As the Garden Grows

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Time to enjoy the garden

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July has arrived and I think that I’m just about ready to sit back and enjoy my garden for the next few months.

back of garden - facing south

What I mean by this is that from early April until last week or so, every time I visited my garden I had work to do! From spring clean up, pruning the roses and other plants to weeding to planting annuals to finally completing the big task of adding approximately 30 bags of red cedar mulch on my back and front garden beds.

We put mulch on our garden every year, but the last two years we only topped up the beds with a light layer. This year we noticed that the previous applications of mulch had really broken down, so we made sure to add a 3 inch layer this year – hence all the big heavy bags of mulch!

Other than doing a little pruning here and there as the roses grow and become floppy, and or staking the roses and other plants as they grow, most of the work is done. From here on in the main gardening job will be keeping it watered.

Actually there’s at least one more job. My husband and I made up a large garbage pail of Alfalfa tea about a month ago and it should be just about ready to be applied to the garden. Alfalfa seems to contain a growth hormone that causes the plants to row quite well once either alfalfa pellets are added to the soil and break down, or in our case once our evil stinking brew of Alfalfa tea has been applied. It’s a great natural fertilizer.  Obviously it’s also organic.  We are organic gardeners and never use chemicals on our plants or lawn.

We just have to make sure that we apply it to the garden when most of our close neighbors are indoors! It’s stinky! We usually apply alfalfa tea twice a year – once in early June and then again near the end of July, but we’re behind this year, so the garden might only get one dose this year.

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Speaking of enjoying the garden … The first huge flush of roses is just about over. The roses started blooming in early June and now that first flush seems to be dying down. Most of my roses are re-bloomers or continuous bloom … but nothing beats that first Spring flush of roses as it’s usually the largest!

IMG_5848 Other plants in bloom include Lavender, Salvia, Heuchera, some of my hostas, some of my clematis, Gazania, Marigolds, Petunias, Dianthus (Sweet William), Impatiens, Alyssum, Portulaca, Hollyhocks, Lilies, Daylilies, Maltese Cross and the list goes on. More plants will begin to bloom soon as well!

We also have a number of veggies growing ranging from Tomatoes, Tiny tom and Cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, peas, a variety of lettuces, spinach and carrots. Plus we also grow strawberries and raspberries. Yummy.

Now if only it would get a little warmer here in Toronto. It’s been kind of cool the last two weeks with below average temperatures. It looks like it’s supposed to warm up a little bit this weekend, but overall it will still be below normal temps for a while. I do hope summer starts to feel like summer soon.

The only good thing about the slightly cooler temps is that I haven’t had to water the garden daily or even every second day and we haven’t really had the air-conditioning on. So we’re saving money on water and electricity. But enough already … It is after all supposed to be summer!

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How is your garden doing this summer? Are you finished most of the hard work and like me find it’s time to sit back and enjoy the garden? And is your weather a little cooler than normal too?






A busy few weeks – but my garden is full of roses!

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Sorry I haven’t been writing much lately! It’s been a busy few weeks. My husband and I have had a few family things to do … like helping the in-laws put in a new fence, visiting with my brother and sister, attending some interesting events here in Toronto (Woofstock, The Mississauga Waterfront festival, Beach Ribfest etc) and of course – gardening, gardening, gardening!

Over the last week my husband and I have put down about 23 bags of cedar mulch on the garden beds. I think we still need to put a little bit more down to get a nice thick layer as it’s supposed to be warmer than usual this summer so the more mulch on the garden the less it will dry out and the less we’ll have to water.

I have tons of photos that I’ve taken over the last month or so, but due to updating WordPress to the new 2.8 I can’t use the visual editor so I can’t add photos properly or adjust their size … so no pics in this post – not until I get my WordPress fixed up!

All of my roses are blooming or just about all of them. If you don’t have roses or don’t have many you probably can’t imagine what almost 60 rose plants blooming at once must be like. I’ll tell you – it’s heaven! Especially since many of my roses are fragrant. Oh lovely!

Right now my garden is all about roses, but earlier in the month the German Irises, columbine and Clematis were the stars. Some of the Clematis are still blooming, and so are my two honeysuckle vines.

How is your garden doing? If you are like me, most of the major work such as weeding and adding mulch is probably done so now it’s just maintaining the plants by watering and occasionally doing a bit of pruning and deadheading – right?

My rose buds are covered in aphids! Ugh

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I was outside in my garden today, wandering around looking at the four Clematis that are currently blooming and checking to see if any of my roses or if the peonies had begun to bloom yet and I noticed that almost all of my rose plants had tons of aphids all clustered around the rose buds.

It’s been cooler than normal here in Toronto. They say our average temperature at this time of year is about 23 C (74 F), but it’s only been about 18 C (64 F) or cooler most of the month so far. I guess the aphids and slugs love these kind of temperatures, but so far it doesn’t seem like the Lady bugs do! I only saw on lonely Lady Bug feasting on aphids as I did my garden rounds.

Since the Lady Bugs aren’t going to eat all the aphids before they destroy my lovely roses I decided I’d have to go out there and fight them. So earlier this evening I went outside armed with a spray bottle full of water and a squirt of dish detergent and I sprayed all my rose plants and rose bugs with the mixture.

Die Aphids! Die!

I fully expect to go outside tomorrow and see dessicated aphid bodies stuck to my rose buds. Victory!

I’m glad it’s so easy to kill them!

As for my roses, so of the first flowers came out earlier this week. As usually Morden Sunrise was the first rose to bloom. It was quickly followed by Stanwell Perpetual and Charles Albanel. All of these rose are at the front of my house – surprisingly, since the majority of my roses are in the south facing back yard. You’d think the roses in the back would bloom first, but I guess not.

In the backyard, William Baffin has one rose open and so does Parade … all the rest of my many roses have buds that are in various stages – from just forming to just about to bloom. I’m sure that by the weekend most of my roses will have a few to many many blooms. It will be lovely.

Now we just need it to start getting warmer! Oh well … at least we don’t have to have the air-conditioning on so we’re saving money!

How’s your garden doing? Have you noticed a lot of aphids or other garden pests on your plants? How do you get rid or them.

I just remembered, we have one other major garden pest – the Lily Beetle. My lilies look awful this year. Their foliage is all raggy and they aren’t growing as well as they normally do. Anyone know of a non-toxic (no pesticide) way to get rid of lily beetles?

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