As the Garden Grows

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Favorite garden books?

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I have a stack of gardening books that I keep handy in my living room.

I delve into the books for information to put into this blog or whenever I’m looking up a new plant and want to learn all about it before purchasing it, or in most cases after I’ve purchased it. Yes I’m an impulse plant purchaser.

I was wondering what kinds of gardening books my readers have at home? Here’s a list of what I have on hand:

  • Botanica’s Pocket – Annuals & Perennials
  • Ortho’s All about Azaleas, Camellias & Rhododendrons
  • 500 Popular Roses
  • 100 Easy to Grow native Plants for Canadian Gardens
  • The complete book of Garden Flowers
  • Readers Digest Illustrated Guide to Gardening in Canada
  • Complete Guide to Gardening (Better Homes and Gardens)
  • Botanica – The illustrated A-Z of over 10,000 plants

I think I’ve got a good start to my collection. What do you have that I should be sure to get for myself?






Blast from the past

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Hey, I just thought I’d show you what part of my garden looked like three years ago. How do you like this photo? It has quite the assortment of plants doesn’t it?

poppycleome

Delphinium, lilies, poppies – blooming and producing seed heads, Cleome, a sunflower and I think I see the leaves and the bud of a dahlia. Yeah, I like an assortment of plants.

I’ve since stopped planting my plants so close together and I haven’t grown any poppies for a couple of years. Sunflowers I now grow in the front boulevard, same with the dahlias. The rest I still grow in the backyard though.

Prolific garden

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How’s your garden doing?

My garden is quite prolific at the moment. I have 4 cherry tomato plants producing little red gems daily, and then there’s the cucumbers, I must have 4 that are just about ready to pick. My green beans are doing well too. Yummy fresh picked beans.

My tomato plants have still not produced any tomatoes, not even green ones. I started them late and I will never do that again. I’m pretty sure that I won’t get any tomatoes from them this year because they probably be green and just old enough to start ripening when it begins to get too cool for them.

The strawberries have continuously been pushing out crop after crop of berries, and the raspberries are producing their second round. I think I might make some pies and jams.

Almost all of the flowers are blooming. It would probably be easier to tell you what’s not blooming rather than what is. My four o clocks are finally blooming. They were slow to start up this year. I’ll have to make sure I collect some seeds from them this year so that I have fresh seeds for next year. I think the seeds I used this year were too old. I really love my white four o’clocks because they put out a scent very similar to jasmine. The garden is intoxicating when they are blooming in the evening. I’ve missed that most of this summer.

We did finally get some rain but there hasn’t been much so far. I’m hoping that we’ll get a few good showers soon.

Now tell me about your garden? What’s doing well and what’s doing poorly?

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