July's Lilies, Roses, Clematis and More

Morden Ruby Rose bush

July 24th Flowers
July is always the most beautiful time in my flower garden. I always hate to be away then, and this year is no exception. With so many family things going on, I have missed 2 weeks of the best of the blooming time and enjoyment of the fruits of my spring labours.  Most of the roses have finished blooming now except for my Morden Ruby which continues to out do any of the others. Admittedly, it was the last rose bush to start blooming.
My Morden Sunrise has opened more blossoms now, too, its second batch but it has only a few compared to the first round of blossoms in late June.

Morden Ruby rose

The first Clematis flowers opened the first week of July, a bit later than most years, but it seems as the trees are growing in the yard, the sunlight is diminishing to the side of the house where the Clematises are growing; Plus we have had an inordinate amount of rain this summer and nowhere near as much sunshine as a result.

July 14th Clematis blossoms:

July 14 General Sikorska Clematis on left, Jackimanii Clematis on right

July 24 Hollyhocks on left, Clematises in centre, yellow false sunflowers on right

My first dahlia of the season bloomed on about July 14th as well, the Firebird dahlia located in my stack stone bed near the house. As of July 24th, it is looking even more spectacular. My other Firebird dahlia which is planted in the big tub planter in the yard, is much taller than usual and has started blooming as well. (photos soon)

First Firebird Dahlia blossom of 2013

My yellow day lilies are looking so huge and gorgeous. The 2 clumps at the foot of my rock garden are covered in numerous beautiful blossoms. I wish they would last longer. They were at their most beautiful on the 24th. The day lilies near the pond are opening up now, as well as the 2 smaller clusters in my triangle bed.

Yellow day lilies

View from the deck July 24/13

Red pot lilies-July 14, 2013

The red pot lilies in my stack stone bed popped open almost all at once on July 14 and they looked spectacular, but they were all finished by the 24th when I returned home. I'm sad that I missed seeing their spectacular show for the most part during my absence. 

Red Maltese crosses and purple monkshood in bloom. 

The Monkshood is tall and steely and the red/ orange Maltese Cross is at its best. The butterflies and hummingbirds are enjoying them. Next week I will have to start cutting the maltese crosses down though since they like to spread their seeds all over the flower bed given half a chance. 

The white daises are all but finished now and I ruthlessly cut most of them off to try and prevent a massive seeding. I know I have missed cutting some of them though, and I always get far more tiny re-seeded daisies than I want. The pretty columbines are finished blooming now as well. much of the maltese cross has fallen over on top of it and will need to be cut off.

I am also still putting mulch on the flower beds. Yes, it's rather later than it should be, but it seems the summer is speeding by faster than usual, especially when a person is away for part of it.

Hardy hollyhocks

Last but not least I want to mention my gigantic gorgeous hollyhocks. They started to bloom just before we left on vacation( again about the 14th or 15th of July) and now they are massive and stunningly beautiful, covered in numerous healthy huge flowers. I have never seen my hollyhocks look this thick and this fabulous! :)

Looking forward to the rest of the summer!

Non-stop pink tuberous begonia

July Beauties

 The sunshine we have been finally getting in the last week has really helped things to burst open in a beautiful way!

The campanula cluster bell flower is looking really beautiful.  It is rather invasive and does try and take over your garden via its root system so as long as you are aware of that and you ruthlessly remove it where you don't want it to grow, it is nice to have in the garden.

Campanula cluster bell flower

Tiger lilies are one of my favourite in the garden. I had numerous clumps of them in our previous home in northern Manitoba, and I often gave bulbs away in the spring or fall  to whomever wanted them. I did try to bring some and grow them here when we first arrived. Unfortunately the little black moles under the garden liked them, too! :(
Only one bulb survived after the first summer, but I managed to get 3 more bulbs from the kind owner of the Lily farm out on Hwy 11 west, out towards Rocky Mt House.  She got them from her own mother's garden and gave them to me free. (I did buy some beautiful oriental lily bulbs from there as well which are a bit more temperamental and difficult to grow. More about lilies later.

Tiger Lilies

Pinks ( dianthus)

The clematises are growing well so far, but no blossoms yet.

The Jackmanii clematis and General Sikorska are growing well but not blooming yet. My tiny white Alba is growing and hopefully will set a few buds for the first time....  The Jackmanii on the right is taller, but the General has more branches and usually more flowers as well.

Blue Sage

The bees love my blue sage  perennials, May Night. Personally I think they have an unpleasant smell but I love how they look. Remember to cut them back right away after they bloom so they don't seed themselves too much. They like to try and take over if you let them. I have given the youngsters away to a number of people (aquaintances, friends and my daughter) and sometimes to the Plant Swap held in May in town.

American Gold Finch

The gold finches are nesting nearby and they enjoy the nyger seeds in the feeder.

Stone crop starting to bloom

Poppies and daisies

A sea of white

The white daisies are in full bloom along with the white potentilla.  I have been cutting a lot of the daisies away from my rose bushes to make sure the roses get enough sun and air movement around the.

Almost time to chop the daisies right down, though. They are shading the Lavatara and the 4 O'Clocks that I started in the greenhouse and planted in that bed.

Lychnis Splendins

I moved the Splendins over a few feet to amore central spot and it didn't seem to mind as it has bloomed its little heart out regardless. It was kept well-watered by Mother Nature, though (and I think that's the secret to a successful move.)  We had rain almost every day for 5 weeks in a row!

Goldfish pond

Lupines

The lupines suddenly opened their buds and started blooming all at once. I think they were held back by the lack of sunshine in June and now were making up for lost time. :)

Time to cut the purple ones back as they are setting seeds and I already have half a dozen young ones to move or give away.

Swallowtail enjoying the end of the lilacs

Wild roses in bloom everywhere here at the Lake

I LOVE my roses and they have thrived this summer.

Roses and Roses!

My roses are loving the hot sunny weather after having wet feet for 4 weeks!

The first to bloom was the youngest, my newest addition to my rose garden, the gorgeous Morden Sunrise rose.

It was followed closely by the oldest rose bush, the very hardy hanse rose that grow as wild as a weed and needs no fussing whatsoever.

Close up of the Hansa rose

A rose between two thorns... I mean daisies. :)

Morden Sunrise rose flanked by daisies.

Morden Blush is the first rose bush that I planted 6 years ago after I arrived here at our new home at Buffalo Lake in central AB.  It usually had the first buds and the first blossoms, but was 3rd this year. It have a prolific amount of buds, though and will bloom a second time if I deadhead it.

Morden centennial

The Centennial rose bush was my second addition planted about 5 years ago. I love the colour of the blossoms! It has an abundance of buds this year too. It also will bloom a second time if the conditions are right.

Last summer I bought a second Morden Centennial rose bush at the end of the season. It was hot and dry in its little root bound pot and was calling to me to take it home... So I did! :)

It has a good number of buds on it for being so new to my garden and getting crowded out by the false Spiria shrub next to it. Won't be long before they open, though...

My Morden Ruby rose just opened the first bud late yesterday! It is a stunning deep red and I will add a photo soon.

Winnipeg Parks rose

This Winnipeg Parks is a small rose bush, but the flowers are so beautiful. It has the least number of buds,of any of my bushes, though. It is hardy however, and can survive Alberta winters.

Last garden season I had rose rust on all the wild roses on our property and my garden roses were no exception. I had to trim them all quite severely but they have all recovered this year, quite nicely. Because of all the rain we have in June, the rust came back but again, I cut quite a lot out. I also spray with Neem Oil which seems to keep it from spreading.  It also seems to look after the aphids that weak havoc on my red current shrub as well.

I love the Morden roses as they are hardy to the cold prairie winters and they can survive -40C!  I do mulch them in the fall, though, right after the first bad frost, usually in early October. I pile peat moss around them and add some plant cuttings on top to hold the peat. Then I wrap them with burlap and string. It's a bit of work, yes, but they repay me all summer long with their beauty.

I added an Explorer rose bush to my collection this year. It is a beautiful soft pink climbing rose called John Davis. It's my first climbing rose. Not sure if I have to cut it back in the fall or not, but I will give it a whirl! Right now it is parked on the deck still in its pot, entertaining me with it's beautiful blossoms...

 All the Explorer roses are all very winter hardy as well.

Still debating where its permanent home will be. I think I will dig up the perennial geranium in my Angel bed, once its done blooming and plant John Davis there,  near my favourite Tiger Lilies; my first rose bush in that bed.   :)

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