Flower Arranging 101

Who knew it could be this easy?  thanks to Kevin of https://www.agardenforthehouse.com/, I can make a simple bouquet for just a little cash.

Take a vase or container, whatever you have, put in some floral foam which can easily be cut to size, wet that foam, cut some evergreen branches from trees in your yard (I used cedar from a sad looking tree near the driveway), then stick those branches in, add some flowers from the grocery store, and voila!

The flowers can be pulled out and replaced when needed, the branches should last a month or more.

The sky is the limit here!  so exciting.

Here situated in a better position.  Yes, outside is completely white, we have about 8 inches of snow on the ground and it's not going away any time soon.

Birds on the Feeders

 We are getting a lot of different birds on our feeders. Since putting up the feeders last week, we have had chickadees, both black capped and Mountain chickadees, blue jays of course, some sparrows, pine grosbeaks, a down woodpeckers, and yesterday they were all ousted by a traveling flock of evening grosbeaks.  What bully birds they were and how messy!

I am glad they were just traveling through and only stayed for little more than one day. They got through all the seed in two feeders in less than a day, leaving nothing for the polite little chickadees.

Today we seem so have some finches. I don't know what they are exactly, I will have to consult the big  book on birds that we have here. But these are like the chickadees, polite little birds that don't spill all the sunflower seeds onto the deck. They are very welcome to stay.

In the gardening world, I have been planting bulbs. To date, I have put in 35 crocuses, and 66 tulips. I know that tulips don't survive where there are deer, but we haven't had any deer in the back yard since putting up the fence. Perhaps it will stay that way.  I am sure they don't like the smell of the dog there.

2018 Successes

These pop out as obvious successes of this year's gardening to me. There were some failures, such as not digging beds earlier in the season and then trying to plant in places where the soil had not been prepared well enough. I will not order plants from a mail-order nursery next year, as many of these did not work out well. They arrived too early and had to sit and wait until the weather warmed up. Plus I ordered way too many and had no place to plant them. I hadn't made a plan and suddenly I had about 40 bare-root perennials needing to be planted and I just wasn't ready. Also bare-root plants take a while to get going and I got much more satisfaction out of plants that I bought that were already a year old. So when they were planted, there was something to see right away.

The picture above is an annual Black Eye Susan vine that I started from seed. I had two pots of these and this one did particularly well. It just kept growing and growing, climbing up onto the canopy frame, producing lovely little yellow flowers with those black eye centres. This will be repeated next year for sure. Even my husband asked if this would survive the winter as he liked it too.

 This photo below is a new bed that I dug in the past couple of weeks. Learning from my experience of ordering plants for which there was no bed prepared, this one has been dug in expectation of next spring. I have some bulbs coming from the grandchildren's school fund raiser and this bed will get planted with crocus, daffodils and tulips. The fence not only keeps the dog in, but it keeps the deer out so I can now grow tulips.

This weigela, Bristol Ruby, was bought at the local grocery store. They get their plants from Temperate Gardens in Eganville and I have had success with all of their plants. This lovely weigela has even put on some blossoms in October. It has doubled in size since I planted it, it has survived Tekla's running into this corner to chase cats and squirrels and I gave it an extra layer of mulch to protect it from the coming cold weather. I first encountered weigelas in Nova Scotia where they grow so well in the salty sea air. I tried unsuccesfully to grow them twice in my Nova Scotia garden but they couldn't get going in the poor soil of a maple rich yard.

This trumpet vine is listed as "aggressive", but I figure the yard here is big enough to handle aggressive plants. And this one is climbing up the metal frame that is wedged next to the shed. I hope that it will keep going and clamber up and over this ugly shed.

A random picture of fall mums on the front porch. I would dearly love to have some hardy mums but none that I have planted have survived the winter. There is a house on the next street that has two varieties of garden mums, and I think I will ask the owner if she would give me a sprout to plant in my yard. They look different from these mums, they grow longer and lankier with less blooms, but the flowers are so lovely. They resemble painted daisies more than mums, and they could easily be mistaken for asters.

This lamium has done really well. My sister advised me to dig it up as it will take over and crowd out other plants, but I think I can just cut it back. My sister-in-law said to just treat it as any ground cover and cut it back where you don't want it.

I love love Lady's Mantle. It is probably the one plant that I love for its foliage and not its flowers. And as everyone remarks, the way it holds water drops on the leaves is so pleasing to the eye. I will be adding this to every sunny bed in the garden.

An aster planted last year that is putting on a great show this year. Why didn't I buy more of these?

Bobo hydrangea, the shining star of this year's hydrangeas. I love this little guy.

Another purchase from Temperate Gardens, this is a hydrangea Jack Cataraqui. So many blossoms, it must be happy in this spot. I will mulch it well for the coming winter.

I wish I had done more but there is only so much time and more importantly, only so much energy. I plan on digging out a few more small beds so that they will be ready for planting next spring. One bed will be strictly for dahlias. They put on such a flower show that they deserve their own place, not just to be stuck in the ground as I did this year.

It is tiring work, this gardening. I can see why northern gardeners are glad of the rest that winter gives. And the cold months of January and February can be cheered up with garden catalogs and gardening books to get one excited again for another season of growing.

18 Hydrangeas September 2018

The photos here are the complete inventory of hydrangeas that have been planted in summer of 2017 and 2018.  A total of 18 hydrangeas all around the property.
These were all bought at young stages and are happily surviving. I haven't lost any.
They really do reward the gardener with lots of beautiful blossoms and little work, aside from keeping them watered.

This first photo is Little Quick Fire paniculata which was planted this summer.

It is a match for the same type that was planted last summer. They are both in the front bed right next to the house. The latest one has more blossoms and they are turning pink quicker than the other one.

This is Little Bobo planted last summer. I despaired of it this winter as it got knocked about and there only seemed to be three sticks on it. But it has put on growth really well and its little body is covered with big pink blossoms.  It is only about 18" high at this point and won't get all that much bigger, but I think it is lovely. A great choice of hydrangea for a small bed.

This is a hydrangea called Jack Cataraqui and it has also surprised me with its growth and array of blooms. I was told by the nursery owner that I could train this into a tree if I wished but I am hesitant to do that; I think I will let it go and see what it becomes. This is in the bed beside the driveway next to our new neighbour and it gets lots of morning sun.

These are three LimeLight hydrangeas planted this summer. Their leaves turned yellow and were dropping off, but they have recovered after I amended the soil PH and added some fertilizer. They are just beginning to turn pink.

This is Quick Fire hydrangea. Last year it had a number of blossoms, but this year only two. However it has put on a ton of new growth and looks very healthy. I will see what happens next year, it may not be getting enough sunlight in this location.

This is another Bobo hydrangea that was planted last year in the front side shade garden. I moved it further down the bed, and although it has grown lots of new stems and leaves, it has no blossoms. Again, it may be a sunlight issue.

This one is Wedding Gown, and it has flowers that are lacecap and pink. However I thought I had lost it this winter, it was very very slow in coming back and even now, after three months, it is only about 6" high. But the growth is thick and healthy and I will wait and see what it does next year. I think it will need some heavy mulching before winter.

This is a Little Limelight hydrangea planted last year. It is doing well and the blossoms are just beginning to turn pink. I love when that happens.

This is a new hydrangea planted this morning, it is called Sweet Summer PeeGee. It will grow to about 4 feet tall and I planted it between a Limelight and a Little Limelight hydrangea. I am hoping that the three will form an informal hedge.

This is a LimeLight hydrangea planted about a month ago. The blossoms are heavy and need some support on this one. But it is doing well too even though a vole seems to be nesting right in the same spot.

This is Annabelle, the old fashioned hydrangea with the big pompom flowers. It was planted last summer and had a severe nibbling by deer, which didn't seem to affect it in the slightest. It has 14 huge blossoms on it.

This one is Strawberry Sundae, planted this summer. It is kind of sad-looking but I bet it will pick up next year, just like the Bobo in the front did.  Don't underestimate a hydrangea.

This is another Little Quick Fire in the back yard. It is kind of lop-sided but next spring, I will prune it into a more pleasing shape. This one puts out pink blossoms right away that quickly turn crimson red.

This is another Bobo that got off to a slow start this year. It was planted last summer and was lovely with loads of blossoms. This year, only one is beginning to form which is very late. And even the foliage wasn't looking good until the past couple of weeks. Then it began to put on lots of new leaves and it seems to have turned a corner.

And lastly, a climbing hydrangea. I lost two of these this past winter and this one was planted in the back yard next to the deck where it will be more protected from the severe weather. It has put on new growth, but it takes several years before it begins to blossom. I had one in Halifax and it took five years before it blossomed. This hydrangea requires patience.

August Garden Review

I just cut the back lawn; to me, it looks as good as a golf green even though reality is that it is crappy grass.  But, despite this very dry summer, the grass is green and lush. Usually in August, it is yellow and burnt. So is it really true this has been an extraordinarily dry summer?

This is a view of the raised beds, the apple tree, a few dahlias growing along the back of the garage, and a new raised bed. I began layering cardboard and newspaper in it yesterday, then put in some leaves from last fall and soaked the whole thing. I looked out an hour later to find Tekla picking up wads of newspaper, shaking them with delight, and running all over the yard with them. She did the same thing with the carrots two weeks ago when she realised she could pull them up and eat them.

This is the other corner of that same side of the yard, for the most part shaded by an enormous red pine. It is the coolest spot to sit on a hot day as there is always a breeze wafting through here.

This is my favourite combination at the moment: purple echinacea and black eye susans. I find this colour combination incredibly appealing and will expand this spot next year with more of the same plants.

This is the Strawberry Sundae hydrangea that was planted a few weeks ago. Along the fence are planted four vines in the hope that they will cover it completely; so far, the growth has been rather slow.

Annabelle hydrangea planted last August. It is doing really well and has fourteen gigantic blooms on it. Last fall, this was nibbled down to almost nothing by the deer, which goes to show that these hydrangeas like to be pruned.

This is a weigela planted two months ago; it has sent up some long shoots and there are a couple of new blooms on it. It is looking good and it seems to like this protected corner of the yard. Here it gets about four hours of afternoon sun. It just needs to survive Tekla's running into this corner, as this is where she gets a view of the neighbouring cats and the occasional deer.

Another photo of the echinacea and black eye susans. There are 3 black eye susan plants here, as well as a shasta daisy that has stopped blooming.

Some snapdragons that were started from seed. I love these perky little flowers and the various colours are a nice surprise. Next year, I am going to have one raised beds with just cutting flowers planted in it. These will be in there for sure, along with some zinnias, marigolds and cosmos to name a few.

A closeup of one of the snapdragons, the colour is so delicate. 

And queen of the back yard - Tekla who will be turning one in 2 weeks. She is very high energy, too much for us at our age (but we won't admit that publicly) and a wonderful happy personality, very affectionate.

Another view of the raised beds and the apple tree.

This bed has 15 tomato plants and 6 runner beans. I know that is too many for this space but what did I know when I planted them?  I have also found out that I planted cherry tomatoes. I thought these were regular tomatoes, but obviously not. So there won't be any canning going on, but instead lots of popping fresh tomatoes into our mouths over the next few weeks.

Here you can see the runner beans which have climbed way past the bamboo tripod that I tied together and are now reaching over the tangle themselves over a metal pole. Lots of beans but I grew this for the flowers only.

A closeup of some of the tomatoes. There must be about 300 cherry tomatoes in all.

In this corner, the crocosmia have come up, not all ten plants, but about four.  I seem to have a lot of orange flowers in my garden. This is not done on purpose, as I favour pink and purple flowers more, but they do brighten up a corner.

One of the dahlias that survived Tekla's digging episode, just a day after the bulbs were planted.
I planted about 30 dahlias, but only 10 survived the pup's dig. She was after a squirrel that had found its way under the garage wall.

Another orange flower. This dahlia hasn't stopped for over a month now. It just keeps on putting out new flowers, every one perfect.

Four of the dahlia survivors. I will be sure to dig these up and store them well for next year's planting.

When I look at the garden, it doesn't seem very full of flowers to me. But this is year one really. We were only here for August last year so that doesn't really count as the first year. It has been a lot of work digging in what I have planted so far, and I hope to expand the beds next year. If only I could figure out a more efficient way of watering them all.