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Oh what a storm

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I really don’t know how the majority of my roses and flowers manage to stay mostly intact with all the rain and storms we’ve had this summer.

We just had a big rain and hail storm and yes there are petals littering the ground around my flower beds, but there are still a lot of flowers on my plants.

I guess I’ll just count myself lucky and cross my fingers as we’re expecting more storms!

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I took that photo while I was safely inside my enclosed back porch. It’s through the screen so it’s not as clear as it could be, but it’s not that bad. The vertical streaks are rain and hail. For some reason it never looks like it’s raining as hard in my backyard as it does in the front!

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The hail was literally bouncing off the ground and making large splashes!

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Speaking of hail … I managed to capture one as it fell:

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That while blurred blob in the red circle is a piece of hail. I’d say for the most part that the hail was approximately the size of M&M’s but that one looks bigger .. maybe grape size?

We’ve had more hail with our storms this summer than I can ever remember having! We’re lucky that the hail in this area has been rather small. Some areas (even other parts of Toronto) seem to get even larger hail – like golf ball size and as a result there’s been a lot of damage to cars and other objects this summer thanks to the massively sized hail!

I love how you can actually see the hail “trails” in this picture as it falls to the ground and lands on the grass.

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Have you had strange weather in your area this summer too?






Rose of Sharon blooming

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I’m always surprised when I look at the stats for this site and I see the search term “Rose of Sharon” come up almost daily all year round. There’s obviously a lot more people than I thought looking for information about Rose of Sharon shrubs!

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My Rose of Sharon came to me 7 years ago as a gift from my neighbor. She has a Rose of Sharon, lets call it the mother tree, that is about 40+ years old.

I’m not sure how tall her tree is but lets say it’s somewhere between 12 and 15 feet tall. The seedling she gave me has grown quite a bit over the years and it’s only about two feet shorter than the mother tree. It’s trunk and branches have thickened, but they are still smaller in diam. than the mother trees – but not by that much.

This is definitely not the best picture of the tree that I’ve ever taken, but to show you how big it is this year and what it looks like in full bloom, here we go …

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You can see the power line above the tree so that should give you an idea of how tall it is.

It’s been a beautiful addition to my garden. I love it’s purple blooms. Birds love the tree year round, and butterflies and other insects enjoy the tree when it’s in bloom. I’m sure it’s helped attract some of the butterflies that frequent my yard regularly each year.

The Rose of Sharon is a fairly hardy tree, but it’s slow to leaf out in the spring. It’s often one of the last plants to start to show signs of life in my garden. I usually see leaves forming by early June, but there have been a few years where it hasn’t leafed out till close to the end of June.

My elderly neighbor always thinks her tree is dead each year because it’s so slow and each year I reassure her that it will leaf out and bloom – and it does.

I’ll bet that the Rose of Sharon being slow to start up in the spring or early summer is one of the major reasons why I get so many searches on my site for this lovely shrub.

I used to have a Hardy Hibiscus that would die down each winter, but for the past two years it’s failed to come up. I think it’s gone. My tropical Hibiscus – that I keep indoors in the winter – is doing well in a large urn at the front of the house. There are several peach colored blooms on it.

Do you grow Hibiscus? What type and what have your experiences been with the plant?

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

One hundred plus blooms on Iceberg

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Wordless Wednesday

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Of all of my many roses (60+ varieties) my Iceberg rose at the front of my house currently has the most blooms.

Most of the other roses are either taking a break or only putting out a bloom here and there since it’s so hot these days.

The first couple of years that I grew Iceberg I didn’t notice much scent from the blooms, however over the last couple of years the blooms seem to have more scent. In fact, right now since this rose is practically bursting with blooms anyone walking up to the front steps of my house can smell their delicate light scent.

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