Rainbarrels

This morning my husband sacrificed his Saturday sleep-in to get up really early and stand in line in the parking lot of our local mall to buy a city-subsidized rainbarrel. (Actually, I think it’s the regional government that pays, not the city, but anyway.)



That same regional government controls our water usage throughout the summer with strict by-laws that only allow lawn and garden watering on certain days. It’s a major pain for those of us who always want to do the best for our garden, but there are good reasons for it, so we comply.



Our yard is mostly mulch (as opposed to grass, I mean). It’s hard to maintain beautiful grass under such restrictions, so we don’t have a lot of it. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to find a high-traffic replacement for grass on the dry, sunny, south-facing slope leading up to the shed. Any suggestions?



The rainwater we collect in the barrels I use for spot watering (of new planting, for example) and for keeping the container plants happy. It works really well, provided we get enough rain to keep the barrels fairly full. During a dry spell when we only had two barrels, I nearly got down to empty. Last year with three barrels it became a bit difficult to fill them all from one downspout. Now that we have four barrels to collect water in, we can explore different options for chaining them together. It will be nice if we can find room for two-and-two, but the most likely option is three-and-one.



When we had the flagstone path installed along the side of the house last year I asked the landscapers to make a little level "platform" by the downspout, knowing that we would be putting a rainbarrel there this year. And if we can manage to fit two there, we will.

Unfortunately, we can't set up the rainbarrels today, because (you guessed it) it's raining.

More Bloomin' Photos

Just yesterday I boosted my ability to store and display photos on my blogs by investing in a pro account on Flickr. So today's post will be another one with a lot of pictures and relatively few words.





The white hyacinths in the backyard have started to bloom. I think the reason they don't look as full as they should is that I didn't let the foliage die off naturally last year before removing it.





This is my spring flowerbed under the camperdown elm tree. By mid-summer you can't see the space beneath the tree as it is covered in leaves and shadows, but I find that the colour combination there now is amazing. (Still a little sparse, but what do you want from spring in Ontario?)





This is a closeup of the yellow and orange daffodil under the elm. It just opened today. It's an unnamed hybrid from a Breck's collection.





I planted five bulbs in Fall 2004 and this spring I have six beautiful 'Pink Charm' blooms.





I am still keeping an eye on that 'Replete' as it opens. Slowly.





The tiny little daffodil which I think is 'Palmares' is fading from the bright yellow it was when it opened. It's looking more pale now.

Name Change

I have changed the rather boring name of this blog to something a little more distinctive. That is because I was invited to join Garden Voices on GardenWeb. So if you are interested in finding more gardening bloggers, I certainly recommend checking out the list on Garden Web.

Early Morning Light on the Garden

These photos were taken out of my back window. Usually this light is gone by the time I go outside to take photos.







I know this is a duplicate post. I hope that isn't too annoying to the people who read all three of my blogs. There aren't too many of you, but... better safe than sorry. (Heehee)

Daffodils

Lots of daffodil blooms now. The good news is that although I planted five bulbs of each type in Fall 2004, one variety already shows six buds blooming or waiting to bloom.

I think this is one of my 'Palmares' daffodils. They don't seem to be doing too well this year, compared to the others. They are quite small and sparse, with only four making an appearance this year. Although this one is still yellow, it should (hopefully) turn apricot over the next couple of days.



These ones are definitely 'Pink Charm' based on their planting location and how well they fit the catalogue description.



The 'Replete' daffodil is slowly opening. This is how it looks on its second day.

Monday Morning Gardening

My son and I got up and out the door early this morning so we could go to Home Depot and buy some snapdragons. We were home and the planting was finished by 10:00. My son thought that yellow snapdragons would look nice with the burgundy pansies we planted on Saturday.




One of my 'Replete' daffodils is starting to open and it looks so cool right now:



When I was looking up information on Replete daffodils, I found this image, which shows “the truth.” Yes, I was one of those who were taken in by the lovely pinkiness of the image on the left. I know better now though.

Some more images from the garden this morning:

The Pinkening Progresses

Yesterday's daffodil is turning pinker. Well, peachier, I guess.



The fuzzy pasque flower is about to bloom. I don't know anything about this plant. I just bought it late last year to try in the garden. I had no idea it bloomed so early.



And the irony of the success of this single hyacinth bulb I planted in 2003 is that I only bought hyacinths for my son. I myself do not like them because their strong scent permeates the garden like Glade gone wild. I find it very unpleasant. They are nice enough to look at, though.

First Bloom

This is the first bloom in my garden this year (not counting a little purple periwinkle flower). It is a "pink" daffodil -- that yellow trumpet should fade to a kind of peachy colour over the next couple of days. You can sort of see it starting around the edges already.

I also noticed that the magnolia buds are starting to burst out of their protective coverings and the petals are showing. This worries me. Hopefully it's warm enough now that it will stay above the risk of frost at night.

Spring Triumphs and Winter Losses

This is meant to be a gardening journal so I can compare between years what blooms when. Last year's photos lack accurate dates, so with them I don't have a reliable guide to timing. I guess I will start this year. The photos posted here were taken this evening during a short break in the rain.

First, the daffodils are coming along and some in the south-facing front yard seem close to blooming. Also in this picture are lambs ears (stachys) in the bottom left corner and a couple of poppies on the right.



Moving to the back yard now, the way I know it is truly spring is that the black oil sunflower seeds we feed the birds are now sprouting where they fall on the ground.



Here is a hyacinth, and a daylily (hemerocallis) showing new growth.



Sedum 'Autumn Joy' starts growing early, but waits until September to bloom.



Here is some beautiful, unusual tricolour stonecrop that took a long time to establish (it kept getting dug up by skunks) but has turned out much better than I ever dared hope.



For the most part, these hens'n'chicks and stonecrop survived well through the winter, even in planters. (The contents of the plastic container in the top corner are destined for the composter.) The spectacular echevera, however, will need to be replaced. Next year I will know to winter it indoors.



The saucer on this terra cotta pot from IKEA did not survive the winter. Hmmm.

Composting

It has been said that gardeners will share their plants, and share their knowledge, but would never ever share their compost.

These items (bio-bags and stainless steel compost pail) are on my wish list at Lee Valley Tools.



The other day when it was warm (unlike now), I emptied the old plastic popcorn -- I mean compost -- bucket and I noticed a ripe odour wafting out of the composter. All through the winter there was no smell, since most of the compost was in kind of a holding pattern. As soon as the sun hits the black plastic container for any length of time, though, the compost starts cooking.

To eliminate the smell I need to add "brown" or "dry" ingredients. Ideally this would be fallen leaves collected in autumn and saved through the winter, but of course I don't have any. [EDIT: We now make a point of saving a bag of leaves.] I have enough junk to store through the winter without actually saving the fallen leaves I collect. So what I usually do is empty some soil from last year's planters into the composter to cover up the ripe "green" or "wet" ingredients and stop them from producing an odour while they cook.

I'm not an expert at composting. What I do works for me. If you click on the title of this post, it will take you to a site on the web that talks in great detail about how to compost.

I only have two tips to share, and the second one might not be available to you. The first is a generally available product called Compost Accelerator, which is absolutely wonderful and really works to help things along. The other is small kitchen bags made of biodegradable plastic, manufactured by a company called Bio-Solo. (By small, I mean small enough to line a compost bucket that sits on your kitchen counter.) If these are available in your area, they are worth trying. However, I should caution that I have not yet seen the results of how well they decay. Also, I have read that bags made of cornstarch and soluble oils are better (though they are twice as expensive and each one only lasts a couple of days). [EDIT: I have since learned that these bags are not biodegradable, but photo degradable. They need to be exposed to sunlight in order to break down. This means that burying them in a pile of compost inside a dark container is not a good way to use them. Oh well.]



We have two composters in our yard, despite the fact that they are not the most beautiful additions to the landscape. We need two, however, because it really takes two summers to make a rich organic compost. With two composters, we can alternate year-by-year, emptying one and filling the other. Compost at the end of one summer is fine to use; you just have to sift it because it's still a little chunky -- which sounds a lot grosser than it actually is. Some things like corn cobs or pieces of woody stem need two summers to decay properly. If you are going to put these things into your compost, be sure to chop them up as small as you can.

One of our composters is actually disguised from view, come August, by all the plantings around it. The other one is just a necessary part of the landscape. Using black as the colour of a compost bin serves two purposes: it helps the compost cook by attracting the heat of the sun, and black is also the most "invisible" colour if you have to have functional items on display in the yard.

In the lush photo above, taken in August you ought to be able to see both composters. The second one is hidden on the far right (it resides next to the arbour bench) among all the plants. By October, when I have cleared the area to avoid harbouring insect pests over winter, the second composter is clearly on display.



As you can see, there is no real way to hide or disguise the composters, but we don't feel that they are too intrusive. I know other people create lattice or willow-fence enclosures, or use bushes to disguise a composter, but honestly in this case I think that would look more artificial than just having it there on display.

We are proud composters anyway. It's environmentally friendly: we divert about 200 pounds of garbage a year out of landfills -- actually that sounds to me like it could be a low estimate.

And above all composting is garden friendly, and that's nothing to hide!

Looking Back/Looking Forward

I need flower pictures today. I am looking back at last summer's pictures so I can look forward to the upcoming months in the garden.

What's Growing?

Hmm. Not much! But then again...

The Hiatus is OVER!

Gardening Blog 2006 has begun.

I don't have anything exciting to post today. Tomorrow I'm hoping to take pictures of daffodil and tulip leaves and other plants with new growth. Nothing overly exciting yet, but it's a start.

Anyway I've got some ideas of what to blog about until the blooms are showing. I want to talk about composting, and today I will post some pictures of gardens past.


Gardens Past

My first garden flourished on top of a cheap IKEA bookshelf we had set up in the corner of our "den". We were renting a one-bedroom-plus-den apartment in a brand new highrise. It was located in the business core of a major Ontario city that prides itself in being "not Toronto".



Right now we have a low-maintenance woodland garden, but the first house we bought I had quite a beautiful, colourful border. These pictures were taken in June 1997, when we had been in the house for almost five years.









The very sad thing is that when we sold the house a couple of years later, the new owners demolished most of the border, and what was left became a home for garden gnomes. They also painted the garage blue, instead of the beautiful oxblood colour that I had originally chosen from the builder.