As the Garden Grows

What's blooming today?


You are here: Home / Archives for stalk

Getting slammed by snow storm after snow storm

by

Join Green Thumb Sunday

Join

We’re getting slammed with snow here in Toronto this weekend.

Friday we got about 15 cm of snow and today … well I don’t know how much we’ve had so far, it seems a little less than Friday but it’s not over yet. We spent yesterday just relaxing as we knew we’d be outside shoveling most of the day today. We have more snow coming on Tuesday. At least we get a days break between storms.

It’s a good workout, but it’s also freezing outside. I can think of other ways to burn calories that are much more fun!

On that note my flower of the week is the Maltese Cross. It’s a lovely perennial that grows to about four feet in height and it’s flowers bloom in clusters at the top of it’s stalks. Here’s a cluster of Maltese Cross flowers:

Maltese Cross flower

What’s your flower or plant of the week?

BTW did you know that it officially became Winter earlier today? Uh huh sigh …






Who said you could pick my flowers?

by

I’m just seething right now.

I was just coming outside a little while ago to clean up the dog fur at my front porch after a long grooming season with my Labrador Retriever, and as I exited my front door I noticed an older lady practically standing in my planted boulevard pulling away at my sunflowers. sunflower

She had a huge bouquet of yellow flowers tucked under her right arm, and with her other arm she was trying to get some of my sunflowers to add to her collection.

She noticed me come outside and she had the gall to turn to me and ask for scissors???

I told her “No I’m not going inside for scissors” – 1. I was covered in dog hair and wasn’t about to go inside where my husband had just vacuumed to get a thief something to aid her assault on my plants and 2. I was just stunned that she was hacking and pulling away at my plants right in front of me!

She told me she wanted the flower to take to the hospital. Yeah along with the variety of yellow flowers in the bouquet she was carrying – the flowers that she’d probably stolen along the way as she walked towards the hospital.

I let her take the flower. I mean she’d already ruined the stalk. But I’m really ticked off at the nerve she had taking the flower(s) in the first place without even attempting to ask first.

If she hadn’t had a whole bouquet of what I can only presume were flowers she’d lifted from other peoples gardens, or if I’d recognized he as a volunteer at the hospital I might have felt a little differently …

I guess I know now why some of the stalks on a few of the sunflower plants were all hanging down and trampled last week. She’d probably stolen flowers last week too.

Just her whole attitude ticked me off. I can picture her walking down my driveway and going into the backyard to pick roses too! Arghh

I don’t even pick my own flowers! Not for myself anyway!

I feel like putting a sign up that says

“These flowers are for those in the neighborhood to “look” at, not to pick!”

Should I bother? Or maybe I should leave some of my dogs droppings right where she’ll be likely to step in it if she tries to get my flowers again? Ha Ha! ((( yes I’m feeling evil )))

After she wandered off down the street I went and got my pruners and trimmed the stems and stalks she’d broken. I also shortened and thinned out the patch of sunflowers as they were beginning to get tall and were starting to hang out into the roadway. Remember last year I got a bylaw order to cut my sunflowers down to three feet? Well, they are about four feet tall right now, but look a lot tidier than they did this morning.

I’d hate to get a bylaw order to cut them down again with only about a month left to enjoy them, well if I can keep the flower thief away that is …

The thing that gets me most is that if she’d asked I probably would have let her take a flower. I would have even helped by cutting it myself. Heck, after she’d damaged the plants and I went out to fix the damage there were sunflowers all over the ground. Chris came out to help me put the cut stalks and leaves in a bag and as people walked by us we even gave them some of the sunflowers. So it’s not like we aren’t generous with our flowers – it’s just the fact that she didn’t even bother asking and that she damaged the plants. Grrrr

Growing Monkshood

by

It’s amazing how many plants are coming up in my garden. Every time I either look outside or go outside to look at the garden I notice how much the plants have grown or new green shoots coming up in areas that were barren the day before.

The monkshood is already making an appearance:

monkshoodshoots

This is Monkshood Aconitum Arendsii Azure Blue.

The new leaves are coming up amid the old stalks that I still have to remove! Usually I tidy up the garden beds in the fall, but I didn’t really do that last year. Even when I clean up the garden in the autumn I’ll often still leave a few plant stalks or a leaf or two so that come spring I can remember where the plant is planted.

I do have plant markers in the garden, but most have been there for four or five years now and they are barely legible or they’ve snapped in the cold so there’s only half of the plants name.

I grow another kind of Monkshood at the back of the garden near the holly shrub. It’s a bicolor Monkshood and I’ve forgotten it’s full name.

Now I know I have several photos of the Azure Blue Monkshood but I can’t find any of them right now. Odd. I do have a photo of the BiColor Monkshood as it’s beginning to bloom though.

Monkshood Aconitum

The bicolor Monkshood usually blooms twice a season. Often once in July and then in Mid to Late September. The Azure Blue only blooms once in late August through into September.

Monkshood is very easy to grow, but you must remember that it’s a poisonous plant. I’m a little nervous about growing it now that we have a Labrador Retriever puppy, but I don’t think she’ll be allowed in the backyard very often and certainly not unsupervised.

Monkshood can be grown in shade or bright sunlight. It does best with at least 6 hours of bright sunlight each day. Depending on the species it grow from 30 inches to approx. 36 inches in height.

This plant does best in rich, moist, humusy soil. It doesn’t like being disturbed once it’s established but it can be propagated through division.

There are several species and hybrids of Monkshood. Some will rebloom if the flowers are removed shortly after they’ve finished blooming as with my bicolor monkshood and others are of the fall blooming variety.

Monkshood is a beautiful plant that adds a lovely touch of color to the garden bed. Even it’s foliage is attractive. Just remember that all parts of the plant are poisonous!

Meta