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We chopped down most of our sunflowers

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On Monday afternoon and into the evening we finally got around to cutting down / trimming our Sunflowers as per the notice that we received from the city last week.

Last Tuesday or Wednesday we were given notice that our Sunflowers that grow in the boulevard in front of our house were causing an obstruction and had to be trimmed to three feet in height.

They weren’t obstructing anything, but I wasn’t about to find out what the fine might be for not complying with the bylaw order.

So on Monday, Chris started torturing our sunflowers by cutting down the biggest one which I’m sure was at least 14 feet tall. We had to go out for an appointment in the afternoon so we didn’t finish trimming the rest of the sunflowers – perhaps 20 in all – until we returned in the early evening.

What a shame.

Some of the sunflowers grew multiple sunflowers at various heights so there are still some flowers growing on the three foot tall stumps. Still, I don’t know if the sunflowers will survive as we cut so much off the plants that they might just die down now.

People passing by kept stopping to ask us what we were doing and when we told them what and why they couldn’t understand what the problem was. The whole neighborhood loves our sunflowers and it’s a fact that we grow them and other flowers in the boulevard to help beautify the neighborhood.

One of my site visitors had suggested, when I first posted about this city bylaw order, that we take the cut sunflowers and hang them from a window so that the birds could still use the flowers. I took that suggestion and expanded on it.

We have two flower boxes hanging outside the two windows at the front of our enclosed front porch. Since I didn’t feel well most of the summer I never did get around to planting annuals in the window boxes so they were bare all summer.

I decided to stick several of the cut flowers on their stems in the window boxes. It actually looks quite nice and the flowers are holding up well. I scattered a few of the remaining flowers in the garden bed below the window boxes and the flowers that had been almost finished or that were starting to dry into seed heads were cut off and scattered in the boulevard at the base of the sunflower plants.

I’m sure the neighborhood squirrels will scatter the dried out sunflower heads throughout the neighborhood. Did you know they nibble on the whole head? I find bitten sunflower heads in the strangest places sometimes!

The nicest cut sunflowers were set aside and when we were done cleaning up our mess I brought them inside and put them in two vases.

I figure we might as well enjoy the flowers for as long as we can.

Stupid city bylaw.






My tomatoes are so behind!

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I don’t think I’m going to have many or possibly any tomatoes this year. I planted them way too late!

Normally I either grow tomatoes from seed – beginning in March, or I purchase tomato plants in May and plant them by the end of that month or in early June. This year I didn’t start any tomatoes from seed and I didn’t buy any plants until the end of June or possibly even the beginning of July.

July in this area wasn’t all that warm. I’m certain the temperatures were below normal. So the tomatoes that I planted didn’t get off to a very good start. August was very warm for the most part, in fact we had several heat waves and that might not have been good for my tomatoes either.

My tomato plants do have small green tomatoes on them, but I don’t think they’ll grow big enough to ripen before it begins to get too cool at night.

I think what I might do is bring the containers that I’m growing some of my tomatoes in, into the enclosed back porch. I probably won’t have to do that for two or three weeks, but when I do the tomatoes will be in a nice warm sunny room. Actually the back porch can get quite hot with the sun shining directly on it for a good portion of the day.

Have you ever brought tomatoes indoors to finish growing and ripening when they were behind at the end of the season?

I figure it can’t hurt to try anyway.

If you want to see my garden here’s a sneak peek

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Warning! My garden is very small. It’s jam packed with plants, but it’s small.

Here’s a view of the garden. I took this photo while standing with my back against the edge of the house. In other words I took it from near the base of the back stairs.

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As you can see I utilized every space available!

To the immediate right there’s a small storage area. Basically it’s a large grey wooden box that’s attached to the stairs. We keep our garbage containers in it. On top of that area I have several balcony planters where I grow everything from lettuce to tomatoes. I’ve also got my Jasmine or Camellia or whatever it is (see last post) in that area, as well as a Christmas cactus, ornamental pepper and a passion flower.

Immediately in front of the garbage storage area and our enclosed back porch is our small patio area. You can only see a portion of this area in the photo. We have a nice patio table that takes up most of the patio space. We’ve also got raised flower beds surrounding the patio. You can’t really see the central flower bed well in this photo but it’s behind the table.

So the patio table is surrounded by lovely plants. This gives the area the feel of being a separate garden room. Yes, I’m growing some tomatoes in pots on the patio. I’ve also got containers with cucumbers, green beans and tiny tom or cherry tomatoes growing on the other side of the table.

The rest of the garden is a mass of roses, lavender, balloon flowers, brown eyed susans, spring bulbs, hostas, lilies, daylilies and at least a hundred other types of perennial and annual plants.

Our neighbors house is behind ours. He actually lives on the adjoining street so his driveway is at the end of our garden. We also have very close neighbors on either side and can in fact see at least four of our neighbors backyards from our garden. I suppose that’s why I’ve tried to grow plants that are 3+ feet tall along the edges of the garden. It creates the illusion of privacy even if our yard is not the least bit private.

Oh yes I said the garden was small. It measures about 17 feet wide by 30 to 35 feet in length from the back of the house.

There. So now when I talk about my backyard garden you’ll have a good idea of what I’m talking about.

BTW if you click on any of my photos it will take you to my flickr account where you can click on the words “all sizes” above the photo to see a larger image if you want to see the photo in greater detail.

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