Spring: Hope Eternal
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- Renie_Burghardt
- MaggieM
- Carol Wallace
- Carol Wallace
- MaggieM
- Carol Wallace
- MaggieM
- Carol Wallace
- d_reynolds
- Liatris
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» Renie_Burghardt - Soon, Carol,
soon. And don't forget, yesterday you found a couple of daffodils blooming!-- posted by Renie_Burghardt
» MaggieM - slowly but surely
I can see it coming with fattening buds on the lilac, tulip tips, chive shoots, lush primula by the front door. I can hear it too - birds singing in the morning just as it gets light, and that's earlier every day! I can even small the earth a bit - but since the back yard is a mud pit and dog run at the moment the aroma is not quite as "nice" as the earthy smell at the nursery (where they had lots of Peony stakes Carol, but I think they won't last long! And Friday I will not go to my windowless office with its ringing telelphone and countless PR nighmares, but to the big, wonderful Canada Blooms Garden Show. Saw a preview on TV tonight earlier.......and I have lots of seedlings growing on - plus the seeds started on Sunday are already sprouting! that heat mat I bought is a godsend! But what we need now is rain!-- posted by MaggieM
» Carol Wallace - Many more Daffs
The ones on my sunny slope were in bloom today - although it looks like some large creature - maybe a deer, bounded down that hill and mashed most of them.My husband says when he came out this morning he found a groundhog sound asleep in the side garden, right next to the house. He tossed an ice chunk at him, the groundhog opened one eye and looked at him, then rolled over and went back to sleep.
I took my long inspection tour today and found myself searching for emerging hosta - I have to keep reminding myself that those are often the last dormant plants to emerge here. Things really are early - but I will have a very long daffodil season thanks to the bushel of them I planted last fall - newly planted ones always seem to come up late.
And I did my first real gardening today - taking advantage of a warm, sunny day I took my new pruning shears and very slowly and carefully sculpted the Japanese maples. I LOVE that kind of pruning.
Roses next. I'm not quite so fond of that - some of my heirloom roses have thorns that are quite lethal~
-- posted by Carol Wallace
» Carol Wallace - Durn! Forgot to check for the groundhog
I really wanted to get a shot of our very fearless gropundhog napping while clucking hens and crowing roosters ran all around him but I forgot! Maybe tomorrow.But today is also bright, sunny and 60 degrees. I took a leisurely stroll through the yard and noticed buds swelling on lilacs and leaf buds on many of the roses. The alarming thing that I found was that some critter has been burrowing around my Forest Pansy redbud - my PRIZE TREE!!!!! I suspect we'll have to move it - the ground where we planted it originally is years of lovely composted leaves over a lot of rock and rubble - a really great set of tunnels for burrowing creatures. I had hoped surrounding the tree with daffodil bulbs would help. Sigh.
But today the scilla and chionodoxa started to bloom, and I see signs of at least one of the Sanguineria canadensis - and, best of all, one of those very puzzling surprises - two DOUBLE snowdrops. I have never planted any snowdrops at all in that area - in fact the only ones I ever planted were singles from Marge Talt's garden.
It's every bit as curious as the Zephyranthes that grows at the edge of the wooded area - a wild part of the property that has never been planted at all, where a plant that is not only not native, but a;llegedly not hardy here, continues to spread and flourish.
-- posted by Carol Wallace
» MaggieM - Daffodills
Carol I am pleased to know that new planted daffys are late to come up - I am beginning to get worried about the ones I put in last year - no signs yet - about three kinds including a whole batch under my boulevard maple tree. I am beginning to hate this tree, it a "Debra" Norway - our city has no imagination. its growing very well, and its their tree so I can only just prune up the low hanging branches. I don't want the shade - we have enough already thank you.However, when we were out this afternoon measuring up spaces to make paper plans for our backyard and side yard (foundation) gardens and landscaping, Jack was astonished at the hens and chicks! Such colour! Such new growth - I am going to have to move them or lift them and replace them when we get down to the reconstruction phase - Jack was relieved when I told him not to worry, they could be moved, divided etc without fear of losing them. I must be making headway with Jack - he was taking interest in plants! And he wanted to know when he could get the rake out and pull off the winter mulch from the front gardens - "there's green shoots under there" he stated, pointing at tulip tips and rememerging perennials - "we can't leave those ratty old dead leaves there, you can't see the plants!" Oh joy, oh bliss - he's getting with the program!
-- posted by MaggieM
» Carol Wallace - Oh joy, indeed!
Funny - it must the the hens and chicks. My husband was also intrigued by those.He still says he's not a gardener but rather a digger of big holes and lifter of big rocks - but you would die laughing to hear him on the phone when someone he's talking to mentions a garden or landscape garden. You'd think he turned into Martha Stewart. So even if it doesn't seem like it - he's been paying attention!
Jack is probably absorbing more than he thinks, too.
-- posted by Carol Wallace
» MaggieM - Tell me what to do
Yes, Carol - he's getting interested. For years he's been saying just call me if you need a hole dug....However, today we went to Canda Blooms - the big show in Toronto, and he even paid for the tickets on his business - at $15 each that was great (she said thinking she had $15 more to spend out of her pocket). It was verging on overwhelming at first sight, but after we did the beeline to his client, and saw the garden - she is a store that sells his furniture and was in with a landscaper and a plant nursery) he was quite amazed. "Can we do that?" he asked pointing at a wall of ivy, cascading down. Yes, well sort of, I said, but we'll have to train the ivy up (that's when I showed him that they had made a wall with pockets of soil for the plants). "I want things growing up our fence and on the side of the house, then", he said.We split up. He went, I went we agreed to meet back at the start. I will have more to tell you when I can digest all I saw.
I only bought two agapanthus roots, some fragrant sweet pea seeds (I have never been able to grow them well) but I will try again, a garden catalogue from a nursery that is local and most of our garden centres buy their plants from, and Jack bought me a pot hanger - "we can put this on the new fence,"' he said, "and you can find a pot that will fit and plant something in it. He is also interested in getting some "garden art" for the fence....he was impressed that many of the things he liked, that could work in our "to be small space gardens" we from artisans near our home!
Will tell more later. Must input all my thoughts and "reviews of the show" first.
-- posted by MaggieM
» Carol Wallace - Too bad you didn'tget pictures
When I went to the Philadelphia Flower Shpow I brought the digital camera but my husband brought the regular one. When we saw an idea he liked, I snapped it - if he REALLY liked it, HE took a photo. The wonder of it all tends to fade from their minds, so later when you want to buy that ivy, you take out the photo. That's how I do it - and Roger can be listening to me looking somewhat bored until I show him the photo and then I hear this little intake of breath and a "That WAS awfully nice. .!"My photos of the Philly Show should be up soon - maybe even now at http://www.gardenreview.com
-- posted by Carol Wallace
» d_reynolds - Re: Hellebores
In response to message posted by CarolWallace:carol wallace are you the same carol wallace i use to work with my names debbie reynolds my email address is d.teedon@btinternet.com if you want to get intouch or if same carol wallace thank you
-- posted by d_reynolds
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