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Talk about strange weather

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So far October is shaping up to be more like the end of August or early September temperature wise.

It’s been no less than 10 degrees higher than the average temperatures for this time of year and often a lot higher than that.

This weekend is Thanks Giving here in Canada and the temps are supposed to be close to 30 Celsius each day. That’s the mid 80’s for those of you who are stuck in Fahrenheit.

I remember Thanks Giving weekends when we’ve had snow or when it’s been so cold and rainy that you don’t want to step outside. Luckily most aren’t like that, but neither are most as warm as this one will be.

There’s also been quite a bit of humidity. On Wednesday night I was out with my husband shopping and when we came back to our car at about 8 in the evening the car was blanketed with moisture. It wasn’t cold out so it wasn’t condensation due to temperature change. It was warm and sticky wet humid.

Then, last night at about 6 pm a strange fog descended on the city. You can see photos at BlogTO if you’d like to see how dense the fog was the blanketed the city during daylight hours. The CN tower has clouds at half it’s height! Very strange.

As much as I’m enjoy this strangely warm weather I’m worried that it’s giving my plants the wrong message. How are my roses ever supposed to get the message to stop growing, leaving out and creating new buds if it doesn’t begin to cool down?

Many plants need the gradual cooling of temperatures to signal them to go into dormancy. Without beginning to slow down and become dormant before the harsh cool weather of winter comes along the plants might end up having more winter damage.

How’s the weather in your area? Do you wonder strange weather in your area might affect your plants health?






Save money – learn how to do that home project yourself

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As many of you who read this blog already know, my husband and I are true Do it Yourself people. We’ve yet to hire anyone to do any of the renovations in our home. Instead we’ve done all the work ourselves.

We’ve torn down walls, sanded and refinished floors, painted every room in the house, venetian plastered the living room dining room and our master bedroom, installed a skylight on the roof of our enclosed front porch and we’re currently working on adding a tin ceiling to our living room dining room.

I forgot the biggest and possibly the most satisfying project of all – we landscaped our garden and put in raised beds using interlocking easy stones.

Now I know that not everyone is a do it yourself kind of person, but I also realize that some don’t do things on their own that they could simply because they don’t know how.

Well, I’ve come across a site for those of you who like Do it yourself projects or for people who want to explore and see if they can do a project on their own. It’s the doityourself.com website.

There are thousands of articles on the site with do it yourself projects ranging from learning how to hang wallpaper to restoring a vintage car! You should be able to find just about any kind of Do it yourself project on the site. There are categories for interior and exterior home improvement projects, decorating, painting, electrical, gardening, plumbing, vehicles, crafts and more.

Many of the project articles come complete with photos and even video clips. In fact, if you are more of a visual person you might do well by buying one of the Do it yourself knowledge is power DVDs as they show you how to do each project in an easy to understand step by step way.

There are also over 100 do it yourself forums on the site that cover a range of topics. You can talk to other DIYer’s as your project progresses, compare ideas and possibly get some help if you get stuck in some way.

I really like this site. I’m pretty sure it will come in handy when we begin to renovate both our kitchen and basement! Check it out for yourself.

I’ll have to replace my Oriental Lilies

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orientallily1

Our Oriental lilies didn’t come up this year. Well, there might have been a tiny sprout or two but they didn’t grow. Of course we didn’t winterize our garden last fall. We are in zone 5b and it was a mild winter so I would have thought that the lily bulbs would have been ok, but something happened.

We had our Oriental Lilies for about five years and this was the first year that they didn’t bloom or grow. Does anyone know if oriental lilies only live for a certain length of time?

Do you grow Oriental Lilies? Their scent is heavenly and as you can see from this photo they are absolutely gorgeous.

Well if I’m going to replace them and perhaps purchase other spring and early summer bulbs for the garden now is the time. Home stores and nurseries should be selling bulbs now. Of course, I could always wait and order them from one of the many nursery catalogs that I get through the late autumn and early winter months.

Have you purchased tulip, daffodil, lilies or any other type of bulb for your garden yet?

Green Thumb Sunday News:

I just wanted to add a little shout out here for MsGreen “Thumb” Jean. Jean was kind enough to help out by going through our long list of GTS bloggers. She made a list for me of all the blogs that either hadn’t posted anything at all for months or hadn’t made a Green Thumb post for two+ months. I just finished going through that list and it was correct so those blogs have been removed and the bloggers notified.

If you notice that a listed blog hasn’t posted a GTS post for at least two months I’d love it if you’d let me know.

The preference, of course, is that everyone make a GTS post every week, but I know life gets in the way sometimes. Therefore I’d like to say that GTS members should be making GTS posts at least once every two weeks, once a month at the bare minimum (that’s iffy). Stretches of longer than a month are not good and those bloggers will risk being removed from the list for non participation.

Thanks!

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

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