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You are here: Home / Archives for In The Garden / Summer in the Garden

It hasn’t been the best summer – garden’s puttering along

by Tricia

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Well, so far this year I can’t say it’s been a great summer or great gardening season … Some of my plants are behind while others are not liking this weather at all!

We’re finally having some warm humid weather here in Toronto (still not as hot and humid as it usually is!) and that’s helping the plants make up for what’s been a cold summer! We haven’t had tons of rain, but when it does rain it rains a lot!

My roses don’t seem to like this weather. They’ve been hit fairly hard with powdery mildew and several have just about completely lost their blooms! I’ve treated the roses with my organic mix and I think they’ll begin to recover soon … but they’re going to look straggly for a while!

Actually … it’s just the roses in the backyard that are depleted of leaves. The ones in the front look great! Especially The Fairy rose and Bonica! Oh and they’re blooming like crazy too! Take a peak:

The Fairy Rose 3

Lovely aren’t they? These are The Fairy Roses.

Oh well … at least most of the plants are growing and or producing veggies! My Tomatoes (cherry, tiny tom, early girl and Glam) are all full of green tomatoes. Hopefully the heat starts to help them ripen! Likewise my cucumber plants have tiny (smaller than Gherkins) cucumbers on them that I hope begin to grow soon. I can’t wait to have fresh tomatoes and cucumbers around!

At least I can eat some fresh fruit from my garden – even it’s only a handful! We finally picked our first raspberries off the bushes yesterday. Yummy!

If you’re weather is similar to mine you might have noticed that some of your plants are behind, smaller than normal or even taller than normal! For example, my Hydrangea is blooming, but the flowers are a little smaller than they normally are … yet my Phlox (Phlox David) and Balloon Flowers are blooming like crazy and they’re also much taller than normal … my Balloon flowers are over 4 feet tall! Biggest they’ve ever been!

Here’s my Hydrangea:
Hydrangea blooms 2

The sunflowers that I always grow in our planted boulevard were only two or so feet tall up until a week ago … then we got all that rain last weekend and they grew another two feet or more just like that. Their flowers are finally blooming, but again, they are smaller than normal. Geez … I’m used to having 8 foot tall sunflowers that the city tells me I have to cut down! LOL

At least my plants are blooming and growing. It could be worse!

I’ll leave you with this lovely picture of my Graham Thomas English rose … aren’t they gorgeous?

IMG_5882

How’s your garden doing this week?






Filed Under: Blooming today, Garden Buzz, Green Thumb Sunday, Photography, rose, Summer in the Garden, Toronto, Weather related Tagged With: blooming, bonica rose, cool summer, cucumbers, English Rose, garden, Graham Thomas Rose, Green Thumb Sunday, GTS, heat, humidity, hydrangea, lost leaves, odd, planted boulevard, powdery mildew, rain, Raspberries, roses, small plants, summer, sunflowers, tall plants, the fairy rose, tomatoes, walking stripe

Deluge of rain – at least we needed it!

by Tricia

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It’s about time that I wrote a Green Thumb Sunday post! I knew it had been a while, but didn’t realize that it’s been about two months since my last GTS post!

Sorry guys! I’ve been so busy lately and sick! It’s been hard to do my regular posts let alone special GTS posts.

Now, as I’ve said in the last few posts this summer is pretty much a write off! It’s been cool and up until a few days ago we didn’t have much rain. Boy did that change! It’s been raining fairly steadily since Wednesday evening.

Saturday and earlier today we heavy heavy rains. Like enough to form puddles in the backyard within minutes! My yard drained ok and my basements dry, but others in Toronto have had flooded basements and several streets turned into ponds! Talk about a deluge!

Chicago Peace Rose 3

The one good thing about all this rain is that I’m sure my plants are loving it … well they will if it stops soon! I also think it’s going to be a little warmer this coming weeks so maybe between the rain, the lightening adding free nitrogen into the air and some much needed warmth we’ll have new blooms in the garden soon.

It’s been so overcast in June and July that the pictures I’ve taken of the garden just don’t look as nice as they normally do. It’s hard to take pictures in the afternoon when the light seems like mid-evening!

Right now the daylilies, phlox and lavender are the stars of the garden.

Lavender flowers 2

What plants are the stars of your garden this week?

Filed Under: Blooming today, Garden Buzz, Green Thumb Sunday, Photography, Summer in the Garden, Toronto Tagged With: blooming, cool summer, daylilies, dry, flooding, garden, Green Thumb Sunday, GTS, lavender, phlox, plants, puddles, rain, stars, warming up

Cool and dry in Toronto – a strange gardening season

by Tricia

I don’t know what’s going on, but this summer is just a non-starter here in Toronto.

We’re several degree’s below the normal average this month and it’s been cloudy and overcast for most of June and July. Plus … even though most days forecast rain, we’ve only had a little bit in our area … well, up until last night and today that is!

You might remember that I started this growing season talking about how we were having a warmer than normal early spring and how my plants were ahead by two to three weeks … yeah, well forget that now! I’d say most of my plants are behind by two weeks now.

IMG_5900

My roses have only flowered once and are slow to develop new buds this month (although a few roses have had some repeat blooms).

The sunflowers … they’re only maybe three feet high and haven’t really developed flower heads yet!

The cosmo’s, cleomes, daisies etc are just beginning to bloom … sporadically.

I have green tomatoes on the plants, but they don’t seem to be growing all that much … and my cherry tomatoes and tiny toms have totally stalled and have yet to produce any tomatoes! I can usually count on my tiny tomatoes before my regular sized ones!

I barely saw any strawberries in June … of course it’s possible that the birds, squirrels and even my dog might have got to them before me! We do have raspberries that are starting to mature now though … so maybe with this rain and hopefully some true summer heat (next week?) the berries and all the flowers will come along.

Actually I’m sure the rain will help – as I said it’s been dry in our area … even though I know it’s rained in other areas of Toronto … still the weather people say we’ve had a lot less rain than we normally do in July as well … so it’s cool and dry.

Chicago peace rose

How are things in your area? Is your garden a little behind because of cool weather or is your garden delightful?

Filed Under: Blooming today, Garden Buzz, Summer in the Garden, The neighborhood, Toronto, Weather related Tagged With: blooms, cleomes, cloudy, cold, colder than average, cool, cool july, cool summer, cosmos, dry, flowers, forecast, no flowers, no rain, not growing, overcast, Perennials, plants behind, Raspberries, roses, slow growing, strawberries, summer, tomatoes, Toronto

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