Flower Photos

These photos were taken by the man you see cutting down the Caragana in the last post. He enjoys photography as much as I do, but doesn't have chance to get behind the camera as often.

Here, he has really captured the beauty of Johnson's Blue hardy geranium.


And the Lewisia Cotyledon flowers.


A picture perfect pansy.


And a lovely little columbine.


All photographs belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.

Can You See a Difference? I See a Difference

This year's garden has been almost as much about removing things as about planting them. I finally made the decision to remove the variegated yuccas, so my Mr. Wonderful did that for me. (I've taken up the name Sigrun uses for her husband. It's just so perfect.)

I seem to have kept Mr. Wonderful very busy in the garden removing things. The hinoki cyprus, seen here in a photo from April 23 of this year, was the first to go.

Hinoki Cyprus (Left of Elm), Looking Scratty


We were waiting to see how the sumac beside it would do this year. Last year it was an ugly tree, but it was twice as tall as the fence and had quite a spread. Its full canopy of leaves provided needed privacy that we weren't willing to do without.

2005: Ugly Sumac Tree, But Lots of Leaves


Unfortunately, this year the tree showed no indication of filling out quite so nicely. Rather than sprouting leaves along the full length of the branch, this year the sumac only sprouted tufts of leaves at the top. (Mr. Wonderful reckons it looked like something from Dr. Suess.)

2006: Ugly Sumac with Few Leaves


So again Mr. Wonderful had the big job of removing the tree. Now that it's gone, there is a disconcerting amount of open space where it and the hinoki cyprus used to be. For privacy's sake, we want to plant something in its place. Perhaps another oak tree (or two). Those are great because the dead leaves stay on the tree all winter, and well into spring as you can see in the top photo.

Ugliness Gone


Sometimes things have to be removed not because they are ugly, but because they take up too much space. (Here is where we say good-bye to the weeping caragana tree.)

Farewell, Weeping Caragana


The weeping caragana tree is crowding the nootkas. No branches are growing where the caragana blocks them from spreading. Since the nootkas were planted for privacy and the caragana is just an ornamental tree, this is bad news. It means the caragana has to go sooner rather than later. Like today.

Mr. Wonderful Hard at Work Removing the Caragana


Can you see a difference? I see a difference.

Weeping Caragana Gone


All photographs belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.

Rainbarrel Information

I originally typed this as a long comment. I thought it might be better as a short post instead.

Each of our five rainbarrels (Raincatcher 4000 from Forest City Models and Patterns, sold through municipal programs in Ontario and at Home Depot and some garden centres in our area) holds 54 gallons.

When they are full we are storing 270 gallons or 1020 litres of water, which I use to fill watering cans for watering containers, new plantings, and other water-sensitive plants (though I usually try to avoid having any of those in my garden). It took about three good rainfalls to fill all five. The more barrels you have chained to one downspout, the longer they take to fill (leaving aside all mention of rainbarrel accidents right now). We have ours chained together in a 3-and-2 setup using two downspouts, one on each side of the house.

The only time we came close to running out of stored water was when we had only two rainbarrels and there was a long dry spell of a few weeks without rain. By the way, it's nice to have at least one barrel on either side of the house, because it eliminates having to carry water long distances around the house.


More Information:

There are many types of rainbarrels on the market. You can even make your own. The most low-tech solution I ever read about was putting a plastic garbage can under your downspout and collecting water in it, then just using a watering can as a dipper. I really can't recommend this approach, though, because of concerns about drainage, drowning, and mosquitoes.

A rainbarrel needs to be provided with an outlet for excess water to drain off when it's full. It's best if you can direct that water away from the house (trust me on this). The only drainage with the garbage can was just to let the water spill over the top.

You also need to make sure that the opening through which the barrel is filled is not accessible to small mammals (squirrels, cats, children) who could fall in and drown. Our barrels are designed with integral spokes across the top to prevent this.

Finally, mosquitoes are a concern everywhere. I've read of people who put certain types of fish in their barrels to control algae and eat mosquito larvae. If you plan to have fish inside, you must put screen mesh across all drainage holes. Otherwise you end up with a blocked rainbarrel and a squashed fish. I think it's much simpler to just cover the top of the barrel with screen mesh or have a completely enclosed top.

Just Photos

Just photos, for your enjoyment.


















All photographs belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.

A Post About Poppies

As the title says, this is a post about poppies.



I don't really have much to say, even though I have a lot of poppies planted in front of the house. Not all of them actually bloom though! (I've yet to figure out why.)




If I had to start from scratch, I would not plant all different kinds of poppies so close together. It can be very hard to pick out the subtle differences between them. Well, some differences are obvious, of course.




Somewhere in my collection I'm supposed to have a 'Patty's Plum' (dark purple, planted in 2003), 'Turkenlouis' (fringed, planted 2004), 'Pinnacle' (red/white, planted 2004). None of these has ever bloomed.

Here are some of the different poppy blooms I do have (just don't ask me what variety they are, because I don't really know):

Small, Light Orange, Lacking Black Centres



Candy Pink (Possibly 'Manhattan'?)



Light Purple



White-Edged Poppy (Just Opened)



White-Edged Poppy (Old)


All photographs belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.

The orange poppies that get white edges as they age are different in that they have purple centres instead of dark black. They are also a bit smaller than the black-centred poppies.

I still have one poppy plant whose bud has not yet bloomed, and two plants that have leaves but no sign of flowers. Maybe I'll finally see a Patty's Plum or a Turkenlouis this year.

Well, I can dream, can't I?

New Blooms Today and Yesterday

Lewisia Cotyledon bloomed today. It's beyond what I imagined, for such a strange looking plant.


Also, 'Hollywood' heuchera turns out to have beautiful flowers (not the case with all heuchera, in my opinion), and 'Harlequin' honeysuckle is about to burst into bloom.


So far, only one though. (The daylily above is 'Cricket Dance', in case anyone was wondering.)


Finally, yesterday 'Clifford Moore' Campion bloomed. This is the plant by the rain barrel that I thought I would have to move. It doesn't seem to have suffered at all.


All photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be borrowed without attribution.

Today We Went to Canning

Canning Perennials is the best place around here to go for good plant selection, period.

Today while we were there my husband suggested that we buy a rare blue poppy. He doesn't normally take a lot of interest in the garden beyond trees, mulch, and birdfeed. Most of the gardening decisions are up to me.

So I said, "Yeah, sure, let's get the blue poppy." I didn't read the tag until I got home. Oh well. It requires full shade, which is fine, and woodland soil kept constantly moist, which with a bit of work we can do, but there are also all sorts of words about how fussy it is. Sigh. Me and fussy don't mix.

Anyway, he was off exploring among the rarities because I was spending most of my time around the Sempervivum table.


I believe I mentioned once that they have a large selection available at Canning.

Here are a couple of pictures of the sempervivum garden that the owners allow public access to during store hours. The gardens on their property are very beautiful, but it was raining so I didn't spend much time out there -- especially after hearing thunder.


You can't tell from this photo, but it reminds me of a museum exhibit because each variety has its own sign identifying it.

Here is a closer look. (You still can't see the signs, though.)


The sempervivum bed has hens and chicks, stonecrop, cactus, and rocks. The whole bed is "mulched" with peastone gravel.

For those of you who are looking for something a little more conventional, here are some other views of the garden. The yellow foliage with purple flowers is 'Sweet Kate' spiderwort. It's one of my favourites, which you might be able to tell from the number of pictures I took of it. (Personally I would never plant anything yellow like those iris so nearby. I think it would look better with dark purple iris instead.)






All photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be borrowed without attribution.

Every Now and Then You Need a Little “Then and Now”

This is my hopeless, semi-grassless slope. Most of what you see there is low-growing weeds I have allowed to stay because they are green and they are almost the only thing holding the hill together. (I still remove anything that looks like it might grow tall.)


Two years ago it looked lush and green, like this:


Or this (look how small the willow was only two years ago):


Oh, and while I was searching the 2004 archives, I found a picture of my IKEA shelf with its original decor:

All photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be borrowed without attribution.

As I mentioned before, one of those lovely craft store birdhouses ended up getting a wasps' nest inside it. Also, I had forgotten about my “great idea” of planting flowers in soup cans. (They rust pretty quickly, by the way.)

Plants in Context

Zoey makes a good point in one of her posts, about macro photographs versus plants in context. She wants to see what a plant looks like in the garden landscape, because she has been misled before by pretty catalog photos showing only closeups of the flowers.

I guess some of us are more information-seekers than beauty-seekers, especially when it comes to unfamiliar plants. Me, give me a beautiful close-up photo anytime. It's the beauty I'm after. Sometimes a plant is not nearly so beautiful in context, because of flaws in the landscape surrounding it. My photographer's eye wants to eliminate the flaws, and one way of doing that is to get in really close to your subject.


So Zoey, I am guilty of your pet peeve! But I am listening, and I am attempting to post more pictures of the actual landscape a given plant resides in, no matter how delicious its foliage or colourful its flowers. The photo above is my 'Lullaby of Spring' iris, in context. It shows that I have many more blooms to look forward to this year as spring fades into summer.

Next, here is a shot of the weigela bush in all its blooming glory.


And here is the bush in its garden setting. (These photos were taken by two different cameras at different times of day, so the colouring comes out looking slightly different.)


Here is a photo of my Centaurea in bloom. (The flowers are wispier than I thought they would be, but overall I still like the effect. The colour combination is always what draws me in.)


And here is my flawed photo of that plant in its garden setting. I really don't like my semi-grassless slope and I haven't yet decided what to do about it, being as anti-lawn as I am. We could resod, but it would just look like this again in another two years. So I feel I am stuck. (Though I'm sure I'll think of something eventually.)


All photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.

Morning Photos

Here is a picture of foliage in the garden in the early morning light. At the centre of the photo is a large clump of stachys (lambs' ears) that is starting to invade the walking path. I really don't want to dig it up right now and destroy the integrity of the clump. So I guess I will wait until after it has bloomed. At that point it starts to look a bit ratty anyway, so hacking it back can't make it look much worse.


In checking my records for this plant with the red flowers (Rock Rose, or Helianthemum 'Henfield Brilliant') it says it is a zone 6. I usually stick with zone 5 and under because 6 is iffy. When I planted these towards the end of summer 2004, I actually put in one red and one pink. The pink did not make it, but this one is thriving.


I have to get pictures of these rock rose flowers first thing in the morning, because by early afternoon the petals are all falling off.

Another interesting sight this morning was a bee busy collecting nectar from my 'Johnson's Blue' hardy geranium. (Yeah, it's not a great picture. If I didn't tell you there was a bee there, you might easily miss it.)


All photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be borrowed without attribution.