Bulbs, bulbs. bulbs

As always, I've neglected this blog. Very few posts during the gardening season. But gardeners live in hope, so here I am again, hoping I'll be better about keeping notes.

I've finished planting my bulbs for this season. Didn't order any from any mail-order companies, just bought bags at the hardware store. So nothing fancy, just reliable old standards.

Planted in the front garden in October. Edged the garden out into the lawn another 6 inches. At this rate, how long till there's no lawn? Planted tulips, daffodils and crocuses to expand the swath that I planted last year. Wonder if the tulips from last spring will come back. Also wonder if the chipmunks have been feasting on the bulbs from their underground tunnels??

• 100 Crocus - mixed colors - early
• 40 Daffodils - King Alfred - early
• 40 Daffoils - Ice Follies - mid
• 70 Tulips - a blend of purple and white - mid

Planted out in the back lawn where I will be able to see them from my desk:

• 30 Snowdrops - early
• 30 Wood Squill - early
• 30 Muscari - Delft Blue blend - mid

Late June

Lots of garden chores done, lots more to go. Tomatoes are staked and growing quickly. The Lady in Red hydrangea and the Golden Guinea Kerria, both from White Flower Farms, were finally planted yesterday.

Critters have been chowing on my lettuce, cauliflower and dahlias. The lettuce is gone. The rest are covered with netting. Decided to forget about beets & carrots, they'd be next on the buffet. Replaced with some peppers and some enormous eggplant plants. Big thick stems and huge flowers. Also covered with netting. Potatoes are growing fast and need a good deep layer of dirt to finish filling up the bins they're growing in. Had some tasty pasta with basil from the garden last night. Tomatoes soon??

Out front the coreopsis have gone wonderfully wild, along with daisies that I never planted. I love how many things in the front garden just come up wherever they want to.

The hummingbird feeder outside my office is actually attracting hummingbirds.  I watched one settle on the feeder and actually sit still for a few minutes, I've never seen that amazing sight.

June 3

Planted today:

• Cauliflower seedlings (from Faddegons)
• Zucchini seedlings (from Faddegons)
• Beets - detroit dark red - 2 short rows - T&M seed
• Carrot - early nantes 2 - T&M seed
• Gladiolas - from Pop's garden
• Peppers - Pinot Noir & Cajun Red (?) (from Faddegons)
• Tons of red onions from ??
• Yellow Gaillardia (?) WFF
• - ground cover.....
• potatoes
• dahlias

Mid May

Bleeding Heart by pollyalida

The daffodils are almost gone, just a few small ones lingering out front. There were almost none in the back garden this year. I imagine all my underground critters got them. Yet the few tulips that have survived out there for years did well again. And the bleeding heart too.

The edge of the front garden looked lovely for many weeks with crocuses giving way to daffodils and then some lovely dark and light purple tulips that are just about done now. Thinking I'll edge that out further in the fall and put in more of the same

I've been buying lots of plants here and there. Two hardware store salvias today. They're now planted in the front bed near the roses. Some star$s coffee grounds have been spread around most of the roses out front.

And speaking of roses, the rose hedge is amazing. Well, it's not really a hedge yet, but it's growing great guns and has flower buds already. It was fertilized with GardensAlive rose food earlier in the season. And I've dumped a lot of grass clippings in between the bushes to keep the weeds down. We have loads of grass clippings this year. But that's a story for another post.

Started to trim out the scraggly forsythia, it needs a drastic cutback.

In bloom now:

• last of the daffs & tulips
• a variety of allium have begun to bloom
• Spirea shrubs have just started 
• Columbine that plopped itself in the veggie garden is in bloom too
• Iberis - Candytuft is at it's peak. And full of grass weeds. Need to move that out a bit further

To keep track of what's in bloom, I added a Garden calendar to my Google Calendar account. And just creating very long events for the length of time each type of flower is in bloom. And even adding a bit of color coding too. Probably silly and I won't keep it up, but gives a nice visual of how long things lasted. 

Spring day 2

Not as lovely a day as yesterday, but still a good one to be outside. A bit more raking in the back garden. Put out the trellises next to the shed, all ready for morning glory plants - the seeds have sprouted! Speaking of sprouts, some sungold tomatoes have sprouted too. And the first sowing of sweet peas are growing like mad.

On to the lawn. A full bag of corn gluten weed killer/fertilizer went down on the front lawn. Still raking the back lawn

And the buying season begins

Home Depot's coupon for $5 off a new pair of garden clippers worked like it was supposed to. It got me in the door of the store and I ended up spending far more than I planned. Well, I knew it would happen, so maybe it wasn't really more than I planned?

Clippers, some dahlia tubers, seed potatoes, pansies, a rosemary plant and a patio tomato plant.

Have also been raking the lawn and garden in bits. Time for the corn gluten weed killer soon.

Seed Planting Time

It's very late to be planting seeds. But I finally put up the plant lights and got some seeds planted. The sweet peas I planted last week have sprouted and are growing fast.  I also put in:

• Sweet Peas - Matucana (?)
• Morning Glories
• Sungold tomatoes
• Yellow Stuffer tomatoes
• Some very old Columbine seed 
• Parsley
• ??

Put some spinach seeds in some pots outside.

Spring?

Spring crocuses

Photo upload seems to be working again? testing preview.

Winter's over - I hope!

It's been a long, snowy winter. I haven't seen this much persistent deep snow in quite a few years. Wonderful for all the perennials happily buried beneath it, keeping cosy and resisting the heaving thaws of spring. But very hard on the growing deer population around here. And as a result, hard on my back garden. The deer have stripped all the low growing rhododendron buds and many of the leaves. The huge rhodie at the back of the garden has been 'trimmed' a bit higher than normal. One low branch is nearly bare and since it's not very healthy to begin with, we'll cut it off this year.

But worst of all, the deer unearthed my hellebores. Yep, hellebores, those tough plants that deer aren't supposed to like. Well, they're gone. There are some buds deep in the leaves, hopefully they'll survive a few more weeks. And my new fledgling hedge of Roseraie de L'Hay rugosa roses have even been chewed back. Here's what I'm dreaming my hedge will look like someday.

I was helpless to get out there and do anything to deter the deer this year due to a knee injury. But next year, I'll try some temporary deer fencing and see if that deters them a bit. Here's to a nice summer first!

Photo Credit: amandabhslater