Complements

Rainy days are great for weeding, because the dirt gets looser and it's easier to work the roots out of the ground.  Yay!

Rainy days are great for digging worms, because the dirt gets looser and it's easier to work the worms out of the ground.  Yay!

Rainy days are terrible for people who freak out about worms wriggling up with the roots of some plant and either squirming and curling away or weaving blindly after having been unexpectedly cut in half by a not-meaning-any-harm trowel because there are so many more worms than on a normal sunny weeding day.  Ugh!

Rainy days are great for sitting inside, knitting.  Whew.

Bean plant progress report

Just had to pop in with another pic of the bean plant.

Things I cannot believe my eyes about:

how fast these beans are growing

how slender and delicate the stalks are that are holding up those heavy beans

how the plant still hasn't died in my care


And further to that last point - is it bad and/or jinxy that I'm beginning to wonder how the beans will taste?

Bean plant

I'm up to my elbows in crafty stuff again, but in the midst of it all something really creative has been happening on my kitchen windowsill.

It's a bean plant.

It was a gift, and it's very important that I not kill it, which is extremely challenging given that this is the only window in my house that receives sufficient sunglight to keep a plant alive, while being sufficiently out of the way not to be knocked over.

In fact the only other plant in residence is some extremely hardy tree thing that has lived through about 16 years of neglect and dim light on my mantelpiece and still looks fabulous. I don't deserve it.

The bean plant came in a tiny pot where it had taken up residence as a seed, but outgrew it very quickly and then began actually to flower, so I had to scramble through the cupboard at the back of the garage for a bigger home for its roots. I'm pretty sure it's still not big enough, but it was the best I could do and not have the lot fall right into the sink.

Earlier this week it flowered, and a few days later the flowers began to wither and I thought, Well, I gave it my best shot.

I mean, it's crazy cold on the other side of that window, and it's got inches to go before it can wind itself around the silver sugar tongs I positioned as welcoming supportive arms for the vine I assumed must be scheduled to appear eventually.

Then I remembered that flowers do die before the fruits and veg appear, and I looked closer.

Tiny green beans, growing on a plant that's surviving my windowsill. Imagine!

Procrastination that paid off

Well, this is a first.

I've been too swamped this fall to get all the leaves up from the maple tree that generously shades my house. But if there is one thing I can't stand, it's not getting all the leaves up before the snow - because then when all your better-organized neighbours are joyfully looking out the window with their April morning coffees at pristine snow melting over green grasses and colourful crocuses, you're looking blearily at brown-dappled snow melting over brown sludge.

Last night, most of the leaves having been dealt with by somebody much less lazy and rather more generous than me, I went out in subzero temperatures to bag the remaining leaves the wind had raked for me into a few big piles. And this is where it gets good!

As I have learned to my cost in previous years, if you bag leaves after a rain, they will melt the compostable bag before the city comes to pick them up.

But as I discovered yesterday, if you bag leaves after a rain in subzero temperatures - why then, you can bag them with a shovel. Because the raindrops are now ice particles holding the leaves in one neat pile.

It was still a lot of leaves - 5 bags' worth, I think - but it only took about 40 minutes to do. And today: it snowed. Ha!

The moment we've all been waiting for

Any day now, this peony is going to bloom! My neighbours' plants (which seem to have about a million buds on them every spring compared to the two on mine) have already opened up, so I've sort of been getting my peony fix. But I'll be so happy to see these.

This year the sole surviving poppy of my attempt to plant a few of those three years ago also bloomed for the first time. As illustrated on the plant card, its petals were milky white with a dark purple centre, almost black in its depth - perfect for my garden, but very different from the poppies that made me want to have one of my own.

Those were growing in the large triangular bed of a house on a corner a few blocks away. This bed was fenced off in rustic fashion and the entire space inside was filled with orange-red poppies. When the pods developed, they looked like magical eggs, soft green and full of promise, and when the flowers opened and shifted in the breeze, you couldn't help but feel happy.

On its own, my poppy was beautiful for about two days after maybe a week of a creepy looking pod that got furrier and furrier every day, and then last night - poof. Petals down. Nothing but the creepy looking purple center. That's why there's no picture of it, by the way; next year I'll be smart and take some moments after it opens up.

These late spring flowers always make me think how different a thing can look on its own than similar things in a large group, and also how fleeting their impression. It's been put more eloquently I know, but you really do have to enjoy them while they are around. Just like people and happy times in your life.

Just imagine though... what is it like for the plants? Working hard to produce even one bloom that lasts maybe just a few days, and making it special enough to attract whatever it is it needs to get to sustain it for another whole year. Not just to sustain it, either, but to help it spread and support new growth. I find that amazing.

Even more amazing: some people have to live that way, too.

Spring thing(s)

For all that everybody is waiting for spring and watching for any little sign of it, I'm constantly caught out by something or other by thinking I have more time. Like, I saw my first fruit fly in the house last week, which means no more soft bananas on the counter till it gets cold out in the fall.

More crazy-making is the sun/windburn I got on my face last week. Okay, the windburn is probably not something I could have anticipated but sunburn in April is definitely not on my radar and I didn't get my giant strawlike summer hat out to defend against it. After five days of a hurty face and a ton of lotion and then pimples for pity's sake but no abatement of the hurty I corrected that error, and put on the hat to go outside.

Thing is, I just feel so idjitlike wearing that hat with a lot of dour black and grey in April. It's the sort of hat that Andie McDowell would wear to a summer wedding in England.

So I was quite pleased yesterday to score this dour grey alternative:


Bringing me to a nicer thing about spring - the shopping. True, this hat doesn't stay on as well as the bigger summeryer one, and will definitely take flight when I'm running someplace (as I do daily it seems, as I'm always late). Also the brim shades my face at the expense of my vision. But we will not quibble. Instead I will show you the fruits of my labours during the first try-out with the new hat:


It's really tremendously satisfying to pull up dandelions - an excellent stress-reliever. Sometimes you have to really hunt for them, they are so subtle, and you think you've got them all... and then one or six bloom and WHAM you can just dive in there.

The more years you dig them up, too, the fewer and fewer you get, a mixed blessing that sends me over to my neighbours' lawn if I'm feeling really stressed. They're so relaxed they don't mind, but they're moving - I wonder if the new tenant will want to pull up her own dandelions?

I suppose I could always go over to the park.

Just add water

Right in the midst of a few rainy, grey days, some people I know went to a plant nursery and brought me some instant spring:


I didn't realize how bleh a rainy yard could be until these showed up for the contrast. Now I'm watching to see whether the nursery stock manages to retain its enthusiasm, or the home plants spruce themselves up to match... I'm betting on the latter, not least because there seem to be a few strawberry leaves unfolding in there.

Stress: response

I had a very upsetting week last week, and when I woke up on Sunday morning I was so consumed with negative feelings, I really didn't know how I was going to make it through the day.

Does this ever happen to you? It doesn't matter how put-upon you are, or how justified your anger, or even how correct/ fair/ well-supported-by-others your position might be - it just feels so bloomin' awful inside.

It was very pretty outside on Sunday though, quite mild for this late in November, and there were still quite a few leaves and things to clean up before the first snow, so I put on my giant pink polka-dot rubber boots and went to take care of it all.

I forgot you get adrenaline from raking and sweeping.


And that even greeny-white hydrangeas look pretty when they dry out. I didn't have any ribbon handy to tie up the bouquet I made, so I stuck it through the fence.


I got the pots all tucked away in the back corner for the winter. They look terrible now but once they're under their snow blanket they'll be quite charming.


Less charming: the discovery that I let my big armchair slip off the flagstone and onto the dirt over the summer. I've had this thing for about 12 years and feel quite attached to it. It's pine, and would have rotted long ago if I hadn't been so careful with stain and putting it somewhere safe every winter. I hope it doesn't start rotting out from the inside, now.


At least I found my garden bunny again. He hides under green leaves all summer, but those died a few weeks ago and were due for trimming, so now I get him back.


I felt much better when it was all done. Not all better, even now, but getting there.

Mum's the word

This is one of the many things I love about fall:

being able to buy a colourful planter filled with lots of cabbage that I suddenly like the look of after years of not so much

and having it look magnificent once home

and knowing that there will be enough rain falling not to have to water it

and enough leaves gone from the tree above to allow the rain through

and being able to take a picture of it to enjoy

while nice and dry, from inside the house

with a cup of hot chocolate.

The Garden Unveiled

Before: an annual border of sunflowers and columbines.



After: a living boxwood vase for lime hydrangeas... not as tall or colourful, but with year-round prettiness potential and minimal watering requirements.



Bringing new meaning to the phrase 'put your money in the pot'. Throw in some roots from a dead tree, call it sculpture, dress it up with some winter-hardy ivy to climb and cover said sculpture, and yer done. At least until the roots rot.



In the spring I'll plant an ivy that changes colour in fall to turn this into a 3-season cover for the eyesore fence. And I might even trim back the flowering shrub on the left (ya think?)

Moving the Furniture

Saturday nights when she was in her 20s, my mother's friends would creep up and put an ear to the door of her house to listen for moving furniture. If they heard it, they crept away, praying all the while she wouldn't catch them and make them help.

So I guess I come by it naturally, the urge to rearrange the furniture every few months. I've done this so many times inside my house there isn't one more variation to try, and you'd think I'd have been happy to be outside it this morning planting new plants and shifting around the old ones.

And you'd be wrong. You don't get muddy and horrible in a living room. You don't have to find new homes for slugs, either, and you definitely don't have to be friendly with passers-by through a face caked in dirt and hair tugged out of its clips.

I'm still not done. But I will be this weekend (or rather, wherever the garden sits on Monday at 3pm, the garden stays for the winter), and then I will take the camera for a walk along the paths to show it all off and I will remember to post the pictures here, and everything.

Weekend Update Top Ten

1. Pumpkins acquired, of great number and size
2. Large fibreglass pot leveled and positioned
3. Trellises in place
4. Many rows of knitting ripped out (of the 2 rows forward, 1 back variety)
5. Concrete slabs in place along boulevard
6. 9 boxwoods planted (yay! they were on sale after all!)
7. Cluster of hydrangeas panting to get into the ground
8. Overall knitting status: back done, both fronts done, 1 sleeve mostly done
9. No additional sleep banked
and
10. Bonus discovery: Ghirardelli instant hot chocolate is the new black

Fall is a Great time to Plant!

I quote multiple ads for greenhouses when I say so and will not hold it against them for not adding "wearing mittens and hats and scarves" before the "!".

Fall is a great time to plant because the air is cool or wet and the ground is still warm blah blah everything is on sale. How can you say no to half-price boxwoods, especially if you need ten? Not that boxwoods are on sale this week at my preferred purveyor's. Hydrangeas are. And wooden trellises, which I need badly, and topiary, folks. I do have a weakness for the topiary.

But what's really exciting: it's hide-the-sagging-fence day! I can't repair the fence because it's not mine, and I can't build another that is because my friend and contractor Ray assures me this would be insane, but I can hide it with a massive elegant fibreglass pot (acquired a mere 12 hours ago at 70% off) stuffed with insulation, rocks, dirt, and a honking tall something that stands in front of an even taller half-price trellis.

I promise to post pics when it's done.

Rain Rain Go Away

Not.

Yay, it's raining and it's going to rain all day!! I don't need to water the plants!

I could have used some of this rain while I was at book camp and couldn't nurture the garden through the hot dry days we had. On the other hand, I would have been sitting through lectures in wet shoes. And now the plants are happy, so it's all good. But it does make me kick myself for still being so immature, wanting a nice garden to look at but not look after. The ol' cake-and-eat-it switcheroo.

And even more than that, I'm kicking myself for still not having a pair of summer shoes to get wet in comfortably. And yet not kicking myself... mmmmm, shopping.

RIP Rhododendrons...

First the fish, now the rhododendrons. I have to start paying closer attention to the non-human living things in my midst.

The problem seems to be spider mites, and apparently I could plant onions, garlic, cloves, or chives to act as natural bodyguards. I can also spray with some sort of soap-based insecticide. Or I could peruse the plant tonic recipes of Jerry Baker, America's Master Gardener! (aka Master of Alliteration! and Exclamation!) I'm thinking that for once, speed is King, so I'm going for door #2.

So many books, so little time

That's the slogan on my favourite pair of mugs, which are decorated with uncharacteristically cheery Edward Gorey art.

Today the problem is not so much too many books - or even too many magazines - but too many interesting or productive or at least sensible things to do and only one Canada Day in which to do them.

I have decided to write this morning... and then this afternoon I might reset a brick flowerbed edge, and lay out the rest of the mulch, and cut up the pruning pile for compost, and clear out the really lumpy closet (no, wait, there's no way I'm doing that. That closet is evil), and go through more stacks of paper for keep and toss festings.

Boy, I really know how to have a good time! But it's only for another four weeks. By August if I'm not done a really good solid draft of this novel, I will turn into a pumpkin. And pumpkins do know how to light it up.

These shoes were made for...

Yeah, okay, so I didn't buy a wheelbarrow yesterday but I did get a pair of red gardening clogs at Lee Valley and I'm on my way to try 'em out. Today's list:
planting the rest of the plants
moving the garden chairs
spreading the topsoil
spreading the moss seed
rehydrating the mulch in a plastic tub and
tucking everything in with it.

and then maybe I can paint the porch
(except it's supposed to rain all weekend, so maybe I will write instead.)

How does your garden grow?

If I heard that Mary Mary Quite Contrary thing once growing up, I heard it a zillion times. You'd think it (or the hayfever) would put me off gardening altogether but for some reason: no. And I'm always getting tangled up in knotty problems with it.

See if you can follow today's red string into the maze:
I have to paint the porch (again, just like every year, not that I'm bitter.)
The unfinished garden leaves a not-so-fine layer of grit there daily.
I can't really paint until I have the dirt under wraps.
Plants don't grow fast enough for that: it's gotta be mulch.
Coconut shell mulch may attract fewer mosquito babies than cedar.
The coconut mulch has to be hydrated out of its compression blocks.
You need a big bucket for that, a wheelbarrow being ideal.
I don't have a wheelbarrow. Or space for a wheelbarrow.
Lee Valley Tools sells collapsible wheelbarrows.
Lee Valley Tools sells a loooottta cool stuff for gardens.
Mmmmm, gardens.

Yeah, I'm too generous - the link's in Delay Tactics. Have a great day!

In perpetuity we glory

Yeah, perpetual writing of this novel - I didn't do any yesterday!

But I did get more of the garden planted, and I discovered too that the mothball plant is not unpopular with other people (I wonder if this is yet another example of everything smelling and looking different to each of us, and none of us being able to articulate that?) AND
it is evergreen.

That's the perpetuity I'm thinking of. Anything evergreen is welcome at my place, because nothing is more depressing in March than a mud garden while you wait for the plants to come up.

the sniff test

If I get a spare second today I will not be putting the new plants I bought yesterday into the ground; we're getting thunderstorms and I am (are you sitting down?) excited to write in any spare moment that might come my way.

However I did make a few discoveries about plant shopping that I'm sure any real gardener already knows:
It's important to check different nurseries because
Impatiens are everywhere, but less-usual plants vary in supply.
Especially if you are filling a lot of space, check prices since
Some plants are a lot cheaper than others but
Make sure you sniff a new plant before you commit! or
You may greet passers-by with mothball-scented flowers
Like I will be doing.

(and now you know why I write prose, not poetry.)