Trees and bushes

I mention often in my blog that I have a lot of shade in my garden, which poses many challenges for growing lots of beautiful flowers requiring full sun. Even partial sun can be elusive in some spots. This is because my property and my neighbours' as well have wonderful, beautiful trees on them. In fact, the first thing I spotted when I drove down the street on that fateful day when I saw the "for sale" sign on what would soon become my front lawn, was the huge trees on the corner of the block. I had no idea what they were, as my knowledge of tree recognition was at the time limited to maples, poplars, pines, willows, beeches, and birches. I supposed that is not a bad base to start from. Those are the trees I was most exposed to in the Laurentians and growing up in a part of Montreal which once was a swamp, now well drained by lots of willows and poplars. Oh, I also recognized crabapple trees, but when we bought the house, the crab apples were unidentifiable weeds sprouting in the mint and lavender patch in the back. 

The most stunning trees actually do not belong to us, but to our neighbours. They have a magnificent double-trunked ash tree close to the fence between our yards, which defines where I plant what in the garden as it provides shade for half the day on the part of my yard closer to my house. The leaves have a luminescent quality which makes them appear to shimmer. At night, they catch any ambient light and look like they are glowing. Being in the city, there is always light for them to catch. I love to look up, or even lie on the lawn with the leaves glowing and sparkling against the night sky. The downside to the ash is that it has the tendency to drop large branches in storms. So far no one has been hurt, no windows broken, but lots of clean up whenever it rains or snows or if the wind picks up.

They also have a Linden tree which provides Iulia with plenty of herbal tea and drops sticky sap all over our cars in the driveway. It is a very pretty tree, with a classic, balanced ideal tree shape. Up against their house they have a conifer which I believe is a spruce, and which they are planning to cut down later this summer to let a little more light in.

Both of our properties were originally backed by a thick grove of lilacs. Our neighbours removed theirs but we have ours, a patch at the back corner behind the fence and a big grove along the side of the road on back half of the property. The flowers are classical pale purple (lilac, I suppose) which is not my favorite shade. I am partial to the deeper purple colour but will take what I have. Josh has ambitions to do some arbour sculpture with the lilacs eventually, but for now they do a fine job cutting the noise and view of the city beyond and provide me with beautiful flowers and are probably in part responsible for my spring allergies.

We have a couple of spirea bushes that came with the house. For the first couple of years, I trimmed them savagely in early spring and thus inhibited their floral display. The third year I realized my error, and was treated to a brief but glorious display of white starbursts. It turn out that they are bridal wreath spirea, and in bloom they look like white fire works. I now wait until they have had their fun before I trim them back, otherwise they look messy.

I have a patch of Elms in the back corner behind the fence. They are young and scrawny, but alive. Dutch Elm disease appears to have hit a couple of other elms which once adorned the side of the property, one now a stump and the other a dead shadow of the tree that it was.  We also have a big spruce in front, and two boxelders, which are weed trees. They grow fast, die young and tend to split and crash. Josh doesn’t like having them around the house.

We have added a Jersey Mac apple tree, some rose bushes, a purple tulip magnolia tree, and transplanted two crab apple seedlings to a better spot in the back yard.

I also wanted to write a bit about those mysterious beautiful red flowers which my friend Jasmyn gave me. She told me they were in the mint family. A couple of weeks ago, my friend Julie sent me a photo of some herb she bought but lost the tag and could not remember what it was. I sent it to Claude, who identified it as pineapple sage. He described it as being able to grow up to 5 feet tall, and being a favorite of hummingbirds and butterflies. They are perennials in Mexico and Guatemala, but won’t survive our northern winter so are annuals in our climate. They are also called Tangerine sage, latin name salvia elegans.

Pineapple sage, not from my garden

I took some photos of where things are in my garden this week. We have moved from a palette of mostly pink and purple to yellows and oranges as my evening primroses and lilies have burst into flower. I picked up another interesting oriental lily (I really am a sucker for those), and planted a bunch of stargazer and dark purple lily bulbs which were on sale at Walmart. 

 
I did a harvest of lettuce, strawberries, green onions, herbs, garlic scapes and mint for dinner on Friday, and we had salad, pasta in a rosé sauce and roast salmon all flavoured from the garden, followed by fresh mint tea.

Boxelder

Milkweed

Linden

Lilacs

     

                           

Making a garden into a landscape

Our new magnolia

Last Sunday, we had a number of events come together which have been a long time coming. Last March, our very beloved parrotlet Dreidle died quite suddenly. As it was still cold and the ground was frozen, we decided to wait until things warmed up to have a small funeral. The decision was taken that he would have his final resting place in one of the tea boxes which he loved to use as a hiding spot, in our garden, and that we would plant a magnolia tree in his honour. Over the past few months, intermittently, Josh was researching where we could buy a purple tulip magnolia tree. He also was doing his research on finding a new parrotlet, as both he and Orianne our youngest daughter, deeply missed having a bird in the house and loved parrotlets. Dreidle's untimely death is likely related to the fact that he was a colour morph, not a naturally occurring colour of parrotlet. Colour morphs are inbred for amazing colours but simultaneously have other health issues seen in inbred animals, various dangerous recessive traits that come out. We were leery about having another colour morph. Josh found an ad on Kijiji from a family who had a 5 year old parrotlet looking for a new home where he could be given more attention. Just as I found a nursery with purple tulip magnolia trees in stock, Josh made the connection with Coco's owners and we picked a date to have a funeral for Dreidle

Creeping thyme

Josh went to pick up the tree, and found some really pretty cascading dark purple petunias, as well as some pineapple mint and rosemary and some other mint-like plant whose name I lost with pretty pale purple flowers (we seem to be in purple mode this year). We invited Naomi, Lisa and Olivier to join us as all three had a special relationship with Dreidle. Olivier brought over some rum which we served in some left-over paper cups from a Chanuka party, which appropriately were decorated with dreidles. The tree was planted on the corner of my garden in front of the driveway, in view of Iulia and Ovidiu's windows as well as ours.

Back in April, we finally redid our ancient windows and leaky doors. The owner of the company who did the job mentioned to Josh that he was redoing the façade of his own house, and Josh asked what he was doing with the stones. The owner offered to give them to us, and back in May dropped them off on the side of our house, where they sat providing a wonderful breeding spot for snails right next to the lilacs until Sunday when Josh and Olivier rolled them to strategic spots in the front garden. Josh and I had intended to use the stones to make borders and walls for the areas of the garden on the edges of the property, until Olivier gave me a talk about rethinking how I plan a garden.

Ollie pointed out to me that in designing a garden one should bear certain principles in mind. One was that straight flat lines were dismal, that lines should not be borders but should be used as means to guide the eye in certain directions. Lines should create patterns that repeat, circles or arcs. Plants should be planted on both sides of a line of stones. Colours should be in bold clusters. He complimented the work I had done on the side of the house, with a wave pattern of tall and short plants (not intentional, really, I had no idea how tall plants would be when I planted them.) He also told me it is not proper feng shui to have a plastic container in the front yard (I removed my planter to the side of the house onto the shelves under the window).

So instead of neatly aligning the stones in a row, we left them in a meandering and broken line with little curves that will hopefully house clusters of lilies next year. I also spent time moving some of the plants that were lost and drowned out from the front to the area beside the driveway and to the front of the house. I moved the bricks which outlined the small garden on the left side of the house so that instead of a flat straight line, they curved outwards. The whole look of the front yard changed. I picked up a few annuals and transplanted some of the creeping thyme to the new curved space I created and Wow! It really looks good.

 I realized that I have moved up a notch in my career as a gardener. I started out putting all my energy into not killing things. I had no idea what needed more light, I trusted the little plastic tickets which promised me astilbes are fine in the shade (I gave up and moved them into the sun), I was not sure what I had planted and what was a weed, and what things looked good together and which plants would get really big or spread and drown out everything around them. I am still moving things around that looked great where I put them three years ago. I am also still learning what is really dead and what is just fooling me. My small, new lavender started to come back this week but the big one looks pretty dead still. I cut it back and I am hoping for some new life. I went on-line and confirmed that Blue bird rose of Sharon bushes are late bloomers and may appear to be dead sticks, just hang in there as they eventually get started again.I never took the time to think of my yard as a landscape, and the same principles that make a landscape painting appealing make a real landscape appealing.

Young robin on tomato cage

Roses

As for other garden news, Julie called me this week to tell me she had a revelation about her “off the wall” garden, that she had no idea what chemicals the flat she was using had been treated with and if there was a risk eating herbs grown in it. She decided not to take chances and transplanted all the herbs from the flat to pots, and replanted with flowers. I will have updates on it later in the summer.

Aphids on crabapple

Orpine with aphids

We also have been having problems with aphids, on the orpine in the backyard, on both crab apples and on the Jersey Mac apple tree. I have been spraying with diluted dish soap every couple of days. As for pests, I noticed an orange beetle on the orpine and decided to identify it as I wanted to know if it was eating my plants before I crushed it as I have been doing to the red beetles eating my lilies. I brought it inside and it flew off my hand the minute I walked in the door. So I went about my errands and later in the day saw it again on the wall near the back door, and called Josh to bring a container. I caught it, and went on-line with Mr. Beetle in a cup next to me for easy consultation. I could not find it on garden pest links, so tried beetles. Turns out well, it is some type of soldier beetle which dines on aphids. I felt very happy I took the time to identify him, and promptly dropped him back on my orpines. I have been seeing a lot of these orange beetles around, which is good. I hope they don't mind dishsoap flavoured aphids. We received our shipment of coyote pee from the p-mart. It has been raining often this week so we did not bother marking our territory. Josh plans to make our own dispensers. I put in a lot of sunflowers, so we will be needing this later in the summer when the flowers come out. 

Mint and horseradish

Garlic galore!

Off the wall gardening

My friend Julie rents a lower duplex, with a large back balcony and a small garden plot. She tends to do more "kitchen gardening" on her balcony in boxes and pots, but this year she was inspired by something she saw at a restaurant terrace involving a vertical garden built into a wooden palate, with a backing and earth inside, with plants growing through the slats. It was both attractive and practical if you have limited space. She and her kids came over and raided some of my basil and tomatoes that did not make it into the garden. She explained to me on the phone what this thing looks like and invited me over to see. Unfortunately, as per my last post, I have been a bit busy, so she sent me a photo of what it looked like.

This is just after she planted everything so it looks a bit wilted. I plan to look in on what it is doing later this summer and will post some more.

I was intrigued by this idea and did a web search and found this interesting and beautiful site on what people have done with variation on this wall garden idea. It is worth checking out:

http://bluestemnursery.blogspot.ca/2011/01/living-walls-or-vertical-gardens.html

We get bailed out

This has been an eventful week and a half, both in the garden and out. I have had limited time to work on the garden between a wedding out of town, my son's graduation ceremony from high school and a few related family events, science fair and invention convention, multiple large school projects and upcoming exams, a wonderful string orchestra concert with attendant rehearsals and madness, and a few family members, friends and colleagues experiencing medical and personal crises. I suppose the rare bits of time in my garden have been a bit of a panacea for the madness all around me, but even there I had some tense moments setting up my leaky-pipes watering system with Josh. He is not very good at noticing where he is stepping (not on the beans!!!) and I am less than adept at figuring out attachment systems (I put down two entire hoses facing the wrong way and could not connect them, and had to redo the whole thing.) Needless to say it was not our most harmonious collaboration.

Last weekend I was weeding and moving some plants around when a woman passed by with two small children, on her way to the park. She spoke to her children about the nice garden and we started to chat. Debbie asked me how I could tell the difference between the weeds and the flowers. I started to tell her how  I learned the hard way by letting the weeds grow and flourish long enough to know they were weeds and not what I planted, but after a few years I am getting the hang of it although I now have more weeds than I would have if I had known better when I started. She ended up spending an hour or so checking out my garden and her kids disappeared into my house to play with mine while she told me she was interested in starting to garden and looking to buy a house. I gave her my blog URL, so maybe she is reading this. I was really struggling with the weeds, as we still had not received our hay, and having been out of town and otherwise very busy, I have not kept up. So when I saw Jack chatting on our front lawn with Josh on Monday after work, I think I whooped for joy, and was thrilled to see a pyramid of hay stacked on the back fence. I have yet to finish laying it down, but I got a good start. Hopefully this weekend I will get the rest out. I did throw an entire large bag of potatoes which had sprouted beneath the hay in the section of the garden where I did not plant the carrots and onions as originally planned (as per map #1 last November). I also put in the ends of 15 green onions and a celery stump to see what they will do.

It turns out that I was mistaken about my failure in growing carrots. Shortly after my last post, thousands of closely packed carrot sprouts materializes in rows between the garlic, along the water hoses. I guess I am smarter or luckier than I thought, and put them in the wettest spot possible. I made a frantic call to Chloe about how to thin them out. Her advice: they don't transplant well (I tried anyways, maybe I will get lucky again), and don't thin them completely but let some grow to the size of baby carrots, and thin them at that level, so we get both baby and mature carrots at different times.

We bought a black tulip magnolia tree which we are hoping to plant this weekend between our driveway and the corner of the garden facing Iulia's house, so she will see it from her window too. She is planning on cutting her spruce tree which is a few feet away on her side of  the property line, so we should have a net gain in light. While Josh was at the nursery, he picked up some pickling cucumbers to replace the ones which have not yet sprouted (and perhaps never will), some pineapple mint, rosemary, and dark purple petunias which I planted in a box along the driveway together with some mystery sprouts I begged from Iulia and a sweet potato. I have no idea what will grow, sort of like the mystery surprise of the garden.

So far, at least from what I remember planting, the following items have yet to show signs of life:
Last year's rosemary which we thought was perennial. I chucked it and put in a new one.

Coriander

Not one of the poppies which we
seeded directly outside sprouted. Not one. Josh insisted that Alex just tosses them in the garden and they come up. Alex also produces lettuces the size of big watermelons and pumpkins as large as my shed, so I can't assume that what works for Alex will be repeated in my garden.

Hay, hay, hay!!

No freesia action yet. They are in a pot beside my door looking very empty.
The daffodils which I planted around my spruce tree have not bloomed two years running (not since I planted them, so tonight after returning from the science fair, I sent the kids to get ready for bed and went out in the rain to transplant them, as well as a few stray cosmos that sprouted among my morning glories (bad spot). I put the daffodils along the front and side gardens where there is much more sun, which I hope will encourage them to bloom. By the time I was getting the last ones in, it was getting too dark to see much. As I dug the hole to bury the bulbs, two green dots glowed at me from the earth, and then another two. I reached in and pulled out a small worm with what looked like two glowing eyes (more likely it was his butt). I got really excited, having never seen a glow worm, and called the kids out to see. Zara was pretty jaded (yeah, so what) but Orianne was appropriately impressed.
I have just today seen a single blade of green on the big lavender plant, but I cannot figure out what happened to the smaller one I planted that Maya and Kate gave us. I was giving up hope but will wait and see.
The Blue bird Rose of sharon is just dry sticks. I need to go back and see if I wrote about it last year.

On a positive note, the peonies, columbines, lamium, Lysimachi, evening primroses and gooseneck loosestrife are going nuts and looking great.

Baby mantis on clematis

Another exciting change is that my neighbour Ovidiu has given in to Iulia to allow for climbing flowers on the fence. She planted a gorgeous clematis and some climbing roses, as well as a row of beans set back a few inches on a frame. I am being as diligent as possible to clear every emerging bindweed (white wild morning glories) from the garden to keep my side of the fence clear and my neighbours both happy.

I also added some suspended pots off the side of the cucumber frame and seeded them with chives, green onions and some other garden herb I can't remember.Things are looking good!

New maps

I decided to redo my map of the back yard to reflect what I actually planted. I had to rearrange tomatoes because the raspberries spread on one side, and I did not like the design on the other. I removed the carrots from the map because they did not grow. Chloe told me I need to keep the seeds wet a long time, and I think they dried out and died before they had a chance to germinate. I also did not plant onions so have some space for more basil or lettuce later. Please bear with me as I repost changes, I found the original map invaluable when I planted last week, and I know I will not remember where I planted what by next summer so my map will help me with crop rotation. (Click to see larger image). 

Today my pageviews hit 2013, and I had readers in Japan and Columbia and Australia and Turkey. I copied the map because I thought it was pretty cool, even if some are just spammers. 

We are getting a magnolia for the front of the house. I will posts pics when we get it planted, although we won't see the flowers until next year. I am hoping to get a black tulip magnolia.

I did some more weeding today, and my black eyed susans are beginning to be distinguished from the creeping bell flowers. I have been tearing the latter out along with the remaining goutweed and new crop of dandilions with great abandon. Gone are my days of guilt at killing an innocent plant.

I also moved some of my smaller flowers around so they would have more visibility. All this in the rain, which although a bit uncomfortable, made the work easier as the soil was soft and I did not have to water everything afterwards.

Spring fever

My front door

Normally, May is a month in which I have a lot to write about and tend to start blogging regularly. Somehow this month flew by. I got back from Vancouver at the end of April, and instead of putting out last year's compost, weeding, cleaning up and putting down fresh hay, I committed myself to presenting at a conference in Quebec city during the first week of May.
We had a beautiful bit of very summery weather during the first two weeks of May, temperatures hitting 29 degrees Celcius (we average 17 usually). Iulia very enthusiastically planted her tomatoes despite my warning her that we can still get frost up until the third week of May. I was spending my time getting ready to present, and helping kids with huge projects. Then we (finally) renovated our windows and doors. I had hoped that the company we ordered them from would have them ready early in April so we could finish the construction before my garden came up. There were inevitable delays, and instead of taking two days to do the job it took four. I was a bit nervous about workmen stomping on my tulips and daffodils, so Josh built wooden bridges over the garden beds under the windows with wood and concrete blocks. He did a rather good job, there were no major casualties. In the meantime, I was not getting much done outside.

The third week of May it got cold again. We had some hail, a touch of snow and temperatures hovering just above zero at night. I had put all my sprouts outside long before, and had hoped to plant early, but ended up taking them all back inside for a couple of days. Iulia borrowed some mason jars and popped a jar on top of each tomato plant. They survived and seem to be thriving.

Garlic cluster

Forget me nots

Last weekend was the big planting weekend in Montreal. We have a three day weekend, in celebration of Queen Victoria's birthday (we just ignore our current Queen on her birthday), but for gardeners in our city, it is the weekend to plant. The magical frost is over date and it is safe to plant weekend. Actually, that applies to plants from southern zones like tomatoes and peppers, and annuals. I had already put in seeds for lettuce, bok choy, cucumber, basil and coriander directly into the garden (and the bathtub and the big herb pots). The garlic I planted last fall are doing wonderfully. Some local cats had decided to use my garlic patch as a litter box, and had in the process undug a bunch of the cloves after they had sprouted, but I stuck them back in the ground and they seem to be doing okay. It turned out that I missed one garlic at harvest time last year and all of the cloves sprouted in a big bunch. I am leaving them to see what they do. I also had a couple of green onions pop up. They did not do well from seed last year, but a couple of last year's seeds sprouted under the snow. I am trying a bunch again but the sprouts are so spindly I am not planting them in the garden for a while. Maybe I should put a row of seeds out in the fall this year.

I also had a red oak lettuce pop up early in the spring (left). The delphiniums I planted in the fall, according to the package, however have not turned up. I may just give up on delphiniums, they don't seem to want to grow for me.  I decided to put in a lot more annuals this year to carry over between the various stages of perennials. I bought a bunch of pansies because Josh loves them. I put in some sweet william and marigold seeds (nothing showing yet). We started a new flower bed in the back yard and put in a combination of sprouted poppies and seeds of a few varieties.  Iulia gave me some red dragon Geum sprouts, some more poppies (annuals) which I put in a window box together, and some bulbs and roots for some other flowers, which I can't remember what they are called. I bought some chrysanthemums and dahlias and Josh bought some more, as well as gerbera daisies. The freesia bulbs Chloe gave me do not seem to be showing any signs of life, but they are in a sunny spot in a pot so I can hope. She gave me a heliotrope sprout too, but I managed to kill it before I got it outside.


 I was very dissappointed, they are really gorgeous. The geraniums I got from my friend Laure are budding but they do not look like they are going to be blue and white, they look pink (right, below). I guess they were not the "splish and splash"  variety that Laure thought she was giving me. It took two years for it to bloom since I transplanted it, so I am happy with whatever it does.












So last weekend, I raked out my compost and got rid of a lot of weeds that had started to thrive in the vegetable garden. I put in the tomatoes and got at least the first levels up of the cages, but then I ran out of zipties so the next levels have to wait. My careful planned design did not work once I started putting things in the ground, so I will be redoing my garden map in order to make sure I know where things were this year for when I rotate things around next year. I put the peppers all in pots, because they seemed to have done better that way, and I may yet have success bring some inside to winter. I planted one row of  basil directly in the garden, more in the bathtub and the rest in pots. I was careful this year to make sure all of it is accessible. I couldn't find a lot of the basil I planted last year once the tomatoes and the nasturtiums got big. I have no idea how much basil I will have, but I planted around 35 each of tomatoes and hot peppers. I gave some to basil and tomatoes to Julie who plans to grow an upside down suspended garden. I need to see this to understand what it is exactly, but will blog about it sometime later this summer. I am also sending some tomatoes up north with my mom for her country garden.

We decided this year to try carrots. I read on the back of the pack that they like to grow near beans, and onions. I had planned to try onions but have not managed to find sets yet (I did not order them. Another mistake). I originally planned to put the carrots near the onions, but with no onions, I ended up putting them near the beans and the garlic. This week Chloe visited and told me that carrot seeds take a long time to sprout and need to stay wet, even covered with boards, for them to sprout. Oh, didn't know that. I may not have carrots this year after all. I did not plan to have potatoes this year, but I have a whole bag of potatoes that have started to sprout so they are going in instead of onions. I am also sprouting sweet potatoes but those are going in the flower garden for decorative purposes.

We are hoping to get a bunch of composted manure through my in-laws and a lot of hay from our friends Jack and Amy next week. I feel like I am doing everything backwards. The lack of new hay last year meant that I ended up with a lot more weeds last summer and this spring I had a big job to get rid of the weeds especially creeping charley and creeping bell flowers. I am not only getting to know which weeds are really bad news, but I know them by name and have been feeling less guilty about ripping lush green plants out of the garden. I am also starting to remember where I put things so I am ripping out less of the lush green plants that I actually planted in the garden. Where I had put hay two years ago I have now got thick beautiful grass coming up exactly where I don't want it. This apparently happens less if you continue to put thick layers of hay on the areas between plants you want, or if you use straw instead of hay. The downside is that hay decomposes better and fertilizes the garden more than straw. So I am sticking with hay and carefully ripping the growing hay from between the cosmos and the poppies.

One deep purple iris has bloomed  for the first time this year (that was one of Olllie's). My side garden that faces Iulia's house is looking great. The orpine and goose-necked loosestrife , the creeping thyme and columbines are spreading out.

 

I have a lot of little stuff that Iulia gave me coming up, some anemonies but I have no idea what the rest are. Just when I think I know what I have and learn the name of everything, Iulia gives me more stuff I don't know. Some have to be dug up and the bulbs or roots brought in for the winter. I am not very good at that but maybe this year I will give it a go. I think you can do that with dahlias and begonias too.

Once I got all my seeds and sprouts in, I attacked the weeds in the front yard. Having waited until the third week of May to do this, I had a big job, but it has been raining a lot so the earth is soft. I have a hard time teasing out the creeping bellflowers from the black eyed susans because they look very similar, and the spot where my back eyed susans are trying to grow are infested with bellflowers. The weather has been ranging from hot and sunny to very cool and wet, so everything is growing like mad, especially the dandelions and mushrooms.They are huge this year.

the view from my kitchen

Orianne, my 11 year old, has been trying to master blowing all the seeds off in one breath. This has taken her a lot of practice to get right and to keep up her skill, so I am holding her responsible for a good number of the dandelion infested lawns in the neighbourhood. I finally had the time to mow the front lawn today despite it being wet, weed infested and with some of the grass (hay, actually) being over a foot tall. It was a tall order for my manual mower, but it looks a bit more decent out there. I was getting a bit embarrassed.


My beebalm is spreading nicely.