I noticed yesterday while looking through the veggie garden that my basils - the globe basil in particular - have been beset by some sort of illness or pest. Some of the leaves on the Italian basil have spots on them, and on the globe basil (which was totally thriving last week) much of the plant got dark and crispy and is falling off. I don't know why. I caressed the plant, thinking 'this is the last thing I need right now.'
I'm already kind of a neurotic person. If there is something out there to worry about, I will worry. I can hardly watch the news. When I'm in that state of mind, I can wander around the garden and instead of seeing beautiful blooms, thriving patches of green, zillions of different kinds of bugs, and new shoots on plants I grew myself, all I can see is disaster and destruction. The beds are a mess. Some of my annuals died. Everything needs to be deadheaded. Something's eating my clematis. The basils have gone to pot. It all needs so much watering and work and weeding and pruning and mowing and aaaaaaaaa how does anyone do it?
Phew (pant pant) sometimes it's too much for a girl to take. I think I need a snooze.
But really, I have to lighten up. Everything's exploding and the things that aren't doing so well ... at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. One day it'll be forgotten. So we don't have radishes this year - big deal. I don't even like radishes. And when people come over, they don't immediately see the holes in my clematis leaves or the rotten globe basil at the far corner of the vegetable garden. As long as I can enjoy all of the flowers I feel I am due (it's a sliding scale, really, I am flexible), my vegetables allow me to eat something at harvest time, and I have fresh herbs when I need them for cooking, I'm happy. It's all organic, it's all green, and it's all better than winter.
Winter, which brings on another set of worries.
6/27/05
6/24/05
Photos, finally
I'm getting caught up on my photo posting now, so here goes ...
This is a photo of that garden ornament that I got for my bridal shower:
I planted peas all around it, and they're starting to show signs of life. That's my Loki in the background, all zoned out after enjoying his catnip, sitting on his throne of straw. I swear it's like a kitty opium den in there.
This is one of the two huge pots I've planted up to go at the church entrance on wedding day:
I think I have to trim the sweet potato vines. They're kind of taking over.
And THIS is what the perennial garden looks like these days:
There's my photo tour for today!
This is a photo of that garden ornament that I got for my bridal shower:
I planted peas all around it, and they're starting to show signs of life. That's my Loki in the background, all zoned out after enjoying his catnip, sitting on his throne of straw. I swear it's like a kitty opium den in there.
This is one of the two huge pots I've planted up to go at the church entrance on wedding day:
I think I have to trim the sweet potato vines. They're kind of taking over.
And THIS is what the perennial garden looks like these days:
There's my photo tour for today!
6/21/05
Renovatin'
Earlier this year, back in the spring (today's the first day of summer! Yay!), I embarked on a huge project wherein I turned the weedy hill in front of the house into a terraced rock garden of sorts. At least, I built it out of rocks - I didn't really intend for it to be a rock garden. It's just that, well, my plants are still so teeny that all you see is rocks.
It was a heroic amount of work, if I do say so myself. Next year maybe I'll finish it. I had to rip up all the existing groundcover (patchy grass and creeping jenny), sort it out, banging all of the good dirt off and saving all of the worms, dump the tangled discarded root masses, then build it into levelled areas supported by rock walls. Single-handedly, might I add (my man was on a fishing trip). I collected the rocks off of our road; every time they grade the road in my neighborhood, they churn up a veritable gravel pit of rocks of all different sizes, so they were always handy.
For purposes of bragging, and to tell you the kind of back story to any progress reports I might want to make on the state of my perennial gardens in the future, here are the BEFORE pictures:
Note the scruffy grass and the beginnings of some dirt-churning up top, which I started last fall but ran out of steam too quickly to complete. I have an old perennial garden at the top, which you can't see much of, because I actually moved all of the good perennials out of that garden and into a nursing bed for all of last season. I moved them all back into more suitable spots (high in back low in front!) after finishing the project this year.
OK now (drumroll please!) here are the AFTER shots:
It doesn't hurt that the grass is so green in the latter set, mainly because so much time had passed between the two...
And now I'm looking at those photos and thinking "look at my baby garden!" in a sentimental way, because it sure has filled in since then. That's the best thing about photos - you can really tell how things have progressed. Maybe in another 2 weeks I'll post a photo of what it looks like now. Those pictures were taken in mid-May!
And, in closing, I want to chat a bit about the glories of straw. I bought two bales of straw for the veggie garden this past weekend (I know I know, I learned the hard way, I only needed one), and mounded it up between all of my babies. Well the garden sure looks a lot tidier now! Once the plants get bigger and the patch appears less, well, totally straw-coloured, it'll really look like a little farm in there. Plus, the cats love to roll around in it, which I can't decide is a good or a bad thing.
It was a heroic amount of work, if I do say so myself. Next year maybe I'll finish it. I had to rip up all the existing groundcover (patchy grass and creeping jenny), sort it out, banging all of the good dirt off and saving all of the worms, dump the tangled discarded root masses, then build it into levelled areas supported by rock walls. Single-handedly, might I add (my man was on a fishing trip). I collected the rocks off of our road; every time they grade the road in my neighborhood, they churn up a veritable gravel pit of rocks of all different sizes, so they were always handy.
For purposes of bragging, and to tell you the kind of back story to any progress reports I might want to make on the state of my perennial gardens in the future, here are the BEFORE pictures:
Note the scruffy grass and the beginnings of some dirt-churning up top, which I started last fall but ran out of steam too quickly to complete. I have an old perennial garden at the top, which you can't see much of, because I actually moved all of the good perennials out of that garden and into a nursing bed for all of last season. I moved them all back into more suitable spots (high in back low in front!) after finishing the project this year.
OK now (drumroll please!) here are the AFTER shots:
It doesn't hurt that the grass is so green in the latter set, mainly because so much time had passed between the two...
And now I'm looking at those photos and thinking "look at my baby garden!" in a sentimental way, because it sure has filled in since then. That's the best thing about photos - you can really tell how things have progressed. Maybe in another 2 weeks I'll post a photo of what it looks like now. Those pictures were taken in mid-May!
And, in closing, I want to chat a bit about the glories of straw. I bought two bales of straw for the veggie garden this past weekend (I know I know, I learned the hard way, I only needed one), and mounded it up between all of my babies. Well the garden sure looks a lot tidier now! Once the plants get bigger and the patch appears less, well, totally straw-coloured, it'll really look like a little farm in there. Plus, the cats love to roll around in it, which I can't decide is a good or a bad thing.
6/17/05
Here comes the br...what is THAT?!?!?
Back in the winter months, when everything was theoretical and the gardens were lush in my head, I had the brilliant idea that I would grow all my own flowers for our upcoming wedding. I pored over the catalogues, circled and re-circled, planned arrangements in my head, sorted out colour schemes, and finally placed my order for a whole bunch of bulbs that are supposed to bloom in late June-July-early August. When they came in the mail, I felt as though I was holding a fait accompli in my hands - all I had to do was plant them, and miraculously a beautiful wedding bouquet would result! Easy!
What I'm discovering now in the tempestuous middle of June is that it's not so easy, and I may just end up going to the grocery store for $5 bouquets and re-arranging them. My bulbs are less than miraculous at this point, and they've only got a month and a half to turn themselves around and get themselves some blooms. I planted at least 20 ranunculus corms, and right now they look like straggly half-dead parsley. A couple of my lilies seem to have birth defects, and I discovered that nicotiana blooms last approximately 3 minutes after being cut before turning into drooping messes. Hey, this is all new to me. If anyone has any suggestions on how to give ranunculus some first-aid please let me know. I'll spray them with anything at this point.
My new idea is to let things grow at their own pace, then wake up on July 29th (the day before), breezily survey the yard to see what's in bloom, and use whatever is available on that day. It's a little more spontaneous than I'm really comfortable with (I am a relentless planner and nobody who knows me would describe me as 'breezy'), and may result in a free-form bouquet of weeds, but at least I'll have something in my hands.
My ideal bouquet was to consist of any combination of the following (I wanted to have plenty of choice):
- white spider lilies
- deep purple ranunculus
- abyssinian gladiolus
- lime green nicotiana
- Queen Anne's Lace (for filler)
- maybe ferns or something ferny
- Nigella (these specific ones)
- stocks (night-scented)
Realistically, it will probably consist of:
- one white spider lily - maybe
- abyssinian gladiolus (after a long wait, they're finally up!)
- Queen Anne's Lace
- ferns
- dandelions
- quack grass
- a leg bone
- maybe some stocks - but they're an inch high right now
OK OK I'm kidding about the quack grass.
Sometimes you really have to learn how to throw caution to the wind and just release, see what happens, and hope for the best.
In other news, the recent torrential rain didn't completely flatten my garden, although the sedum and the hostas sorta look like they're trying to make a break for it. However, it seems the sky rained quack grass seeds into my veggie garden, because it is completely covered in shoots. I don't know what to do. I think I have to buy some straw and try to mulch the whole thing - the veggie seedlings are big enough now that I think they could handle that and not get lost. It quickly became a jungle in there, though, funny what a good soaking will do. There are lots of suckers on the tomatoes but no blooms just yet. One of them seemed to have been attacked by a cut worm or something because it was knocked over, but I mounded the dirt up around it, and hopefully it'll grow some new roots.
So, on my to-do list for the weekend: find some straw, weed the veggie garden, buy some organic fertilizer of some sort and hit the ranunculus bed with it, plant my banana plant into the ground, and maybe buy a couple flats of annuals to fill the gaps here and there. I also wanna take more pictures of the garden, because my last roll, with my new magnifying lenses, turned out beautifully. I will try to post pictures down the road but right now I'm too lazy. Someday this site will be silly with pictures.
What I'm discovering now in the tempestuous middle of June is that it's not so easy, and I may just end up going to the grocery store for $5 bouquets and re-arranging them. My bulbs are less than miraculous at this point, and they've only got a month and a half to turn themselves around and get themselves some blooms. I planted at least 20 ranunculus corms, and right now they look like straggly half-dead parsley. A couple of my lilies seem to have birth defects, and I discovered that nicotiana blooms last approximately 3 minutes after being cut before turning into drooping messes. Hey, this is all new to me. If anyone has any suggestions on how to give ranunculus some first-aid please let me know. I'll spray them with anything at this point.
My new idea is to let things grow at their own pace, then wake up on July 29th (the day before), breezily survey the yard to see what's in bloom, and use whatever is available on that day. It's a little more spontaneous than I'm really comfortable with (I am a relentless planner and nobody who knows me would describe me as 'breezy'), and may result in a free-form bouquet of weeds, but at least I'll have something in my hands.
My ideal bouquet was to consist of any combination of the following (I wanted to have plenty of choice):
- white spider lilies
- deep purple ranunculus
- abyssinian gladiolus
- lime green nicotiana
- Queen Anne's Lace (for filler)
- maybe ferns or something ferny
- Nigella (these specific ones)
- stocks (night-scented)
Realistically, it will probably consist of:
- one white spider lily - maybe
- abyssinian gladiolus (after a long wait, they're finally up!)
- Queen Anne's Lace
- ferns
- dandelions
- quack grass
- a leg bone
- maybe some stocks - but they're an inch high right now
OK OK I'm kidding about the quack grass.
Sometimes you really have to learn how to throw caution to the wind and just release, see what happens, and hope for the best.
In other news, the recent torrential rain didn't completely flatten my garden, although the sedum and the hostas sorta look like they're trying to make a break for it. However, it seems the sky rained quack grass seeds into my veggie garden, because it is completely covered in shoots. I don't know what to do. I think I have to buy some straw and try to mulch the whole thing - the veggie seedlings are big enough now that I think they could handle that and not get lost. It quickly became a jungle in there, though, funny what a good soaking will do. There are lots of suckers on the tomatoes but no blooms just yet. One of them seemed to have been attacked by a cut worm or something because it was knocked over, but I mounded the dirt up around it, and hopefully it'll grow some new roots.
So, on my to-do list for the weekend: find some straw, weed the veggie garden, buy some organic fertilizer of some sort and hit the ranunculus bed with it, plant my banana plant into the ground, and maybe buy a couple flats of annuals to fill the gaps here and there. I also wanna take more pictures of the garden, because my last roll, with my new magnifying lenses, turned out beautifully. I will try to post pictures down the road but right now I'm too lazy. Someday this site will be silly with pictures.
6/14/05
Is there no middle ground?
For the last week or so, it's been so hot that we've been forced to live in our basement. We're talking +32 celsius, with crazy humidity and smoggy can't-breathe-or-sleep conditions. Every day it threatened to rain, and at around 4 p.m. five drops would fall from the sky, or just enough to make everything that much more humid but not enough to water the garden adequately. Well, today it finally rained.
The rain today seems as though it came from somewhere like Thailand or the Amazon, the drops are falling straight down and splashing back up to our knees, and our hillside dirt road should be completely washed away by the end of the day. My lettuce is totally flattened, and it pummelled the petals right off of my poppies (say that three times fast). The irises look like wet dogs. Happily, none of the other plants seem to be destroyed, but I do worry about my fragile little veggie seedlings, many of which are making no progress at all as it is.
Where I live, the climate is the most extremely variable climate I have ever seen. Sure there are colder places. Sure there are hotter places. Sure there are places that get more rain and places that get no rain at all. But I've never before seen one place where these things are expected, where the temperatures vary from -35 and dry as a bone to +35 and so humid you can drink the air. That's a 70 degree temperature variation. Needless to say, we need a lot of clothes living here, and a lot of different shoes. I can always find a silver lining.
In the winter we so easily forget exactly what it feels like to be so hot that you can't touch your own skin, that you can't go upstairs to your own bedroom without getting light-headed. In the summer, I hardly remember those cold drafts coming in the windows and having to breathe shallow so my lungs don't freeze. Give praise to our collective bad memory, because otherwise we'd all be living elsewhere.
There's a feeling that you get, however, when the extremes have moved into the fresh past, and you think "man, we made it through another one." There's a definite batten-down-the-hatches resilience that comes from dealing with this kind of weather. It's a lot of work to stay on top of - especially for the owner of an older home that leaks rain in the summer and is drafty in the winter, who heats with a woodstove and mows the lawn with a push-mower - but man, do we feel tough.
Today, however, I am wishing for moderation, some kind of middle ground where we could maybe have a nice steady rain all night long, then clear sunny skies in the daytime. Boy would my plants love that. Instead, we've had to put towels in front of the basement door for the leaks, the de-humidifier is cranked on high down there, and all of our gutters are overflowing. And it's still going up to +29. Ugh.
The rain today seems as though it came from somewhere like Thailand or the Amazon, the drops are falling straight down and splashing back up to our knees, and our hillside dirt road should be completely washed away by the end of the day. My lettuce is totally flattened, and it pummelled the petals right off of my poppies (say that three times fast). The irises look like wet dogs. Happily, none of the other plants seem to be destroyed, but I do worry about my fragile little veggie seedlings, many of which are making no progress at all as it is.
Where I live, the climate is the most extremely variable climate I have ever seen. Sure there are colder places. Sure there are hotter places. Sure there are places that get more rain and places that get no rain at all. But I've never before seen one place where these things are expected, where the temperatures vary from -35 and dry as a bone to +35 and so humid you can drink the air. That's a 70 degree temperature variation. Needless to say, we need a lot of clothes living here, and a lot of different shoes. I can always find a silver lining.
In the winter we so easily forget exactly what it feels like to be so hot that you can't touch your own skin, that you can't go upstairs to your own bedroom without getting light-headed. In the summer, I hardly remember those cold drafts coming in the windows and having to breathe shallow so my lungs don't freeze. Give praise to our collective bad memory, because otherwise we'd all be living elsewhere.
There's a feeling that you get, however, when the extremes have moved into the fresh past, and you think "man, we made it through another one." There's a definite batten-down-the-hatches resilience that comes from dealing with this kind of weather. It's a lot of work to stay on top of - especially for the owner of an older home that leaks rain in the summer and is drafty in the winter, who heats with a woodstove and mows the lawn with a push-mower - but man, do we feel tough.
Today, however, I am wishing for moderation, some kind of middle ground where we could maybe have a nice steady rain all night long, then clear sunny skies in the daytime. Boy would my plants love that. Instead, we've had to put towels in front of the basement door for the leaks, the de-humidifier is cranked on high down there, and all of our gutters are overflowing. And it's still going up to +29. Ugh.
6/10/05
Love-In
My favourite time of day is between 7 and 8 pm. When we come home from work and usually food shopping, I dump my bags, put anything requiring refrigeration away, put the mail on the counter, pour myself a glass of red wine, and head outside to hang with the cats and survey the gardens. Some might say this is too much alcohol but I feel it compliments my garden love-in perfectly. They're both good for the heart...
Last night I wandered the grounds, as I like to call them, with my glass and hose nozzle in-hand. I stuck the base of my wine glass in the dirt and lightly weeded one area, the put it down and planted a little old tin pot with a dahlia and some nasturtium seeds. I am truly in love with my garden. Every day I notice something new. I don't know if I've achieved succession planting or not, but in my boomerang garden, the perennial alyssum and forget-me-nots are on their way out while the giant white irises are in their full glory, the yellow irises are beginning to unfurl (which will look marvellous next to my bright purple spiderwort, also ramping up for a beautiful display), and the yellow lilies and purple globe thistles are beginning to bud. In another garden area, the dark purple centaurea and dusty pink perennial geraniums are getting set, while the lupins and 'Queen of Night' tulips are fading. Ahhh. It keeps me on my toes. Thank god for digital cameras, because film would put me in the poor house.
I haven't checked the veggie garden thoroughly in the last couple of days, but I am happy to report that last night I saw that I actually have two baby eggplant seedlings left and not one, as I thought 2 days ago. Phew. The veggies seem to be ok - still getting accustomed to their new surroundings - but I don't go in there because I have a new sprinkler system, which I turn on from up at the house, and I don't wanna get caught in the spray wearing my work clothes.
I had the worst nightmare last night. I dreamt that I woke up and looked out the window to see a howling icy snowstorm. Everything was dead from the sudden frost. The dream gave me palpitations and it was hard to fall asleep again - thank god it was still stinking hot when I woke up this morning.
Flowers, greenery, water, sun, wine, cats, warmth, free time - it just cannot get any better than this. I am in love.
Last night I wandered the grounds, as I like to call them, with my glass and hose nozzle in-hand. I stuck the base of my wine glass in the dirt and lightly weeded one area, the put it down and planted a little old tin pot with a dahlia and some nasturtium seeds. I am truly in love with my garden. Every day I notice something new. I don't know if I've achieved succession planting or not, but in my boomerang garden, the perennial alyssum and forget-me-nots are on their way out while the giant white irises are in their full glory, the yellow irises are beginning to unfurl (which will look marvellous next to my bright purple spiderwort, also ramping up for a beautiful display), and the yellow lilies and purple globe thistles are beginning to bud. In another garden area, the dark purple centaurea and dusty pink perennial geraniums are getting set, while the lupins and 'Queen of Night' tulips are fading. Ahhh. It keeps me on my toes. Thank god for digital cameras, because film would put me in the poor house.
I haven't checked the veggie garden thoroughly in the last couple of days, but I am happy to report that last night I saw that I actually have two baby eggplant seedlings left and not one, as I thought 2 days ago. Phew. The veggies seem to be ok - still getting accustomed to their new surroundings - but I don't go in there because I have a new sprinkler system, which I turn on from up at the house, and I don't wanna get caught in the spray wearing my work clothes.
I had the worst nightmare last night. I dreamt that I woke up and looked out the window to see a howling icy snowstorm. Everything was dead from the sudden frost. The dream gave me palpitations and it was hard to fall asleep again - thank god it was still stinking hot when I woke up this morning.
Flowers, greenery, water, sun, wine, cats, warmth, free time - it just cannot get any better than this. I am in love.
6/8/05
Why why why why why.
Do you ever have days where it just seems that nothing makes sense? Why won't that person get back to me on this or that important thing? Why does that person need to continually come into my office and interrupt me for no real reason at all? Why is the air conditioning on so high, so as to simulate December conditions in the middle of June?
I am having one of those days.
Last night I went into the garden for a little much-needed dirt therapy. I made some interesting discoveries: one, that the neighbor's dog had found 'our bone' again, and left it on the lawn; two, that I now have one eggplant seedling instead of the eight that I started out with last week, and; three, that I have this fabulous hardy geranium in the backyard that smells sweeter and more flowery-lemony than anything I have smelled in my life. It is heaven.
Here's the story of 'our bone' (and it fits with my why why why why why theme of the day): We have this dog that lives next door, except that she's never tied up and thinks that our house is hers as well. It's not a problem, because we love the dog like crazy, the cats have gotten used to her, and I believe she protects them from the wilder elements of the surrounding forest (she's a fairly-large white husky who barks a lot). A little while ago, a deer was killed in our neighborhood by a pack of something, likely wolves or coyotes. I know it wasn't Toulouse because she was asleep on our couch that night. Well, Toulouse obviously found one of the bones - a shinbone I believe - and informally adopted it. I was digging in the garden beside my shed one day when my trowel hit something hard, and I unearthed this foot-long fresh bone. The funniest thing is that aside from a few plants being turned up, the earth was perfectly smoothed over top of the bone, not in a pile as you would imagine. I was curious - "is this a human bone? Should I call the cops?". In the end I just threw the bone into the woods.
A little while later, I was digging in the garden down at the other end of the yard, and lo and behold, I see a lovely flat area to put my dahlias. I stuck the trowel into the dirt, and 'clunk' - you guessed it - there was the bone again. I groaned and threw it into the woods again, in a different spot. Then I was digging in my new terraced front hill garden, which is newly-planted with lots of teeny perennials, and I noticed that one of my sedums had been harrassed. I assumed the cats had been relieving themselves in the new dirt. I went to plant one of my wee ranunculus seedlings, and CLUNK there was the bone again! I chucked it into the woods (in yet a different location) and kept gardening.
Yesterday morning, the bone was laying on the front lawn. I have become so familiar with that bone that seeing a big deer shinbone on my lawn no longer phases me. And I am also convinced that Toulouse has a damned good sense of humour.
Now back to work. Why why why why why?
I am having one of those days.
Last night I went into the garden for a little much-needed dirt therapy. I made some interesting discoveries: one, that the neighbor's dog had found 'our bone' again, and left it on the lawn; two, that I now have one eggplant seedling instead of the eight that I started out with last week, and; three, that I have this fabulous hardy geranium in the backyard that smells sweeter and more flowery-lemony than anything I have smelled in my life. It is heaven.
Here's the story of 'our bone' (and it fits with my why why why why why theme of the day): We have this dog that lives next door, except that she's never tied up and thinks that our house is hers as well. It's not a problem, because we love the dog like crazy, the cats have gotten used to her, and I believe she protects them from the wilder elements of the surrounding forest (she's a fairly-large white husky who barks a lot). A little while ago, a deer was killed in our neighborhood by a pack of something, likely wolves or coyotes. I know it wasn't Toulouse because she was asleep on our couch that night. Well, Toulouse obviously found one of the bones - a shinbone I believe - and informally adopted it. I was digging in the garden beside my shed one day when my trowel hit something hard, and I unearthed this foot-long fresh bone. The funniest thing is that aside from a few plants being turned up, the earth was perfectly smoothed over top of the bone, not in a pile as you would imagine. I was curious - "is this a human bone? Should I call the cops?". In the end I just threw the bone into the woods.
A little while later, I was digging in the garden down at the other end of the yard, and lo and behold, I see a lovely flat area to put my dahlias. I stuck the trowel into the dirt, and 'clunk' - you guessed it - there was the bone again. I groaned and threw it into the woods again, in a different spot. Then I was digging in my new terraced front hill garden, which is newly-planted with lots of teeny perennials, and I noticed that one of my sedums had been harrassed. I assumed the cats had been relieving themselves in the new dirt. I went to plant one of my wee ranunculus seedlings, and CLUNK there was the bone again! I chucked it into the woods (in yet a different location) and kept gardening.
Yesterday morning, the bone was laying on the front lawn. I have become so familiar with that bone that seeing a big deer shinbone on my lawn no longer phases me. And I am also convinced that Toulouse has a damned good sense of humour.
Now back to work. Why why why why why?
6/6/05
Other Peoples' Gardens
I love wandering through new towns and seeing how other people garden. I find it interesting how trends vary from place to place, often within short range of one another. This past weekend, we took a long drive from home to Lindsay, Ontario, and as I was the passenger, for once I got to look at peoples' yards as we drove on through.
Many people in South-Eastern Ontario have this enormous beautiful orange flower growing in their yards. I don't have any clue what it is, but it looks to be about 4 feet tall and the flowers are a glorious, electric orange. They're in full bloom right now, so I want some to go with my huge dark purple irises. Perhaps they're some sort of iris themselves? They're too early to be cannas...I have no idea, but I saw about 4 of them between Ottawa and Lindsay and I've never seen them in my area. Another thing that people along this stretch of highway enjoy are wooden silhouettes of woodland creatures - usually bears - parading across their lawns. It made me do a double-take almost every time. I am so gullible.
I also find it interesting to see how other people plant. There are people who enjoy the same wild and bountiful aesthetic as I, then there are the people who went out and bought two flats of impatiens, planted each individual flower about 2 feet apart, and consider themselves done. The sparse look. I really can't get inside that headspace at all. There are also a lot of geraniums in the world, perhaps it's because they're hardy and bright, I have no idea. I personally don't like them, except this year I did find a magenta one and broke down and bought a hanging planter of it for the deck. I also like the hardy and weirdly-scented varieties.
In my neighborhood and further north, white is the most popular colour for garden accessories. I have to say this at risk of seeming somehow bigoted: french canadian people love to paint things white. Around here, we have white-painted rocks, small white chain-link fences, white bricks, and the clincher, the white tires. My hubby calls them 'les pneus de pélouse' (lawn tires). These are used as garden borders. Sometimes they are multi-coloured, sometimes they are cut into flower-like shapes, they're usually white, and filled with geraniums. I have noticed this white-paint obsession and I think it's terrific, because it's such a regional specialty and has a touristy appeal. I know if I were visiting, I'd want to see what the folks are doing in their yards, and to go home to - oh, I don't know, New York City - and to say "I saw these people up there who paint tires white and use them as planters! They also eat french fries with cheese and gravy and call it poo-teen!" Now that's some local flavour to savour*. Another little trick that folks in my region use is to plant plastic flowers in their pneus de pélouse, which is kind of smart when you think about it - they're very winter hardy and their only drawback is that they fade in the sun after a few years. They just have to remember to remove them in October if they want to maintain any credibility at all.
Lindsay itself is something of a garden town. Convenience stores have wonderful garden centres, and there are whole parts of town where every garden is perfect. They have these terrific old victorian homes, and giant trees, and a lot of gardens are magnificent shade gardens (which I love). It's so beautiful, and so different from where I live. The climate down there favours plants that I have troubles with, like clematis and grape vines and lilacs. They bounce back faster down there and seem to suffer way less winter damage. I would love to grow bountiful clematis but mine are always a bit meek and mangy.
Anyway all in all it was a great trip. I went for my big family bridal shower, and I received the coolest garden ornament/trellis/obalisk thingy ever. I will post pics of it later.
*I love poutine.
Many people in South-Eastern Ontario have this enormous beautiful orange flower growing in their yards. I don't have any clue what it is, but it looks to be about 4 feet tall and the flowers are a glorious, electric orange. They're in full bloom right now, so I want some to go with my huge dark purple irises. Perhaps they're some sort of iris themselves? They're too early to be cannas...I have no idea, but I saw about 4 of them between Ottawa and Lindsay and I've never seen them in my area. Another thing that people along this stretch of highway enjoy are wooden silhouettes of woodland creatures - usually bears - parading across their lawns. It made me do a double-take almost every time. I am so gullible.
I also find it interesting to see how other people plant. There are people who enjoy the same wild and bountiful aesthetic as I, then there are the people who went out and bought two flats of impatiens, planted each individual flower about 2 feet apart, and consider themselves done. The sparse look. I really can't get inside that headspace at all. There are also a lot of geraniums in the world, perhaps it's because they're hardy and bright, I have no idea. I personally don't like them, except this year I did find a magenta one and broke down and bought a hanging planter of it for the deck. I also like the hardy and weirdly-scented varieties.
In my neighborhood and further north, white is the most popular colour for garden accessories. I have to say this at risk of seeming somehow bigoted: french canadian people love to paint things white. Around here, we have white-painted rocks, small white chain-link fences, white bricks, and the clincher, the white tires. My hubby calls them 'les pneus de pélouse' (lawn tires). These are used as garden borders. Sometimes they are multi-coloured, sometimes they are cut into flower-like shapes, they're usually white, and filled with geraniums. I have noticed this white-paint obsession and I think it's terrific, because it's such a regional specialty and has a touristy appeal. I know if I were visiting, I'd want to see what the folks are doing in their yards, and to go home to - oh, I don't know, New York City - and to say "I saw these people up there who paint tires white and use them as planters! They also eat french fries with cheese and gravy and call it poo-teen!" Now that's some local flavour to savour*. Another little trick that folks in my region use is to plant plastic flowers in their pneus de pélouse, which is kind of smart when you think about it - they're very winter hardy and their only drawback is that they fade in the sun after a few years. They just have to remember to remove them in October if they want to maintain any credibility at all.
Lindsay itself is something of a garden town. Convenience stores have wonderful garden centres, and there are whole parts of town where every garden is perfect. They have these terrific old victorian homes, and giant trees, and a lot of gardens are magnificent shade gardens (which I love). It's so beautiful, and so different from where I live. The climate down there favours plants that I have troubles with, like clematis and grape vines and lilacs. They bounce back faster down there and seem to suffer way less winter damage. I would love to grow bountiful clematis but mine are always a bit meek and mangy.
Anyway all in all it was a great trip. I went for my big family bridal shower, and I received the coolest garden ornament/trellis/obalisk thingy ever. I will post pics of it later.
*I love poutine.
6/3/05
Surprise Surprise
I had big plans for last evening; I was going to plant some of the little oleanders that have been sitting on my deck, transplant some nicotiana into planters and a garden, and plant a castor bean plant that's sitting in it's little pot in the garden. I had to water the recent transplants in the veggie garden, and take some pictures to show off to my grandmother this weekend. Maybe we would have chicken fajitas for dinner.
None of my plans involved drinking sangria and opening gifts.
My mother and her sneaky friends, with my future hubby as an accomplice, managed to pull of a surprise bridal shower for me last night. I was floored. I believe my reaction, when I figured out what was happening, was to ball up my hands into little fists and stomp my feet just like a little kid. Not that I wasn't pleased, I was just totally shocked.
A bit of context: I have never really had a birthday party, except for the time I turned 7 and my mom invited three of my friends to come and see E.T. with us in the theatre. That movie depressed me so much that when we went home for the party, I wanted her to send everyone home. Nobody's ever thrown me a surprise anything, and I am rarely shocked. I am usually the one organizing the festivities - I have arranged a few surprises, indeed - but I'm never in the middle of the spotlight. So a surprise of this magnitude on a school night* no less certainly floored me.
The ladies were incredibly generous, the theme of the party was 'entertainment', so now I'm totally suited up for one wicked party. Margaritas anyone? The party that I would have using the items I received would be a barbecue out on the deck with lots of slushie girl drinks, chips, and I would be wearing a little lacy something something while getting a massage. I guess that won't happen. Everyone interprets 'entertainment' in their own way, I guess.
I got home at 10:30 p.m. and desperately tried to get the cat in, but he didn't come back until this morning, so I had a nervous night. There are things out there that would hurt him or worse. While waiting for him, I decided the veggie garden needed watering, so out I went into the pitch-darkness, headlamp in place, and did my duty.
I've got a lot of work to do tonight. I hope nobody else has plans for my evening that I don't know about.
*we're not actually in school anymore, we just like to say that for fun.
None of my plans involved drinking sangria and opening gifts.
My mother and her sneaky friends, with my future hubby as an accomplice, managed to pull of a surprise bridal shower for me last night. I was floored. I believe my reaction, when I figured out what was happening, was to ball up my hands into little fists and stomp my feet just like a little kid. Not that I wasn't pleased, I was just totally shocked.
A bit of context: I have never really had a birthday party, except for the time I turned 7 and my mom invited three of my friends to come and see E.T. with us in the theatre. That movie depressed me so much that when we went home for the party, I wanted her to send everyone home. Nobody's ever thrown me a surprise anything, and I am rarely shocked. I am usually the one organizing the festivities - I have arranged a few surprises, indeed - but I'm never in the middle of the spotlight. So a surprise of this magnitude on a school night* no less certainly floored me.
The ladies were incredibly generous, the theme of the party was 'entertainment', so now I'm totally suited up for one wicked party. Margaritas anyone? The party that I would have using the items I received would be a barbecue out on the deck with lots of slushie girl drinks, chips, and I would be wearing a little lacy something something while getting a massage. I guess that won't happen. Everyone interprets 'entertainment' in their own way, I guess.
I got home at 10:30 p.m. and desperately tried to get the cat in, but he didn't come back until this morning, so I had a nervous night. There are things out there that would hurt him or worse. While waiting for him, I decided the veggie garden needed watering, so out I went into the pitch-darkness, headlamp in place, and did my duty.
I've got a lot of work to do tonight. I hope nobody else has plans for my evening that I don't know about.
*we're not actually in school anymore, we just like to say that for fun.
6/2/05
The Fuzzy Alarm Clock.
Is it something I'm feeding him? Have I done something bad in a previous life? Is he eating out of the sugar bowl all night while we sleep? Is he the reincarnation of a rooster? Does he know something I don't?
Why oh why does the cat insist on waking us up every single morning between 5 and 6 a.m?
Why oh why does the cat insist on waking us up every single morning between 5 and 6 a.m?
6/1/05
Blogging. Who'd have thunk it?
Recently my hunny and I have been making a bit of light fun of blogs. As we are approaching our wedding date, we keep telling people to 'check it out on our wedding blog.' Both of us have only learned the word 'blog' within the last six months. So here I am, with my tail ever-so-slightly tucked between my legs, writing my first-ever blog entry.
Now that I've been presumptuous enough to think you're interested in what I've got to say, I guess I should get at it. This blog will mostly journal my gardening exploits, with a bit of wedding nonsense tucked in here and there, since these days they are but two parts of the same crazy whirlwind.
Our wedding has taken on a decidedly horticultural aspect, as everything from the invitations to the decorations involve something grown in our yard (or purchased at Giant Tiger ha ha). I am insane and have decided to grow my own bouquets and boutonnieres. I have managed to convince my mother and grandmother that they don't want corsages ("Nah, you don't want those. They'll wreck your outfits."), and I only have one attendant, so I think I'm doing ok.
The garden suffered last summer, as I was trying to settle into a busy new job, and I had surprise abdominal surgery which put me out of commission for about 2 weeks. My tomatoes went to the slugs, and the only squash I grew was something I did not recognize, so I harvested them and let them sit on my counter for six months, moving them every time I cleaned, until I decided that they'd be no good to eat and threw them out. I think they were something called a 'Baked Potato Squash,' the seeds of which my aunt gave me in a white paper envelope. No wonder I didn't recognize them. I was expecting zucchini.
And I am convinced that the bears ate my cherry tomatoes. If that's true, they were at least delicate about it, crushing neither the plant nor the plants around it. I like to picture them opening my garden gate and hunkering down beside my tiny little cherry tomato plant and picking the itty-bitty tomatoes one by one off with their big claws. They dropped a few ("Oops! Don't eat that Cyril! It's got dirt on it!") but pretty much left everything intact except for the tomatoes they ate. Or maybe I just had a low yield.
This year, I've got high hopes. I'm growing the following glorious, nutritious, beautiful, delicious and virtuous vegetables and herbs:
- yellow pear tomatoes
- Roma tomatoes (thanks Amy!)
- little wee eggplants and one 'Dusky' eggplant
- Royal Burgundy beans
- red peppers
- cayenne peppers
- pumpkins (one plant, which I crushed a bit while transplanting)
- zucchini (I hope)
- ground cherries
- cucumbers
- okra
- spinach
- bunching onions
- chives
- artichokes (these are in the perennial garden)
- scarlett runner beans (against the deck)
- lemongrass
- italian basil
- thai basil
- globe basil
- lemon basil
- parsley
- tarragon
- dill
- fennel
- thyme
- radishes
- carrots
- rhubarb
- and the ubiquitous mint
And that's only the veggie garden! I put them all in on the weekend. I think they're ok, though I could see burn spots on the tomatoes, and today is very sunny. I keep them well-watered so hopefully they'll survive. My garden is 15 x 20 feet, so if that sounds like a lot of stuff, remember that I have but one small example of many of them, and the garden is pretty roomy. I've also planted nigella, stocks and sunflower seeds in there, so we'll see.
I think I'll tell stories about the perennial gardens another day.
...and by the way, our colour scheme is lime green and off-white, we're registered at the Bay, and I'll need all of your RSVPs by July 8th. hardy har har.
Now that I've been presumptuous enough to think you're interested in what I've got to say, I guess I should get at it. This blog will mostly journal my gardening exploits, with a bit of wedding nonsense tucked in here and there, since these days they are but two parts of the same crazy whirlwind.
Our wedding has taken on a decidedly horticultural aspect, as everything from the invitations to the decorations involve something grown in our yard (or purchased at Giant Tiger ha ha). I am insane and have decided to grow my own bouquets and boutonnieres. I have managed to convince my mother and grandmother that they don't want corsages ("Nah, you don't want those. They'll wreck your outfits."), and I only have one attendant, so I think I'm doing ok.
The garden suffered last summer, as I was trying to settle into a busy new job, and I had surprise abdominal surgery which put me out of commission for about 2 weeks. My tomatoes went to the slugs, and the only squash I grew was something I did not recognize, so I harvested them and let them sit on my counter for six months, moving them every time I cleaned, until I decided that they'd be no good to eat and threw them out. I think they were something called a 'Baked Potato Squash,' the seeds of which my aunt gave me in a white paper envelope. No wonder I didn't recognize them. I was expecting zucchini.
And I am convinced that the bears ate my cherry tomatoes. If that's true, they were at least delicate about it, crushing neither the plant nor the plants around it. I like to picture them opening my garden gate and hunkering down beside my tiny little cherry tomato plant and picking the itty-bitty tomatoes one by one off with their big claws. They dropped a few ("Oops! Don't eat that Cyril! It's got dirt on it!") but pretty much left everything intact except for the tomatoes they ate. Or maybe I just had a low yield.
This year, I've got high hopes. I'm growing the following glorious, nutritious, beautiful, delicious and virtuous vegetables and herbs:
- yellow pear tomatoes
- Roma tomatoes (thanks Amy!)
- little wee eggplants and one 'Dusky' eggplant
- Royal Burgundy beans
- red peppers
- cayenne peppers
- pumpkins (one plant, which I crushed a bit while transplanting)
- zucchini (I hope)
- ground cherries
- cucumbers
- okra
- spinach
- bunching onions
- chives
- artichokes (these are in the perennial garden)
- scarlett runner beans (against the deck)
- lemongrass
- italian basil
- thai basil
- globe basil
- lemon basil
- parsley
- tarragon
- dill
- fennel
- thyme
- radishes
- carrots
- rhubarb
- and the ubiquitous mint
And that's only the veggie garden! I put them all in on the weekend. I think they're ok, though I could see burn spots on the tomatoes, and today is very sunny. I keep them well-watered so hopefully they'll survive. My garden is 15 x 20 feet, so if that sounds like a lot of stuff, remember that I have but one small example of many of them, and the garden is pretty roomy. I've also planted nigella, stocks and sunflower seeds in there, so we'll see.
I think I'll tell stories about the perennial gardens another day.
...and by the way, our colour scheme is lime green and off-white, we're registered at the Bay, and I'll need all of your RSVPs by July 8th. hardy har har.
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