A Long Cold Spring

I was beginning to think Spring would never come.  The cold weather clung to us with an icy grip and refused to let go.  In mid-April we thought it was starting to retreat and the snow began to melt creating icy rivers of gushing water.

A river of melting snow behind our house

That wasn't the last of it though.  It snowed all day on April 28.  April 28.  All. day.  Thick fluffy flakes.  I wanted to cry  ...  and move South.

But the cold has now finally passed.  The snow has (mostly) melted and plants are beginning to show signs of growth.  I have begun the work of winter clean up and spring preparations.

The first task was to survey the winter damage.  The sheer weight of all the snow we had this year took its toll on the trees.  Broken limbs littered the ground and I spent hours pruning away ripped and torn branches.

Some trees were snapped right in half but the majority will survive.  Perhaps a little thinner than they were before.  Others received emergency repairs.

A large branch on this birch is partly split from the trunk and is being held together temporarily.  My hope is the bark will eventually grow over and heal the wound.  It's not a surefire solution but I'm hoping it might work.

Around the garage I cleaned out the flower beds, removing some old plants and making space for new.

Dead plants littered the beds around the garage

Post clean up things are looking a lot neater

Although the vegetable garden still needs a lot of work I have managed to plant some spinach and lettuce.  I'll need to work hard though to get beds ready for the big plant in the next couple weeks.  These tomatoes will need to move from their hut on the porch to larger quarters.

The same goes for the flower garden.  Tulips and daffodils are starting to sprout but they are having to work through a layer of dead leaves to get to the sun.

Lots of clean up is needed to get the garden looking good for summer again.

And it wouldn't be spring without a few household chores as well.  We finally got round to fixing up the front door.  After we painted the exterior of the house the door looked pretty ratty.  The old wooden screen door kept blowing off the hinges in the winter storms so we found a tight fitting storm door to replace it.  Then we decided that ugly old metal door had to go.

The screen door was replaced first with a proper storm
door but that metal door just looked wrong

We found a perfect vintage door to replace it but it needed some work.  Cracked glass was replaced, a new coat of paint was added as well as a brand new lockset.  This is the result.

It looks better than new and suits the house much better too.

How is spring coming where you live?

Triumphs and Tragedies - Tree Planting

When we first bought this property there was hardly a tree in sight.  When I looked at our space I saw 90% lawn and just a few trees on the edges.  There was no shade, no windbreak, no privacy and nothing to look at.

The early days...

Each spring for the last 4 years we have planted trees in an attempt to change those conditions.  We started with mostly native trees.  They were easy to dig out of ditches which saved us money.  They are also better adapted to our environment so there's less chance they will be troubled by pests or weather conditions.  I also like that they play host to many insects and birds.

In the spring of 2010 I planted this white pine.  It was a foot tall then.

White Pine is native to this area and well adapted to all that nature can throw at it.  Four years later my white pine looks like this.

from one foot to 8 feet in 4 short years

I'll count this as a triumph.  That's one happy tree.

Although I like native trees I think a few ornamental trees contrast nicely and make for an interesting landscape.  The last two years I have started purchasing ornamental trees to fill out our landscape.  When shopping at nurseries one should always trust their instincts.  I know this but amazingly I often disregard this advice and always live to regret it. 

Last spring I took myself to a nursery that was selling trees that were a bit optimistic for our climate.  I knew that wasn't a good sign but I ignored it.  The trees were cheap and I was game.  I also disregarded the fact that some of these trees had suffered frost damage.  I was told they would be fine.  They were not.  A tulip poplar with frozen buds never recovered.  Let this be a lesson to all of you.  If you think something isn't right, ask questions.  If you still has some reservations, walk away.  

Not all the trees died.  Some, like this Copper Beech were not incredibly healthy but they survived.  In this photo the leaves were curling up and starting to die back.  I found when I took the tree out of its pot that there was very little root mass to support such a large tree.  The top two thirds of the tree have now died but new leaves sprouted from the bottom portion of the tree and with some pruning it will eventually grow into a proper tree.

Lesson learned.  Get to know your  nurseries.  Good nurseries aren't cheap.  They have a long track record.  Staff are knowledgable, they know what will grow in your climate.  They offer warranties.  and for goodness sake, if your warning bells start going off don't ignore them. (I'm speaking to myself here!)

Even if you buy trees from a good nursery there are lessons to be learned.  I also bought a native Pagoda Dogwood from MacPhail Nursery last year.  MacPhail has outstanding staff, quality plants and good prices.  I have shopped there for 4 years now and never been disapointed.  But I need to hold up my end of the bargain.

My Dogwood was 6 feet tall with great spreading branches when I bought it.  It leafed out, bloomed and I was smitten.  It would be a fantastic tree if I had bothered to water it.  You see, I failed to take into account that the larger the tree the more water is required.  Newly planted trees should receive at least one inch of water per week for the first season.  A common formula used to measure the amount of water necessary is 10 gallons (38 liters) per week for every inch of tree caliper.   That is a lot of water.  I did water my tree but not nearly that much.  I was used to watering 1 foot tall trees and I didn't think to give the big one more.  Now my tree looks like this.

My, now dead, Dogwood

That's right, it's dead.  I have been dreading owning up to this.  I tend to walk as far away from that tree as possible when I go around the garden.  I'm embarrassed because I screwed up big time.  Water your trees folks.  The bigger the tree the more water it needs. 

I am trying very hard to remember that lesson these days.  You see we bought more trees this year.  Jody insisted on big ones.  He's tired of waiting for wee trees to grow into small trees (no chance of them growing into big trees so quick).  So we purchased two 9 foot tall trees and shoved them into the station wagon.  (*note for future reference, 9 foot tall trees can fit into a Ford Wagon... though it's a bit crowded).  A Glenleven Linden, and an Ivory Silk Lilac Tree now grace the front lawn.

A Linden on the left and Lilac tree on the right

 We also purchased 5 foot tall Yews and a Yellow Bird Magnolia.

Yellow Bird Magnolia

Big trees are costly so hopefully I have learned my lesson.  Get out your buckets and get watering!!

Spring has finally Sprung

It's been so long I don't even know where to start.  How about with a big thank you to those of you who have stopped by and left a comment to encourage me to come back to writing.  I missed you too!  This winter was the longest and snowiest we have experienced since moving to PEI.  I shoveled, then shoveled some more, did my school work, and split firewood.  All by myself.

I saw this view many times this winter

I haven't mentioned that Jody was away in British Columbia for 3 months working.  Only just returning a couple weeks ago.  At the time he decided to leave we did not anticipate how bad the winter would get.

I wouldn't want to take care of this house by myself on a permanent basis but the good news is I managed just fine for a couple months.  A lengthy vacation home to BC helped too.  I walked away from the constant storms and stepped off the plane to this.

I can't tell you how relieved I was to see my husband and green grass all at the same time.  Vancouver is about two months ahead of PEI when it comes to spring.

I made good use of my time in Vancouver ....  shopping, eating and..... looking at flowers... of course!  A day was spent at Van Dusen Botanical Gardens.  I stopped by various community gardens, shopped for seeds and plants and took copious amounts of photos.  But that will be another post.

When I finally did come home the snow had almost completely disappeared.  There was grass.  It was brown but still .....  I could SEE the grass in my lawn for the first time in months...  and there was work to be done.

I immediately set to work planting seeds.  I was several weeks behind schedule due to my vacation so there was no time to lose.

The dining table looked like this for a few weeks

Tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, pumpkins, and zucchini all had to be seeded.  I cut back a bit on my seeding this year since I was so late starting but regardless I still managed to plant 9 varieties of tomatoes.  I met the most fabulous man in December at a seed swap and he had HUNDREDS of tomato varieties to trade.  So really, planting 9 varieties was quite restrained of me.

After the seeding I went directly to the great outdoors.  I surveyed the damage.  Lots of chewed and broken branches from heavy snows and voles.  In retaliation I planted trees.  Hemlock, larch, spruce, birch and ... a magnolia!  While we were in Vancouver THIS caught my attention.

So very pretty, and yellow.

Jody took note and brought me home a Yellow Bird magnolia from a local nursery.  Of course now I'm planning a whole new bed around this tree.  More work to come!

After the trees came the vegetable garden.  Currently I'm still working away on getting the beds ready but I did manage to get my spring veggies in.  Claytonia, arugula, mustard, lettuce, garlic, spinach and kale don't mind some chilly temperatures and it means we'll have spring salads in no time at all. 

One half of this veggie plot is dug over but there's a lot more to do yet...

The flower garden is the biggest chore to tackle this year.  After 3?  4? years the flower garden is still not complete.  At least a quarter of the space is completely covered in weeds.  I swear, this is the year I completely dig over and plant up that garden.  You have that in writing.

This flower bed may be my undoing ....

I have started work cutting back last years perennials and digging weeds.  Making discoveries along the way.  The lamb's ear has grown so large the center has died out.  However, the sweet woodruff has decided it will happily take it's place.

Look to the left and you can see sweet woodruff growing under and around the stump

While some areas of this garden haven't been planted at all, the plants in other spots have grown too large.  As I clean up the debris I'm also dividing.  That's a good thing as the Canoe Cove Plant Sale is coming up quick on Saturday, May 31, 2014.  We need all the plants we can get.  If you're local and reading this, please consider donating any extra perennials you might have.  Plants can be brought to Inman Park in Canoe Cove on Friday, May 30 at 6pm.  All proceeds from the sale go toward maintaining the Canoe Cove Schoolhouse.

A sample of the plants I have dug for the sale so far 

For those of you wanting to attend the plant sale we have already bagged a trailer full of mushroom compost for you.  There will also be manure, the canteen will be open serving coffee and baked goodies, there's a raffle and of course, plants!

In short, I'm a busy bee these days.  There's much more to catch up on and I hope to get back into blogging as much as I can throughout the summer.  I have taken a semester off school and have until September to garden to my heart's content.  Hope everyone is well and I will attempt to visit you at your blogs soon.  Until then, happy gardening!

Triumphs and Tragedies - Summer/Fall 2013 Edition

I have neglected you and I sincerely apologize.  I have a list of excuses but they are irrelevant.

We need to catch up.  It's been a long summer and fall is half over.

The beautiful colours of fall have arrived

So much has happened since we last spoke.  There have been some triumphs.  We got a new couch!

Only took 4 years living in this house but we have a comfortable, brand new, lovely couch.  It doesn't sag.  You can't feel the springs.  It doesn't sit mere inches from the floor.  We are very happy. (did I mention I've never owned a new couch before!  I really am excited)

The veggie garden has been spitting out enough zucchini, cucumbers and tomatoes for a family of 12.  Our large freezer is full.  Completely full.

Anyone want some pumpkins?  seriously.. get in touch

There's tomato soup, fresh frozen tomatoes, pureed pumpkin, pesto, spinach, peas.  All organic, all grown with our own two hands.

Some trees came down ... on purpose.  They've been standing dead for some time and were in unfortunate locations.  Like next to the power pole.  We had put off getting it dealt with.

We left the base standing for the bugs and birds

I feel much better now that's out of the way.  I can quit worrying about our tree taking out the neighbours house and think about all that extra firewood keeping us warm.

It's not all roses though.  There is always the flip side.

We have been scraping, sanding and painting.  (hahaha, and by WE, I mean Jody)

scraped and ready to paint

It has been a load of work.  Sore knees, sore backs, and loads of arguing.  Yup, life here ain't always pretty.  When you have two very stubborn people with very strong vision things can get a little out of hand.  I like colour.  A LOT of colour.  Jody wants subtlety.  There is no middle ground and the weather has turned cold.  Too cold to finish the job.

putting on the primer

So for now the house sits in limbo.  I foresee this argument continuing right through to spring.

and speaking of roses ....

Our rose hedge is looking a bit trampled these days.  Looking at it lengthwise, above, the middle seems to be missing.  One foggy cold morning we found a car in our front yard.  Upside down.  Everyone is intact which is good.  We'll be a bit sparse on blooms though come next June.

and of course I visited the compost again.  We all know by now what that means right?  (think unwanted animals, or click on this link for a refresher).  The compost has become my nemesis this year.  I had taken a Friday off work to try and deal with some fall chores before the really cold weather sets in.  Cleaning up excess compost was on my to do list so away I went with my pitchfork.

I'm starting to get a little neurotic about going near the compost these days

We can now add wasps to the array of animals taking up residence in the compost pile.  That ended the day quite quickly.  Not to mention painfully.  I think I should just walk away from composting this year.  It's obviously just not happening for me right now.

Triumphs and Tragedies

It's been awhile since I went on walkabout on a Friday night and perused the garden.  Tonight was the perfect night for a stroll as the weather has cooled considerably.  Even my little buddy decided it was a good night to tag along.

I collected another bouquet during my travels.  

Peonies have given way to roses and veronica.  The lady's mantle is still blooming strongly and provides plenty of filler.

I had this notion in the spring that if I could just get the vegetable garden underway it would be self regulating until fall when I would gather up all the tasty food.  Good grief I'm more than a little naive some days.

I have been picking peas all week and I noticed tonight I have to get back in there again.  In fact there's probably another week of picking before we're through.  It's a double edged sword.  Fresh peas taste out of this world but it means the rest of the garden gets neglected... again.

Which means I didn't notice this until it was too late.

My new copper beech is in trouble.  The leaves are all dried and shriveled.  I have watered it now but the damage is done.  The real trouble was that this tree didn't have a good root system when I bought it.  I was not impressed when I removed it from the pot.  Far too little roots for such a large specimen.  I won't be visiting that nursery again.

The beech was not the only tragedy this evening.  The odd looking echinacea have morphed into alien species.

I've been wondering for a weeks now what the heck was going on with these plants.  They just look worse and worse.  Yellow coloured skinny leaves, bug holes, dying leaves - they don't look like echinacea any more.  Two plants are affected.  I'm new to echinacea so don't have a clue what's going on.  Any ideas what the cause is?

For those following the sordid tale of my composting mishaps - I finally gathered my courage and visited the compost bin these evening.  Yes, it has been several weeks since I last opened up the bin.  I felt sick every time I thought of digging through that again so I've been avoiding it.  Tonight though I thought - put on your big girl panties, you can do this.

The good news was I did not see a single mouse nor hear any squeaks.  I did however find snakes.  PLURAL.  They reared up at me when I poked them.  I did not get a photograph.  I think the rule from here on in when visiting the compost bins is always bring back up.  One person to hold the camera and one person to carry a shovel to fend off any enraged critters.

This is a much nicer view than snakes

Who knew composting could be so adversarial?  It feels a bit like chasing out unwanted squatters.  Although I should probably thank the snakes for taking care of the voles so efficiently.

One last stop was made at the very front of the property.  I'm starting a new garden bed there.  There's a slight dip that I have noticed gathers water when it rains.  So a couple willows were planted, including this very pretty Hakuro Nishiki dappled willow.

In addition to the willows I had an idea that some butterfly friendly plants would be a good idea.  To that end I brought home some Bee Balm from the plant sale in the spring.  I'm sure I asked about the colour and I could have sworn it was supposed to be pink.  Which would have gone quite nicely with that dappled willow.  This is what I found tonight.

Quite beautiful, but definitely not pink.

Triumphs and Tragedies

It's been a long while since I've written a T&T post but it seemed like it was time after this past weekend.  There's been a myriad of good and bad now that I've gotten out and about in the yard.  Let's start with some triumphs shall we?

The sun was out this past weekend, and while there's still a bit of snow in places, it was a beautiful day for a walk in the woods.

This wooded stretch was snowy but it's the last snow we'll see this year

Although the golf courses aren't open yet there's very little snow left on our property creating a perfect opportunity to try out some new golf clubs.

These little flashes of green don't look like much now but they're a sign of things to come.

Those are daffodil shoots.  I planted dozens (I meant to write down how many but of course, forgot..) of a variety called Golden Echo last fall.  

Also appearing are the shoots of columbine.  

I've had a sudden strong urge to start clearing out flower beds and getting ready for the new season.  

Unfortunately garden chores got sidetracked quite quickly as there are other spring chores to attend to.

A splitter is absolutely necessary when you've got 8 cords of wood to get through

Splitting firewood isn't exactly a tragedy, but when it keeps me out of the garden I consider it a negative.  Unfortunately, if we want a warm house in winter it's imperative that wood gets split and stacked in spring so it has the summer to dry.  

Which brought us directly to another tragedy.  One of our maple trees has been in decline since we moved in.  Back in 2010 it looked like this.

Not quite alive but not yet dead.  Every year it looks worse and this year we found many broken branches scattered at the base.  It was time to take it down.

I hate to remove any trees but you can see on the top left of the tree how there is a dead branch hanging.  It was becoming hazardous to leave this tree standing with branches constantly falling.  The good news is we added substantially to our firewood pile with the wood we got from this tree.

Another unfortunate discovery was one of our newer trees.  I planted a native witch hazel in 2010 and it's been growing beautifully ever since.

Well until now that is.  It's located near the roadside and I'm guessing a load of snow from the plow might have hit it this year.  The main trunk now looks like the photo above.  My thought is that trying to fix it simply won't do any good.  A repaired trunk will always be weak so maybe it's better to just prune off one side.  Does anyone have any better ideas?

Cautiously Spring

While the temperatures are still cold, the skies are blue and that makes all the difference.  A bit of sunshine the past couple days has pushed back the snow once again and I decided to wander through the garden today and perhaps start a few spring chores.

My buddy decided to come along for the walk and inspect the premises.

Mostly everything is a dull brown right now but there were a couple signs of things to come.

Buds starting to green up and shockingly,

the noses of tulips pushing through the muddy soil.

I was pleased to see that my burlap tent managed to stay intact all winter long protecting my rhododendron.  

So if you were wondering, clothespins will hold up in 80km winter winds.

There are a half dozen mature white birches on our property and every year since we have lived here our first chore of the spring season has been tree cleanup.  

Numerous branches are shed throughout the winter storm season and must be removed before the grass gets cut.  It seems like a simple task but some years it has taken me several days to get it all done.  

Luckily it wasn't too bad this year.  I managed to clear the whole yard in just one day.   Now what's next?