~ Venidium is a wonderful annual that was native to South America. They aren’t the biggest blooms in the garden and don’t be fooled into thinking they are big by the macro photos of them. The first venidium variety is orange prince. And the next venidium variety is zulu warrior. I received some seeds several years ago in a seed swap and grew them for the first time. I’ve also bought a packet of seeds from the garden centre. If you are looking for an unusual plant you should give venidium a try, they certainly have been a favourite of mine.
Continue Reading
Archives for The Garden 2018
Alphabetical Gardening – U
~ What’s in the Garden? U for umbrellas, unique and unusual. One year I turned an umbrella into a display for the spring. The old saying April showers bring May flowers was the theme for this unusual wreath/display. Did you know an old fashioned word for umbrella is bumbershoot? I love unusual and unique words. But I do have rain umbrellas. My fun umbrellas are from my teaching days. It was important to cheer things up on rainy days when meeting the school buses. Now the grandkids love using them in the garden … raining or not! The plant tables have
Continue Reading
Changing the Bottle Tree
~ I have had a whimsical bottle tree in the garden since 2014 and it has gone through a few changes. The original was a lilac tree that just decided to stop growing, so I trimmed it to become the first bottle tree. I loved it but eventually the bush rotted out at the base and it fell down. I had grown beans and morning glories up the frame as well and it looked so pretty. I tried a couple of ideas when relocating the tree and finally settled on the corner of the fence garden. We had used branches
Continue Reading
Green Zebra Tomatoes
~ Each year in my kitchen garden I like to try to grow a different variety of vegetable. This year I chose to try out green zebra tomatoes. As well as going through a really hot and humid summer, my garden went through a lot of neglect this year. I had knee replacement surgery at the beginning of July so basically the plants were left to grow on their own. My husband did the watering, but I rarely got down the deck stairs to tend to the weeds or the thinning out or the snipping away of dead leaves etc.
Continue Reading
Rose of Sharon
~ A few years ago I was given a cutting from a Rose of Sharon bush and this year it is finally big enough to bloom. And not just one or two blooms but it is going to have lots of blooms. The photo on the left was taken at the beginning of the growing season in 2017 and the one beside it was taken in August 2018. Now in 2018 it is taller and fuller and has buds on it. It blooms on growth of the current year. Pruning is done in late fall after leaves drop. When new
Continue Reading
Plant Saucers
~ Finally the weather has warmed up enough this May to start working in the garden, and by working I mean adding plants and sowing seeds. The odd night is dropping down to single digit temperatures, about 7 Celsius, but the days are lovely and warming to 20 Celsius or a bit more. The spring blooms are plentiful. The lilacs just opened and you can get their wonderful scent while sitting on the deck. I purchased a gorgeous pot of pansies on the Easter weekend from our local flower farm. They are hardy plants that bloom in the really cool
Continue Reading
Rhubarb
Seeing the rhubarb poke through the ground on a chilly day is always a good sign that the garden is awakening after the long winter. Technically rhubarb is a vegetable but we tend to treat it as being in the fruit category. On April 20, 2018 you can see the rhubarb crowns just poking through the ground after a wicked ice storm late in the season. The crowns and first leaves are red, but quickly turn to green. And here it is on May 3, 2018, growing quickly with lots of new shoots under those big leaves. Growing rhubarb doesn’t
Continue Reading
Egyptian Walking Onions
The Garden 2018 and Vegetables.
E, Egyptian Walking Onions, garden journal 2018, O, onions, and veggies.
E, Egyptian Walking Onions, garden journal 2018, O, onions, and veggies.
~ Egyptian walking onions, also called tree onions, perennial onions, winter onions, or just walking onions belong to the allium genus. They prefer growing in full sun, are extremely hardy and easy to grow. I find these onions are fascinating to grow in the garden. They are one of the first plants to poke through the ground in the spring. At the top of each stem a small bulb starts to grow. From this develops the onion for next year. When the plant gets top heavy the stem bends over and the little onions plant themselves into the ground. After several
Continue Reading
Boots and Bumbershoots
Garden Projects, The Garden 2018, and Whimsy.
boot planters, garden journal 2018, U, umbrellas, and wreaths.
boot planters, garden journal 2018, U, umbrellas, and wreaths.
~ Bumbershoot is the old fashioned name for umbrella. I love unusual words. I decided to turn that umbrella upside down, add some spring things and make a bumbershoot display instead of the traditional wreath. I have several umbrellas but didn’t want to use one for the display because I will most likely need it for those rainy days that will be coming soon. A trip to the dollar store is always fun and this time I was looking for an umbrella. I had recently purchased some forsythia branches thinking I would do a wreath. I added some ribbon that
Continue Reading
The Plant Nanny
~ I love the challenge of recycling and reusing, and wine bottles is a favourite thing of mine to use in the garden. It takes awhile to collect the blue bottles but the green is fairly common for wine bottles. A feature in my garden is my bottle tree. It has had a few different transformations over the years. It started out on a lilac bush that just stopped growing so I trimmed it down and added the bottles and other things. After awhile that trunk just snapped away, which was expected as it was a dead tree. It
Continue Reading