New Look, More Planting

Time to update my garden blog...

Diligent hubbie decided we needed to upgrade to new half barrel planters to replace the old falling apart ones. I love the wine red stain on the inside of the barrels. (Yes, from the wine, of course.) A product after my own heart, LOL! Chris stained them with a natural light stain which soaks into the wood and protects them from the weather.

He also build me two beautiful cedar flower boxes for the landing on the deck stairs. We took down the old ones and planted tomatoes in them next to the greenhouse.

I have planted 3 of my 6 half barrel planters now with a variety of pink geraniums, white Ostoe daisies or double purple petunias. I added some 'Rocket mix" snapdragons to the tubs by the road. I love those snaps! They shoot up to 3 feet tall and bloom all summer. :)

Unfortunately the snapdragon seeds that I collected and planted have only resulted in ONE tiny little seedling and the other 3 pots had nothing germinate. I guess I'm not doing something right... Might have to Google it...

My Morning Glories that I grew from seeds are doing well and I planted a half dozen out in my stack stone bed by the trellis. Not sure yet what I will do with the other 6.

I also planted my Glad bulbs out in a cluster in that same bed. The flowers are called Passo and should be blue with silver. The leaves are already over 6 inches tall. I started the bulbs in a container of water and then planted them into pots once they reached about 4 inches tall. I have also used several of them as centre leaves in the middle of a couple deck pots. They look quite nice surrounded by geraniums or Osteo daisies and in August the Glads should bloom.

Two of my huge dahlia clumps are in the garden now. They have grown into giants in the greenhouse! One is a red cactus dahlia which I have had for 10 years now, over-wintering the tubers each fall, and the other is a gorgeous yellow and orange cactus dahlia called Firebird going into its third summer.

First deck pots: blue sage, orange gazania, gladiola (leaves), Samba red geranium (over wintered), purple pansies

Veggies:
We planted 12 swiss chard bedding plants into the vegetable garden along with 2 store bought zucchinis, 6 squashes (spaghetti, acorn and 1 delicata) grown from seed, which join the 3 tomatoes plants: 1 Early Girl, 1 Black Krim and 1 Lemon Boy.  Now we'll see which location grows the better tomatoes, the greenhouse, garden or deck.

Last and definitely least: dandelions. They seem to be the bane of my existence. I made a stab at digging some of them out, but its best done a day or two after it rains other wise it is a bone jarring job even with my fancy Fiskar dandelion digger.

We had a rain storm this evening with about a half hours worth of rain and a huge gorgeous rainbow afterwards! If I weren't volunteering at the Quilt Show tomorrow, that would be the ideal time to dig quack grass out of the garden or dandelions out of the lawn. :)

Spring In Full Swing

Apple tree in bloom

The fruit trees are blossoming right now and they look so beautiful! I have been away for 2 weeks and everything has grown so much since I left. My tulips are gorgeous! The first ones (red) in the bed next to the house are done, but the colorful parrot tulips are still in full bloom as well as some red ones and pink ones in the stack stone bed.

Parrot tulips

The long roots of quack grass have had a hey day in the last 2 weeks and my stack stone bed almost looks like no work has been done in it. My diligent husband thoughtfully dug some of the grass roots out himself and I spent a good part of an hour today weeding it again.  I also worked on the upper level of my rock garden digging out grass roots and weeding out plantain and shasta daisy seedlings trying to take over.

When will I get to the planting part, the 'fun stuff' in my books?  I have bought a few bedding plants now:
-2 four inch pots of  beautiful blooming gazanias in vivid reds and oranges
-a 6 pack of huge fat white alyssum
-a 6 pack of blue regata lobelia
-2 four inch pots of blue sages
-1 four inch pot of dahlias with big buds
-and a fabulous, absolutely stunning pot of star gazer lilies. :D

All the plants in our green house are looking fabulous and most are growing well. Sadly none of the snapdragon seeds that I collected and planted have sprouted except one lonely little seedling. Having a similar problem with the red durango marigolds. Not sure what I'm doing wrong... Planting them too deep??? I got 3 little marigolds from oe of my first attempts at seeds, but none in the other pots... Not sure what I'm doing wrong... Planting them too deep???

Tulips and daffodils are blooming as well as the blue flox.

The numerous tomato plants are thriving as are the squashes, the gazania seedlings, the morning glory seedlings and the lavatara. The double cosmos seeds I planted the day before I left for Manitoba have sprouted. The bachelor buttons are quite tall now and Thoughtful Husband transplanted them into individual pots while I was away. :)

Inside our greenhouse

The fox gloves and the wild Bergamot are tiny, but still alive and hopefully will continue to grow. The castor beans are growing nicely and the gladiola bulbs are straight and tall in their individual pots. All of these will be planted in my flower beds before too long. None of the lupin seeds sprouted, but that's OK as I have most of my original lupines growing well in my flower beds.

Apple blossoms

I did plant a couple of things today...  I put 4 multi-bloom pink geraniums and 2 of the alyssum in the flower boxes on the deck stairs. Just need to add some dark blue pansies and maybe a couple more creeping Jennies and the odd white or blue lobelia and they are done.

Tomorrow I plan on visiting Tail Creek greenhouse and get a few things on my list. I hope that the weather cooperates so I can start planting a few pots even if I have to bring them up close to the house for a few more nights.

Veggie Seeds Are in the Ground

Today was another warm sunny day. I spent an hour or so digging quack grass roots out of my Angel Bed this morning. What a job! I'm only about 1/3 of the way around the bed, but it started getting too warm so I went inside for a while, after checking the greenhouse and watering a few plants in there.

This afternoon we took our newly bought vegetable seeds, the onion sets, a pen and pad of paper, and some garden markers out to the garden plot.  The potato hills had already been planted last week by my diligent husband, right after he had rototilled. We only rototill every few years now, since we learned that it is not good for the soil to rototill every year, nor is it really necessary. With the added compost that my husband hauled in there, it is much nicer soil to work with, not as much clay.

I plotted out a few rectangular patches and planned where we were going to put which vegetable. because we have the greenhouse this year, we won't be stuffing the garden full of tomato plants like previous years.... maybe only one or two. I think it would be an interesting experiment to put the same type of tomato plant in 3 different growing locations, (one in a pot on the deck, one in the veg garden and one in the greenhouse) to see which one did the best.  One would think that the greenhouse would be the clear winner, but who knows?!

I started some seeds on April 10 and the seedling are doing well. We transplanted them into bigger pots, some last week and some a few days ago.
I have 3 types which I started from seed:

Black Krim heirloom tomatos
Lemon Boy
Early Girl

We also have a store-bought Super Sensational, which did really well last year and a cherry tomato tumbler.
 We had an ant problem in the soil bin in the greenhouse a few days ago. I guess there's a good reason why you shouldn't put soil into the greenhouse that has been sitting in a pile on the ground. I used a 4 inch green plastic pot as a scoop and scooped out a pail full of ant infested soil. I dumped it outside of the green house  and then started again. Every time I thought that I had them all, there were more coming up.  In the end, my husband bought ant killing powder and sprinkled it on top of the soil in the greenhouse. They were even in the pot with my new rose bush which I had left within easy access.

I really hate to use chemicals to eradicate problems. I always prefer a natural solution if possible, but in this case I wasn't sure what else to do.  Well at least I did save many of them... I'm sure the birds around here will enjoy the meal. :)

back to the vegetable garden:
There are now rows of radish, carrot, beet, spinach, beans and lettuce seeds in the ground. The peas still need to soak until tomorrow and then they will follow suit.
We skipped the swiss chard seeds as we have a dozen or so swiss chard plantlets in the greenhouse. I will be planting the numerous squash babies out after the full moon in early June when all danger of frost is over. I hope to buy a couple of zucchini plantlets, too as none of my zucchini seeds sprouted and I love zucchini!

I have been talked into digging up one of my 3 huge rhubarb plants for the Perennial Swap next weekend.  We do need the room in our small veggie plot, but I hate to dig up a perfectly healthy plant...

After a good soaking from the sprinkler, I hope that the seeds will love their new warm moist bed and will sprout before too long.

Before I go, just want to mention that the leaves started popping out on the trees yesterday and today! I love the fresh green veil on the branches of the trees right now. Mother Nature, you are beautiful! :)

Happy Gardening! :)

April/ May Showers =May Flowers

Things are starting to green up. :)

Tulips at east side of house 

We have had so much rain in the latter part of April and the first part of May, but I am pleased to see that many of my perennials are popping out of the ground now, showing satisfying new growth. The flower bed next to the house is the most advanced. The tulips are growing tall and look like their blossoms will pop open at any time! That's always such an exciting time when the first tulip of the spring opens. The buds show just a hint of color...

My Pasque flowers are blooming as well in my stack stone bed.
The monkshood in my angel bed are growing well and I can see that my heliopsis (false sunflower) is trying to take over the centre of that bed. Sigh! It will be a major undertaking to cut that back to manageable size. I will try to dig up some cuttings for the Plant Swap coming up in 10 days.

Rock garden: day lilies are growing well as are the bearded irises, and of course all the quack grass. 

I have been digging quack grass shoots out of both my stack stone bed and my rock garden and I have dug out massive amounts of the perennial white daisies as well. Many of the clumps were half dead or overgrown and I tried to replace them with younger ones which won't grow as vigorously and also tried to limit how many were in that bed. I want to leave plenty of room for my rose bushes which are happily showing some shoots on the branches now!

I have also spent quite a number of hours digging perennials (6 delphiniums and 6 Maltese Crosses) out of my long perennial bed to divide them and remove the thick masses of grass that have woven themselves into the plants, then replanting them into the flowerbed. Many of the perennials went into the ravine/compost where Mother Nature can look after them or compost them back to the earth.  By the time I finish gardening, (years from now, I hope), the ravine next to out house will probably be full and it will be level with the rest of our yard, LOL!

Columbine showing signs of life. :)

Tomorrow:
Plant vegetable seeds in the nicely rototilled veggie garden. :)

Sprouting Seedlings

April 15, 2012

Outside it still looks and feels much like winter. Thankfully I have a heater in the greenhouse or my geraniums, dahlias and canna lily would be popsicles!

The good new is that some of my flower seedlings are sprouting! YAY!
I have tiny little bachelor buttons (cornflowers) sprouting, as well as one or two Red Durango marigolds and a lavatara or two.

Still haven't made it back up to the top of picnic Hill to take a photo of the wild crocus trying to bloom there. What a shock that brave little flower must have had to find itself under several inches of snow!
The temperature warmed up enough to melt 90% of the snow today, but it still isn't what I would call "friendly weather".

Forecast for the rest of the week is mixed... some warmish sun mix days, some rain mix/ snow precipitation days, depending on which weather site you believe.

Forecast for next Sunday is sunny and 18C. Call me a skeptic, but I will believe that when I see it.  Sure would be great, though. I might get a chance to continue with my spring flower bed clean up... and it sure would encourage my fruit trees to blossom and my perennials to sprout.

Happy spring... I think.  :)

Rain and Grass

We finally got some much needed rain today.   Central Alberta is very dry and we have had a fire ban on for weeks already, due to the fact that we had so little snow this past winter. There was a big grass fire last weekend about 4 km south of here, which can be pretty scary as it can so easily get out of control.  So, yay! Bring on the rain!

I have been working on cleaning debris and grass roots out of my flower beds for about a week now and, man, that's a big job around here! I love my big perennial beds, (they look so beautiful in the summer when they are blooming), but it is major work to keep the quack grass out!
I unwrapped my rose bushes and cleaned up the winter mulch. So far there are no signs of life, but this rain will definitely help.

My Pasque flowers are blooming! They look so delicate and beautiful; I call them my domestic crocuses. :)  They even beat my tulips. There is a little ground squirrel who lives in the environmental reserve next to our property and he is helping himself, not only to the sunflower seeds that the birds knock out of the bird feeder, ( which is perfectly fine) but also to my tulip blossoms as they are emerging out of the ground! (Which is definitely NOT fine!)  I guess I wasn't fast enough with spraying my tulips with Bobbex.

My tiny seedlings are doing well. There are many tiny tomato plants, (Early Girl is doing the best so far.) several squashes, 11 gazanias, many lavatara and too many foxgloves, but I'm not complaining.

The marigolds are refusing to sprout so I guess I need to try some new seeds. There are still some dried up marigolds from last year in my triangle stack stone bed, so maybe I will give them a try...  I like to grow them in the beds at the front of the yard since the deer have a regular path past there and they don't like to eat marigolds ( or anything else smelly.)

I also harvested a lot of snapdragon seeds while cleaning up my flower beds, which I took into the greenhouse to plant in pots. I hope that some of them will sprout as well. I love the tall flower spikes on snaps and they are very hardy flowers withstanding frost to -10C!  :)

And last but not least, all my geraniums are doing well in the greenhouse in spite of the lack of sun in recent days. They like the humidity in there if nothing else.

Happy gardening!

Slow but Sure!

The tulips in my flower bed next to the house are about 5 inches tall now.... Shouldn't be too much longer before they get buds, and then, finally start blooming! YAY!

Tulip clumps on right and left... Campanula Bell flower perennial in centre

The Campanula Bell flower is sprouting everywhere in that same bed!  Time to thin them out a bit but I hate to deter anything that has that much energy to be growing already, LOL!

Oriental Poppy

Tulips, front left; hollyhocks, centre back;Bearded iris back right: Rododendron left near bottom

My hollyhocks are coming out of the ground, too (centre back of photo.) The Rododendron looks a mite worse for the wear! It was hiding under a bunch of mulch during the winter and looks pretty crushed. I planted it last year for the first time and I'm not sure if I need to trim it right back or if new leaves will sprout out of the existing branches... (Guess I need to look that up on the internet. My trusty Lois Hole books don't mention rododendrons.)

My oriental poppy has a head start on most of my other perennials. It gets huge pink single petal blooms that are very impressive looking, but they only last a day or so.  After blooming the whole plant usually dies down to nothing so I plant annuals in front of it.

More tulips, irises and a hollyhock. Well, yes, they are still pretty tiny, but considering we had snow again a few days ago and really have not had much sunshine or warm temperatures lately, I'm pretty impressed with them. :)

This is the only little wild crocus that I could find at the top of Picnic Hill yesterday (at the edge of our property.) Last week ( before the last snowfall) there was a brave ittle clump of them there, but I could NOT find them. Maybe they finished blooming already??? Did the deer eat them? (The deer bed down up there almost every night.)

There were quite a number of wild crocus leaves there which should be sprouting flowers soon...

Can you see the deer hiding in the background?

Our baby spruces seemed to have survived the winter without getting chewed up by any woodland creatures. My diligent husband did put wire cages around them to protect them. Last winter (2010) with no protection one of the littlest spruces got most of its branches eaten off, most likely by the deer, but it could have been porcupines, too.

Some of my flower beds are still pretty wet and soggy, but I saw during my garden 'tour' yesterday that the quack grass has already started sneaking it. Many of the flower beds need some major clean up done soon, even though I did do a huge amount of fall clean up...
I wish the sun would come out and join me. It's always so much more enjoyable to be out in the garden with the sun to warm your back. :)