Busy Couple of Days for the Garden

The weather has been nice for the past few days, and my husband took a couple of vacation days to extend the long Victoria Day weekend. So we have picked up a few things for the garden, made our annual trip to Canning Perennials, and just generally done what we can with the time we had.

One thing we got was a new rainbarrel. Previously we have used the ones that the City was selling at a subsidized price. But we had a few bad experiences and so we got rid of them. Now there are many choices of rainbarrel design available in local "home and garden" type stores, so we picked up one by Fiskars.

New Rainbarrel, by Fiskars


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Unfortunately, the diverter kit they include works with a couple of standard sizes of downspout, but our downspouts are another standard size, not covered by this diverter. Well, my husband figured out a solution that involved buying a section of downspout in one of the covered sizes and attaching it to ours. (The join is not even unsightly. The sizes were actually very close -- just not close enough for the diverter to work.) Anyway, here is what the installed rainbarrel looks like.

Installed Rainbarrel


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Now we just have to wait for enough rain to fill it up, so we can test how easy it is to use. I can say, though, that this version does look a lot nicer than the old rainbarrels.


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Well, that was my husband's contribution. This is mine. New containers. I had to replace my old black square container that cracked and broke when I pulled it by the lip. So I found this lipless model.

New Black Container


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The price was right for this container, but I am not sure I like the look of the thin walls right up next to the plants. A container with a lip provides something more substantial to set off the flowers. Here is what I mean by a container with a lip. This is an old picture of the container I am replacing.


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Anyway, I think it looks fine added to the collection of containers at the front of the house. Just, if I'd had any choice, I would have preferred the other style.


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The other thing we have done so far is make our annual visit to Canning Perennials, one of the great places around here to shop for rare and desirable plants, like the ones you see in magazines. Unfortunately, when we got there we saw a "For Sale" sign, so this might end up being our last annual visit.

Canning Perennials Purchases


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I bought three new daylilies, two new iris (trying for another shot at Immortality -- I've had it before, but it doesn't bloom any more), a fern-leaf bleeding heart, a new hardy geranium with tiny bronze leaves and white flowers, some woolly thyme to replace bare patches in the back, and that's about it.

Another Shot at Immortality


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New Cranesbill (Hardy Geranium)


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This photo shows patches of woolly thyme on the slope below the red maple. This is where we will plant some more and hopefully have fewer bare patches by the summer.


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You can see from this photo why our neighbours refer to our backyard as "The Forest".

And with that, I will leave you.

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