We've had a beautiful Labour Day weekend, with amazing blue skies, lots of sunshine and heat - little sign yet that summer is preparing to depart, but the progress in the garden indicates that we are rapidly progressing through the season.
I've been delighted with my fig this year. I bought it as a tiny twig in the wet summer of 2009, as a reminder of a beautiful vacation in Provence in May of that year. Last year was it's first year to produce any fruit, and of those, only a single fruit made it to the end of the season, and to perfect ripeness. It was an absolute revelation, still warm from the sun, and oozing honey-like juice as it was cut open. This year, the number of fruits has been multiplied to a dozen, but the pattern is the same. Tiny figlets formed around mid-June, swelled very slightly, and then just sat there without much change until the last days of August, when they suddenly started to swell like balloons, and ripened in a couple of days. You can tell by the frequency of my "fig posts", that I will never get over the excitement of growing figs. Having been brought up at the same latitude as Hudson's Bay, they seem like a miracle as far as I'm concerned!
Tiny figlets, formed in June.
These suddenly started to swell up on the weekend, and should be ripe by mid-week.
I'm also pleased with the Wim's Red hydrangeas I planted earlier in the summer, to replace the unkempt and unpleasing cotoneaster by my front steps. Even though they are only just getting established, they have produced a number of flowers, and these have undergone the transformation from frothy, creamy white, to deepest rosy-pink. They may yet descend into deeper mahogany...only time will tell. I must given them some winter mulch to make sure they make it safely through their first winter.
Here are some photos of what else is going on in the garden....and a few notes to myself on jobs to be done!
I bought some lavender "Grosso" to fill in a couple of spots in my lavender hedge, but didn't get a chance to create proper planting spots in the garden. In order to keep them healthy, I quickly potted them up in a terracotta pot, and I may well stick with this.
Towards the top right hand corner of this photo, you can see one of my year 2 rosemary bushes - I'm very proud of it! Less proud of the clay pot in the front of the photo - which had a couple of nerine bulbs planted in it. They produced some lovely leaves, but recently died back without blooming. Not sure if they were just settling in, and will bloom next year.
Huge swathes of pink Japanese anemones are filling the front yard right now.....
......as well as some more demure and less invasive white ones, which are quite lovely.
I was surprised to suddenly see this cardinal flower blooming in the jungle of my front yard....then I remembered it was one of the plants Greg brought from his grandmother's garden for me last summer.
You know fall is approaching when the asters are starting to bloom. I do love them.
Pink carpet roses gathering the last few rays of the day.
Here is a job to tackle before winter. In the spring, I thought I had thinned out these black-eyed Susans, but they are back with a vengeance. I need to reduce them by at least half and make room for some more interesting companions!
Have always had issues keeping my window boxes moist enough, but last weekend, I got some new, much larger ones on mega-sale at Plantworld. The increased volume of soil should help! I planted them with some more seasonal specimens.
This urn is completely thriving, despite little attention for most of the summer.
A few of the purple kale plants I sowed in the spring have escaped the slugs and snails, and are a good size now. I made my first dish of them this weekend, mixed with some beet greens, swiss chard, tomatoes and onions. Delicious! And the plants are decidedly statuesque now.
Anemone invasion!
Arabian Night dahlias.....the photo doesn't quite represent their most striking feature. They are almost black, and very beautiful.
I'm finishing the weekend with some achingly beautiful Brahms.
For the last few weeks my garden has been predominated by a yellow and purple colour scheme, with roses, lady's mantle, and achillea providing the yellow, and aquilegia, veronica, salvia and delphiniums providing purple and blues. But now that we are in mid-summer, a streak of pink has become the most eye catching feature, with lilies and some carpet roses coming into bloom. It's nice to see a distinct transition into mid-summer, particularly given the heat of the last few days here in Toronto. I'm really pleased that despite early signs of impending doom, the alien invasion was averted! I'm also very happy to see that my lavender hedge, whilst still not quite a hedge, has filled in a bit in year 2, and by next year, I hope it will be quite a feature. There are also a number of self-seeded baby lavender plants around, so I can use them to fill in a couple of gaps.
I love the look of these tall lilies before the buds burst - very sculptural
The window boxes are filling in and add a bit of old world charm
The first of the lilies are opening up
This white eryngium has taken on its frosting of white. I like how it stands out against a see of green, and that it picks up the grey of russian sage and white echinacea
You can start to see the line of my lavender hedge starting to form, now that the plants are in the second year
Delphiniums are still doing well. The lady's mantle is a nice contrast
I really wish I could make the fragrance of these gardenias come across the blogosphere!
The New Dawn rose is at its peak now, and the flowers are engulfing my potted fig
I have a baby fig! If it doesn't drop off, it will be my first!
A spectacular weekend on the weather front. Barely a cloud in the sky, temperatures in the high 20's, with tolerable humidity and a light breeze off the lake. Evenings cooling down pleasantly to make for good sleeping weather. My only concern is that it has been quite some time since the torrential rains of April and even May, and my garden is parched. Have laid out a series of strategically located drip hoses to try to keep things in good health, with intermittent and deep soakings. It's been a busy weekend, but I did manage to get quite a few garden chores taken care of. Here's what in bloom this weekend, and my Order of Work for this week.
These peonies always remind me of the fresh cream meringues I loved as a child!
June is the peak month for Alchemilla molis.
I find these mallows get quite weedy after their first bloom, and mean to pull them all out every year. ....but they always re-seed and when they look like this, it's hard not to give them a reprieve each year.
The meadow rue I planted in the spring is blooming now, and complements the peonies beautifully .
I was weeding beside this dianthus for some time this morning.... the scent is just delicious!
Finally got round to putting up new, stronger brackets to hold the window boxes I planted a few weeks ago. I went "cheap and cheerful" with the planting scheme this year.
Clematis Arabella has been blooming beautifully for a few weeks now.
My yellow rose garden, planted this spring, is starting to come into bloom, and I'm quite pleased with the varieties I ended up selecting. It was tough to decide - so many to choose from!
I'd always thought Sweet William was strictly a biannual, but I've had this one in place for the last 4 or 5 years, and it merrily comes back from the same plants each year. They don't die back, but just seem to go dormant under the snow, in winter.
I had the Achillea "Moonshine" in the back yard for a couple of years, but it never got enough sun. I moved it this spring and it's repaid handsomely for it's new dry, sunny spot. I love the carriage of the flowers and that intense sulphur-like yellow.
The new salvias are a hit, and I love the dark leave geranium (whose name I can't recall right now).
The lavender "hedge" I planted last year is starting to come into bloom. It's still a little sparse , but hopefully next year it will be considerably fuller.
In an "over forty" moment, I cannot remember what this demure bulb is called, but it's quite pretty nonetheless!
Order of Work - June 18 & 19, 2011
much weeding
more spraying with insecticidal soap - both roses (aphids) and now gardenias (spider mites) needed attention
laying out of soaker hoses to provide relief from the drought we seem to be heading into
planted out a tray of Victoria salvias, and a few sunshine impatiens, to fill in some gaps
divided off a couple of pieces of Moonshine achillea, which is suddenly become one of my favourite things in the garden
finally hung up window boxes - better late than never.
Listening to:
Dame Janet Baker singing "Where corals lie" from the Sea Pictures by Edward Elgar. I love Janet Baker, partially because she was the public, or television, face of opera in the UK when I was a child in the early 70s, but I heard a recording on the radio of Canadian contralto, Maureen Forester singing this song, and it can only be described as "breathtaking".
