Hello snow, what do you know?

This morning, the main story on the local news was about the hundreds of cars stranded on the highways as a result of last night's snow and ice.  

It's not that bad in the city (although very icy), but it is now definitely winter.  I know, we have a month yet before the shortest day and all that.  We can't argue with the white stuff.  It's boot weather; it's time to exchange the midweight wool coat for a nice puffy wind-resistant stuffed parka; it's time to put the lawnmower away and bring the salt, ice chipper, and shovel up from the basement; it's time to set the heat to come on before we get home in the evenings; it's time to put the big cauldron of mittens, hats and scarves in it's convenient-to-the-door location; it's time to stop watching last year's garden.  The gardening season is over.  

I'm going to try to keep up with the blog anyway.  Sooner rather than later I'm going to be fretting about next year's indoor plantings.  There's the indoor herb garden (still flourishing, even the crazy basil) and the potted plants.  The christmas cactus is looking good.  

Besides, in the next month I'm planning to be away from these snowy climes and in slightly more temperate bits of the world.  Perhaps I'll find something to say about other people's gardens.  

So, for the last report:  The gazania is covered in snow and ice.

The yellow flower has collapsed under the weight of the snow and ice.

The outdoor blooming season, 2008: March 6 - November 20.

Same old, same old

Well, I haven't had much to report, so ye olde blogge is going untended.

The gazanias are apparently still alive.  The yellow mystery flower in the front is apparently still alive.  The bulb sprouts are still popping out of the rapidly-cooling earth.  

The leaf-collectors came on Sunday night and now (hopefully) the flooding we were seeing on our street (because the sewer grates were leaf-clogged) is over until there's an ice-dam.  

The weather is becoming properly wintery.  I now do believe that it's snowing somewhere nearby (although it's still raining here).  We'll see our first snowfall sometime soon.  Probably before I take off on the next trip.

It's an update, but I'll admit, not a scintillating one.

Flower Death Watch

I want to keep better (daily) track of the state of the last of the blooms than I did of the zinnias. 

On Saturday when I was clearing things there were a couple of slightly-alive marigolds that I left in the ground.  I think that they're probably really done for now (it was cold last night), but until their colour fades, I think I'll leave them where they are.

The gazanias are still alive and flowering.  Unfortunately, this morning's picture was before the sun hit, so it's not what you'd call conclusive evidence.

Autumn Clean-Up

Yesterday, I raked leaves and put them into bags.  After finishing clearing the "lawn" (don't worry, "clearing" should have been in quotes, too, as of this morning), I turned around and saw the leaf-littered side yard and decided to tackle it right away.  Usually I just let it sit and be leafy all winter long, on the theory that the leaves are mulch and prevent weeds from taking an early hold in the spring and keep the ground moist if there's a dry spell.  But there's this tar spot thing and I thought I couldn't leave them be.  

So, I put on some thick gloves and clawed around the base of all my plants.  It was quite nice sometimes and quite nasty at others.  The thyme greeted me with a lovely scent which lingered in the air.  I thought the lavender would be even nicer, but it had been beset by some kind of mushroom which then rotted at its base, so the lavender smell was overpowered by that dusty fusty musty mushroom smell.  That became quite familiar to me.  There were a lot of those little nasty spheres which actually turn into a sinister black powder when they decay.  Nothing eats them, so I am quite certain that they are very bad.

After the leaves that had fallen from the trees were taken care of, the side still looked a bit ragged.  The glads, irises and daylilies were all past their peaks, but still somewhat clinging to life through a few yellowing spears.  I got rid of the worst of the yellows and then cut the rest short.  I don't think there is time for real new growth before the winter and hopefully they'll concentrate on their bulbs for the rest of the year.  

I pulled up the last of the dead marigolds and zinnias, the dead nasturtiums and the gone (never really arrived, actually) scarlet runner.  I left the gazanias, of course.  I can spare another few hours to clean them out when the time comes.  I can't believe they're still going.  When I got them, I said "Hopefully, they'll last for a while".  Five months is, indeed, a while.  I'm more than slightly satisfied.

I'll take pictures later, after I've put in the last of the bulbs.  Yes, that's right.  I haven't finished planting those bulbs.  Sigh.

Still at it

Well, believe it or not, the garden is still going.  The Americans have had time to actually make history since last I posted and there are still blooms.  

Not many, mind you.

The Zinnias, which were still going beautifully last Thursday (Sept 30) are now well and truly done.  

I don't know when they were done in because unfortunately I didn't look at that bit of the garden for a few days.  It was very cold over the weekend, though.  I don't think it really got below zero, but it did get close to it.  

The marigolds, having soldiered on through so much, gave up the ghost over the weekend, too. 
As with the zinnias, I don't know when they perished, only that they were going on Thursday and then not on Tuesday.  

But ... the gazanias are still blooming.  I really thought that they were a flower that needed a hot, sunny climate to survive.  Obviously, these guys are not absolutely thriving in the sub 10C weather, but they're blooming!
Even better, they're still producing buds.  It's like they think they'll be blooming for another week or something.  

The weather has been milder this week than it was over the weekend, but I can't believe it's going to last forever.  Somehow, it feels like it already has!  

In less gardening-goddess news, those are the un-raked leaves in the backgrounds of these shots.  The leaf-raking is a serious problem.  Normally, I like to let the leaves sit on the beds during the winter (I can't possibly get enough out of my xmas tree to cover the whole garden) but this year our maple has tar spot disease and the leaves can carry it so they have to go.  This means that I need need NEED to get out there with bags and a rake and resolve.  I did have an honest go at the back deck over the weekend, but I just filled up our compost bin and then had nowhere to dump the unwanted leaves.  So they linger. 

It's worse because my lovely neighbour does rake and all of my un-raked leaves just make his life more difficult.  They actually make his life very difficult by blocking the sewer grate at the corner which apparently is all that's required to make a puddle so large that it flows into his basement.  I've never seen said puddle in my own basement and I'm a little confused that such a thing could be possible (given how much closer to the grate I am than he is) but I hate to think that my negligence might cause him trouble.  Anyway, it's a task for this weekend, which is threatening rain.  

I wish it were still light in the evenings so that I might contemplate gardening after work.  I'm not enough into winter routines to contemplate gardening before work.  It's a form of (tea-fuelled) miracle that the pictures above got taken this morning.  

All gaz-ed up

So, we've established that I was wrong when I wrote that the marigolds were over.  However, I wasn't wrong when I wrote that the gazanias were done.  They were!  They had stopped producing new flowers.  No buds.  Nada.  Nothing doing for weeks.  

Except, oh.  Now there are new buds on the plants.  Not just on one, either.  On a few.  

I'm not complaining here.  I liked the gazanias.  I even picked some and brought them indoors.  I haven't picked any other flower I've grown.  I hope the new ones are here for a while.  

I wonder if they're back because the sun has finally come out.  Perhaps for all these weeks they were just waiting for a break in the clouds.  

What happened?

So, what did happen in the garden in those weeks that I was away?  

The daylilies came out.  

The delphiniums bloomed.  Then they were bent and destroyed by the painters.

The mystery plants in the front that I have diligently removed thinking they were weeds year after year before finally realising this year that they don't spread like weeds and they always come up in the same place so maybe, just maybe, I should give them a chance ... they bloomed.  And were then bent and killed by the painters.

The zinnias finally came out.  Well, a flower on some of the plants came out.  This was not a success.  Note for next year: No zinnias in the side yard.  Nonetheless, there they are.

The gazanias finished.

The herbs (except the lavender, perversely) have flowered.  

And been painted.  

The glads seem to be still coming out but I worry very much about their chances of surviving the attack.

The bush on the front side bloomed its one week of magnificent white blooms; I only know this because I have evidence of their demise.  

The other bush on the front side is blooming with a few yellow flowers.

The hosta in the front looks like it may be about to flower.  I don't think it ever has before, so that would be exciting were it not for the fact that it will undoubtedly be destroyed shortly.  

I think my favourite news is that the nasturtiums bloomed.  Well, some did.  These are the nasturtiums that we started from seed indoors and watched sprout and grow and put out just before heading away for our vacation and then they got snowed on and all sorts of terrible things and most of them died, but not all.  That's a true success story from the indoor planting.  

Cut

On Tuesday morning I cut some of the gazanias.  

My book said that flowers should be cut in the morning when they're firm and fresh.  It also said that they should be cut after their petals were open.  I was unclear about whether it meant after the flower had reached the point of maturity where the petals opened, or after that moment in the day when the petals were fully spread.  It also said that flowers like daisies (which I rather think gazanias are) should be cut when the petals were fully open but the central flower still tightly closed.  I'm unclear about this one.  "Central flower"?  Not following.  My book also said that flowers that secrete a milky liquid should be seared in boiling water and any fresh flowers cut should be immediately immersed in tepid water.  I didn't know that the gazanias would secrete a milky substance when cut, but I found out.  I also found out that the leaves of the gazanias have white undersides.  

So anyway on Tuesday morning I went out with a bowl of tepid water and a sharp knife and sliced into a gazania that had closed petals but I knew was mature enough that had the sun been higher the flower would be open.  It bled milk into the tepid water.  I cut a few more. 

I then brought the flowers indoors, boiled some water and re-cut at a sharper angle, dipping the fresh wounds into boiling water before putting them finally into plain old water from the tap in a tarnished silver sugar bowl.  (I'm not into advanced planning here at the inconsistent house and so the cut flowers were going into the thing that appeared to be the right size.)

They were, of course, still shut.  I had a thought that maybe as they warmed up they would open.  Since we've turned off the heat for the year the outside and inside were not very warm for a couple of days.  It was reaching highs of about 12 and very rainy and grey.  The flowers did not open.  I wondered if perhaps I had cut them at a bad time.  I wondered if they just needed sunlight like their still-attached-to-roots brethren.  

This afternoon, the sun came out at last.  The windowsill with the cut flowers started to warm up and shine up and now I have a little tarnished sugarbowl of pretty bright-faced gazanias.  

   

The theory is that good-for-cutting flowers will actually produce more blossoms if you cut them.  That's the theory.  We'll see what plays out in my garden.  

Sunshine

The gazanias are doing their best imitations of children's pictures of suns.  I love them.  I haven't yet tried cutting them and bringing them indoors.  Because they open and close every day, the petals get these pretty curls.  I can't tell if they're finishing blooming or just starting their day.  

Orange Report

The marigolds, in the bright noon light, are not quite as striking as they were in the grey threatening weather on Friday, but they are still sunny and cheerful.  

The mystery flower is coming out with three-petal symmetry, still being very like an iris.

It comes out of the stalk sort of sideways, much like an iris.  

It just doesn't have leaves like an iris.  Not at all.  

The actual, definite iris (not orange) is strangely difficult to photograph, but I have tried my best.

It's not very good, is it?  Oh, well.  Here's the off-white one, too.

The (not orange) delphinium will flower soon.  I MUST find a decent stake for it this year.  I really shouldn't mistreat it the way I do. 

The gazanias are simply lovely.  

Who invents such a thing?

They close at night, so their shining faces are a secret known only to the people who walk by in bright daylight hours.

Unlike the iris, the gazanias are complete camera hogs.  They pose and wink obligingly.

The only other things to report about the outside is that we are in the middle of one heckuva wind storm (hel-lo maple keys!), the weed-du-jour seems to be some sort of wild carrot, and the crocus leaves are turning yellow and shriveling.  

Going Gazanias

Continuing the June 1st information:

I put the 12 gazania plants all in the south side of side yard.  

They are between the irises, behind the irises, between the iris and the daffs-and-delphinium by the basement window (that bunch has a couple of marigolds mixed in).  They are in front of the daffodils by the basement window as well.  

Big Plans

We went to the seed store today!

On the theory that the side yard will have fewer weed invasions if there are healthy non-weeds filling up the dirt, we picked up annuals.  

We got some marigolds.  I think I'll put seeds in around these guys so that as the ones from the shop finish, new ones will be starting.  That's the hope. 

There's Janie Tangerine Marigold, with solid-coloured "crested, double flowers on compact plants".  It's to be planted in full sun 12 inches apart (in full sun), and it should grow 8-10 inches tall.

There's Marigold Bonanza Bolero.  They should produce variate flowers 10-12 inches tall (also to be planted 12 inches apart in full sun).  

We got some zinnias.  They're Profusion White and to be planted 12-24 inches apart in full sun.  They should grow to 10-12 inches tall.  They should be friendly, plain flowers with white petals and yellow centres.  I don't think I could pull a zinnia out of a lineup, so I am quite excited about seeing how these do.  They look like they might be good basic flowers.  

Too cool to ignore was the Gazanias in Tiger Mix form.  Most of the flats were already in full bloom, so this may have been a silly idea.  Hopefully, they'll last for a while.  They need to be planted in full sun 10 inches apart and they're supposed to get up to a foot tall.  They claim to be good for cutting.  We'll see.  

We used to get cut flowers a lot at the farmer's market in Hamilton.  After a certain time of day, you could get two bunches for $5.  This supplied one with just about the right amount of blooms and stems for a vase.  I miss that access to reasonably-priced flowers.  Here, $5 will get you a wilting handful of roadside weeds, if you're lucky.  Mostly, it'll get you laughed at.

One of the things I used to get at the Hamilton market was gladioli.  I love gladioli, so when I saw them at the shop today, I grabbed some bulbs.  It's too cold here for them to last through the winter, but according to the east coast gardener, you can take the bulbs out after the plants die back in the fall.  Perhaps I am up to it.  

I got a package of 10 gladiolus flevo 'Laguna'.  They're GUARANTEED to bloom!  They also say that they're easy to grow.  They instruct me to dig a hole slightly larger than the bulb(s), place the bulbs in the hole, cover with soil and water thoroughly.    They want full sun, go in at a planting depth of 4 inches.  They are supposed to grow to 22-28 inches.  They should be 6 inches apart and planted in SPRING.  That might be now!  

I also got 10 bulbs from the bulk bin at the shop.  I think they were supposed to come up red.  And VERY big.  Bulbs from the bin are about 3 times as big as those from the package.  

I'm not entirely ignoring the front.  I picked up a Heartleaf Brunnera (brunnera macrophylla), which I've been seeing around the city and liking the looks of.  It's a perennial that blooms in spring, likes partial sun or shade, copes with dry or moist, and grows to 18-24 inches tall.  I like its little blue flowers.  If this little guy works out, it might be the right thing to try around the far side of the house.  Oh! Or in the back.  Hooray for shade-loving flowers!

In the same line, I thought I'd try a calla lily up front.  This one is Albo Maculata.  The bulb (corm?) is packed in wood chips, so you know it's delicate.  This means that it won't survive the harsh conditions and crappy soil in the front.  But I need to give it a go.  The front needs nice things.    Besides, it too, is GUARANTEED to bloom.  It's supposed to be up in midsummer, so presumably I won't be seeing it until next year.  It wants full sun to partial shade (so it needs to go closer to the side than the door), it's to go in 4 inches deep and should grow to 16 inches tall.  If I ever get another, it will have to be 12 inches away from this one.  

But all of this is trivial. Forget FLOWERS!  We got a raspberry plant!!!! This is the most exciting thing in the history of exciting things.  I hope it comes out well.  

Last on the list?  The thing that we went to the shop for in the first place: Seed Potatoes.  Last year we grew Yukon Golds (and that worked well).  This year, I think we're a little bit late off the mark, so we're going to plant a fast variety.  It's called "Superior".  Sounds good, huh?  If we can get more than one potato crop out, we'll be living like kings.