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Signs of life in the garden

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heurchera Leaves

I’ve very pleased to announce that the snow that covered my garden beds for most of the winter is now almost gone and that there are signs of life in the form of green sprouts coming up everywhere in the garden and even my lawn.

I saw our first crocus, a white one, in a sunny area of our back lawn on Tuesday. The next day I went out into the garden with our puppy and I noticed that the crocus’ that I’d planted at the edges of the raised garden beds, in the lawn, were starting to appear as well. There were no other flowers but their distinctive green leaves were sprouting up in several places.

I grow strawberries along the edge of a few of our garden beds and as per usual once the snow disappeared the plants were looking leafy and green.

Chives, heuchera, a few tulips, iris and perhaps even some daffodil leaves are making an appearance as well.

It’s a Spring beautiful day here in Toronto. So in a little while I hope to go out and begin to tidy up a few garden beds. I’m not going to do too much. Just clear off some of the dead foliage. No pruning or clipping just yet.

I’m certain that once I clear off some of the leaves that have blown into the garden beds and take away the dead foliage that’s matted down on the beds I’ll discover that quite a few plants are beginning to grow.

I just love this time of year in the garden. It’s a joy to see those first few green sprouts and to dream of what’s to come.

Peony new growth

Maybe I’ll get lucky and discover that the peonies are beginning to come up.

How is your garden doing today?

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!






The garden is shaping up

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Well, I finally managed to tidy up my garden and my arms have the scratches all over them to prove it!

Every rose I have has been pruned so now there are no more dead twigs standing up, visible over the new growth and blooms.

The garden looks so much better!

Chris and I went out yesterday afternoon and purchased 5 new roses, two clematis vines, three passion flower vines, a hibiscus, a blue Hydrangea and two fuchsia plants. Oh we got some more annuals as well. I guess that with all those vines, our existing cannas and jasmine plants that our garden will have a tropical feel to it this year.

My back ached each evening after I was done working in the garden but luckily felt better each morning. I thought I was going to get away without having any sore muscles but my legs are a bit stiff today. At least it doesn’t seem like I’ll be as achy as I was a month ago when I over did it in the garden!

Now I just need to get all the new plants planted – perennials and annuals, and get some mulch down too.

Does the work ever end?

No longer Neglected

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My poor garden, it hasn’t been getting the level of care that I normally give it this year. I’ve been so ill that I’ve been barely getting outside to work in the garden with the exception of watering it a couple of times a week. Thankfully it’s been raining often enough that I don’t have to be out there everyday watering.

Yesterday afternoon and evening I made an effort towards getting the garden under control again. All of the plants are growing beautifully with little help from me. The roses have been blooming their pretty little heads off, the Holyhocks are beginning to bloom and so on. However, without my assistance some of the plants were leaning on to others, crowding them out and making the garden look more than a little bit sloppy.

I spent several hours yesterday putting some stakes around floppy plants, tying them up with garden tape and just straightening them out. It looks amazing!

Today I plan to distribute the contents of my compost pile around all the plants and add some coffee grounds that we picked up from a local coffee shop to a new batch of compost. Then I’m going to put some red cedar mulch on all my flower beds. I’m a bit late in doing this but they say that if you have problems with slugs, and I do, you shouldn’t mulch until at least mid-June, and you should turn the soil a few times prior to that to keep kill the slug eggs. Better late than never. It looks so nice when the mulch is fresh. I’ll take some pictures.

My arms are, of course, a mess again after tangling with several rose bushes. Oh well, they’ve all been tamed now so they won’t get me as badly for the rest of the year.

Later, I’m going to make some alfalfa tea for my garden. No, the garden and I aren’t going to sit and relax over a hot cup of steaming herbal tea. Uh huh, this is a special organic fertilizer that I make several times each year, let it ferment, and then pour it on my garden when all the neighbors are asleep since it smells so god awful bad! Really, it smells so nasty but works so well. I put it on my garden at least 5 times last summer and I think that’s why I have giant roses, abundant blooms and a more than slightly over grown garden this year.

I’ll write up the alfalfa tea recipe later and make a post about it’s magical work.

In other news – As you know this site is still in it’s infancy. If you actually been reading this post I’d like some suggestions as to what you might like to see me write about.

I’m thinking about make a weekly or perhaps if I’m really ambitious a daily feature in which I write about a particular plant’s profile. The write ups would include photos of the plant, hardiness and care data, when it usually blooms if it blooms and planting advice.

Would you like to see plant profiles on this site? If you would, give me some suggestions as to what plants you want me to begin talking about. See my Whats Growing page for an idea of the kind of plants I’m familiar with.

Don’t forget that tomorrow is Green Thumb Sunday. If you’d like to participate by posting a garden, plant or nature photo on your site tomorrow let me know and I’ll send you the bl0groll code and add you to the roll.

Ok, got to get back to the garden. Hey isn’t that a song? LOL

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