As the Garden Grows

What's blooming today?


You are here: Home / Archives for Home and Lifestyle

I can make it rain

by

Why is it that whenever I pull out my garden hose and start watering the garden it suddenly starts raining? If this keeps happening I’m going to begin to think I’ve got magical powers!

Seriously … we haven’t really had any rain over the last week and a half to two weeks. Oh sure, every day has called for showers, rain or thunderstorms and it’s definitely rained in other parts of the city, but hadn’t rained here.

Yesterday there were dark clouds all day, but when by 6 pm it still hadn’t rained I decided that it was time to water the garden. We hadn’t watered since Saturday so the garden was really dry.

Ironically, approximately two minutes after I started watering the front garden beds it started spitting. The rain soon began to fall harder, but I knew if I stopped watering the rain would stop. All in all it rained here for about 15 minutes, but it wasn’t enough for my garden. By the time I got to the backyard it had pretty much stopped raining and I could still see lots of dry areas in the garden beds. So I continued to water.

Strange though, how it happens to rain whenever I pull out my garden hose!

Does that happen to you too? You get frustrated that it hasn’t rained for a while (even though the forecast says it should), go to water and it begins to rain or it starts raining shortly after you’re done watering? I’d say it happens to me maybe 50% of the time!






A busy few weeks – but my garden is full of roses!

by

Sorry I haven’t been writing much lately! It’s been a busy few weeks. My husband and I have had a few family things to do … like helping the in-laws put in a new fence, visiting with my brother and sister, attending some interesting events here in Toronto (Woofstock, The Mississauga Waterfront festival, Beach Ribfest etc) and of course – gardening, gardening, gardening!

Over the last week my husband and I have put down about 23 bags of cedar mulch on the garden beds. I think we still need to put a little bit more down to get a nice thick layer as it’s supposed to be warmer than usual this summer so the more mulch on the garden the less it will dry out and the less we’ll have to water.

I have tons of photos that I’ve taken over the last month or so, but due to updating WordPress to the new 2.8 I can’t use the visual editor so I can’t add photos properly or adjust their size … so no pics in this post – not until I get my WordPress fixed up!

All of my roses are blooming or just about all of them. If you don’t have roses or don’t have many you probably can’t imagine what almost 60 rose plants blooming at once must be like. I’ll tell you – it’s heaven! Especially since many of my roses are fragrant. Oh lovely!

Right now my garden is all about roses, but earlier in the month the German Irises, columbine and Clematis were the stars. Some of the Clematis are still blooming, and so are my two honeysuckle vines.

How is your garden doing? If you are like me, most of the major work such as weeding and adding mulch is probably done so now it’s just maintaining the plants by watering and occasionally doing a bit of pruning and deadheading – right?

Deer getting take-out food

by

I know that some of my fellow gardeners probably feel like their garden is an open buffet for wildlife pests such as deer and rabbits … apparently deer aren’t only hitting local gardens. Nope, they’ve started trying to get take-out from local businesses too!

00036153

I wonder if they ordered a salad and a cocktail?

BTW – sorry that I haven’t posted a Green thumb post or any updates lately. I’ve been getting my gardening done (planting young plants and seeds etc), but I’ve also been very sick with Crohn’s so I haven’t felt up to writing.  Sorry!  I’ll be making some updates soon.

Meta