Florgasm

Chive flowers 

Oh, how I love spring -- and especially the flowers it brings. Prepare yourself for a bounty of beauty!

California: Flora

The appropriately named "powderpuff" flower.

Canadian winters are long and, in our region of Ontario, completely kill any and all flowers. By March, my eyes are hungry for those splashes of colour and vibrant life. On our trip to California, I was treated to a banquet of glorious flowers.

Lavender's blue, dilly, dilly!

For my birthday, my sister-in-law gave me a couple of lovely lavender sachets, which I tucked into my underwear drawer. It reminded me that that the lavender in my garden was running rampant. It was time to harvest.

The First Day

Yesterday was Stephen's last day in the military. Today was our first day of being retired together. I have to say: things are off to a great start!

Making a splash

The day after our retirement party, we went to a Hansen's Garden Ornaments, just south of Ottawa, where they manufacture concrete garden art, to choose a bird bath or fountain for our yard, as a gift from Stephen's family (parents, brother, and sister).

Pick a Pretty Posy

A garden bouquet with salvia, chives, poppies, and a peony.

[This was going to be a quick-and-dirty blog post: snap a couple of pictures, add a narrative, and Bob's-yer-uncle. It didn't work out that way because I rushed the photography and had to redo my shoot TWICE more. Three hours later, I'm just starting to write.]

I love cut flowers. I know that some people believe them to be frivolous or even wasteful (they just die, right?), but I love bringing that splash of colour into my home, to enjoy as long as it lasts. And judging by the number of "likes" my arrangements receive on Facebook, I'm not alone. 

I read a blog somewhere that proposed a "bunch and fluff" method of arranging your flowers. I was to grab the bunch, stuff it loosely in the vase and just "fluff" it and let things fall as they may. It didn't work very well for me. Today, I share my tips for arranging flowers, using plants from our garden.

Watching a Fantasy Come to Life

My favourite little sitting area.

On June 1, 2010, I was fantasizing about our house in Ottawa. For the previous five years, we'd been living in Colorado Springs, which has a very arid climate, and I was looking forward to living somewhere where plants thrived on rainwater rather than irrigation.

We had also decided that we would install an in-ground pool, as we had done in one of our previous Ottawa homes.

Throwback: Reflections on my (failed) attempt at Xeriscape gardening

Our back yard in May 2014

This post is from May 2010 when I was very much looking forward to moving back to Ottawa from Colorado. 

---

I discovered the joy of gardening in 1993. We had rented a house that had a rather large perennial garden, and I fell in love.

When baby #4 came along and we had to move, I set about creating a beautiful gardenscape at the new house. In the process, I turned a house with almost no curb appeal into one of the nicest front yards on the block (if I do say so myself). I turned a parched "dead zone" at the south side of the house into something out of an English garden. In the backyard, I grew (among other things) a purple smoke bush that threatened to swallow any of the smaller children wandering near it.

Then we moved to a bigger house, just because, and there, with the help of Steve's sister, we created a true backyard oasis: a pool and patio surrounded by trees and perennials that invited you to take off your shoes, grab a beer and bliss out. [Update: we once again have a pool and a backyard oasis.]

A shady corner in our 2005 Ottawa garden

Blue fescue in Ottawa, 2005

Then we came to Colorado Springs: high plains, semi-arid. Dry, dry, dry. Sun, sun, sun. And we were at the tail end of a 3-year drought.

Even before we moved to the Springs, I bought a book on local gardening, called "Xeriscape Colorado." Xeriscape gardening, (which many pooh-pooh as "zero-scape" gardening because it often uses large swaths of rocks and gravel as part of the landscape design - and some people have been known to take this to the extreme, razing their lawns and blanketing their yards with nothing but gravel) is actually a very responsible approach to landscaping. It espouses micro-climates and putting plants where they will naturally thrive with minimal additional water.

The book made it all sound so easy, and a visit to the local xeriscape demonstration garden made it look quite lush. Here's a picture of the xeriscape demonstration garden (in May 2005). Notice how green all the plants are? (That's Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak in the background.)

Xeriscape Demonstration Garden with view of
Garden of the Gods, Colorado

So I dug in with zeal. I enriched the soil, I bought sun-loving perennials and hardy ornamental grasses. I planted them, I fertilized them, and I covered them generously with mulch. I even cheated by allowing the built-in irrigation system to nurture them along.

You see it coming, don't you? Fail.

First, the irrigation system failed - but only in the garden areas, not on the lawns, which put my xeriscape approach to the test. Did I mention we were at the tail end of a drought?

Then winter came. A winter where record-breaking blizzards caused chaos at the Colorado airports and alternated with prolonged dry spells. (Our neighbours would actually water their gardens throughout the winter dry spells. I derided them and decided that was coddling.)

All of my shrubs died. Including three purple smoke bushes - specifically described as "quite drought-tolerant, so useful in xeriscaping" - that I had sagely planted along the west side the patio to give us afternoon shade in the summer. I'd had visions of 8-foot-high bushes. Instead I had lots of low-growing (and slow-growing) plants.

Eventually, we got the irrigation system repaired, but I think we were too late. Or we were too stingy with the water. The lawn began to encroach on the gardens - but the supposedly hardy ornamental grasses I'd planted died! This is NOT the way the xeriscapists proclaimed it would be. Kentucky bluegrass, which most lawns are made of, is supposed to be among the thirstiest of the thirsty plants.

Blue fescue, Colorado

This picture shows a section of one of our gardens: an ornamental blue fescue ("drought tolerant" my patootie!) on the left and the blasted Kentucky bluegrass on the right. Xeriscape fail.

Today, I put my last token effort into these gardens in this hostile environment. If we owned this house and were staying here, I have to say I'd be inclined to go for a zeroscape garden! Bring on the river stone! (Though, honestly, the lawn even encroaches there!)

In the not-too-distant future, I will be back in the land where planted things actually grow. I'm looking forward to it.

---

As you can tell from the photo at the top of this post, I am thoroughly enjoying the easier gardening conditions of Ottawa.

Garden Variety Bouquet

I've been quietly enjoying freshly cut flowers from our garden this summer. In previous summers, I've hesitated to cut flowers for fear that there would be nothing beautiful left in the garden. But this summer I discovered that if I clipped off a stem or two, the plant would burst forth with renewed vigour in a couple of weeks.

For the first weekend of fall, we had this on our dining room table.

This was the third summer since we moved in. Not one of those plants was in the yard when we moved here. You can see:

• periwinkle (foliage draping down, it flowers in the spring)
• sage (the velvety, grey-green foliage)
• white roses
• miniature pink roses (mostly in bud in this view, but you'll see more in the other pictures)
• pink-cream hydrangea
• ferns
• euonymous (the variegated green-and-white foliage)

That pink-and-cream hydrangea is actually our second attempt to grow a hydrangea.

We've had a couple of challenges with our  gardens:

1. Most of the garden areas are full shade, though we do have a large section that gets full sun. That's where I've planted the herbs. It's such a hot spot that even the parsley survived last winter! I finally got wise and planted ferns in the deepest shade - they LOVE it!
2. The soil is exceedingly poor: sandy with hardly any organic material. We've been building it up with mulch and rich soil, but I think I'm going to layer on some serious sheep manure this fall.

I am sad to see summer go, I've so enjoyed our back yard. I think I will dry some of these hydrangeas to get me through the grey days of winter.

How does my garden grow!

Please! Please! Come right in! Welcome to our oasis.

It's been two years since we started planting our garden, and I think it's finally starting to come together.  The plants are maturing and settling into place. We've moved some plants around, to suit my fancy.

The northwest corner

Some of the shrubs have had minor setbacks, but the purple sand cherry and the dogwood have really made themselves at home. The hydrangea struggled, then died. The magnolia (more pictures later) suffered a fungus attack and all but died.

The stars of the garden right now are the snow-in-summer and the mother-of-thyme.

Snow-in-summer

Mother-of-thyme (with snow-in-summer in the background)

The flowers will soon fade, but the foliage will last, giving a dusty-green cloud to the border of the pool, and soft green along the paths.

You can see clumps of mother-of-thyme under the hammock.
We planted those last year; they'll take a while to mature as they're in a shady spot.

I've got oregano, sage, chives, parsley, thyme, and basil.
Also a rose bush and lavender in the back corners, for colour.
I also read something about roses being good for herbs. Or maybe it was the other way around.
Next year, we hope to add a tomato or some lettuce.

The herb garden was a pleasant surprise. Everything except the basil survived the winter! I didn't think parsley was so hardy, but there it is. (The herb garden has a perfectly sun-drenched corner of the yard.)

I don't usually let my herbs flower, but the chive flower matches my colour scheme, so . . .

The poor magnolia

We trimmed the magnolia back last summer, almost to the ground. It seems to be doing much better this year, so we'll see how it goes.

Magnolia buds

My poor iris!

The iris broke out in a nasty fungal attack. I've trimmed off most of the blighted leaves and sprinkled it with sulfur, but it seems to have taken a toll on the plant. But it's not dead yet!

And now for a little flashback. This is what the back yard looked like when we moved in.

July 2010

The northwest corner.
The flowers are "mallow" an invasive weed.

October 2010
After the construction of the pool.

Looking towards the southwest corner (where the hammock now is).
Starting from scratch.

July 2011

The garden border was made of ditch lilies and spiderwort - also known as weeds. But they were free and helped us fill in the blank spots without going broke. (You can see small, newly planted  clumps of snow-in-summer under the weeds. Now that the lilies and spiderwort are gone, the snow-in-summer can really shine!)

Day lilies (ditch lilies) at left, spiderwort at right.
(Though I did not take any pictures of them today, the clematis are still there.)

These weeds were fine, but they hid everything behind them and under them, including the snow-in-summer. With the help of my son, the day lilies have been moved back along the fence, and the spiderwort has been eradicated. We hope.

My plan for this year is to bring in some hollyhocks and some poppies. Also some phlox.

Black Thumb

My mother had what they call a green thumb: she was a natural with plants. Still is, as far as I know. In my youth, she had a botanical garden in our bay window: geraniums, African violets, Christmas cactus. Other green things.

After I left home, she discovered orchids and performed magic with those as well.

Me? I kill things that are green.

While Steve and I were engaged, he asked me to babysit his jade plant, one he'd inherited from his sister. He was gone for three weeks, during which time I managed to kill it with overwatering. As it got sicker, I watered it more frequently. Those succulent leaves started committing suicide.

Recently, I decided to take a chance on growing an indoor herb garden. You never know, right?

Wisely, I only bought one plant to start with. I should have taken a picture when it was fresh and new. Instead, all I have is this:

We did manage to use fresh basil in a couple of meals before I started overwatering it because some of the leaves were wilting.

You'll see that I have it in a larger pot, so it can drain. I thought that was enough. I was wrong. So now it's in rehab, drying out. I'm not sure which one of us needs to follow the 12-step program, but I plan to watch its drinking habits to keep it out of the drunk tank.

I probably shouldn't offer my services as a house-sitter.

The Four Seasons

When we first saw this house, one of the first things that captivated us was the glorious ornamental crab tree on the front lawn, in full bloom.

April 26, 2010

Last spring, Steve gave that tree a good pruning; that summer, there were hardly any flowers. (Sad.) And then hardly any apples in the late summer.

And then winter struck with a vengeance.

December 28, 2011

This year, it had a slow start, and I despaired that Steve's pruning had irrevocably damaged it.

April 15, 2012

But with patience . . .

April 29, 2012 - Buds!

And then, while I was away on a business trip, BOOM!

May 4, 2012 - nothing but flowers!

Seems to me that this tree has more than recovered.

And now, after a scorchingly hot summer, those flowers have borne fruit.

August 8, 2012 - from the same angle (almost) as the top photo.

Wait. Here, let me give you another perspective.

clusters of fruit

Which is very impressive, considering . . .

A good part of the fruit is on the ground, (waiting to spoil and attract insects).
Time to put the young people to work, I think.

Zombie Foreskins

UPDATED: See comic below.

Personally, I think most mushrooms have a distinctly phallic appearance. Especially the flesh-toned ones.

Am I right?
By Alberto Montt

But most of the mushrooms with which I am familiar do not have the corrugated texture of these, which I spied as I walked around our garden this afternoon.

præputia mortuorum* That's a LOT of zombies.

To my eye, they resembled . . . zombie foreskins. Hence my ad hoc Latin translation of *"foreskins of dead men." (Yay! Google Translate!)

When extricated from its rocky crotch, it doesn't look quite as foreskin-y.

A pair of more juvenile ones.
These look astonishingly testicular, I must say.
Just wrap them in loose skin and there you go!

Of course, I googled to find out of these things are poisonous [Google didn't tell me, but I'm pretty sure they are, otherwise little animals would have eaten them by now. Right?] or rare [Again, Google was no help, but I'm probably going to be nominated for a Nobel Award or something, so stay tuned.], and landed on a site about mushrooms in eastern Ontario. In the 24 pages of pictures of mushrooms in eastern Ontario, I did not see any that looked like the ones in our back yard, though I did see some that looked very like venereal disease.

suillus pictus which translates as "painted like a pig," if I am not mistaken.
Maybe a diseased pig, but not any pig I've ever seen.
(Source - Paul Derbyshire)

But I also saw some that were surprisingly beautiful. And also probably deadly.

clavulina amethystina, which translates as "tiny purple tentacles"
but looks more like purple coral to me.  Or the inside of a geode.
(Source - ember erebus)

If you have a guess as to whether I should stock up our Zombie Apocalypse Supply Kit or just sauté them in butter and garlic, please let me know.

To rinse your brain of all that wrinkly nastiness, here are some flowers, also from our back yard.

Gratitude: Renewal

The winter here's cold and bitter
It's chilled us to the bone
We haven't seen the sun for weeks  
~ Sarah McLachlan, "Full of Grace"

Spring is my favourite season. After the long, grey months of winter, I do a little happy dance when I see the flowers and buds. If you've read any of my blog for the past few months, this comes as no surprise.

The ornamental crab in our front yard.

But this year, for some reason, spring seems to have been particularly slow in coming. Maybe because I've been waiting so impatiently.

The theme for this April's Gratitude Journal was "renewal," and I've been looking for pictures that really show that. Looking at the other photos in the Flickr group, I've seen full-grown flowers and roses from other group members. Meanwhile, I've slipped into our garden every so often and snapped a pic, but none of them really looked truly awakened until I got back from my business trip this week.

While I was gone, Ottawa awoke.

I'm so happy finally to feel like spring is happening here.

What's your favourite season? Why?

Gol-darn it! They smashed our shrub!

This morning was not a good morning, as those of you who are my Facebook friends already know. Just before I left for work, I posted this status:

Morning is already off to a failing start. Daughter went out in the middle of the night. We're out of cat food. Mulch was delivered before I even had my coffee. Had to move SIL's car so it wouldn't be blocked by the mulch, but I couldn't reach the clutch pedal. (Good thing our driveway is on a slope; I just rolled it.) Truck driver ripped the side off our shrub. 

Here's what I left behind.

And that's just one close-up.

There's a chunk taken out at the base of the trunk.
(Does anyone happen to know what kind of bush this is?)

Poor little bird's nest!
I think it had been vacated, but still.

There was significant leaf destruction.

It's kind of ironic (I think ... Jeff? Am I using "ironic" correctly?) that, with all the trucks, loaders, wheelbarrows, tree-cutters and deliveries we had for the pool and back yard landscaping, not once did any of them harm this poor little bush, though I was braced for it. (They did damage some bricks at the back corner of the house, but they repaired it almost immediately.)

In the end, we got our humongous pile of mulch, which Katie will spread over the back garden over the next few days.

That is one shirtload of pine mulch.

I will call the company tomorrow and find out what they can do for our poor bush.

Oh, and in case you're wondering about why I couldn't reach the clutch of my sister-in-law's car, it's not that my legs are short, but that my SIL is tall, as is anyone else who regularly drives her car, so she hasn't had to move the seat forward in so long that the tracks have rusted. Seriously thick rust, from salt-sprinkled winter boots. So I had to scrunch down to depress the pedals, while peering over the steering wheel.

It was stupid and possibly dangerous. Emily sagely asked me why I didn't ask the truck driver to move the car for me. But given what he did to the shrub, I'm not sure it would have turned out any better.

And the missing daughter (who left a note, so I knew where she was) turned up before noon, and Peter picked up some cat food. So all's well. Sort of.