Mid-February Photos

Snow, snow, more snow.

No gardening except for ordering plants from mail order sources.

Just photos of Tekla who is 23 weeks old today. She is now 3/4 of her full adult size. She will most likely top out at 40 pounds, so she isn't a big dog but a nice medium-sized dog. She loves the snow and would stay outside all day if she could.

Bright face

On the back deck

My shadow - check out those ears

Blinking in the bright sun

A beautiful day in mid February. The wind harbors a hint of spring. Oh, bring it on!

Late December 2017

Extremely cold weather here in central/northern Ontario.  This morning, it was -31 Celsius and even lower than that with the wind chill factor. There is quite a lot of snow on the ground so the plants should be well insulated against this severe cold. 

Not much to do outside except feed the hungry birds. Isn't this a cute bird feeder? a gift from our daughter Elena. It has large mesh, so can only be filled with sunflower seeds. But, if I was a bird, that would be my choice anyway. It can  be hung up or placed on a flat surface, with the tail hanging over the edge. The bird is a red-headed woodpecker. We don't get that species here, but we do get the pileated woodpecker which looks very similar.

The other news here is the addition of a Norwegian elkhound called Tekla. We got her in mid November and she will be 16 weeks old this coming Thursday. A bundle of energy, lots of walking, she loves the snow and the cold. And she is extremely cute.

I don't seem to have any more current photos on this computer, they must all be on Nick's computer. One thing I can see is that we are going to require a fence around the backyard come spring. This little lass is an escape artist and with all the wildlife around here, she will be in hunting/tracking mode. I actually look forward to a fence, as it provides ample opportunity to plant climbers all over it. I just hope that Tekla is not a digger.

Pruning and dried blossoms

It is pruned. I followed the advice of John Holden of Landscape Designs and cut the failing PeeWee hydrangea back to the old wood.  I left one set of buds on each branch in the hope that new growth will come from these next spring.

I cut most of the blossoms off and put them in vases without water. They are pretty dry already and I think they will just sit here and look pretty.

The array below is special to me because the vase was given to us by a dear friend in Halifax. It is a rock that has been polished and drilled with a 1" hole to hold just a few stems. The blue vase above was given to us years ago and I can't recall who gave it to us now. The blue matches the newly painted walls in the kitchen.

My photos are no match to my husband's on his much better camera. I may have to invest in a new camera for myself and step up the photo quality.

Snow and hydrangeas

We have been getting occasional snow flurries and on Saturday, there were enough to remain on the ground for a few hours. My husband got some lovely photos of snow on the PeeWee hydrangea in the front garden. I love the faint blush of pink in the petals.

Snow may be unwelcome, but it certainly can be pretty.

 You can even see the individual snow flakes, they look just like the paper ones that children make.

Pruning Hydrangeas

I put a picture of the sad peewee hydrangea that was in the garden here.

                                      

I thought perhaps that it was done for, but one side of it did produce a number of pretty blossoms this summer. And when digging in that bed, I kept bumping into its root system which is massive. I thought surely it has the will to survive.

So a lot of reading online and watching videos has convinced me that there is something that can be done for this poor tree. One of the gardeners at Gerbers told me that it will flower on the side where it has sun and certainly that appears to be so. The left side of the tree is practically dead, although it did make some new shoots this season.

I had thought of just cutting it right down to about 18" from the soil, but I have read that will make for weak branches and smaller blossoms. So I will take the pruning more slowly and will wait until early spring to do it. That way, I can be sure that I am not cutting off the next year's blossoms. So it will get a hard cutting back next March/April but I will be cautious and not hack it back so severely that it can't recover.

Great advice on this site
http://simpledecoratingtips.com/2015/05/01/tips-to-prune-a-peegee-hydrangea/

I found the site by putting in a search for hydrangea tree half dead and then clicked on the image that looked as sad as mine. That brought me to the above website which is full of good advice on landscape ideas.

Bulbs all planted

Eight more bags of leaves have been filled for a total of 21. And there are still more, at least another 5 can be filled. I think we have all the leaves on the street, no one else seems to have any. But then we have all the trees, so I guess that is fair.

Yesterday Isaac and Sarah helped me to plant the 30 daffodil bulbs I bought from Isaac's school fundraiser. We got into a nice rhythm, with me digging the hole, Sarah dropping in the bulb pointy end up and Isaac filling the hole with some nice topsoil. These are planted right near the entrance to the front yard, so they will be the first flowers to be seen come spring.

In front of this Virginia creeper, I planted 20 more woodland hyacinth bulbs. I couldn't think of any other place to put them. I don't like to have those early flowers coming up in beds where there are other perennials, because once they have flowered, you have to leave the foliage on them until it dies back. And sometimes it can look unsightly.  That is why I planted all the daffodils in the lawn, so that the leaves can be left for a month before being mowed and then the bulbs will store up what they need to come back the following year.

And now I have resorted to being the lazy gardener. I decided to "sheet mulch" a strip along the ramp beside the Virginia creeper. I lay down two paper leaf bags, then covered them with bagged topsoil to the depth of about 2". Then soaked the whole area with the hose. This is supposed to result in the paper decomposing and the grass and weeds underneath being suppressed. Which means that this should be a plant-able bed next spring. I figure there is nothing to lose trying this and, if it works, that will be just super. I want a bed of super-tunias bubblegum pink in here. If it doesn't work, then I can simply dig the bed manually next spring.

A shot of the front yard with 4 leaf bags ready to be picked up. Plenty more leaves have fallen since yesterday as this area was clear when we finished raking yesterday afternoon. I just have to remind myself that all those fallen leaves make good soil in the days to come.

Now I have no more excuses. It is time to paint the basement walls.

Fall Days

The leaves are falling hard and fast now. This week I raked up 13 bags of leaves and there will certainly be that many more in the weeks to come. I will also just mow over the remaining ones and leave them as mulch for the grass.

 

And over the past two days, I managed (with the help of Nick) to dig the remainer of this bed. It is bigger than it looks, at least 15 feet long by 3 to 4 feet wide. The only thing planted here are the three hydrangea shrubs, at either end and in the middle. This gets partial sun, mostly filtered morning sunlight so it will be a shade bed most definitely.
                             

I will put some more foxgloves in here, as well as campanula bellflowers. I think this bed would be good for plants with some height to them. They need to hide the scrubby bush in the lot behind it.

We had a second kitchen window put in this week. This brings much more light into the dining area and we can now see the lovely oak tree that is just outside the window. Oak often hang onto their leaves through the winter, so we may see these leaves for months to come. It will be a great spot to hang a bird feeder to watch the birds over the next five months. And sometimes the deer come through this way and we might see them up close without them knowing.

The only downside to this is that now the kitchen needs to be painted. I already have the paint and tools lined up to do the basement this week, the kitchen may end up being a project that takes some time to finish.