One of my rock paintings.

2007

Sunday, May 27th - It's about time I got down and started this year's rambling.....

It rained ALL WEEK last week. And was cold. Although there was only one night that had a frost warning, the others were too close for comfort and there I was dutifully covering up or toting to the shed the few annuals I had put out already. I still need to buy a couple more packs of impatiens.

There are things I wanted to do but didn't get around to (like expand my 'good' daylily section). I'll probably cut out some grass this year and be ready for next year. The daylilies are too big now to disturb and divide. The 'bad' daylily section in my kidney-shaped bed weren't doing so well because they were in too much shade, so I dug out half of those and gave them to my sister. In their place, I planted divisions my lady's mantle, which grows amazingly for me. The crib garden idea, which I started in 20?? (I'll have to look that up) is a bust. After a few winters, the crib was looking decrepit and the bed itself was never really deep enough, so I got my husband to dismantle it. I'll have to clean up the area where it was sitting and make a new perennial bed.

Disappointments!

The 3 clumps of Autumn Joy I had in the front flower bed all died out. I divided my golden rod to fill up that area. Also, I had 3 clumps of the tall yellow yarrow in a row. Two are fine and exceptionally big, the third was dead, except I see one little shoot coming up now.

New Members of the Garden!

Wherry foamflower (Tiarella wherryi)
Coral bells 'Palace Purple' (Heuchera micrantha)
Pincushion flower (Scabiosa hybrid 'Blue Diamonds') - pictured on right
Spring cinquefoil (Potentilla neumanniana)
And, saving the best for last:
Prickly pear cactus (Opuntia fragilis) - native Manitoba wildflower
I'd read about this a couple (few?) years ago but for something native it's not that easy to find. It was one of those in the back of my mind to keep a lookout for. And now I have one. It was an itty-bitty thing for $7.00 but it's doing well; it's slightly larger than itty-bitty now and its side 'arm' is growing nicely, too.

Gardening Notes!

In my rock garden, I had the mini yellow hostas that I divided. Those things are SO prolific. I re-filled the area and planted the rest in another area twice the size (around my tufa elephant, Curses) and neither looks like they are "new". I have that yellow hosta other places, too. Could probably divide more. What a great shade foreground plant!

The wood violets are thick as anything and spreading like crazy.

Saturday, June 30th. OK, so I'm pretty bad at my updates this year; it's over a month since I've put in an appearance. I'll do the 'show and tell' catch-up version with several pictures that I took yesterday and today.

First a back yard panaramic view. I tried the stitch feature on my new camera. Worked pretty well, except I had to keep some white blank areas. The worst join was with my tree-stump bench, it looks bent. Click on the little image to view the big one. I don't have javascript on this page, so after viewing, press the 'back' button on your browser to return here.

LEFT: Curses the elephant in the earlier mentioned small yellow hosta divisions.
CENTER & RIGHT: My valerian that I bought last year (herb). Since it just grew and didn't bloom last year, I'm excited to see it do so nicely. I never expected it to be so tall (over 6 feet)! The stalks are quite sturdy and the flowers are fragrant. I like it so much, I went out and bought more for the front flower bed.

LEFT: A rec-cap of a pic from last year of the baby lady's mantles I dug out of the lawn.
RIGHT: Wow! What a difference a year makes!

LEFT: My tufa haunted house. I planted Irish moss in front of it for 'grass'. Needs to fill in.
RIGHT: Some hostas, a few of many. Terry, the pot-man, keeps losing his hat.

A Tale of Two Vines
Last year, driving to the cottage, I noticed something purple on the side of the road. Later, my mom, sister and I walked to investigate and discovered a clump of these purply intertwined plants, that were probably vines because of the little curly hold-fasts. We dug several shoots up and it wasn't easy, being in the hard stuff at the side of the gravel road. Good thing, too, because a couple weeks later they were mowed down. Anyhow, I planted mine in 2 spots, about 3 strands each. They were mostly just hanging on last year but one can never really judge a perennial till the second year onward. Well, the 2 vines came up this spring. You'd never know they were related! From the same plant, dug at the same time, then planted at the same time, both facing east.

LEFT: Plant 1 - Maybe a foot high on a good day.
CENTRE: Plant 2 - I think next year I'll need a taller trellis! This guy is shooting over 5 feet.
LEFT: Close-up of blooms.

LEFT: One of my wild cucumber vines. We collected the seeds at the cottage last fall. For the number of seeds I planted all along the fence, not many came up.
CENTER: Where's the path? I REALLY need to divide these hostas next year.
RIGHT: I planted wave petunias this year. I was going by how many impatiens I used to plant but I think they're a bit over-crowded. Four next year instead of six!

LEFT: The kiwi vine needs some trimming, too.
CENTER: We bought solar lights for the front.
RIGHT: Yet another out-of-control plant. My creeping thyme wants to take over the entire front.

Thursday, August 16th.

A storm, with hail, hit a week ago (about 1:30 a.m. August 10). It shredded my poor hostas.

That's it for now. All that's left is my gate project, another IDEA I had. I don't think I will finish it this year as we will be going on vacation yet... But here is the progress so far. It is on the gate (5 feet wide X 4.5 feet high) that now leads to my rock garden (erected last fall).

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