I just couldn't

I just couldn't let another whole month go by without putting a single word down, but nothing has happened worth reporting.

In fact, that's not quite true. I did get the book Bulb, by Anna Pavord and I've been enjoying it immensely.

On and on

I will go on and on about the Christmas cactus. It is fantastic. I don't think I've ever had a year like this. It turns out that the thing to do with Christmas cactuses is to NOT WATER them for all of October. It's on fire with flowers.

Goose is getting fat

The Christmas cactus is doing really quite well now. There are two fully-opened flowers and luscious cerise buds on pretty much every terminus. What a good cactus.

Now I just need to figure out when would be a good time to propagate it. Surely after it's bloomed would be the right time. No worries about depleting its resources before it puts out exotic flowers.

Plot still emptier

We took away the last of the tomatoes and the (beautiful!) lettuce plants yesterday. There were a good few tomatoes rotting where they'd fallen, so hopefully next year we'll have some "volunteers".

The sweary one put in our plot number (it's 5) in the mandated corner. It's the corner least likely to be seen by anyone, but hey, who cares?

We also thinned out the onions. I'm really quite excited about them, actually. We have some bulbs already (which we plonked back into the ground) and I am hoping that next year we'll have full-grown actual onions to enjoy. Many red onions were flourishing, despite the cramped conditions. I'm not sure what the white ones will turn into, but we'll find out some time next year, I guess.

The plot is pretty much ready for the winter now. We keep meaning to learn the lesson of our plot-neighbour and put some seaweed (readily available around here) in a foot or so down, but we have yet to manage it. Some year, I guess.

Despite neglect

Despite the months and months of neglect, the side yard is still doing what it's supposed to. The lavender is blooming and the oregano/marjoram is, too. I was so pleased to notice that when I put the compost out this morning that I picked a stem and now my pockets and their contents smell pleasantly of lavender. What a delightful offshoot of taking the trash out.

Well, taking the compost out, anyway. The bin was so heavy that I could barely shift it. It goes out every 2 weeks, so this represents a good chunk of our leaf-sweeping. Hopefully the backyard is tamed now and we won't need to take much more out of there. The front we've only gone over once. My neighbour has about a dozen bags of leaves out this morning and there is a suspicious lack of leaves in the street and all around. I think he's been clearing for everyone. It's his style. We maybe should have a good go at our front and side, just to give the grass one last back-scratch before the freeze sets in, but there isn't anything that is in catastrophic need of clearing. The tree in front still has a good percentage of its leaves, anyway. The maple in back, on the other hand, is almost completely denuded.

Getting my hopes up

Just as all is dying in the outside world, the Xmas cactus is causing me to get my hopes up. It is positively dripping with buds. I don't water it very often, and I think that helps with the blooming (perverse plant that it is). But there have been years when the buds came to naught, so I really shouldn't get my hopes up.

Too late! My hopes are up!

First Snow

That's one week after the first frost, folks! We had snow this morning. Sure, it was slushy. It wasn't quite like the true snow of midwinter. However, I am not 100% certain that I won't have to shovel when I get home. We had that much snow. It's still there and it's afternoon. It's still there and it's been raining for 2 hours. Yes, that much.

Jack-o'lantern

The jack-o'lantern I showed in Sunday's post did triple service. I must remember this for next year. Once I had taken the stringy seed-filled pulp out, I carved away at its thick flesh for a while. I left thick enough walls to support carving (in truth, I probably should have taken out much more) and put the pumpkin meat into a covered casserole dish. I cooked it for about an hour at 350F and since then have used the (mashed) pumpkin to make muffins and bread. I will make more muffins tomorrow, I think.

We ate about 1/2 the seeds with lunch yesterday. They'd been cleaned, dried, and roasted, of course. I found that if I put the seeds in a rimmed baking tray (along the lines of a jelly-roll tin) I could easily either let them sit out or pop them into the oven whenever something else had finished cooking. I would wait until the oven had cooled a reasonable amount and then just let them sit in the warm to dry off. That worked well. I have often had trouble getting the seeds properly dry.

The third duty it did, of course, was to be the signal for the non-existent children of our neighbourhood to come by for chocolate. All the more for us, I suppose.

At my door, the leaves are falling

It's another stunning fall day out there. On Friday, the temperatures dropped and we had our first frost (that's Oct 30, 2009, for those of you keeping track). We walked to work through the public gardens, drinking in the thick air and admiring the frost-steam coiling off every surface the sun touched.

Our maple tree is still dropping leaves like they're going out of fashion, which of course they are. Last night it was very windy. I went out in the afternoon to get a composterful of leaves off the ground and within a half hour there was very little to show that I'd done the raking at all. It rained like crazy after that, but fortunately it held out until after the trick-or-treating was done. We had a grand total of 8 trick-or-treaters and that's including the two adults in costumes who came round collecting canned goods for the food bank.

At the market, between picking up fresh eggs and apple cider I passed some beautiful bulbs for sale and thought about picking some up. I want to try my hand at forcing some time and I haven't added any bulbs to the garden this year. But I thought that I was being silly: When would I have time or opportunity to put bulbs in the ground when it was already nearly November? But I absolutely had time, opportunity and motivation yesterday and today is nearly as perfect a gardening day. I shouldn't have dismissed the idea so quickly. Ah, well.

Autumn leaves

At this time of year, my one of my favourite activities is tromping through shin-high stacks of rustling leaves. I know, I know: Simple pleasures, simple minds. But I'm happy and that's all that matters.

Our tree, which has tar spot for the second year running, is less happy. I have been having a go at getting the leaves away from its roots, but since its roots are under our deck and the leaves have complete freedom to wander there I think we are looking at another year of tar spot next year.

I did fill the composter with leaves on Monday night. That was a surprisingly pleasant activity, too. We've had a fair bit of rain, so the leaves were tending to be in well-compacted piles. And I had to do most of the work in the gathering dark. At this time of year (especially after the clocks change) I don't get home in daylight hours. That has a slight dampening effect on my mood and a pretty serious effect on my chore-doing. Any excuse and the garden is neglected. But I do like our tree very much and I didn't want to leave the leaves to rot on our deck, either, so one composter's worth is on its way to the municipality. In two weeks' time I suppose we'll have to start filling bags to get rid of the excess.

Not much, but something

Well, the sweary one and I finally did deal with the garden. I think it was on October 4 that we went out and dug up the multitudinous weeds. What an improvement!

We had prepped the plot for the plot party the previous day. That meant pulling up lots of bits and bobs. We got rid of a good amount of rotting and bolted lettuce (but left in a few towering flowering lettuce plants ... they're awfully pretty) and we pulled up the last of the beans and we chucked a bunch of still-producing broccoli. Too bad it tasted so bloody awful, that broccoli. It grew nicely this year when other things sort of struggled. We threw away in the trash bins any tomato plants. They're all dreadfully blighted, but we got a good crop. Nothing ripe on the vine, though. The last of the tomato plants are still in the plot, but they're just nasty skeletons. They'll have to go into the trash cans when we have a few minutes.

We left the onions in to see what they turn into next year. We never thinned them, so probably this won't work, but they're looking healthy enough on top. I guess we can pull out what there is next spring and thin them a bit. It'll be like planting sets, right?

The side and front yards had been attracting bad things (notably, garbage) and when we finally tackled the mess, they were more weed than deliberate plantings. The weeds went crazy in the bit north of the chimney, and there were not that many in the front (even the new bit of the front) and the far south end. This presumably tells me something about the quality of the soil and the sunshine those parts receive. Unfortunately, I have nothing to do with the info because I am just not here on weekends. That's the main problem. I'm either travelling, prepping for travel, recovering from travel, or treasuring a day off in which I'm not travelling, prepping, or recovering. Hopefully December won't be so bad. But by then the ground and air will be too cold for gardening.

For next year: I really should carry out my scheme to plant mints where I need greenery but can't believe in flowers. They're so aggressive that no weed can survive the onslaught and wouldn't it be nice to have planted plants all around instead of weeds?

If you think the BLOG looks bad ...

.... you should see the garden.

What with one thing and another (and another and another) this has been a lousy summer for the my poor garden. After a really spectacular spring things just fell to pieces and I haven't been able to bring myself to confess it to the blog. Hence the long periods of silence.

There's really nothing to report. There are plenty of weeds which will make it very difficult to grow things from seed next year. Some of the herbs need separating, but since they're the thing doing well (the daylilies did a good job, too, but they're over now) I can't even begin to imagine hacking into them right now.

We got some raspberries. That's happy.

Front blooming

In the front, the mystery yellow flower is blooming. Something dreadful happened to it during the long grey months and about half of it died off, but the survivors are blooming as if nothing strange had happened.

The red astilbe is also out. I love the colour of this thing. There is a white astilbe, too, but the red is most definitely my favourite. I wonder what I can do to encourage it to spread.

Side blooming

The herbs are blooming now. It's a treat (as I mentioned) to have the lavender flowering, and the thyme is flowering, too. The oregano will be blooming shortly.

An open and shut case

The alliums are about to flower (I hope). It's been so grim and grey here for so many weeks, I can hardly bring myself to believe in flowers, but I think these will open. They are very, very, very tall. Over 4 feet. I'm impressed and surprised.

A first

The lavender has flowers! I am very happy about that. I cut it back quite severely at the beginning of last summer and apparently that was a terrible mistake. It's now established enough to put out pretty little purple things and I'm a happy camper. But I am also so basically vicious and destructive in the garden that I am already thinking "maybe that means it's time to divide it". I should just lie back and enjoy the show.

Soon to bloom

The delphinium furthest to the south is going to bloom soon. I despair of seeing anything from the others. I think they're done for.

The day lilies will come out soon, too. And not soon enough, actually. The side doesn't have very much on the go.

Iris Eyes are Smiling

I am home in time to see the very end of the irises.

I am very sorry to have missed their peaks. I love the iris. The last of the white (bearded) iris flowers is lying somewhat disconsolately next to the pavement, begging for the end.

The last few siberian iris are still going, but so many have passed that I think we're going to see the last of them this week.

Mocking

The white bush in the front side yard is in really quite glorious bloom at the moment.

I wish I knew what it is. Is it a mock orange, I wonder? It doesn't smell at all, so I suspect not, but perhaps it's a breed created for flowering in not-ideal conditions instead of scent.

I'm back

I'm finally back after a lot of travel and some quite distractingly stressful work stuff. In honour of my long-anticipated return, I decided that I would tackle the hideously weedy front.

Before lunch, I pulled a good pile of uninvited greenery out of a small patch of the ground.

To be honest, I thought that as the inconsistent gardener, I might be going to stop with this one bald patch as my (not tiny) accomplishment for the day.

However, I surprised myself and in the afternoon, I pulled out all the other weeds I could find in the front. And once that was done, I cleared out the leaves under the shrubs. It looks great.

Unfortunately, it won't for long. What I've done is to clear a space for the next generation of weeds. I don't have anything in the wings waiting to be put in place. But I couldn't leave it as it was. It was completely overrun.

I think I'll tackle the side yard tomorrow. Unless, of course, my weeding muscles are in such agony tomorrow that I can't possibly even squat a tiny bit, pull a tiny bit, or bend a tiny bit. This is a real possibility. We'll have to see.

Profligate Nature

This morning, I swept the maple flowers from our back deck (again).  I am constantly amazed by just how much organic matter this tree produces and then ditches.  We're talking several pounds of plant bits.  Give a tree some air and water and see what it'll do.  It's incredible.  

And, let's be honest, a little irritating.  I have no doubt that our neighbours find it more so.  There really is a lot of gunk falling from the trees at the moment.  It can look like a light rain if the wind is just right.  Soon the tree-dropping season will turn into the tree-leafing season which won't be too long before the seed-dropping season.  That's the most wonderful time of the year.  I loves them helicopters, and Chutney the cat can't get enough of them, either.

Seeds

We went to the seed store today to get plot supplies.  It's been absolutely stunning weather here for a few days and the time to get seeds in the ground is most definitely now.  We might have gone a little overboard, but seeds are cheap and there were so many appealing ones.  

We've got "North Holland Bloodred Redmate" and "Tokyo long white bunching" onions, arugula, "Long White Icicle" and "Early Scarlet Globe" radish, "Improved Tendergreen Bush" beans, some fresh mesclun mix and an optimistic "Early One" broccoli.  No beets or peas or potatoes this year, most likely.  They didn't have seed potatoes of the kind we like best.  We've never had luck with peas (or anything that needs staking, actually ... it's just not our way).  The beets I may miss, but I think this year, I'll just buy lots at the market and let them use their garden space.  We'll plant radishes instead.

 The lettuce we planted a while ago has come up in a few sad sprouts but the onions are non-starters.  Too bad. 

 

I am not sure when we'll take the time to put these seeds in.  Soon, I hope.

What Valley?

The lily of the valley is putting out buds.  I took a picture which looks like a doctored photo.  It's not.  That (single) set of buds is the real deal.  

  

Envy

I'm suffering from lungwort envy.  Everyone else's is tall and blooming.  Mine isn't.  Mine is pretty much as it was when last we discussed it.  A couple of leaves in a couple of places.   I think I won't be seeing any flowers from it this year.  

Popping In

I can't let a full week go by without adding something.  Lots of things are blooming.  The side looks great (I think).  I am busy and not up to much gardening.  I am ashamed of leaving things to slide.  I do not wish to document my negligence.  However, a week is a long time for me to leave this blog unwritten.  

In front, there is a pair of yellow tulips.   They are true yellow with a few brushes of red right at the edges.  The sweary one calls these "mustard and ketchup".   I don't remember these tulips from previous years, but they really must have existed in the past.  I certainly didn't put them in new last fall.

In the side, the wonderful old-style tulips right at the south end are all out.  I think there are more this year than there were last year.  This makes me tremendously happy.  I love these.  I wish I could remember their name.  I did plant them, I think, in an early year. 

The tulips I planted last fall are out now.  The "blue" (amiable blue) aren't blue at all.  Note the difference between the blueberry-juice colour of the tulips and the actual blue of the house.  I'm not complaining (much).  It's a wonderful colour.  It's deeper than shows up in pictures.  

The other tulips were Cairo and billed as gold.  I think that's a reasonable description of that colour.  I also think that they work well with the house colours.   I should remember all of those bits of red and keep these flowers away from pinks.  

I am happy with the tulips.  There is a variety.  They're lasting well.  After the first theft, they seem to be sticking it out.  It's a good time to be looking at the garden.  I wish I had more time and inclination to make it nicer.  

C & E?

Many years ago, before we moved to Halifax, we thought maybe it was time to give up on the Christmas cactus for good.  It hadn't bloomed in some time, we were planning to move, and it's not a small plant; not easy to transport.  But it comes from a cutting from my great-grandmother's plant which sat in a bay window in her house and grew to fill the entire space.  It's got sentimental claims, if nothing else.  

That was the occasion  on which I learned that threats do work on houseplants.  The cactus, threatened with destruction, sent forth a stream of bright blossoms (although it was Easter, not Christmas).   It got a reprieve.  Instead of trying to move it, we entrusted it to the care of some friends.   The next time we went through Hamilton we picked up the cactus and brought it home with us.  It has bloomed reliably every year since I made those cruel threats.

It has lived up to its name, too.  It started blooming at Christmas time, and in fact put forth an absolutely dazzling display this year. 

I don't know what to make of this new blossom, but it's very pretty.   It's been coming on slowly but between yesterday

and today it's burst out into a lovely triple-barrelled display.  It's neither C nor E, so I guess this cactus has some other religious affiliation.   I wonder what it is?

Passage of weeds

After my last few posts, one might imagine that everything out right now is pink.  However, the weeds are not.  The dandelions are up and starting to flower (must tackle them seriously at the plot).  They're not at anything like their peak.  I think I've seen a couple of proper dandelion clocks, but basically they are just starting to make some lawns yellow.  In the bit of waste land on the way to work, the coltsfoot are over and now a sort of bamboo-like bush is growing.  I don't know what it is, but it grows like gangbusters. 

Flowering

The shrubs in the back yard are starting to bud out.  They could be so pretty, but I don't treat them right and I do resent the way they suck any possibility of light out of that little patch.  Ah, well.  If I squint at them just right with the blue of the house behind them they sort of look like cherry blossoms.  

Clash

I remember now about these tulips.  Last year they were out at the same time as the orange-gold bulb irises and they clashed horribly.  

These white-rimmed pink ones, between the bulb iris patches, will presumably also clash with the golden orange irises when they emerge.  

These guys, next to the daffodils, are lovely, but not exactly perfectly matched side by side. Two of them have more orange than the other two.  Generally, I am in favour of pink and orange as a vibrant colour combo, but I think I might have to be a little bit more careful about tulip bulb positioning in the future.

I should remember this and move some bulbs next year.  Or cut them right away so that they don't have a chance to interfere with their neighbours.  But that does go against my philosophy.  

Spring: Officially Here

Actually, spring has been here officially since last Thursday, May 7.  That was the opening day for the Halifax Public Gardens (on Spring Garden Road ... we take these things seriously, you know).  

We walked through the gardens on our way to work on Thursday and that was pleasant even though they still had a lot of work left to do.  There were many empty beds.  There were also magnificent tulips, dramatic fritillaries (with the hats) and eye-poppingly bright alliums.  

On Sunday, we re-visited the gardens and found that they'd put in tulips.  Some of the previously empty beds now had new tulips on the cusp of opening.  Now I know:  They don't leave the bulbs in for the winter and risk uneven grids or that "missing tooth" look in the formal beds.  They wait for spring and then transplant them. 

 Anyway, the opening of the gardens is a wonderful confirmation of what the trees, grass, and budding flowers are trying to tell us:  SPRING HAS SPRUNG!

Splash of colour

The tulips, in various shades of bright pink, really bring the flower garden together.  They make it sing.   Even in the washed-out pictures I took this morning, I think that splash of red makes a world of difference.  

I am very much looking forward to meeting these tulips which aren't yet out.   I don't know what colour(s) they'll be, but so far it's exciting.

I am hoping against hope that all the tulips make it through mother's day unmolested and unstolen. 

Springing Tree

I keep meaning to say that the maple tree is in full bud.  It's beautiful, but I must admit that I am dreading the coming fall of the flowers.  It means a lot of sweeping for us.  

The budding of the tree in front is just beginning.  

Tickled pink

After weeks of me thinking that the tulips would be blooming "soon", the first tulips finally opened today.  Hooray.

Pink

Just a quick one to mention that the hyacinth in the front yard has flowered.  It is pink.  The day after it first came out, I found it plopped face down in the dirt.  Maybe it's something about the temperature?  It has since righted itself, but it is generally downward-looking.  Its blue buddies are fallen on the pavement.

Shrub love

I have never really been responsible for shrubs before, and the ones we have growing in various spots in our garden are not well-pruned and showered with affection.  They are occasionally hacked at, root and twig.  

I have killed at least two of them.

However, I must admit that it pleases me to see that some of them aren't dead (yet).  The white-rimmed shrub is coming along nicely with plenty of new growth.  

The shrubs on the front side of the house (destined to have mint planted beneath them) are both obligingly putting out new leaves.

I like the way the spring green and the red branches look against our blue walls.

Even the sad skeletal shrub next to the rhododendron is putting out a new speck of green here and there.  It's probably on its last legs.  I think it gets icy gutter run-off when systems aren't working perfectly.

Drifting Snowdrops

The snowdrops are dramatically spread out in time.  There are some just barely pushing out of the earth.  There are some still unopened, but looking like they might yet bloom soon.

And then, there are some that are past blooming and are now bearing fruit.  

I love how very berry-like the fruit is.

I also love the thought of there being snowdrop seeds within.  You can go right ahead and propagate yourselves, little plants.  I don't mind.

Showing up

Another plant I've recently started to see popping out of the dirt in the front is the lily of the valley.  There are little red horns coming up in the place I would expect to find it, based on pictures from last year.  

There are some horns which are less red, and I wonder if they belong to the wayward calla lily or if it's another stage of the lily of the valley.  

Either way, I am glad to see these making their way up and I look forward to finding out what they are.

Weeds, maybe

I was pulling up weeds yesterday morning when my old optimism came to call.  

I remembered that when I was cleaning up last fall, the marigolds were spewing seeds about the garden willy-nilly.  It would not be crazy for those seeds to be emerging about now.  So, halfway through the weeding, I stopped pulling up things that looked like this:

The marigolds that I grew from seed last year had much longer first leaves before the true leaves came in, but it's a pretty good match.  Good enough for me to wait a little while before I yank 'em, anyway.  

I kept ripping out anything that looked like clover.

I kept ripping out anything that looked like wild carrot.

I kept ripping out these little guys which start with three bluish leaves. 

I kept ripping out these little guys (which are the ones I initially mistook for alyssum).  They're everywhere.  

I also tore up every maple I could find and things that were definitely grass.  I left things that might be baby bulbs.