used to enhance meat, stuffings, sausages, stews, and soups. Who knew!


 We recently had a young porcupine wandering through our yard again. I had surprised it on the deck a few nights before, when I went to let the dog out. It was lurking around the dog's water bowl next to the pump, but made a quick exit, 'stage left' when it heard me.  The dog was curious at the time, but stayed a safe distance away from it.

A few days later the porcupine was back and this time the dog herded it up towards the deck, right by the Juniper shrub.  I was surprised to see a small porcupine standing motionless with its nose touching the bottom of deck railing and it's little tail towards the dog's direction, right near where I was standing! It had hardly any quills on it's back, only what appeared to be long bushy looking hair, but it did have 6 or 8 short little quills on its tail.

I read recently that porcupines don't 'shoot' their quills, but rather whack the offending predator with their tail, impaling them with the quills.  Then it takes 10 days to 3 months for the quills to grow back.
I quickly called the dog and brought her in the house! She has been zapped by porcupines twice already, once the first fall we were here and then again the very next spring, resulting in 34 quills embedded in her chest and legs the first time and 52 in her muzzle, neck, legs and chest the second time. My husband and I yanked them out with pliers both times, he wielding the pliers and I sitting next to the dog and with my arms wrapped around her to hold her still and give her needed sympathy. Luckily none of them resulted in any infection, but I'm sure the dog was in some pain and discomfort both times.  Since then she has learned to keep her distance from porcupines, even when they invade our yard, her territory. Smart dog!

Even dried flowers and plants have a certain beauty!

Now I'm starting to wonder if  the porcupine is residing under our deck!    That would certainly explain the chewed off bark on my plum trees!  (And does it eat Juniper berries?!) I did spray the plum branches generously after that with an animal repellent just in case. So far we have had no precipitation to wash the spray off, but that should be happening in the next few days according to our weather forecast.  I guess that means I will have to get out the Plantskydd powder once more and mix up another batch to spray on the trees and shrubs.

Dried 'bunny tails'  ligularis Ovatis

Harley, enjoying the sunshine

Plantskydd is supposed to work for at least 3 months no matter what the weather.  I'd better spray my 3 little spruce trees behind the house as well. I noticed that something has been nibbling on them and I suspect it's the deer. We did put some wire fencing around them, but we ran short and one of the tiny spruces is still quite exposed.

Lexy surveying her domain

I know if I tell people about porcupines in the yard, they usually say something like, "You should get a 22 and shoot it. Porcupines are a nuisance."
I don't understand that kind of thinking.  I could never do that. We bought this place out here at the lake because of the wilderness around here. So how can a person complain if you have exactly what you paid for right outside your door?!  I noticed today that it is leaving the plum trees alone (for now, anyway) and is eating the bark off some of the wild saskatoon and chokecherry saplings nearby. And as long as the dog and the cats aren't in danger, I'm going to let it be.

Spirit

(Another porcupine on the deck again a while ago. They are after the water in the dog's bowl over by the pump. It is mostly frozen, but partially melts during the day. It rained a bit this evening which may turn to snow over night. I suspect that once we have snow on the ground, the porcupines and other wild creatures would eat snow to get their fluids?  Maybe I should remove the bowl anyway, just to deter them from coming around.... )

Ducks and Geese on the Lake

I saw the strangest sight a few days ago, one of those odd things you don't often get the chance to see.  I was taking the dog for a walk to the lake late in the afternoon and trailing us, as often is the case, was two of our cats, Milo and Harley. As we got close to the lake I could hear a cacaphony of squawking and honking. As we emerged from the trees onto the beach, I saw what was happening. The temperature had dropped the night before and the lake had frozen over. A multitude of geese and ducks were standing on the lake in long rows in about an inch of water!  The sun was starting to set and the sight was so unusual.

Even Harley and Milo thought something was odd. Both cats walked out onto the ice to investigate, where the day before the waves had been lapping and their feet had been getting wet.

'I wish I had my camera,' I thought to myself!
Should I stay and enjoy the sight a while longer or do I have time to run back down the path to the house for the camera to save this sight for posterity??? I was torn! Should I leave the cats alone on the shore (which I have never down before, having always coaxed them to follow me when I head for home)?

' YES'! I thought! 'But I have to hurry before the sun goes down and I lose the light!'

 So I RAN as fast as I could back up the path. Milo our swift little 6 month old kitty wasn't going to be left behind and he raced after me. Harley, our adventurous little 4 year old soon followed. I raced up the hill towards the house, huffing and puffing, and ran up the back steps with Milo in close pursuit.  I literally threw Milo into the kitchen, then grabbed the camera off the counter and ran out the door, back down the path towards the lake.  The dog was jumping straight up in the air in delight at this point! (WOW! Another walk already!?) And she eagerly raced after me.

'Are the birds still going to be there or will they have come to their senses and left', I wondered as I ran.

I arrived back on the beach in short order and saw the geese and ducks were still there!  I slowly walked across the beach in their direction and took several photos of them, propping my elbows on one of the picnic tables there to try and get a clear shot.

Here are the results:

Photo taken from Shore

Zoomed in photo from shore

Now the geese are starting to leave ( I think my dog on shore was making them nervous.)

           Last minute accommodation adjustments before sunset...

October snow

Not many leaves left on the trees, but they are beautiful none the less....

Ash tree berries add so much color to the greys and browns at this time of the year here in central Alberta.

Rather hard to tell which birds these are from this photo, but they are the tundra swans returning from their summer in the north. They hang out at Buffalo lake for a couple of weeks, then they silently continue their journey south. Unlike the Canada Geese which you hear coming long before they are flying overhead, only one or two Tundra Swans in the flock occasionally make a sound as they are flying.

It's a thrill to look up and see these huge magnificent white birds flying so gracefully and silently above your head!

We were in calgary this weekend and I was amazed to see there are still quite a number of trees there with leaves on them.  There are very few leaves left on the trees here,2 hours north east of Calgary.

Now for the "S" word! Yes, we woke up to snow on the ground this morning! It was still mostly here this evening and those flakes might find some additional company by morning.  I need to go check my 'mulch mounds' around my rose bushes tomorrow to see if they are still in tact or need to be replenished. We had quite the wind today so who knows where my protective coverings ended up!

This pretty much winds down my 2010 garden blog from Buffalo Lake, Alberta.  I have enjoyed it immensely and hope to take it up again in March or April of 2011, and so I thank you for following this humble blog and wish you a warm winter!

October Summer?

Another beautiful mid October day today! It has been warm and sunny like this for the last 2 weeks! The forecast for today is +20C , if you can believe that. Sure makes fall garden clean up more agreeable!

I was out on the Thanksgiving weekend and also yesterday doing more flower bed clean up. That job never seems to end! I keep telling myself that whatever work I do now will mean less work to do come spring, but I know deep down that that is really only partly true.  I am reluctant to hack down anything that is still green right now, where as, come spring, it will all be yellow, dry and dead so that makes it easier. I find myself being selective in what I’m yanking out or clipping, so in reality I will end up going back to the same bed more than once to clean it completely.

I want to leave anything that the birds might like to munch on come winter, but on the other hand, I don’t want all my overly aggressive perennials to go to seed too much. I can already see that I have a massive amount of tiny white daisy seedlings trying to grow everywhere. I weeded as many daisies out as I could, but soon got tired of it and made a note in my gardening journal to finish that job in one particular bed (the lower level of my rock garden) in the spring. 

The birds are nibbling on the seeds of the lilacs which I always leave.

Canada geese flying overhead on their way south to warmer climates

 I was also reluctant to clip the blue sage (called May Night... a beautiful dark royal blue that for some reason I sometimes see at night when I close my eyes before I go to sleep...). The sage spikes still have a few blue flowers at the very tips and I see bees there every day getting the last of the nectar. So I compromised and clipped the two thirds closest to the stairs and left some at the far end of the plant for the bees to enjoy.  We are expecting a hard frost in a day or two ( -7C) so I imagine by then, the bees will be staying in their hives and hibernating so it should be safe to finish the job. (I wonder how many new little blue sage plants will be sprouting up there in the spring.... )

Fall garden, not as colorful as summer, but still has its appeal

Strangely enough, my lilac hedge at the back of the house still has a lot of leaves left on it at this time of year when almost all other trees and shrubs have dropped theirs. Not sure why, but possibly because of all the precipitation we have had this whole growing season.

Lilacs still have their leaves in October

I trimmed day lily leaves and dug up more grass (what a nuisance!) out of the rock garden bed yesterday. 

Then I planted some grape hyacinth bulbs (which my friend BA had kindly given me) in the west side of my stack stone bed. I shared a dozen of them with my daughter who was visiting on the Thanksgiving weekend for her to plant in her own flower bed. She had a little bunch of grape hyacinth outside her bedroom window growing up at our house in northern Manitoba, and we both always enjoyed seeing them bloom in early spring.

I finally got started on cleaning up my wild flower bed and wild it is!  There is so much tall grass in there it’s amazing that other things still can grow! I think that’s another thing to write in my garden journal under “To Do for 2011”: Dig out some of the worse areas of grass especially those that are trying to encroach on my newly planted peonies there, (which I hope will eventually reward my efforts with some flowers!)  I trimmed about half of the maltese crosses and spent daisies in that bed. 

I left the peonies alone though.  My own experience, as well as the Lois Hole perennial book has shown me not to baby peonies.  One year I got energetic and trimmed back the peonies in the fall and added mulch. The next spring the peonies had LESS flowers than they had when I did not trim and mulch them. The Lois Hole book says that peonies need to have the cold temperatures in the winter in order to bloom well in the spring. The only thing you really need to remember to do for them is give them a good drink of water late in the fall to prevent them drying out.

Time to go out and finish the job of trimming the wild flower bed now!  

The last job to do is trim the huge mass of day lilies next to the pond and then put mulch on the rose bushes. I have saved some clippings to do that with and also will add some leaves and some peat moss to hold it all in around the rose bushes to make a nice snuggly blanket for the winter months. I think a bit of water to wet it down should help keep it from blowing away until the snow comes to cover the flower beds. 

But lets not talk about snow just yet!   :)

October gardening

What a gorgeous fall day outside! Actually it is more like a warm sunny August day than early October!  Plus 20C!??? I think Mother Nature is having a hot flash or trying to make up for being so nasty to us weather-wise for most of July, August and September!  Whatever the reason, we are enjoying it thoroughly!

It was a beautiful day to be out messing around in my flower beds.  (The clean up there never seems to end, though!)   I trimmed my rose bushes back, but haven't put any mulch or peat around them yet. I clipped back 2 potentilla shrubs and also the red current which is spreading out a little too much in the middle of my stack stone flower bed. Pulled out a lot of tall grass and other weeds that managed to elude me all summer.

I  dug most of the remaining annuals out of the pots on the deck today, too. I left 2 spike plants in their pots (they both look so healthy and beautiful,) along with a red geranium and an ivy geranium which are both still blooming. I think I will spray them down well and then bring the 2 pots into the living room for the winter.  I had taken a nice slip of my favorite red geranium (Samba Red) about 2 weeks ago, but my little kitty knocked it off the window sill into the sink while we were away and the pet sitters tried to put it back into the pot. It looks pretty awful now, so I think I'll just compost it and keep the nice one in the big deck pot instead.

And I'm wondering how I ended up with 3 Orbit Pink geraniums to over-winter?  Oh, well. They all 3 look nice and just in case one of them doesn't make it till spring, I'll keep them all, I guess. ( I also have one white geranium, one Maestro Blue and one lacy geranium.) I gave up trying to over-winter the regal geraniums with the beautiful 2 tone flowers and sharp edged leaves. The plants themselves did okay, but they took forever to get buds and start blooming after I planted them outside. They didn't really look very nice until about August, truth be told. I tried over-wintering them 2 years in a row, but there are some things that just do so much better in a greenhouse.

Pond minus the gold fish and the stack stone flower bed

We took the goldfish out of the pond today. There are 8 of them altogether. Could only find 7 at first, but after my husband scooped out almost all of the water, he found the last one in the sludgy water. He had it in his hand and it almost made an escape before he got it into the pail! It literally leaped in on its own! Now they will be 'housed' in a fish tank in the laundry room for the winter.  I rathet enjoy seeing them whenever I go to do the laundry.

The job of getting all the algae and sludge out of the pond and clean the filter system is next. Then we leave it mostly empty for the winter, although it's good to leave a little water in it for the birds to drink in late fall.  (Once it freezes and snows outside, I wonder, do the birds eat snow???)

I watered my roses and lilies in my stack stone bed today, as well as my best blooming peony in the small bed next to it. Apparently a dry fall is the most frequent cause of perennials dying, not a hard winter, so remember to water your perennials if you haven't had any rain for a couple weeks.

Next job:  Dig out the glad bulbs and the last  2 tuberous begonia tubers to over winter.  Clip the rest of the perennials in the big round Angel bed including the tall heliopsis in the centre.

After that: trim the perennials in the wild bed at the end of the yard and water the peonies there.

Note: Do not trim the clematis or the peonies before winter. It's best to do that in the spring apparently.

One more thing! The big spaghetti squash that grew in our garden this summer, turns out to be... a pumpkin!  LOL! Yup! I thought it was a strange shape for a squash, but I was positive I had planted squash seeds! Oh well. It is turning orange on the kitchen counter and should make a nice little Jack-o-lantern for Hallowe'en! :)

Autumn is Definitely Here

Golden poplar leaves

Had an interesting walk along the trails through the bush out here yesterday. It was a hot sunny day, about 26C, believe it or not, (after 3 weeks of cool, damp, rainy weather with killer frost every other night!) A warm wind was blowing quite fiercely and showering me with leaves blown off the trees!  I love once the leaves dry on the ground and they crunch when you walk on them!

Mountain Ash colors

Ornamental cherry tree

Last dahlia tuber has been safely stowed in a bag of peat moss in the laundry room ready for winter.  The tuberous begonias are next and once the frost kills them , the glad bulbs. For now I'm leaving them as long as they are green to grow and add strength to the bulbs. Then maybe next year I will have more success in getting them to bloom. They are my birth month flower (August), but sadly, I didn't manage to get any this year. :(            (Maybe I'll check at Sobeys! LOL!)

Early fall morning...

Migrating canada Geese

 I am amazed that my alyssum is still looking so great after all the frosts we have had! I knew that snap dragons and pansies are very hardy ( to -7C) but did not know that alyssum is, too!  Even my black-eyed Susan are still looking quite nice. Likely because they are close to the east side of the house and somewhat protected there.

The fall colors are so gorgeous! Too bad it only lasts about 3 weeks out here! The poplars are a beautiful golden yellow! Not a lot of reds, only a few of the smaller wild shrubs along the trails, but my ornamental cherry is a beautiful burgundy and the mountain ash leaves are orange and red...