End of the Season Work

Arctic Skipper Butterfly visiting the coneflowers

Red dahlias have succumbed to the frost now

Birds have eaten most of the sunflower seeds off the sunflowers now

The end of another growing season is here, no denying it. We had a very good long run of hot weather this summer, well into the end of September. I feel a little cheated actually. Fall is one of my favourite times of the year, but I feel that we went from the hot +29C weather into a very cold wet period and skipped over the warm sunny fall days/ pleasant cool nights phase.

Jack Frost must have suddenly realized that he had missed us altogether in August and September because he arrived with a vengeance on Wed. Sept  26/ early morning Thursday and plunged us into a chilling -6C! My poor flowers and tomatoes didn't know what had hit them!  The pansies and snapdragons held on bravely, continuing to bloom for a few more days, through a few more cold minus zero nights before they finally gave up, too.

Snapdragons are hardy and can survive frost down to -10C

Then we finally got our much needed rain! We had not had any precipitation to speak of since the end of July, almost 2 months! There was even a fire ban on here in our county because of the severe dryness, quite unusual for late September.

This past Wed. (Oct. 10) Jack threw some snow at us, just to remind us that he was in charge now and to give us a taste of what he had in store for the next number of months to come! :(   Luckily it was very little snow and it only stayed around for 2 or 3 days. Today the weather warmed up beautifully to (get this) +16 C! How's THAT for the 12 of October?!?  I have so much fall clean up left to do so it was a welcome surprise.

Simba chasing his first snowflakes on the deck

Today I did  quite a lot of digging, first my glad bulbs, then the red tuberous begonias and after that I dug up my dahlias.

Some of the glads were in the centres of 3 of my deck pots and the rest were in my stack stone flower bed in 2 separate clusters, one was Passo glads which are medium purple with dark purple throats, and the other was Viola Glads with are dark mauve with silver edges, both quite stunning!  I clipped off the stalks to about 3 inches above the bulbs and then put each set in its own labeled paper bag with some peat moss. They don't like to dry out during storage, but neither do they want to be too moist or they will go moldy.

Firebird Dahlias

The dahlias were in the flower beds and there were 3 large blackened clusters with a lot of fat healthy tubers underneath; 2 clusters are the red cactus dahlias which I have been growing and over-wintering for over 10 years(!) and one huge cluster of yellow and orange cactus dahlias called Firebird. (I have had those tubers for about 4 years now.)  I let the clusters dry for a while on the deck, then put them into large paper bags with peat moss, after labeling the bags carefully. Dahlias prefer to be kept a bit on the dry side,  (hence the paper bags), but not completely dried out. The peat moss allows me to add a bit of moisture over the winter if necessary.


The tuberous begonias were growing in a pot on the deck. I dug around in the soil and found one good sized tuber and one puny one but I will try and save them both. They went into a plastic ziplock bag with their original tags (red begonia).  I still have 3 yellow tuberous begonias in a half barrel in the yard which need to be rescued as well. I have successfully over-wintered them twice already so I hope to get lucky with them again next spring. :)

Pond has been drained , cleaned and refilled for winter

We netted the goldfish out of our pond last week and, to our surprise we collected a total of 27 fish, 11 medium to large and 16 little grey babies!  We had lost most of our 11 original goldfish to a Black Night Heron that kept coming around to snatch fish in early July. We had added 7 fish to our depleated stock in mid July, which we had received free of charge from the kind owner of Tail Creek Greenhouse. (Thank you, Judy! :) We were expecting only about 9 fish. As I scooped dead leaves out of the bottom of the pond, I kept find little wrigglers hiding in the debris. They are now safely situated in 2 tanks in the laundry room for the winter.


Next job:
1) Winterize Morden rose bushes

2)Dig out Canna lily from pot to overwinter

3) trim perennials in round angel bed

4) Collect Cosmos seeds

Tomatoes and Late Summer Joys

The late summer weather continues to be sunny, warm and beautiful! Jack Frost has kindly been absent, although he came close a few nights this past week! I was playing Russian Roulette of sorts and did not cover anything until last night. I thought that I had gotten luck up until then and didn't want to push my luck once again.

We got home just before 8:00 pm Sunday night and it seemed to be cooling off quite quickly, so I dragged most of my flower pots from the open part of the deck up against the house. Then I covered the tomato plants that were in pots against the wall on the outside of the greenhouse with old sheets and towels, and also covered 4 of the half barrels of flowers and the flower boxes on the deck landing.

Next I threw a sheet over my gorgeous tall orange and yellow Firebird Dahlia in my stack stone bed as well as one Lemon Boy tomato plants in the veg. garden (which still had a lot of ripening fruit on it), one zucchini plant and a few Swiss Chard.  I ran out of covers at that point, so the rest I figured were on their own...

Mother Nature was kind once again and nothing had been zapped by Monday morning.

This is the first year that I have planted Zinnias and I am so impressed with them! At first they were dwarfed by the Lavatara, but I fertilized then a couple of times and they finally did sprout up tall and beautiful.

As I mentioned, the Lavatara that I grew from seed bloomed profusely, but they have all but gome to seed now as I stopped deadheading them a while back.

Note to self: Continue to deadhead future Lavatara till the beginning of September.

My little Gazanias which I grew from seeds are just about to (finally) bloom now! The plants that I had bought have been blooming for 2 months already! I guess some plants are not worth trying to grow yourself. :(

As mentioned above, my most beautiful flowers now in mid September are:
Firebird dahlia
Annual tall double Cosmos ( in a variety of pinks with interesting curly petals)
Rocket Mix (tall) snaps (many grown from last years seeds)

Cosmos

My Morden roses still have a bloom or two but my tea rose 'Peace' growing in a pot in the greenhouse has had the most long stemmed gorgeous yellow and pink edged blossoms this summer!
Unfortunately it is not a Zone 3 rose and so likely would not survive the winter out in my flower bed like the hardy Morden roses do. I think I will cut it back, spray it for aphids and overwinter it in a pot in my living room. Maybe it will perform well again next year... :)

Cosmos

Snapdragons

Tomato Contest Winner:

The latest plant itself is the Super Sensation growing in the greenhouse, but it had few actual tomatoes on it. The Early Girl growing in a pail outside the greenhouse itself has the most ripe tomatoes on it.
The yellow Lemon Boy tomato plants have all ripen yellow tomatoes and the one with the most fruit overall is the smaller plant in the vegetable garden, although most are still green. The early girls have out ripened any of the other plants. The Black Krim heirloom tomato plants have not done very well in that department this year. We got a few ripe purpley/red tomatoes off them, but not as many as in previous years.

So I declare the tomato winners to be the Early Girl variety once again! :)

Yellow Black-eyed Susans and pink Lavatara

 My Black-eyed Susans are 3 to 4 years old now and looking really gorgeous at this time of year. They are finally filling out and spreading and next year I will be able to dig up and transplant some to other locations.

Self-seeded sunflowers

The sunflowers have been sprouting up all over my stack stone bed thanks to the sloppy birds and maybe the Marmots that were frequenting the nearby feeder.  'Someone' has been coming and knocking them over, then eating the seeds out of them as well.  The only reason that the deer have not eaten them completely is thanks to the Bobbex spray I have been putting on every 2 to 3 weeks all summer.

Purple Echinacea (coneflower)

Like my Black-eyed Susans, my purple echinacea clumps have also grown and again, it took about 4 years to get them to this stage, after many failed attempts. (I tried growing the White Swan variety, but without much success. They rarely over-wintered here in our zone 3 climate.)

Pond Lily

 My pond lily has grown well after I put some fertilizer sticks in the pot with them. Unfortunately it did not bloom this year. I guess I should try a blooming type of fertilizer stick next time, one with a high nitrogen ( middle number) instead of the Tomato spikes that I had used... Live and learn!

Gigantic Swiss Chard, spaghetti squash plant on left

Tuesday - Wed. Sept 18/19, 2012

Jack frost did pay us a visit last night. Yesterday evening we paid attention to the frost warning on the weather forecast and did cover as much as possible.

Lilies, Glads and Magical Moments

My lilies were absolutely gorgeous this summer! I remembered to spray Bobbex on them regularly so the deer left them alone for the most part and they bloomed abundantly. :)

The Hollyhocks grew tall and stately as usually and looked quite stunning against the east side of the house.

They are at the end of their bloom now, though and I have clipped a number of them back already. (August 27, 2012)

 My Helianthus-false sunflowers along the side of the house are looking really good this year as well. They are in the same bed as the hollyhocks and clematises.

We have had a fair amount of rain this summer but it rarely comes from the east so that particular bed usually gets little rain. Since we put eaves up on that section of the roof 2 years ago, it doesn't get any run off from the roof anymore either. Clematises don't like to be dry and so I have put a soaker hose in that bed to ensure it gets enough water.  

Purple Monkshood, blue delphinium and the tail end of the red Maltese Cross

Maltese Cross

The perennials in my round Angel bed have done spectacularly well as usual. The Delphinuiums and the blue Monkshood grew tall and the red maltese Cross bloomed large to the delight of the hummingbirds. My pink Monkshood grew and bloomed more sparsely. It was overcrowded by my gigantic helianthus- false sunflower in the centre of that bed. 

(Note to self: Dig out more of the helianthus next spring to try and contain it better.)

My diligent husband dug around the long bed and added these beautiful stack stones around the sides.

The delphinuims in my long bed did not grow as well as they have in the past. I had dug most of them out this spring to get at the massive amount of long, endless grass roots in this bed. I guess the re-planting might have set them back somewhat.  Then 'something' kept eating away at the leaves and eventually most of the delphinium leaves were devoured. 

The Beer traps finally identified the culprits . Who knew that I had dozens and dozens of slugs eating their way through my flower beds! I have been emptying out the little tin beer bait traps almost daily and I have lost count of the numbers I have drowned, but I know it is close to 150! (I will never be able to eat or look at escargot ever again!)  

I really should not be surprised, since we had a rainy spring and relatively rainy first part of the summer, that plus the mulch around the perennial beds provides ideal living conditions and hiding places for slugs. 

Another note to Self:  Put out beer bait traps in June next year; not wait until August...

Brandy Wine rudbeckia and pink cinquefoil

Next Note to Self: Dig up sprawling cinquefoil perennial and move it to the wild bed by the road. It is very pretty but takes up a lot of room.

I like the 'Brandy wine' rudbeckias, but not quite as much as I loved the 'Autumn Colors' rudbeckias that I had last year and the year before...

My firebird dahlia is taller than ever this year and blooming beautifully in my birdhouse stackstone bed. The rose bushes have started to set some new buds and I am pleased to see that I seem to have contained the rust on them. :)

I am really impressed with the gladiolas in that bed. They are a gorgeous two tone deep purple and others are purple with silver lines along the edge. )I need to find the tags and write the names here.)

One morning recently, as I was admiring my flower beds from the deck, I saw a hummingbird dipping in and out of the delphinium flowers that had self-seeded in that bed. After a few sips, it continued on to  the glads and after that  the hummingbird had an uncharacteristic rest in the mostly bare branches of the chokecherry near the bird feeder where the chickadees usually hang out. 

I watched the hummingbird for 2 or 3 minutes and couldn't believe it was sitting still for that long! 

I debated with myself:

Do I run inside and grab my camera, or do I just stand here and enjoy the moment. Okay, I'll stay and enjoy the moment. When it continued to sit still on the branch, I finally dashed inside for the camera, but, of course when I reappeared,  the hummingbird was gone. It was quite a magical moment anyway. :)

Gladiolas, Delphiniums and (Ugh) Slugs

Gladiolas, Delphiniums and Slugs

Usually my garden looks its best in July and by August many of my perennials have finished blooming. This year is no exception, but the beautiful glads that have started blooming are sure a welcome addition! I bought 10 healthy fat bulbs at the Echo Glen Greenhouse booth at the Trade Show in town in April. I have found in the past that some of the glad bulbs that I planted did little more than grow tall nice looking leaves so I thought some of these might do the same. With that in mind I planted 5 of the tallest sprouts in my round Stack stone bed and the other 5 I planted in the centre of some of my deck pots instead of using a Spike. The ones on the deck have produced double  stems of flowers and the 2 bulbs in my tub at the bottom of the stairs have grown gigantic! (Likely thanks to the Miracle grow I was socking to the regal geraniums there.)

My poor delphiniums were not at their best this summer. I had dug most of them out of the long bed in the spring in order to clean up that bed, remove as much of the long grass roots growing rampantly there... That may have set the delphiniums back somewhat compared to last summer when they grew profusely, about 7 feet tall! Plus this year their leaves were decimated by some nasty garden insect or other. My poor lupines had their leaves ravaged, too and the marigold which I had planted in my triangular stack stone bed to replace the first eaten batch were also decimated. I guess I had other things on my mind this summer as I didn't clue in as to who/ what the culprits were.

I finally went online and Googled it... It was either a Earwigs or slugs. I decided that, yes, it could very likely be slugs since we have had problems with them before in the veg garden especially  among the lettuce. The slugs had the perfect hiding places under all the bark that I had added to mulch the flower beds. 

I took 4 empty cat food tins from our recycle bin and sunk them into 2 of my flower beds, then filled them with beer and water. In one night alone I caught over 60 slugs, drowned in the watery beer traps! Yay!!!

Yay, I won this battle!!!

I replenished the traps with fresh beer and had dozens more! I discovered quite a few slugs lurking under my garden statues waiting for the sun to start going down so they could continue their destruction! I squished a few, snipped a few with the garden shears, but that seemed to gross so I tossed the rest head first into the beer. I think I need to add a few more traps to one other bed as well.

And more importantly:  MAKE A NOTE IN MY GARDEN JOURNAL TO START SETTING OUT BEER TRAPS IN JUNE NEXT YEAR!!!  

Once the nesting song birds have raised their families and left our property, the slugs take over! (UGH!) Where are the hungry robins and house wrens when you need them?!

Okay let's end this post with a more palatable picture:

One of my favourite geraniums this year along with diamond frost Euphorbia and 'small leaf'

Another slug solution:

Add sliced cucumbers to an aluminum pie tin with some water. Apparently it creates some kind of electric shock when the slugs slide in. (Not tested yet.)

Add epsom salts around your plants ( Slugs don't like to crawl over salt). I tried this solution but of course it rained the very next day. The salt might not be good for a flower bed anyway...

Earwigs Bait:

Equal parts soy sauce, cooking oil, and corn syrup (or molasses). Cover 1/2 inch in bottom of container and sink container into the ground to brim. Cover partially to keep out the rain and to make it dark. I have not tried this solution either as I have not had an earwig problem (to my knowledge.)

Happy gardening! :D

Rose Rust Problem

Morden Centennial Rose earlier in July

We have a large number of wild roses on our properly, most of which have seeded themselves, but they were quite beautiful she they were in full bloom in early July! We have a huge rose problem this year, though. I noticed a lot of bright fluorescent splotches on the leaves and I Googled it on the computer to see if I could find out what it is. Apparently it is a type of Rose Rust fungus, not the usual under the leaf tiny spots, but a different variety. The splotches were also on my Morden rose bushes and even on some of the flower buds of my Morden Blush! We certainly are getting  a lot of rain this summer so I think that might be reason for the rust problem.

I pinched off or clipped off many of the affected leaves and buds. Then my husband and I trimmed many of the wild row bushes which are growing around the flower beds. We lugged the branches and leaves into the back of the truck where we took them to the burn pile at the county dump in rider not to spread the fungus.

Morden Sunrise had no rust thankfully but I sprayed it anyway

I bought a spray bottle of fungicide and sprayed all my domestic rose bushes as well as any nearby wild ones. Mother nature will have to take care of the wild roses that are affected in the environmental areas around our acreage and along the trail to the lake.  Many of them have dropped yellow leaves already (which are the result of the rust.)  The internet indicated that a sulphur based fungicide would do the trick or a product called Melobutanil. They bushes need to be sprayed in spring and summer particularly the lower leaves and branches. I will have to remember to diligently check the rose bushes and maybe spray them again in a couple of weeks and again in the spring.

My Morden roses were looking incredibly beautiful before this hail storm last Wednesday (July 18/ 2012). They had tall stems of multiple blossoms and I wish I would have gotten some photos before the hail! They lost most of the blossoms but they will likely recover, weather permitting.

Morden blush is always the first to bloom :)

Petunias looking good before the hail 

Lupines

Red cactus dahlia had just started blooming before the hail mashes part of it

New Additions

It's always exciting to add new additions to an existing flower bed!

We bought small Udo pear tree at the end of June at Home Hardware and we planted it next to the driveway near the telephone pole. We have an existing pear tree about 200 yards from there and it is always the first tree in the spring to sprout beautiful fragrant blossoms. It gets tiny hard green pears which don't amount to anything so I thought if we had a second pear tree to cross pollinate with it, maybe we would get some edible fruit??? It's too late for this year, but we'll see what happens next year. I hope they are not planted too far apart... it's worth a try!

Stack stone edging added around the long perennial bed

 Chris decided to edge my long perennial bed with the same stack stones as 2 of my other large beds to delineate the border and to keep out the long grass roots that always seems to find their way in.  He dug out a narrow trench of the clay soil and filled it in with gravel. Then he added a 1'by 4' inch board against the lawn to try and deter the lawn from encroaching. After that he put one layer of stones down around the long sides of the bed. (The steppingstone pathways are at either of the short sides.) It looks really nice! Then he added several bags of triple mix soil to top up the bed. Now I just need to go out and put the 2 bags of mulch on top of everything. :)

Maltese cross attracts hummingbirds

We planted new white peony shrub at the far end of that bed after removing a big clump of white daisies from there mixed with Jacob's Ladders that had all seeded themselves there. This peony was purchased at Wal Mart in Calgary and it had had 2 blossoms on it. I had Chris help me plant it in the hope  that it would break my 'Peony Curse' so it would bloom again next summer.

White peony Elegans at the far end of my long bed/ along with a self seeded lily  :)

(The peony diggings that I 'rescued' from shady parts of my wild bed and planted near the front of that bed have not bloomed yet. Neither has the one I put in my new triangular stack stone bed last summer, and not even the red peony that I had bought 3 years ago at PJ's Plantation!  It's quite disheartening!

At least 2 of the existing peonies in our yard did bloom this summer, although one peony had only one flower on it since it gets so little sun now because of the big trees. Sadly, the hail storm that we had on July 18th cut the flower bud off its stem and it did not get to bloom at all. :(

Some kind of insect has been eating all the leaves off of the marigold that I had planted in my triangle bed. It leaves the blossoms behind but without leaves the marigolds are all dying! I bought a small rectangular pot of new marigolds at the same Calgary Wal Mart and they are still on the deck waiting to go into the garden.

Thank goodness I didn't have time to plant them sooner! We had a terrible hail storm with high winds on Wednesday (July 18) and it shredded a lot of my flowers and veggies. What a mess to come home to! I have cleaned up some of the plants but there is still work to do...

Luckily I had not plant out my new Morden Centennial rose bush yet at that point! The rose bush was in a pot with what seems to be a type of sawdust mixture and the water ran right through the pot so it needed to be watered often. Probably an indication that it was root bound... It had set a lot of buds on its long spindly branches and it  had started blooming in the greenhouse.   I finally did plant it at the end of July in my long perennial bed at the end closest to the house where it continues to bloom.  :D

My new Peace rose is still in the greenhouse blooming its little heart out... The Peace rose has been  regularly giving me beautiful, tall, long stemmed flowers. The buds start out yellow but they soon turn pink as the petals unfold.  I have been cutting and bringing the flowers into the house.
The first Peace rose which I had brought in I had made the mistake of adding tap water to the vase. It turned the rose an ugly non-descript beige!  I think it's due to the high alkalinity in our well water. (A similar strange color change happens to red wine.) Now I remember to use bottled water in the rose vases.

I also planted a German Catchfly perennial in my triangular bed (also known as Lychnis Viscaria Splendins). It looks like it will bloom soon, so we'll see if it looks as good as the tag. :)

I love dahlias!

My new Kobold blanket flower bloomed well. This one is in the west side of my Angel bed

My red cactus dahlias continue the tradition of blooming profusely.

Dramatic Clematis and Calming Columbines

I love clematises!

Clematises are so spectacular and not that difficult to grow. My clematises are growing quite vigorously this summer, especially the General Sikorska clematis whichI have had for 5 years now.  My Jackmanii clematis  came into my garden in 2009.  to replace the pink Ville de Lyons,which died after only 2 years. The General had the first blossom pop out this summer on June 23rd and it full of blossoms now and is growing like crazy! Jack is blooming now, too, but only just started.

My tiny Alba Luxuriana clematis is still hanging in there, but doesn't seem to grow much from year to year.  (I guess it is not a good idea to 'rescue' stunted perennials.)  Maybe it needs some bone meal...  It does have some tiny buds for the very first time and hopefully (and we gardeners ARE the perpetual optimists) this summer it will grow bigger as well.

My pink lupins are beautiful!

Thrift

my old original Columbine

My new columbine ( Thanks Janet!  :)