Sweet Peas

 

 

These are Sweet Peas from my sister's and brother-in-law's gardens.  They pay close attention to their yard and gardens and it shows. 

Gardening and Weeding

I've not written on my blog this week.  I've busied myself with other writing and with working in my garden.  Well really, working on the weeding.

This house came with overgrown gardens.  Boy, were they overgrown.  We've struggled with taming them and have now worked out a truce of sorts, where we weed until we're tired out and then we sit around admiring what we've accomplished and drink a glass of wine. 

Taming them is work requiring a bulldozer. 

It's good to have a garden that demands we rest in between attacks on the weeds.   We've learned to enjoy them more because we can relax and pace ourselves and can accept that our gardens are just wild old things.

Perhaps we are becoming wiser or perhaps we simply like sitting on the porch with a glass of wine...

Weekend Activities

Weekend Activities

Our weekend was quiet.  G. wasn’t feeling too perky after an intense work week and entertaining company twice for dinners.  With the past few days of idyllic autumnal weather, we had trimmed hedges, weeded and mowed, transplanted greenery, leaving us both tired and needing down time.

He rested, slept, watched TV and searched the Internet for cars.  Each fall, he is hit by the “I wonder if I should sell the car and purchase a newer model?” bug.  So he searched for deals on used vehicles.  He fancies a Toyota Rav4 this time; if he finds one, we’ll be selling our Matrix.  Or maybe not, he just enjoys the search, loves looking for cars.

The whole weekend was rainy and cool, great incentive for staying indoors and close to the fireplace.  I muddled around the house doing odds’n’ends of house tidying, the usual laundry, meals, catching up on paper work for volunteer commitments and knitting, plus some waiting on the husband...maid-like, as I said he wasn’t feeling well.  I don’t usually wait on him; he is extremely capable and competent around the house and is an excellent chef, but he was whiny, so what could I do?

I’ve not knit much since last winter, therefore am rusty.  I am a slow, careful knitter.  Though I enjoy it, I am not terribly proficient at it.  Knitting requires the full focus of my attention; it feels like a meditative activity of sorts.  I literally cannot carry on a conversation or watch a TV program or listen to the radio when I knit.   There is something about following instructions to the letter that throws me off.  Is my head so busy composing stories and writing that I don’t concentrate well on direction-specific tasks?

I did complete two small knitting projects.  I started the hat and unravelled it three times before I got the pattern right.  Argh!  The mittens had to be adjusted so that the pair was the “same”.  I do like the challenge of projects I’m not good at, even though they try my patience.  I used to think that I would get really proficient at knitting if I kept at it.  A delusion; hasn’t happened...doesn’t look like it will.  I am not a fantastic knitter, must restrict myself to simple projects, though I do enjoy the meditative activity…especially on a quiet weekend when the man is unwell and so whiny.  Knitting is better than strangling.

Weeding the Mulch

Yesterday, I complained about weeding the mulch.

Moaned about how long it takes and how many weeds there were.  Today, it's rainy and the weeding is finished (on that part of the yard.)  I'm looking out at 120 feet of rain washed and weeded mulch and damp, gorgeous weedless Russian Cypress.  Everything looks great!  For a little while...

Even though I whined about weeding, the three, long sunny afternoons were interesting.  Neighbours stopped by while walking their dogs or each other, and chatted.  We caught up on news.

I heard about who was ill and who is better, who is undergoing tests, who is glad they have their weeding all done, who is getting tutoring, whose dog cost $4000. to diagnose and cure, who is annoyed with another neighbour, who knows a man for hire who does yard work and who is just out enjoying the refreshing fall days.

And did I mention, I have 120 feet weed-free across the back of our yard?  I'm happy .

Gardening Mistakes

Have you made mistakes with your gardening decisions?  Our house is built on a steeply sloping 120 foot by 150 foot lot, creating a large lawn to mow with a hand mower.  The slopes make it impossible to use anything else.

We expanded flower beds and added flower beds to reduce lawn mowing.  Next, we had the brilliant idea of mulching the whole 120 feet across the back of our property, where it meets the street.  We planted Russian Cypress because it flourishes on slopes and therefore reduces mowing.

For a few years, all went well.  This year there was too much rain in the spring and summer, rain that washed the mulch down the slopes, making it easier for weeds to grow through in the thinner places and allowing ants (despite our diligent efforts) to begin chomping away at the cypress roots.

Now, we have mulch, Russian Cypress and weeds.  The weeds have gotten the upper hand.  Look at this.  There is a cypress struggling to escape the tangle of thistles, clover, dandelions, greenery that my Mum calls “cow cabbage and horse tails”, plus some other unidentified green weedy thing with three-foot roots snaking along under the mulch.

I‘m embarrassed that I’m behind with my mulch weeding, way behind, half-way to my knees behind.  Three hours yesterday and three more today made a slight dent in the weeding, even though I pulled out four very large bags of nasty stuff.  It will take that much time again to wrestle out the rest of the lurking unwanted.

What am I getting at here?  Just this: In our efforts to reduce lawn mowing and save work we have managed to increase the hours of yard maintenance instead of decreasing them.

The lesson is to think more carefully about changes to the yard, ensuring that a brilliant idea doesn’t end up as a major gardening mistake.  Maybe next year we’ll replant the grass…or buy more mulch...

One surprise and delight was finding a tiny bright toadflax or butter-and-eggs herb in all this messiness! Yes, I removed it too, I know it's a noxious weed.

As usual, any words in red will take you to another website with additional information,

 if you click on them.

Sweet Peas

Sweet peas climb by tendrils that search for a support to cling to, almost anything will do.  When I was a child, my grandparents grew sweet peas to cover an aged greying fence that had once been part of a sun-bathed chicken run.  My childhood job was to pick the seed pods and faded blooms from the sweet peas and to regularly cut the flowers in order to encourage them to bloom.

And bloom they did, to a height of six to eight feet covering the fence with profuse colours, filling the yard with their sweet perfume.  Sweet peas bloom for long periods from late spring to early autumn, as long as they get watered heavily and frequently so their roots stay moist and cool.  The sweet peas in these photos are from my sister’s and brother-in-law’s gardens, still blooming near September’s end.

I always believed that one had to soak sweet pea seeds or nick them to open the hard seed coating, before planting.  In Lois Hole’s Bedding Plant Favourites published by Lone Pine Publishing in Edmonton Alberta, 1994, Lois says, “Instead of soaking seed, I simply plant into warm, moist soil and use an inoculant.”  She also fertilizes regularly to increase the size and number of flowers.

Sweet peas are an old fashioned annual climber bearing clouds of frilled flowers in varieties of red, purple, white, pink and blue.  Though they are a bit of work to plant and maintain, they are worth every speck of energy and care expended.  Just look at these flowers, vibrant, delicate, opulent!

If you click on the words in red, you will go to another website with additional information.

Sumac

Sumac

We have staghorn sumacs in our yard.  When we first moved here, they constantly suckered in from the neighbour’s property.  We cut them back and treated them like invasive weeds, hacking easily through their soft hairy stems with garden hand-shears.

After two years of fighting with them, and watching how they grew and looked in the neighbour’s yard, we became wiser.  We gained respect for these showy undemanding shrubs, with their ability to grow well in average soil on a sloping hillside.

Since much of our property fits that description, we decided to allow two staghorn sumacs to naturalize in this yard.  It is easy to keep them from suckering by mowing around them.  Four years later, we have small trees with “picturesque branching habits which resemble deer’s antlers.”  They have thick velvety plush stems, glossy green summer foliage and brilliant red-orange fall colour.

For me, the most striking feature is the velvety red fruit which appears at this time of year; upright cones that look and feel like lush, rich crimson cushions with tiny seeds.  Lois Hole says that the fruit “can be used to make a pink lemonade drink by bruising the fruit in water, straining and adding sugar.”  We haven’t tried that yet.

We do, however, enjoy the visual pleasure of the strikingly vivid scarlet fruit, and must do so each day, as it will soon disappear.  Once it fully ripens, flocks of grackles will descend and feast, stripping the fruit from the sumacs.

For us, living here has been about learning to give up control with this yard, and learning to make peace with what wants to grow and where it wants to grow.

We’ve made friends with the staghorn sumacs; have grown to love their striking colour-changes from dark greens to brilliant orange-red in the autumn, their wild and exotic-looking ruby fruit, and their sensual velvet touch.

Quotes and reference information are taken from Lois Hole’s Favourite Trees & Shrubs (Lone Pine Publishing, 1997, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada).

All photos are mine.

Daylilies

Daylilies in my garden...

It's a tranquil Thursday and no words are needed.

Loveliness blooms each day.

Beauty is everywhere in abundance.

Look around you.

All photos are mine.

Hydrangea

Hydrangeas are showy flowering shrubs, blooming late in summer and often into the fall, with faded flower heads remaining on branches into winter.

They are easy to grow, untroubled by pests and one of the best suppliers of large flowers for fresh bouquets and dried arrangements.

Hydrangeas are fascinating in that, unlike most other plants, the colours of their flowers can change dramatically.  In our neighbourhood, the soil tends to be acidic, so if we add aluminum sulfate to the soil, we'll get vivid blue-coloured flowers on the lovely big-leaf hydrangeas. 

Blue is not the only colour in which a hydrangea can bloom; it is merely the easiest in our area.  For more information on changing your hydrangea's colours, click on this website:  http://www.hydrangeashydrangeas.com/colorchange.html

They do well in a protected site up against the house, where the shrub will get some winter protection.  This spring, I planted a hydrangea next to my chimney, but it may not bloom until next summer, so I made photos from other yards!

I'm hoping that with some luck and some aluminum sulfate, I'll have summer-sky-blue flowers next summer, too!  If not, I am happy to have their natural white-pink hues;  gorgeous, too!

These photos are mine; the hydrangeas are not.  The top photo is from a neighbour's yard and the bottom one is from my friend's garden.

Reference material is from Lois Hole's Favourite Trees & Shrubs  (1997, Lone Pine Publishing, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)

Hostas

Hostas are one of the most popular shade plants; I love them!

These wonderful perennials give gardens bold, decorative foliage from spring to fall frost.

The leaves vary enormously in size, pattern and colour.  Some can be huge and round, others are tiny and narrow.  They can have solid colours, or leaves with contrasting edges, in combinations of green, gold, yellow, blue and white.

In summer, exotic lily-like flowers on slender, leafless stems rise above the foliage.

This intriguing looking perennial is one of my favourites in our shady yard.

Reference information is from Lois Hole’s Perennial Favourites, published in 1995 by Lone Pine Publishing, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

The first photo is from my friend's garden; the next three are from mine.

My Friends' Gardens

My Friends' Gardens

These photos are from my friends' gardens, a source of great envy for me!  Their Daylilies are everywhere in myriad colours, undemanding, tough and beautiful.

They also have Asiatic Lilies which bloom in an impressive array of colours; here in favourite yellow.

They grow a clump of bright False Sunflower in the middle of one of their beds. These flowers bloom for a long period and have great resistance to pests and diseases. 

At their front yard, there is a stunning display of Black-eyed Susans.  These gorgeous flowers bloom all summer and into fall.

I love their gardens.  I feel so happy and peaceful when I am there.  It is a gift they share with the whole neighbourhood, and with anyone who walks or drives by their lovely yard.

Time to Stop

Time to Stop

I’ve often heard my husband say, “It would be great to have everything in the yard done, so that I could just sit and relax.” 

This is an unrealistic and impossible wish, unless we live in an apartment or condo.  Living as we do, in a house with a multi-treed and multi-gardened yard that is 120 feet by 150 feet, that also features three hedges and many flowering vines and shrubs, there will always be yard-work to do.  Always…the chores are cyclical!

The key to sitting and relaxing is simply to do it.  He doesn’t listen to me when I talk to him about the necessary balance between action and rest, in the relentless busyness of yard maintenance.  He doesn't listen when I say, "We'll never be finished."

Everyone needs rest to gain nourishment, wisdom, courage and clarity, to heal from care and work and worry.  There is a rhythm between striving effort and “Sabbath time.” 

The original meaning of the word “Sabbath” (in Old English, Latin, Greek and Hebrew) was “to rest.”  We have forgotten that and believe that “Sabbath” refers only to a religious concept.

Dear sweetheart, since you won’t listen to my words, perhaps you’ll listen to these from Wayne Muller.  This excerpt is from his book, Sabbath, Restoring the Rhythm of Sacred Rest.

I quote Wayne Muller here:

Sabbath is not dependent upon our readiness to stop. We do not stop when we are finished. We do not stop when we complete our phone calls, finish our project, get through this stack of messages, or get out this report that is due tomorrow. We stop because it is time to stop.

Sabbath requires surrender. If we only stop when we are finished with all our work, we will never stop--because our work is never completely done. With every accomplishment there arises a new responsibility.

Every swept floor invites another sweeping, every child bathed invites another bathing. When all life moves in such cycles, what is ever finished?

The sun goes 'round, the moon goes 'round, the tides and seasons go 'round, people are born and die, and when are we finished? If we refuse rest until we are finished, we will never rest until we die.

Sabbath dissolves the artificial urgency of our days, because it liberates us from the need to be finished.

Liberate yourself from the need to be finished! 

Take the Sabbath time and stop to rest.

Tickseed or Coreopsis

Tickseed or Coreopsis

Tickseed (Coreopsis) is a favourite in our garden.  It is a long-blooming perennial that has a profusion of bright yellow flowers in summer.  The plants grow in tidy, airy mounds that need little care and are rarely bothered by pests.

Two large clumps grow in sun to light shade in the flower bed on a steep slope that edges our driveway.  It is drought tolerant and grows well in the average to poor soil that often occurs next to a driveway.

We have the variety “Zagreb”.  These masses of bright, golden-yellow flowers with thread-leaf foliage grow into plants that are fuller and more compact than other varieties.

This plant blooms well all summer, but less profusely as summer wanes. For more flowers, we deadhead the spent blooms or simply cut the plants back half and get a second show of flowers.

Tickseed requires patience as it is one of the last perennials to emerge through the soil.  However, patience is rewarded, as the sight of a breeze rippling through the feathery foliage and caressing the sun-bright flowers is well worth the wait.

Reference material was taken from Lois Hole’s Perennial Favourites, published in 1995 by Lone Pine Publishing, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Blue Jays, Beautiful Bullies

Blue Jays, Beautiful Bullies

On our property, resourceful Blue Jays are everywhere right now.  I hear their noisy screams of “jay-jay-jay” and their nasal-sounding “queedle- queedle” in the yard.  They fly from tree to tree; flashes of vivid blue crests with the black bills and black necklaces.

They are beautiful birds nearly 31 centimetres long, with white under-parts and striking electric-blue backs decorated with white bars and flecking on their wings, and white corners on their summer-sky-coloured tails.

In this yard, they are often in the company of Common Grackles.  Perhaps these two breeds are chasing each other; both types of birds are given to bullying behaviour.  Blue Jays will harass other birds and will steal eggs and nestlings.

The Blue Jays and Common Grackles spend time in our hedges, the tall bushy Siberian Elm at the back and the fledgling lilac hedge at the side.  They’re foraging for nuts, berries and insects.  The Jays’ vibrant blues and whites make them easy to spot amongst the bottle green foliage and on the emerald lawns.

The Blue Jays aggressively chase cats away from our yard.  The neighbourhood cats regularly range through, hiding in the long grass near the feeders, hoping for a feathered breakfast.  I chase the cats away too, protective of my chickadees and finches. The town by-law against having unleashed, nuisance cats running free is largely ignored, to my frustration and to the detriment of small birds here.

Perhaps the Blue Jays and I can keep the roaming cats from the feeders and the tinier birds.  Then who will keep the Blue Jays from attacking their nestlings and eggs?

NOTE:  You can link to another of my posts about Blue Jays by clicking here.

Photo is mine.

Begonias and Calibrachoa

Begonias and Calibrachoa

Tonight the heated heavy wind is tossing the trees, pushing them, bending branches, turning leaves inside out.

The sky has gone dark; the way it does when something is menacing, slowly moving in—maybe rain? Or a thunder shower?

There is a smell of rain in the air, so I’ve taken my tuberous begonia baskets down from the pergola at the back door, and sheltered them safely on the deck.

Because I didn’t do that last time, I lost one of my hanging baskets.  It became too heavy with the rain’s additional weight and dropped, plummeted straight down, smashing into three pieces on the deck.

I rescued the deep red begonias, picked off the damaged blooms and dug the plants into the flower bed that borders the driveway.  Now, these showy, large blooms are safely seated in the earth.  There was no saving the hanging basket’s shattered husk!

Then, there was the dilemma of three spaces on the pergola to hang baskets, with only two baskets to hang.  Returning to the nursery didn’t help, as tuberous begonias were sold out.

Solution: I bought a basket of bright red calibrachoa and hung it between the other two.  Calibrachoa is a trailing petunia with smaller blooms. It makes a great hanging basket plant as it spreads and cascades, and is a healthy bloomer. 

I chose bright red, though it comes in many other shades, because I love red and because the red calibrachoa will attract hummingbirds.

Now the entrance way is cheery with vibrant scarlet flowers in all three baskets—a welcome greeting for all!

The images of begonias are mine.

Astilbes in Bloom

Astilbe is such an odd-looking yet fascinating shade plant!  Our small ones are just starting to bloom.

I don’t think that I have them in the “just right spot” yet, as ours are very slow growing compared to those of our neighbours. 

One is supposed to avoid planting them in dry or windy places, or areas where snow stays on longer, in the spring.  I’ve been careful of that but still they don’t do well.  Looks like I’ll have to consult my neighbours. 

Or just sneak over to their yards and enjoy their gardens!

Astilbes have showy flowers, graceful plumes on tall stems above airy, delicate-looking foliage.  They are really quite lovely in large clumps-- in the neighbours’ yards!  I feel envy…

Today We Gardened

Today we gardened.  We planted a hedgerow of Japanese Willow across the 120 foot frontage of our lot.  At least part of it is done; the rest, the remaining half will wait until some evenings this week.

All garden plans seem to take longer than we think.  We spent all day, from early morning until past suppertime working on the plantings.

There is the prerequisite discussion time and moving of potted willows across the front of the yard to determine best sites and distances between shrubs, followed by the wandering around the yard looking at possibilities from very angle.

We rented a small tiller to churn up the row-widths we needed.  Though we were told that the particular tiller we rented would do the job, we learned differently.  The tiller was inadequate for our yard, acting like a gas-powered shovel of sorts.

Gary was unimpressed, found the tiller very muscle-intensive and useless.  Much swearing and aggravation resulted.

Finally, we got the row dug out, turned over, tilled up, and sworn over, ready for planting!

Still, we had to dig holes.  More swearing!  Sweating!  Discussion!

 

Lastly, compost and bone meal and watering and raking the soil into place, eight shrubs were planted.  And they look very fine!

The Japanese Willow, “Hakura Nishiki” or White Spotted Willow is an extremely attractive variety from Japan.  It has variegated foliage in creamy white and green; new growth is pink; wine-red coloured branches.

These shrubs are very hardy so will do well in the damp front edge of our steeply sloped yard.  Already the cream, green and pink leaves are lighting up the street side portion of our front yard, gently waving in the last rays of sunshine and the easy breezes.

Gary is having a beer and watching TV; a therapeutic car race is on!  He is tuckered.

At least, some of the plantings are complete.

Blue Skies and Peonies

We've had two days of true blue skies and healing sunshine!  My peonies are showing off their fragrant, voluptuous blooms.

These photos are mine; peonies from my garden.