Mulching, Seedlings and Scarification

Things are almost all done in my existing flower beds now, except for adding the mulch. My helpful husband had shovels a load of mulch into the wheelbarrow for me to use a while ago, but I hadn't finished planting the gazanias and portulaca around the edges of a couple of beds, plus I was expecting that some of my lavatara would probably bite the dust and have to be replaced. (Happily they are all thriving and I am so pleased about that since I planted them all from seed. :)
I even brought a few to Calgary to plant in my daughter's flower bed. Now they all just have to grow bigger and set some blossoms.)

I also successfully grew morning glory vines and a tall variety of mixed Cosmos, which are all growing well, but have no signs of blossoms yet.

Hansa rose bush on the east side of the house

I tried growing snapdragons from the seed pods left in the flower beds over winter by planting them in pots in the greenhouse. ONE sprouted out of the 2 dozen I planted. I had sprinkled quite a number of seeds directly into the flower bed as well and guess what??? I have about 2 dozen tiny seedling that popped up there! I learned something new recently about seeds: some seeds particularly the tiniest ones (and we all know how tiny poppy seeds are) prefer to be sprinkled on the soil and not covered. Some seeds actually need light to germinate. Go figure!

Then there's the process of scarification. No, that's not what you do to the crows and magpies who try to eat the seeds. :)
Some seeds need to be scratched in order to break through the hard coating to allow them to germinate. Lupins for instance... No wonder I had no luck getting any lupins to germinate in the greenhouse! But why did some lupins seed themselves and successfully germinate in the flower bed? Who scarified them? Mother nature!
Lying on the cold ground and freezing all winter cracked the outer coat and they germinated in the spring. Go figure!

Calendulas are another one. I had many calendulas in the flower bed at the front of my house in northern Manitoba. They were there when I moved in and I lived there for almost 20 years. I had calendulas germinate in the flower bed all by themselves every spring. I just helped by leaving some of the flowers to go to seed, then shaking the seeds onto the ground in the fall.

Blue Sage May Night growing vigorously as usual. Liatris near bottom right, coneflower above that. Yellow sedum blooming on left, white daises at bottom corners

The bees are having a heyday with my blue sage and really enjoy the abundant blossoms of May Night.  

My white daisies have all popped open now and they still seem to be quite numerous in spite of the fact that I culled many of the clumps out of my beds... Today I trimmed many of the daisies that were growing tall close to my rose bushes in order to give the roses the maximum amount of sun exposure.
I cut a pretty bouquet of my May Night blue sage, added white daisies, a few early pink columbines and a couple of late purple /white irises. I also included some pasque flower seed pods and a tall grass stem or three. It makes quite a pretty ensemble for my dining room table.  :)

Speaking of lupines, mine are starting to bloom now. I have 2 kinds, one is pink and the other a dark purple/blue. I have a love of flower spikes for some reason. Which is why I love snapdragons, sages, foxgloves hollyhocks and delphiniums.

Pink lupins in bloom

My hollyhocks are growing fat blossoms, but my delphiniums are very short this year. ( Last year they grew, close to 7 feet tall what with all the rain!) I think the reason they are a bit stunted is that I dug them almost all out of the flower beds this spring to remove all the quack grass roots.  Little green caterpillars  have been attacking them and eating most of the flower stems trying to grow. I mostly squished them with my garden gloves. :(

A better idea would be to mix up a spray bottle of Neem Oil and spray everything.  This year so far no worms have eaten my red current bush as happened the last 3 years. I should spry it with Neem anyway just to be sure.

One last thing: sunflowers!
I have dozens of sunflowers that have sprouted in my stack stone bed near the bird feeder, thanks not only to the careless birds, but to the forgetful marmots who live under my gigantic Juniper bush. I thought today that our big orange cat was going to make a meal out of the marmot, but I couldn't stand to watch it unfold, so I left.  I don't think the cat was quick enough, though, as I didn't see any evidence of disaster afterwards.

Thrift perennial growing well on east side of angel bed