My local supermarket has a rather good plant section with phaelanopsis, an assortment of tropical plants and occasionally something unusual.
Last week I spotted this container with osteospermum and purple campanula. Had my name on it – it’s happy in my sunny living room window!
This morning, on my way into town to have my snow tires removed and my summer tires put on my car I saw a forsythia in full bloom – today is April 27 – the earliest I’ve seen forsythia in bloom in past years is May 3. A bit further along the road was a long splash of coltsfoot at the base of a fence.
So it’s officially spring here in Halifax (in spite of a snowfall yesterday afternoon/evening)!
When I got home from the car dealership I took a look at my back deck garden. It was warm enough in that sheltered corner to be outside and working. So I donned my garden gloves, picked up my loppers and Japanese knife, my garden waste bin and got to work.
I cleaned out last fall’s dead stuff, pulled out unwanted grass and other volunteers from the pots. Then I swept the deck clear of dead leaves.
It took me about an hour – but now you can see what’s coming along: I’m going to have about 20 blooms on the rhododendron (that’s close to a record), lots of flowers on the PJM rhododendron (that’s the small leaved one), the hosta is very visible, my peony survived and has shoots starting, the chives are well on their way, and lots of coral bells made it through the winter (in a week or two I’ll dig out all the stray coral bells from pots where they’ve started themselves and move them elsewhere). The echinacea lived through the winter (at least 4 of the plants are showing shoots!) so I won’t have to replant it (that’s a first). I love having those large pink daisy flowers in the late summer/fall.
Nearer the house, the clematis has lots of leaf buds growing, the yellow birch, the nine-bark, and maple are all looking happy with buds swollen almost ready to burst if the warm weather persists. My Siberian iris is back, as is the dusty miller, and the red sedum and the small yellow day lilies will do fine.
As you can tell, my container garden is predominantly a perennial garden. I’m always amazed at how these plants make it through the winter in pots just fine. Most were volunteers (the maple, the yellow birch, the nine-bark). I noticed a couple of maple seeds had sprouted in some pots – I’ve left one to see how it will do.
Mid-May, I’ll add the annuals to fill in some colour: peach coloured wax begonias, lobelia (dark purple), pansies (purple), some golden canna lilies and for sure some mandevilla – both the red and pink were glorious last summer.
This time of year makes me happy – I just love it when the garden begins to return.
A wonderful warm day – 20 C in my part of the city. The first so far. Buds on the trees are fattening, the hosta is beginning to show, and the patch of crocuses that have survived are open!
I will need to plant a whole lot more in the fall in spots that are sunnier than this spot – they make me smile and feel hopeful that the season is really changing.
It snowed here yesterday – quite a bit of light blowing snow. The drifts on my back deck were, let’s say, interesting. I was just able to open my backdoor enough to get out and shovel off the top step. Then captured a picture of the drifting snow.
And today my amaryllis is in FULL bloom – 8 flowers at the same time – never been this lucky before. The red just glows.
Finally my amaryllis is blooming. I potted the bulb as soon as I got it at Christmas, watered it sparingly – and finally it’s got flowers. It’s a double (the second stalk will be in flower in a few days). So I may actually have eight flowers at the same time – wouldn’t that be grand.
indour Garden Mid-winter
So I sat down to read, have taken a moment to enjoy the sun streaming in the large window and the plants lined up in front. I’d pruned away dead leaves and flowers on the weekend now they’re all looking happy. They’ll start responding to a longer day in a couple of weeks.
It’s peaceful sitting here.
This is my back deck just after our second snowfall last week. Both snowfalls were wet and heavy but the undisturbed expanse looks lighter. It won’t all melt before our next storm arrives whenever so the snow will continue to accumulate.
Let’s hope I don’t get the accumulation I experienced last winter!
Yesterday I could feel it in the air. “The closing down of summer…” as Alastair MacLeod describes it in his wonderful short story of that name – the first in his collection “As Birds Bring Forth The Sun.” Yesterday there was a hint of the chill to come, although the temperature was in the 20s; a smell unmistakable and yet indescribable. It was there.
Today I look around and see harbingers everywhere:
The hosta flowers have been finished for more than a week – I’ve been meaning to cut the stalks off for a month, the pruners have been sitting on the bench in my front hall waiting for me to get to the task – just haven’t done it yet.
The bees are busy harvesting pollen from the echineacea – more bees than I’ve seen all summer long – they know the season has begun changing.
I haven’t spotted any blue chicory along the roadside but there’s lots of goldenrod around. It all reminds me of a seventh-grade science project – the seed chart – a sheet of bristolboard filled with samples of local wildflower seeds in small bags and carefully labelled – that’s why I recognize our fall wildflowers and remember their names.
For the next six weeks or so Nova Scotia’s weather will be our best of the year – warm, often sunny days with comfortable, cool evenings. Nobody travels far in September/October – we don’t want to miss a moment of it! For soon the cold and snow and short days will be upon us… And we’ll be yearning for our wonderful early fall weather which seems oh so brief.
The red Mandevilla has finally taken off – it believes our warmer weather means summer. Each bloom lasts a day or two and before one drops off, another has already opened to take its place.
I will definitely plant these again next summer!
Last year I was lucky if I got one new bloom a day – this hibiscus has been prolific! I’m getting 3-5 flowers every day. This plant could use a good home for the winter – I can’t bring it in because I don’t want to introduce outdoor insects to my indoor plants!
jmn 