Tuesday May 24/ 2011 Putting in...and Taking Out

The rain stopped today, although the sun didn't come out at all and the temperature was only a high of about 10 degrees celcius. A good time to plant/ transplant which is exactly what I did.  I added a few more plants to my new flower bed.

Right now there are :
False Spiria bush
Bleeding heart bush
Miss Kim miniature lilac
Cinquefoil (a short variety of potentilla),
2 lupines, (which I dug out of my Angel Bed)
Some bearded irises (which I hope are the purple and white ones)
2 Rudbeckia (Autumn Colors)
A cactus dahlia
3 rocket mix snapdragons

Bleeding heart, bearded irises and day lily in background

False Spirea bush flanked by day lilies, small cinquefoil, flanked by rudbeckia Autumn Colors

I planted a 30 inch Manitoba Maple sapling in a treed area of our acreage. It had to be dug out of the little flower bed which we are dismantling, and many of the trees in that treed area are dead (mostly old poplars there), so I'm hoping to plant a few new trees there to rejuvenate that spot (between the fire pit and the road.)

Ruby sempervivum (Hen and Chicks)

I also planted some sempervivum ("Hen and Chicks") in 2 of my beds, one in my old stack stone flower bed, and the other in my long perennial bed. One of them I got from the Plant Swap in town a few weekends ago and the second one I dug out of my own wild rock garden facing the road. (The second one is a ruby sempervivum and they get the most beautiful little bundle of flowers in the summer!)

The 'Hen" dies after blooming but usually there are other chicks there to take over.

I'm thrilled to report that my plum trees and pear trees are opening their blossoms! Two of my plum trees (The Pembina Plums) look like they have been through a terrible war, so much of their bark is missing off their branches!  That's thanks to the 4 porcupines that we had roaming around here last winter. Yes, I said four!!!

We bought some tree wrap and wrapped up the branches of my Hyer Apple tree which also got attacked, but we ran out after that one tree.  I think we will just trim the poor plum bush back severely and hope that it survives. If not, then I guess we will remove it and start over with some new ones. Luckily the porcupine left my favourite plum tree (Brook Park Plum) with very little damage.  It usually gets blossoms earlier then the others and consequently also ripens the plums early enough to avoid the frost. Not so for the other two plums .... (Pembina Plums)

The Dologo Crab apple tree is also starting to open it's blossoms and the lone pear tree at the end of the yard has been blooming for a several days. Now all we need is a few sunny days and the rest of the blossoms will burst open. The yard will be beautiful and fragrantly scented attracting bees from miles around!  I love this time of year and just wish it would last a bit longer  :)