Gardening... in My Dreams!

Have been day dreaming about the 2011 gardening season. Reading gardening magazines adds fuel to the fire! Still far too early to do much of anything yet except look at the greenhouse that I passed on the highway today with longing!  LOL!

Crocuses from the local grocery store- Gorgeous, aren't they?!

The local grocery store provides some little samples of spring with their assortment of crocuses, hyacinths and Japanese lilies to brighten the cold winter days. :)

In March I will start planting my dahlia bulbs, canna lily tubers, and begonia tubers which I have stored in the laundry room right now. They take several weeks to sprout. Luckily I have some big, sunny windows in my living room ready to provide hours of much needed sunshine when they do sprout!

After that it will be time to trim back the geraniums that I have been over wintering in the house. Maybe take a few cuttings to start some new plants. One of my Orbit Pink geraniums has 3 bunches of blossoms on it right now and looking so bright and beautiful! It is in a south/west facing window in the kitchen and seems to like it there.

I love looking at seed catalogs at this time of the year and making lists of which bedding plants I want to purchase for this year's garden.  All part of the planning and necessary preparation for a successful garden! ;)

I wonder if I have been 'creating a monster' as my husband seems to think. I have been buying apples and cutting them up to put out for the deer. They have been wandering around in large groups of a dozen or more this year. It's called "yarding up"according to my Deer book. I guess they have better protection from predators in groups, but I would think they would have a harder time finding enough food then.

Mama white tail with twins -relatives in background

I saw two really tiny white tail deer in a group a few days ago (Even tinier than the two in the photo above.) It was interesting to see their mother trying to coax them to be brave enough to go close to our backyard bird feeder where some oiled sunflower seeds lay on the ground. She used one front hoof to nudge two other deer out of the way. But by the time the little ones ventured close, there wasn't much left to eat.  I'm afraid they might not survive till spring, they are so tiny. The weather has taken a really serious cold dip again, -21C today and going to -29C again tonight. How can tiny little thin animals even stay warm when it's that cold!?

Anyway, my husband thinks I am creating a monster by luring all these plant eaters to our yard. But I reminded him that we have had deer come every winter since we started living here 5 years ago and now that I have discovered Plantskydd to spray on my flowers as they grow, it deters the deer from making lunch out of them. Besides, by spring there will be a lot of greenery sprouting up in the environmental reserve around our place and the deer groups will split up before they give birth. Once they have better food sources, they won't come around nearly as often. Plus we have a high wire fence around the vegetable garden which no deer have breached yet.

Young mule deer on the deck sampling the plum tree branches

Even the mule deer have been coming around this winter more often, which is really unusual. You seldom see them in summer either, except from afar.  They are very scruffy looking right now. One morning last week, I looked out my front door and saw one brazen mule deer youngster standing on my deck, eating my plum tree to his heart's content, while his relatives were munching away on the other side of the deck railing. It was very icy on the deck after the recent thaw and refreeze, and since it's 13 steps down off the deck to the ground, I didn't want to scare him and possibly cause him to break a leg or injure himself in his flight. I took his photo through the window, then opened the door and poked my head out, speaking softly. He turned around to look at me and then swiftly fled, taking his family members with him!

We have so much snow this year making it harder for the animals to move around. The repeated thaw and freeze up has created a crust on top of the snow. The rabbits just hop around on top, so light that they don't sink through like the deer.  But these conditions make it harder for the deer to find food under the snow.
So I figure, what are a few dozen apples going to hurt!  As much as I love gardening, I wouldn't want to give up the daily deer visits just to save a few bedding plants.  Now my lilies... that might be another matter! LOL!

White tail deer at backyard feeder

White tail deer at front yard feeder