Spring Planting

We had a local carpenter cover over the existing front porch, which was old cement that was beginning to deteriorate. And he added a small floating extension to the porch, just big enough to accommodate two chairs and a small table.  It will be a great spot to enjoy the changing trees and  the front shade garden as it gets established.

And he mounted a nice country pine screen door.  I love these kind of doors and am debating what colour to paint it - cherry red, bright turquoise or lemon yellow?

Just a large pot of pansies at the moment but I am sure there will be more pots to come.

Meanwhile, the annuals that were started as seeds two months ago are bursting out of their containers. I have been hardening them off by bringing them outside for a few hours each day.
I lost a dozen tomato plants as the box they were in collapsed from being too wet. I figure that  Mark Cullen says it best:  "nothing is a mistake with gardening; just an opportunity for composting."

Some of the annuals started from  seed were Cardinal climber, an annual that grows like a vine and  produces lovely red showy flowers. These have been put into the bed close to the back deck.
The trellis comes from a honeysuckle that didn't make it through this winter.

And the apple tree is thriving. It has several flowers on it, lovely pink buds that open to reveal white flowers. The deer have not harmed this one at all.

A shot of the raised beds. One has some plants in it; the other is waiting for tomatoes.

A closer shot of 4 green pepper plants that were put into the bed today.

The lettuce is doing well; I suppose we could actually pick some of the leaves and eat it already.

Another photo of the apple tree.

This  is how it looked a year ago when it was first planted.

                                     

It has definitely grown a few feet in height and has filled out too.

And a new photo of Tekla. Now that the back yard is fenced, she doesn't want to come in at all.  She is even out there in the rain today. She is on squirrel patrol, keeping watch on the surrounding trees for any evidence of movement. She would love to catch one of these little annoying rodents.

Planting May long week-end

The pink phlox was planted last year and is doing well, so today I added a purple moss phlox to fill out this bed. If it works, get more of it! Even after the flowers are gone, the foliage remains pretty so it gets thumbs up from me.

I decided to clean out this bed beside the garage. It doesn't get much sun, except for the end corner where there is a day lily with the prettiest shade of pink flower that I have ever seen. As I cleared out the weeds, I discovered two peonies. I don't know how well they will do in this bed, as they won't get that much sun (the bed is shaded by a maple tree just outside the picture frame).  But I will wait and see how they do before moving or replacing them. So I added some good top soil to the bed, and planted two aquilegia and one perennial geranium in the bed.

This is a perennial geranium planted at the corner of the deck near the steps. And in the planter are two gorgeous snap dragons, two double flower impatiens in white and pink, and some lobelia in front to trail over the edge.

All my planters seem to be green this year; I think this is the most popular colour at the garden centres. As I only have Home Hardware within a short drive, I went with what they have. In this pot, I planted two shades of calibrachoa and two English ivies to trail over the rim. These are great flowers, sort of like mini petunias, but they bloom non-stop and don't require dead-heading.

In this final pot, I planted three ivy-leaf geraniums. I have always liked this variety of geranium as it trails and has delicate flowers. Perhaps I should have added some contrast into this pot, but it is what it is.

So far we have been really lucky with respect to the bugs. But today the black flies have made an appearance and they will probably be quite bad within a couple of days. So I have to get the rest of the plants into the garden tomorrow or Wednesday. After that, I will have to wear a bug jacket and hat to survive outside.

Planting Progress

Romaine lettuce planted in one of the raised beds. One has flopped over and doesn't look good, but the other 5 are doing okay.

And at the other end are leeks. Both the leeks and the lettuce were purchased as small plants at Home Hardware.

Today, I just had to get these perennials planted in their designated locations. This is a southern exposure in the back garden. The other day, I planted a Montmorency cherry tree. And today were added 6 phlox (four David and two Big Boy Blue), two white prairie mallow, one Japanese bottlebrush in the back row. On either side of the cherry tree were planted two peonies. And in front of the peonies were planted a sweet meadow rue and a Baby Joe Mist Flower.
I did not have the energy to dig out the entire bed, but just dug holes where the plants were going. I will dig around and remove the grass in later days. But these guys needed to be planted as they were sprouting in their pots.

And next to the clothes pole, I planted a Sunset clematis which will have ruby red flowers. In front of it, I planted some annual sweet alyssum to shade the roots. To help this to grow, I will cut some chicken wire and staple it to the pole so that the clematis can clamber upwards. If the one planted last year survives, there will be clematis on both sides of this pole with glorious flowers.

This is the viburnum that was planted late last year. It was severely nibbled by the deer, but it has survived and is putting on lots of new growth.  I have planted another viburnum in the shade garden in the front. That one is considerably larger, being about 24" high already. I don't know if there will be any flowers on these this year, I doubt it, but I will be happy if they just grow significantly.

And the lilac that was here on the property is full of buds. It should be covered with blossoms in about 2 weeks time. It will be beautiful.

Shade Perennials Planted

Yesterday it turned very warm and we had a high of 26 degrees.  The sun was extremely bright and I could only work in the garden for a short period, it was just too hot for my east coast unacclimated self.
So I only added some top soil to this front bed and placed pots where I wanted the plants to be.

This hydrangea survived the winter and a few crocuses have popped up beside it. Behind next to that small upright bamboo stick is the climbing hydrangea which is putting out new growth. The one planted in the bed by the side of the house hasn't made it through the winter, that bed is shallow and I think there isn't enough soil there to give good growth. It may only support annuals in that bed.

But I was thrilled to see the climbing hydrangea survive; this is one of a few plants that I loved in Halifax and I was doubtful that it could grow in Ontario's colder zone, but it has!

So in this bed, I have planted 3 Lady's Mantle, two reblooming dicentra (one pink, one ivory), a blue bird columbine, one cinnamon fern, and two astilbes. These are bare root perennials bought from nurseries, so they will take a while to put on some growth.
This bed gets morning sun, and then it is shaded for the rest of the day. The part of it closest to the front steps gets little if any sun.

And I was thrilled to see that I have a forsythia in the front garden. I thought it might be, but this morning the yellow flowers came out and it looks great for having had no attention paid to it for years I would guess.

And in this bed, called the shade garden - it gets morning sun and then a little afternoon sun that filters through the birch trees all around it - I have planted two hellebores, one pink and one plum, one Lady's Mantle, two brunnera Sea Heart (they are already putting out their tiny blue flowers) and one old-fashioned bleeding heart.

I have plans to continue digging this bed all along the side of the yard, but that is a lot of work so I will just dig out what I need to plant the waiting perennials. I read on one blog that you should get your potted plants into the soil as quickly as possible because they dry out in the pots and they need to get their roots established as soon as they can. So I will hurry along and get the rest of the perennials planted in the next few days.

The back yard is being fenced today and tomorrow. The sun-loving perennials are waiting in pots for that to be done, then I will get them into the ground. 

I have planted two rows of leeks and three rows of carrots in one of the raised beds. And my tomato plants begun indoors are going great guns and they will soon be ready to go out into the real world.
All very exciting after years of frustrated gardening in the rocky ground of Nova Scotia.

Early May in Northern Ontario

Everyone here is surprised at how long it is taking for winter weather to leave. The lake is still frozen, which is late. A week ago, some guys were still snowmobiling on it. But today the temperature reached 23 degrees Celsius and a few more days like this, and the lake will give up its ice.  

I am waiting upon the soil warming up before serious planting can begin. But these dianthus or pinks at Home Hardware could not be resisted. So they got popped in and you can also see a tiny iris paniculata to the left of the rock. There are a dozen of these planted there; how many survived the winter remains to be seen. 

 The perennial roots that came this week in the mail were beginning to sprout so I thought it would be good to plant them up in pots until the soil is thawed. So here they sit, awaiting the weather.

These are two hellebores sitting in pots in the spots that they will eventually have in the bed with three hydrangeas.

And always I must have pansies. These are probably my favourite flowers; it might have something to do with a water colour that my maternal grandmother painted about 80 years ago. My mother had it hanging in our house for years and I always loved it. So every year, there are pansies wherever I can put them.

I also dug a bed behind the garage which faces due south. The soil was nice and loose and very promising. I am planning on putting dahlias here, as well as tomatoes and sunflowers and perhaps a cardinal climbing vine. It was actually so hot in the afternoon sun that I had to call it quits and put in the top soil around 5 pm when the sun wasn't directly overhead.  I think that I can safely put the dahlia bulbs in here as there is no sign of frost in the next week's forecast.

Anticipation of Spring Planting

A box just arrived from Breck's with bulbs and tubers to be planted.  I don't understand why they ship these so early, surely they know the zone that I am in and that no planting can take place here for another month!  So I will put the box in the basement where it is fairly cool and hope for the best. I may even plant these in pots to await the day when they can be planted outdoors.

In the box, there are: 1 Shirley Temple peony

                                  50 Discovery Dutch iris

                                  1 Lady's Mantle

                                  1 Red Carpet Border Dahlia

                                  1 Reblooming Dicentra

                                  1 American Dawn Dahlia

                                  7 Deluxe Dahlia Mix

                                  1 Winter Plum Hellebore

                                  1 Great White Hellebore

                                  1 Bertinii Everblooming Begonia

                                  1 Hanging Begonia

                                  5 Giant Columbine

And two more boxes of plants will be arriving in the next few weeks. The weather better warm up soon!

A few weeks ago, I planted some seeds in the hope of getting a head start on summer annuals. In the tray on the left are impatiens and snapdragons. And in the one on the right are pansies and nicotiana. They seem to be doing quite well, even though they are just sitting in front of a window and don't have grow lights to help them along.

In this tray, is black-eye susan vine. I love this annual, ever since I saw it gaily climbing up the balcony of a friend's apartment in Halifax. It was covered with bright little flower faces, like mini black eye susans.

The ones on the left here are the leggy ones that probably won't amount to much. Sunflowers and cosmos, although I think the cosmos might survive. I started cosmos from seed a couple of years ago and ended up with the tallest cosmos I have ever seen. They reached four feet and bloomed in late August. Given the climate in Halifax, these continued flowering well into late September.

In the pot on the right are nasturtiums. I love the bright happy faces of nasturtiums tumbling out of pots with a mess of healthy foliage. A local store here has a huge pot of nasturtiums out front every summer and they are a riot of lovely flowers.

I also bought the makings for a petunia tower. I watched a video on how to make a tower for flowering plants and I will try this in a few weeks, once the petunias are for sale. Click on the video below to see how to do this.

April 4 and snow!

It's like an April Fool's joke that got delayed.

The front yard seen from the living room window

The front walk with 6 inches of snow that fell last night

Even the birds and squirrels aren't coming out today

The pine branches bent low with heavy wet snow

The back deck; on the table are my containers with winter sowing, 

now completely buried by snow

To think that two weeks ago, we were in Texas and the temperature reached 31 Celsius one day - that's 88 Fahrenheit. And now this! Nighttime temperatures are well below freezing and the daytime temperature won't go above freezing until the weekend.

No wonder so many Canadians go south to Florida for the winter months.