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You are here: Home / Archives for In The Garden / Blooming today

Ugh dead mouse in the garden

by Tricia

My husband has the day off work today and earlier this afternoon he suggested that we go outside into the backyard and just sit in the garden at our Patio table. Needless to say my laptop comes out with me when we do this (although the glare from the sun sure makes it hard to see!).

We’d done a little work in the garden the evening before and my husband had just cut the lawn prior to our visit to the garden this afternoon.

Shortly after I entered the garden I noticed that my dog was rolling around in the grass. I thought it was just because the lawn was freshly cut so I went over to pet her … and much to my disgust I saw a tail attached to a very rotted half mouse. EWWWWWWWWwwww.

I think my dog rolled in it! She doesn’t seem dirty or to have anything disgusting on her, but I’m pretty sure that she was rolling in the grass in that particular area because of the dead mouse. Labs are particularly fond of rolling in dead animals and other disgusting stuff.

I guess we’ll give her a bath later when we go inside. Now that’s a chore and a half.

I just hope that nobody put poison down and caused the mouse to die … ’cause if my dog tasted that mouse we might have a very sick dog on our hands!

Once the mouse was disposed of I brought my camera out and started taking pictures of the garden and some of the flowers that are currently blooming.

The flowers in bloom include white phlox, Climbing Iceberg Rose, Climbing Parade Rose, Compte de Chombord rose, Cleomes, Brown eyed Susans, a couple of Cannas, Malva, the Honey Suckle vine, Black Hollyhocks, Climbing Westerland rose, Baron Prevost Rose, Pink Salvia, Blue Salvia, Portulacas, Fuchsia, Gaillardia, Breath of Life Climbing rose, Valencia rose, Sedum, Petunias, Impatiens, Sweet William, Snapdragons and Balloon flowers. Then in the front there were several roses blooming – Climbing Eden, Standard Iceberg Rose, Yves Piaget Romatica Rose, Lavender Dreams, Bonica, The fairy and some others, plus Sunflowers, Cosmos and Morning Glory.

It sounds like there’s lots of roses in bloom from my list above, but that’s only about a third of my rose collection and of the roses that are blooming – some only have a few blooms while others like the Fairy and Bonica are covered in blooms.

Hopefully this evening I’ll have some time to upload and process the pictures that I took this afternoon and I’ll post them to this blog sometime this week.

What’s blooming or growing in your garden this week?

BTW Weather wise … can you believe that September has turned out to be warmer than July? Yeah … July was cold for these parts and September so far has just been a little warmer than average. Isn’t the weather getting stranger and stranger?






Filed Under: Blooming today, Garden Buzz, In The Garden, pests Tagged With: blooming, blooms, cleomes, climbing roses, cosmos, daisies, dead mouse, disgusting, dog, ewww, garden, gardening, patio, perennial flowers, rolled in it, rolling, rose blooms, roses, salvia

A little late, but Summer’s finally here

by Tricia

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Well it was a slow start, but as of this past week summer’s finally arrived in Toronto!

The week, well let’s say last Sunday, started with rain and a massive lightening storm. Spectacular really – with sheet lighting and huge vibrant lightening all over the city for about an hour and a half! It was the most vibrant lightening storm I’ve seen in a year or two!

After that the heat that is usually so much a part of our summers here in Toronto finally arrived. As the week has progressed it seems each day that passes is hotter than the last! We’ve also had a lot of humidity. Currently with humidity it supposedly feels like 36 C (96.8 F).

I think by Wednesday of this week the true summer like heat will be gone again though … so that means we’ll have only had about one true week of summer this year! Perhaps that’s still better than last summer though – last summer we had record breaking rain!

All through July I watched my Tiny Tom and Cherry, Early Girl and Glam tomatoes grow on the vine. I began to wonder if they’d ever change from green to red as they seemed to stay green and the same size for the longest time – probably due to the lower than normal summer temperatures that we were having.

However after a week of true summer like heat I can finally say that I was able to pick two ripe tomatoes and a handful of Tiny Tom tomatoes yesterday.

Likewise, my pole beans, cucumbers, raspberries and strawberries have been behind this summer. Over the last two weeks though we picked our first beans and a new (very small) crop of strawberries came in. The raspberries started to ripen and we’ve had a couple of handfuls over the last week as well.

Green beans 3

The cucumbers are growing very very slowly! Three weeks ago I noticed that we had our first cucumbers, but they were smaller than Gherkins! Now those cucumbers are a little bigger and thicker than my thumb so it’s still slow going. They’re English Burpless cucumbers so they have a long way to go before we can pick them!

Our roses are starting to rebloom now too. Maybe well have two more flushes of blooms before summer truly ends.

The pro’s of having a cooler and slightly drier summer are:

1. The lawn has been growing slowly so we haven’t had to cut it as much, and due to the cooler weather and occasional really heavy rain it’s stayed green.

2. We haven’t had the air-conditioning on for most of the summer (with the exception of this week and the last week of June) so for a change, we’ve been able to enjoy the summer with our window and doors open, and of course, we’ve saved a lot of money on the electricity bill!

3. We’ve been watering less this summer. With the cooler weather the plants don’t seem to need as much water – so again we’ve saved some money on the water bill (which doubled on the last bill anyway- Thanks City of Toronto due to increased prices, taxes and sewer and trash collection fees!)

Overall it seems like my plants don’t mind the weather we’ve had this summer although I do have a few roses that have almost totally lost their leaves due to powdery mildew (cooler weather, more dew at night on the leaves?).

The Balloon flowers seem to love this weather. They’re taller than normal (4 feet!) and blooming their pretty little heads off. Here’s a picture of a Balloon flower bud, and a Balloon flower in bloom – you can definitely see where they get their name from:

Balloon flower bud

Balloon flower 2

How is your garden doing this summer? Have you managed to eat any of the veggies that you’re growing yet?

Filed Under: Blooming today, Garden Buzz, Green Thumb Sunday, Perennials, Photography, Summer in the Garden Tagged With: air conditioning, balloon flowers, cherry tomatoes, cool summer, cucumbers, cutting, dew, early girl tomatoes, electric bill, flowers, Glam Tomatoes, grass, green beans, Green Thumb Sunday, green tomatoes, GTS, hot, humid, humidity, lawn, lightening storm, on the vine, picked, plants, pole beans, powderly mildew, rain, Raspberries, ripen, ripening, roses, save money, strawberries, tall, tiny tom tomatoes, Toronto, water bill, watering

Rose of Sharon in Bloom

by Tricia

This is the time of year when my Rose of Sharon tree becomes on the bright stars of my garden.

Our Rose of Sharon begins blooming anywhere from mid-July to the end of July, and continues pretty much through to the end of August. It’s lovely purple blooms brightening up the garden. Lovely.

Rose of Sharon tree - blooming

We moved into our house in June 2001 and it wasn’t until the spring of 2002 that we started landscaping our backyard to create our lovely raised bed garden.

Our neighbor, beside us, has a lovely old Rose of Sharon tree and for some reason hers was always sprouting little baby trees nearby. Now I can’t remember what year it was that she gave us one of her tree’s babies – but I think it was probably in 2003. That would make ours about 6 years old now.

We planted our gifted Rose of Sharon tree in the middle of one of our raised garden beds – basically it’s on the left side of the yard in the middle of the garden. A perfect place to see if from the kitchen window as I cook, clean or putter around or from our patio when we sit outside in the garden.

Here’s a view of the tree from the back of the garden looking towards the house –

Rose of Sharon tree - blooming 4

Unlike my neighbors old tree ours doesn’t tend to have young trees sprouting up around it in the spring … but maybe that’s just because we mulch our garden so heavily.

I just went out to measure our tree and it’s over 9 feet tall. I think I’ll prune it and shape it in the fall so that next year it won’t get any taller than it is now!

So far we haven’t had any problems with our tree. It’s late to leaf out in the spring – one of the last to develop leaf buds (often in June!), but otherwise it’s healthy and hardy.

I love the trees prolific beautiful hibiscus like flowers … aren’t they pretty?

Rose of Sharon tree - flower 2

Rose of Sharon tree - flower

Do you have a Rose of Sharon tree on your property or perhaps a Hibiscus if you live in a warm area? Don’t you love it?

Filed Under: Blooming today, Garden Buzz, Summer in the Garden, Trees and Shrubs Tagged With: august, baby tree, blooms, flowers, garden, hardy, healthy, hibiscus, highlight, July, late leaf, leaf out, mauve, purple, raised bed, Rose of Sharon, shrub, star, Toronto, tree, yard

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