Dahlias, Peonies and Other Blooming Things

I finally took my red cactus dahlia out of its pot and planted it in the usual spot, my big circular 'angel bed.'  I started all my dahlia tubers back in April and pinched them back a couple of times to hopefully grow nice and bushy.  I have been growing these particular tubers for about 10 years now. I dig them up in the fall and over-winter them inside till the following spring.

My 2 Firebird dalias are growing really well. One is planted in my old stack stone bed near the house and the other is in a big half-wine barrel in the yard surrounded by yellow Bidens, and purple and yellow pansies. This is my 3rd year growing these tubers. The blossoms are such a beautiful colour, orange and yellow like fire.

Firebird dahlia, yellow Bidens and pansies

I am so thrilled to see the buds developing on my peonies!!!  I have been "peony challenged" for many years and never seemed to be able to get one to bloom after I planted it. :(  
Last year I planted a white peony Festiva Maxima which I had bought mid summer and I also transplanted a young peony from the back of my wild bed which had been struggling to grow in the shade under the trees there.  I moved that one to my newest bed, (my triangle bed) which gets hours sun. That little peony not only has lots of new shoots now, but flower buds as well!   I think I finally broke the peony curse!  I am looking forward to seeing what colour those flowers are. :)

Long perennial bed with Festiva Maxima peony sprouting at near end; Also delphiniums, Monkshoods, columbines, creeping jennies, pink Malva, a hosta and one Morden Centennial rose bush at the far end.

The monkshoods are growing like gangbusters with all this rain, but I see a need for some Neem Oil spray . I found a few inch long caterpillars wrapped up in the growing tops, which I squished with my gloves. :{

John Davis- hardy 'explorer' rose bush

I bought a new rose bush this week. Okay I'm a sucker for roses. I went to the greenhouse with the intensions of buying a small shrub, a "Little Devil" Ninebark, but ended up with an pretty medium pink Explorer rose bush full of buds! It is a climbing rose so I bought a narrow climbing frame as well. I decided to put that in my long perennial bed instead of another delphinium. Right now  the rose bush is blooming away in its pot on the deck and I might just leave it there for a week or two to enjoy the blossoms, before planting it out into its permanent home.

Did a major clean up / trimming of my red currant shrubs yesterday. Took out a lot of dead branches and a massive amount of 2 foot tall new quack grass as well as old brown dead grass tangled in the branches from last fall. It took over an hour and it's still not completely done. I trimmed back the potentilla shrub as well to give my Hostas in that bed a bit more sun.

Blue Persian Cornflowers and a few late tulips blooming on west side of stack stone bed. Potentilla bush behind them and lilies growing on the right.

East side of stack stone bed orange poppies are blooming and daisies are getting ready to open their buds.

 The Lychnis Splendins in the front centre of my triangle bed is full of buds that are justing starting to open. It is a short perennial that should bloom most of the summer (supposedly).  The False Spirea behind it is doing well as are the day lilies at either side. I planted 9 little Durango marigolds and some Rocket mix snap dragons.  I started the marigolds from seed in April and learned my lesson from last year when they kept getting eaten. I put the beer traps out early and only caught 1 slug so far. (Last year I drowned over 100 slugs!)  But with all this rain, I am not going to get complacent.  I am going to renew the beer in the traps when it stops.

One final thing: a reminder to self: Bobbex the heck out of everything again!  The little bunnies living nearby don't like that and the deer seem to have crossed me off the lunch list. :)  
 Now if only the dogs would be successful in catching the little varmints living under my huge juniper bush by the house my garden might be safe...

Vegetable Garden update June 2//13

I hate to say this, but the weeds seem to be trying to take over my vegetable garden... :(

Thankfully you can't see the weeds in the photo other than the long grass on the outside... :)

The tomato plants are doing okay, but would grow much better with some sunshine. The 4 squash plants in the garden are barely hanging in there. The squashes in the small pots in the greenhouse have now grown twice as big, so I replaced one of the spaghetti squash plants today with a nice healthy greenhouse grown one and added another healthy butternut squash as well. I still have room for one sweet dumpling squash plant (and maybe one final tomato plant) if I skip the zucchini plant or maybe plant it over the non-cooperting carrots!

I am not ready to give up on the carrots. I will bite the bullet so to speak and go buy a carrot seed tape. That's what grew the best carrots last year, although even those were not really great either!  I have a nice big pot of lettuce and dill plants in the greenhouse which I hope to eventually bring up on the deck to grow so I can have easy access to them when I want a fresh garden salad. (Copying Judy K's idea. Thanks, Jude!  :)  )  I have pretty much given up on trying to grow radishes in our very high alkaline soil.

After doing a bit of weeding in the veg garden today I am feeling a bit better about the whole thing. I also happily noticed that many of the peas are showing up above the ground now. No beans have surfaced yet, although I did sprout them all first using the old wet paper towel in a glass trick... Mother Nature sure can be stubborn!

June 10/ 13

The tomatoes in the greenhouse are growing faster than any of the outdoor ones. I attribute that to the windy conditions outside. I switched a few of the deck potted tomatoes with bigger greenhouse ones, so we'll see if that makes a difference.

The rhubarb is growing gigantic in all this rain, rain rain. I made 2 pans of rhubarb squares a few days ago, one for us and one to bring to our quilt guild's Quilt Show this past weekend.  I have plans to make a strawberry rhubarb pie as well...

Rain, Rain, Rain!

Okay, ENOUGH already!

Blooming: tulips and grape hyacinth; lilies and persian cornflowers are growing.

The first part of the spring was bone dry, not a drop of rain and now the situation has reversed with rain  or rainshowers almost every day for the last 10 days.  The garden and the planted pots are soggy wet and they need some extended hours of sunshine to get things to blossom.

The grass and the dandelions are thriving!
:(     And I don't want to say any more about that topic right now...

On a more positive note, I spotted a cute little dark hummingbird dipping its beak into the pink tulips in my stackstone bed 2 mornings ago. I watched  the performance and just enjoyed the moment, knowing full well that if I tried to get it on camera, the little bird would be gone by the time I came back outside with camera in hand.

I have planted 5 out of 6 of my big tubs now (half wine barrels actually) and only one down by the road still need to be done.  I was a little slow with the Bobbex unfortunately and 2 of the pansies that I planted got stripped of their flowers and nibbled down to a short stature. They will recover, though, and hopefully will be bushy and full of blossoms as long as I keep applying the Bobbex as they grow. It is starting to look quite pretty around here now although not much besides tulips and annuals are in bloom right now.

Tuberous begonia

The apple blossoms are very pretty right now, but probably won't last because of all the stormy weather.

Apple tree with blossoms next to the deck

Apple blossoms

The hollyhocks are growing well, as are the lupines, monkshoods and maltese crosses. Five of my peonies are up, but that's no guarantee of the number of blossoms. I seem to have a difficult time with getting the peony planting depth just right. Too deep or too shallow means that you will get lots of greenery, but no blossoms.  I am ever optimistic, however, and will check them hopefully and enthusiastically nevertheless. Time will tell...

The clematises are a bit slow, but I attribute that to the lack of decent sunshine so I hope that they will catch up soon.

My one and only bleeding heart which grows in the back corner of my triangle bed, looks beautiful with its little droopy pink heart-shaped blossoms. Also in that bed is an unusual perennial, a Lychnis Splendins which I am looking forward to seeing bloom.  (Photos later)

Triangle bed with bleeding heart in the back corner, day lily on left and miniature lilac with irises on far right.

I planted a Bergenia in the shadier end of my side bed yesterday.  It was originally part of my great grandmother's Bergenia in Germany long, long ago. My own mother brought a slip to Canada many years ago and had it growing in her flowerbeds in northern Manitoba. It will be interesting to watch its progress and hopefully see it bloom as well.

Tomatoes, Squashes, Dahlias, and More

Completed the planting of our vegetable garden on Tuesday (May 14) after planting 4 tomatoes there  (2 Early Girls, 1 Purple Russian heirloom and 1 Black Krim) as well as 4 squash plants (2 spaghetti squashes, 1 Butternut and 1 tiny little Acorn squash, all of which I started from seeds.)
I also found a home for 2 Early Girls and 1 Purple Russian tomato plants yesterday as well as 2 more squash plants.

Today I peaked the interest of some  ladies that I met through a friend (K) and they seemed interested in taking some squashes when they leave at the end of the weekend and maybe a tomato or two so my greenhouse will be emptying out bit by bit.  I want to make room for bedding plants! :)

Yesterday I transplanted a bunch of the smaller tomatoes into bigger pots to hopefully encourage them to grow faster. I planted 4 pots of tomatoes on the deck as well, the biggest of these 4 varieties: an Early Girl, a Purple Russian, a Red Hat beefsteak and a Black Krim.

I also planted 3 in pots outside the greenhouse against the wall which is actually the location where the tomato plants grew the best last year! (Yes they even beat the ones growing inside the greenhouse!)

Self-seeded little Jolly Jump Ups add some early colour to flower beds

On to other things:
My tulips started popping open in earnest the day after the first daffodil on May 12 (red tulips with the black centres growing at the side of the house).  A little late this year, but I'm happy to see them looking so cheerful. They look super!  The Parrot tulips in that same bed look like they are almost ready to open now as well and the pink ones in the stack stone bed are not far behind.  :)

Today I dug up a self-seeded delphinium from between my current shrubs in the centre of my stack stone bed, and also weeded a lot of grass as I went along. I planted the biggest pot of Firebird dahlias in the same location as last year, on the south end of the stack stone bed. It grew so well there previously and that space still available....  I am pleased to note that all my rose bushes have either leaves on them already or show signs of leaf buds now.

I also planted half of my Morning Glory seedings below the trellis by the birdhouse in that same bed. Not sure where I'll plant the rest yet.  The swallow who was building a nest in the birdhouse there scolded me severely for being so close! :{

The 6 foot fence around the vegetable garden keeps out most unwelcome munchers, but someone is still managing to sneak in there. My broccoli plants were all eaten this morning, (same thing happened last year,) so I dug 2 up and put them in pots on the deck. I'm going to eat fresh broccoli one way or the other!

The plum tree and the pear tree blossoms look gorgeous! The pink apple blossoms will soon open as well.  It's so beautiful this time of year.    :D

Goldfish pond and fenced in vegetable garden

May 11, 2013

May 11, 2013

First daffodil bloomed today! Beat the tulips which are almost ready to pop open now. Considering it's almost the middle of May, that is about 10 days behind, but our spring has been very slow in coming this year....
But our weather has suddenly turned HOT and windy! What happened to a nice warm spring day like 18 to 20C???
We have a fire ban on here at the lake right now because everything is so dry, even though our snow only just melted about 8 or 10 days ago.

Went to the Plant Swap in town today and brought a lot of my perennial diggings to give away, many purple and white bearded irises, a Siberian iris, 3 maltese cross, a blue sage/ May Night (which 3 women split), a tiny white daisy (only 1 for a change), 3 helianthus/ false sunflowers (which diligent husband helped me dig up last night) and 3 wild rose bushes. I ended up bringing home 2 tiny mountain ash trees, and 2 rock garden plants, a sedum that the owner called 'rat tails' and one which she thinks is a Pink, called Flashing Lights. Also got a small delphinium ( dark purple) which looks rather limp, but maybe it will make it. Only one of my delphiniums are showing any signs of life right now, so I thought I might have to plant a couple of new ones...

2 sedums 'Autumn Joy'

I planted two 10 inch sedums called Autumn Joy in my lower rock garden as well as some of the bearded irises that I had dug out last week when we had re-constructed it.  The top level got the Pink and the small sedum that I had mentioned as well as two yellow flowering short sedums that I had recently bought. And along the way I dug out more grass roots. (THAT never seems to come to an end!)

In regards to the Helianthus, it was so terribly overgrown with grass that my helpful husband and I dug it all out of the middle of my angel bed. Much of it went in the low area of our yard next to what I call the 'ravine' (the environmental reserve.)  I replanted about 30 % of  the Helianthus in the middle of the same bed. Also accidentally dug up my Baby's Breath, which I then moved further into the middle away from the Foxglove (which shows no sign of coming up...  )  :(

Angel bed perennials are making a showing

Angel Bed perennials are coming up fast: Monkshoods, lupines, tiger lilies, Calamagrostis grasses, Jacob's ladders, delphiniums and Maltese crosses. Even my blanket flower, which is usually so slow has made an appearance.  My peony tree has a sprout on the stem and maybe this is the year that it will grow big enough to bloom. (In previous years it was always dwarfed by the faster growing perennials.)

My Bleeding Heart is finally sprouting in my triangle bed and my biggest peony, the pink one under the spruce tree at the side of the yard has shoots coming up! Yay! I love May!!! It is so exciting to see all the new growth. :)

Rock garden had a facelift to get rid of all the tall quack grass

Some bad news about my tomato plants; A number of my little seedlings had dried up when I got back from visiting my daughter...  :(
Diligent husband didn't notice that they were getting too much sun in the green house. The temperatures in there have been reaching over 40C what with this crazy summer type of hot weather we are getting.  I only have one surviving new Zealand Tomato. :(  Lost all the rest as well as a few Black Krim and Purple Russian heirloom tomatoes. The Early Girls are doing well, though (Still have lots of them!)  But even with incuring a few losses, I still have more than enough tomatoes.

The squashes will need to be planted outside in the garden soon. They are getting very big and require water twice a day now. Diligent husband added peat moss and pro-mix soil to the vegetable garden and  then rototilled it all. After that he planted hills of seed potatoes.

Now I need to go through my seed packages and start planting carrots, beets, lettuce, spinach and swiss chard. The seed tapes seem to grow the best. May try to grow radishes as well although they don't do well because of the high PH of our soil. The peat moss should help, but I don't really know how much to add to make a difference.  May just try growing some radishes in a big pot on the deck instead. :)

Greenhouse Activity

I'm happy to say that I have my greenhouse up and running. It is full of tiny little tomato seedling, squash plants, and flower seedling all of which I started in the house. There are also a few store bought flowers: a calla lily, some Autumn Joy sedums, and 2 small stone crops for my rock garden, all perennials. I also bought 4 begonias covered in pink blossoms to plant in one of my tubs.

This week I transplanted tomato and squash seedlings into bigger pots:
April 29: transplanted 14 Early Girl tomatoes and 12 Spaghetti Squashes
April 30: transplanted 6 butternut Squashes and 7 New Zealand tomatoes (Got the seeds from Lori, my son-in-law's mother)
May 1 Transplanted 9 Purple Russian tomatoes (Grown from heirloom seeds from my friend Judy K)

I also cut slips from some of my over- wintered geraniums this week and planted them in pots:
April 25 and 26: Samba Red and Apple Blossom white.
May 2:  pink regal geraniums





While cleaning out my triangle bed a few days ago, I managed to find some over-wintered snapdragons which the deer didn't eat. I sprinkled some seeds straight onto the flower bed and sprinkled some on top of a pot of soil in the greenhouse. I learned last year that Snapdragon seeds need to have the cold winter to crack the seeds which allows them to germinate; plus they need light to germinate as well. They won't grow if you bury the seeds.

Last Sunday (April 28 my diligent hard-working spouse helped me to re-do my rock garden. He took off all 50 plus rocks, and then we dug up the majority of the clumps of grass taking over the 2 tiered bed. I had to dig out a number of my perennials, maltese crosses, siberian iris, creeping sedums, and flax, as well as a few white daisy clumps. We put black plastic on the slop of the bed, then covered that in black landscape tarp. Then we hauled all the rocks back onto the sides and slop of the bed. I added some good Sunshine Mix soil and replanted some of the perennials. The Siberian Iris  as dead in the centre so I divided it into 3 clumps and planted 2 of them elsewhere, one in the bed at the side of the house (after digging out some invasive campanula bell flowers) and the other piece went into my stackstone bed near one of my morden roses.






I cleaned that particular bed yesterday and finished it today. Lots of grass and grass roots came out of there. I also uncovered my rose bushes, took the burlap off and removed the mound of peat moss and mulch.  I am pleased to see that most of the rose bushes have buds on the branches! In the past, if the winter was severe, all the top branches were dead and the rose bush had to end up new stems from the roots. I guess I did a good job of protecting them this winter which was one of the longest and coldest in the 7 years we have been here.


This morning it took me almost 2 hours to clean up my round Angel bed (called that due to the Angel statue there.) The tall Karl Forester grass (calamagrostis) was lying flat on the ground so it required major clipping as did the monkshood perennials and some of the maltese crosses from last year. Na dog course I had to dig out loads of grass and roots trying to take over.  My heliopsis is very big now and will have to be divided this year. Just in time for the Plant Swap on Mother's day weekend!

( http://www.bluestem.ca/calamagrostis-karl-foerster.htm)

Real Spring At Last

We finally have been getting some real spring weather in the last week or so. It has been a relief to see the snow finally melt . There is still a little bit on the trail to the beach, since it gets so much shade from the trees there, but the last of it has thankfully melted off my flowers beds now.

I saw the very first crocuses attempting to open last week, even though the wind was bitterly cold then. Two days ago they were happily blooming in clusters at the top of Picnic Hill!

And today the swallows are back! Yes, that is truly a sign of spring here! The first swallow was checking out  the bird house in the back yard where, last year they raised a family of 7 babies!

No photos yet, I'm afraid. I had mega computer problems and was not able to process any off my camera. And now I'm just starting to get the hang of this new imac computer we recently bought.