What's in bloom - April 22, 2012

We're expecting snow showers in the next couple of days, which is a bit of a downer, but overall, the weekend has had it's excitements.   Most notably, arriving at a party last night to find out that it was the wedding reception of two dear friends who decided to tie the knot in a low key ceremony attended by only themselves, two witnesses and the officiant, earlier in the day.  I was amongst the first of the guests to arrive, so it was lovely to see everyone's reactions as they discovered the good news!  Please join me in wishing the Dollhouse Girls many happy years of wedded bliss ahead!
Here's what's going on in the garden this weekend:

I bought this Pink Frost hellebore just a couple of weeks ago, and really love it.  Haven't grown hellebores before, so I'm hoping it settles in and establishes itself.

Although I lost some of the buds on my Japanese quinces at the end of the year, they are still blooming fairly reasonably.

lovely red peony shoots

These pink hyacinths were planted in the fall.  They're quite pretty, but have too lax a habit for my liking.

Pink rock cress if very cheery.

Pincushion spurge has started to colour up.

I've been house-sitting this foxtail rosemary over the winter for a friend.....it looks spectacular with all it's spring flowers, so I may have to take a trip to Richters herbs to get one for myself this year.

Pansies distracting the eye from the fact that I need a new front door, or at minimum, a fresh paint job.

My Arabian Night dahlias are coming up with vigour in the mudroom.

I overwintered these geraniums from last year's window boxes in a dormant state in the basement (i.e. I just pulled the window boxes down, set them in the basement and forgot about them!).    I potted them up a few weeks back, and they've come along beautifully, and have even started to flower already.

Kid in a candy shop

At this time of year, spring just can't gather pace quickly enough for me.  Although we had an early start to the spring and had unprecedented and consistently warm weather in March, things are back to normal now in April, and so I'm still patiently (or truth be told, impatiently) awaiting my first daffodils to bloom.  The sense of unfulfilled anticipation is only heightened when all over the blogosphere, people are reporting that their tulips are out, or that they've had their first rose of the season.  And indeed, because my garden sits about 100 yards from the chilly waters of Lake Ontario, it's in a cooler spot than most of Toronto, and I have to suffer the fact that others in this municipality are already enjoying the bounty of spring, whilst I must patiently wait!  As a result, trips to the garden centre at this time of year are particularly dangerous, given all the temptingly advanced items for the picking....which seem to call out "buy me" at every turn.  Last weekend, I paid a trip to Humber Nurseries, just to do a bit of perusing......here are some of the temptations I managed to avoid:

This gorgeous tree peony had a delicious scent 

This looks like it's straight from a japanese silk painting

perhaps I could have had a second career as a hand model, but now (as my dermatologist told me recently), the barnacles of old age are accruing and I think I've missed my window of opportunity

This one was about the size of my head (keep any comments to yourself thanks)

The petals on this one looked like scarlet silk taffeta

Some of these Heucheras were quite nice, others were very much on the gaudy side!

love these little dianthus - I have some pink ones in my garden and the scent is fantastic.

This cheeky chap, and his mate, have been frequent visitors to my garden this year....not quite sure where the nest is, but it must be close by given the amount of activity in my garden.   The photo was snapped on my phone through the sunroom windows and doesn't quite capture the vibrancy of his colours - he's not called a cardinal for nothing.

June is bustin' out all over!

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".

A bit of a lull

After my little sojourn in Winnipeg, I came back home, to find the garden looking a little "blah".  Although there are one or two things in bloom, in the front yard, things seem to be in a bit of a lull, with the spring flowers well and truly gone over, and nothing very showy ready to take over quite yet.  There are some encouraging signs though.  The new roses I planted this year are looking very healthy, have grown considerably and all of them have lots of buds developing.  The peonies look to be only days away from bursting out and the geraniums won't be far behind.  However, the forget-me-nots which have seeded wildly all over, and which were swathing the garden in a billowing cloud of blue and white were definitely in the phase of needing to be forgotten.  SO, I quickly got to work, cutting back, hauling out and generally tidying up.  On the plus side, I don't see any more signs of the dreaded japanese lily beetle for now, and the centranthus rubre, which I thought hadn't made it through the winter, has sprouted up nicely in the last few days, probably encouraged by the sudden blast of heat last week.  On the negative side, someone has put a size ten boot in the middle of one of my lavender plants and broken half the stems, and aphids have attacked the climbing roses in the back yard (and it was too windy to try spraying with insecticidal soap).  Such are the agonies and ecstasies of being a gardener.

This little dianthus was hidden in a corner, so I moved it early in the spring, to a nice sunny, well drained spot, close to the street....it seems to have adjusted well

Lots of texture, and shades of green, but not much by way of blooms!  And those forget-me-nots have well and truly past their prime.

This self-seeded eryngium is starting to form it's flower.  When in bloom, the whole thing will turn a ghostly silvery-grey.

Lots of white bachelor's buttons (Centaurea montana).  I also now have a rogue patch of bright blue ones.  They must have sprung up from seeds, are intensely blue and delightfully dwarfed.

Looking forward to the opening of the peonies. 

My tree peony was so woe-begone, and outgrowing it's place.

Love my white clematis...I hope I can find the tag at some point to recall what the variety was.

Tree peony "after"....I gave it quite a haircut, and I think it looks the better for it.

This climbing hydrangea is a free gift from my neighbours, and is lush and beautiful, with it's lacey white flowers.

That looks better....tidied up and waiting for the next wave of flowers

Note the patches of bare earth.....see below for the solution!

After I'd finished with the clean up, I was disturbed to see quite a number of open spots, so off I went to Plantworld to find "just a couple of things" to file the gaps.  A trip to plant world almost never ends with "just a couple of things" and yesterday I returned with:

• a couple of dwarf delphiniums (Dasant Blue) to keep the one I already had company
• veronica "Sonja" and "First Love"
• threadleaf coreopsis (Coreopsis verticillata 'Zagreb')
• Salvia nemorosa 'Caradonna'
• daylily 'Joan Senior'
• Iris sibirica 'Silver Edge'
• a few annuals to fill in any last remaining spaces (Victoria salvias, and white sunshine impatiens)

Hopefully, these will create quite a contrast to the current dullness!

Iris sibirica 'Silver Edge'

Delphinium 'Dasante Blue'

Coreopsis verticillata 'Zagreb'

Hemerocallis 'Joan Senior'

Salvia nemorosa "Caradonna', along with a lovely nepeta

Veronica 'Sonja'

Veronica 'First Love'

June 6th - tree peony in full bloom

I've never had to stake it in previous years, but my tree peony was a bit battered down by the storms and heavy rains in May, so it's not quite as magnificent as it might be......but those individual blooms are exquisite, and the fragrance intoxicating.  Too bad they really only last a few short days.  I noticed lots of strong new shoots at the back of the plant in the spring, so after the petals fall, I plan to do some judicious pruning to help re-establish the shape and form of the plant.