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It’s been a strange cool Spring

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Are you having a cold and rainy spring in your area? Or are you having strange and turbulent weather? We seem to be having all of the above here in Toronto.

Two weekends ago it was cold and we actually had snow with thunder and lightening storms .. yes and odd mix, but it happened – more than once. It’s true. Then it warmed up … then it cooled down again and then it rained and rained and rained.

Currently we’re hovering between periods of torrential rain storms and then warm sunny periods. It actually reached 22 Celsius (72 F) today which is quite warm for us in April – especially this year given that we had snow less than two weeks ago (which was really really unusual).

First Crocus of spring

I guess the good news about the cool rainy damp Spring is that well … April showers bring May flowers … and well they bring April flowers too. I’ve had Crocus’ blooming since about March 20th and thanks to the cool weather a good portion of them are still blooming. Usually they’re GONE by now. I’m also enjoying my Snow Drops this year … often they come and go so fast than if I blink I miss them, but since we’ve had an extended cool period they’ve stuck around instead of blooming at lightening speed and disappearing.

My Glories of the Snow are in bloom in the backyard garden beds and the a few in the front are beginning to bloom this week. A few Dwarf Irises are also blooming. Other flowers that are growing and preparing to bloom are several Hyacinths, daffodils, tulips and I’m sure a few others that I can’t remember off the tops of my head. Basically everything is greening up and growing leaves including most of my roses. At least the heavy dose of snow that we had over the winter covered all the plants well and protected them so I believe most of my plants survived the winter cold. We don’t always get very good snow cover here in Toronto so I tend to worry about my plants in the deep cold of winter but not this past winter.

Blooming crocuses

Overall my garden is healthy and happy … I’m just waiting for the weather to warm up and for all my flowers to start growing and to begin blooming … but what gardener isn’t?

Tell me about your garden.






Spring is here and my garden is a month ahead of itself

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Winter is over and Spring is definitely here in Toronto. Actually it seems like we lucked out and never really had a winter this year.

Yes, I can hardly believe I’m saying that, but did you know that we didn’t have ANY snow at all here in Toronto in March? None, zip, zero! Toronto has apparently been keeping weather records since 1845 and this is the first year in that time that there’s never been snow in March. Geesh, it might the first year in history that there’s never been snow in March in this area.

Not only that, my home town of Ottawa which is known as both one of the coldest capitals in the world as well as one of the snowiest didn’t have snow in March either.

I’ve had small leave buds coming out on my roses since February and the shrubs in my neighborhood have had leaf buds for two or more weeks. In fact the trees are starting to fill out a bit as well .. There’s no leaves yet but I know there will be soon. Perhaps after this weekend! It’s supposed to hit 25 C (77 F) tomorrow and get even hotter on Saturday. It’s like almost summer temps!

I bet that my husband seriously considers pulling out the patio furniture this weekend.

It’s like we had an extended Autumn, an Early Spring and if the warm weather that we’re supposed to get starting tomorrow sticks around I guess we’re skipping to summer.

Very strange weather but I’m not complaining. I’d love it if it were like this all the time.

Of course last summer we didn’t really have a summer – it was cold and wet – like a long spring and I’ve found over the years that whenever we have a terrible summer like that (seems to come about ever 10 years or so) we almost always have a mild winter followed by a hot hot summer. So we’ll see how summer turns out.

My plants are loving this weather. My first crocus’ were up on the 14th of March and now there’s tons of blooming Crocuses all over my backyard. The clumps of flowers are bigger than I’ve ever seen them.

The grass is already turning green and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we have to pull out the lawn mower before the month is over. I can’t remember ever cutting the grass in April so this might be a first too.

There are also all kinds of plants sprouting up in my garden – something that usually doesn’t happen until mid- April to early May. I’m not sure if the plants coming up are Hyacinth, daffodil or tulips leaves … probably a combo of all. The leaves sprouting up are about 4 or 5 inches tall already.

I’m sure that I’ll be getting out in the garden this weekend to tidy it up, clear out old leaves and just admire all the plants that are coming up.

I’m so excited to see my garden coming to life so much earlier than it ever has before.

Is your garden ahead of itself this year too? Do you have plants coming up or perhaps some early spring flowers blooming? Tell me about it.

It’s time to start your seedlings gardeners!

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I meant to get started planting seeds indoors earlier this month, but it’s been one delay after another, most specifically _ I came down with a cold – my first in about 15 years!

So, this weekend I’m going to be getting out my seedling trays, and then I’m going to go down into the basement and find the two boxes that I keep seed packages and seeds that I’ve picked off of plants from my garden. It’s cool and surprisingly dry in our basement so it’s the perfect place to keep dormant seeds and even plant bulbs or corms like the four Cannas that I currently have down there.

I just have to decide where I’m going to put all my newly seeded trays. I think I’ll probably put them upstairs in our spare bedroom. It faces south so the containers and hopefully seedlings will get off to a good start with lots of sunlight. I do have a couple of grow lights that I can try to dig up out of the basement if I need them, but when I’ve grown seeds indoors in the past they’ve done well in that room without the need of additional lighting.

Have any of you started seedlings indoors for your garden?

I’m glad that we only have 6 weeks of winter left. I can’t wait to get outside and see new plants coming up in my garden beds. Oh and the crocuses! They’ll probably come up in my lawn by the last week of March like they normally do … perhaps earlier this year since we’ve had a fairly mild winter with barely any snow … so far anyway!

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