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Oh what a storm

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I really don’t know how the majority of my roses and flowers manage to stay mostly intact with all the rain and storms we’ve had this summer.

We just had a big rain and hail storm and yes there are petals littering the ground around my flower beds, but there are still a lot of flowers on my plants.

I guess I’ll just count myself lucky and cross my fingers as we’re expecting more storms!

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I took that photo while I was safely inside my enclosed back porch. It’s through the screen so it’s not as clear as it could be, but it’s not that bad. The vertical streaks are rain and hail. For some reason it never looks like it’s raining as hard in my backyard as it does in the front!

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The hail was literally bouncing off the ground and making large splashes!

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Speaking of hail … I managed to capture one as it fell:

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That while blurred blob in the red circle is a piece of hail. I’d say for the most part that the hail was approximately the size of M&M’s but that one looks bigger .. maybe grape size?

We’ve had more hail with our storms this summer than I can ever remember having! We’re lucky that the hail in this area has been rather small. Some areas (even other parts of Toronto) seem to get even larger hail – like golf ball size and as a result there’s been a lot of damage to cars and other objects this summer thanks to the massively sized hail!

I love how you can actually see the hail “trails” in this picture as it falls to the ground and lands on the grass.

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Have you had strange weather in your area this summer too?






Want a peek at my garden?

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In the middle of July (July 14th to be exact) I decide to take a couple of shots of the backyard, front yard and my planted boulevard garden. Would you like to see what my garden looks like this year?

Here’s a shot of the backyard:

My backyard garden

It’s not the best shot. We had our patio table umbrella down due to all the rain storms we’ve been having. Our table gets tipsy in the high winds and I don’t feel like going through the pain and expense of having to replace the table glass if it falls, so no umbrella in bad weather! The green tube on the table chairs is for collecting rain run off from the rain spout so that the area closest to the house doesn’t get flooded in a heavy downpour.

The tall tree on the left – well the tallest in our garden – is the Rose of Sharon tree. It’s in full bloom at this very moment, but two weeks ago when I took the picture it was only just starting to develop buds. It’s blooming a little early this year. I’ll get some pictures of it soon!

My box turtles are enjoying a daily snack on the flowers. They are edible. If you have a Rose of Sharon or a Hibiscus bush you might even want to try using the flowers in a salad or as a garnish.

There are a large number of plants in those flower beds! The main plants are of course roses, lavender, salvia, hostas, clematis, balloon flowers and annuals such as petunias and portulaca’s. If you’d like to see a not quite up to date list of all the plants we’re growing in our back, front and boulevard gardens have a peek at my What’s Growing page.

Just click on any of the pictures for a larger view.

I’m pleased with how my front yard is looking so far this year. Our Lab puppy, Midnight, did a lot of damage to the grass in the early spring so we’ve tried to keep her off our tiny front long over the last two months and the grass has been growing back nicely. We helped it out my reseeding of course.

my front yard and garden

Our puppy still tries to bite at the roses, grasses and some of the other plants in the front flower beds as she walks by, but mostly she just sniffs at the plants. It’s quite funny to see her smelling a rose. I think she likes them! At least if she ever tries to eat a rose I know they are non toxic!

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The front boulevard is coming along nicely. I don’t know if you remember my earlier posts about cleaning up the boulevard garden in the spring. We had to remove thick sunflower stalks and lots of weeds before I could plant some new plants this year. It was a mess! It’s nice and tidy now!

planted boulevard

The sunflowers are beginning to bloom as are the pink Dahlia, daylilies, malva and gayfeather. Cosmos have come up this year as well. I haven’t planted cosmos there for at least three years and they were absent the last two, but I guess there were still some viable seeds in the ground and they decided to grow this year so there are cosmo plants scattered among the main plants and they are beginning to bloom now as well.

I have Marigolds and Alyssum planted along the edge of the boulevard and we’ve trained a few Morning Glory vines to grow around the No Parking sign that mars my boulevard garden.  Our neighbors seems to enjoy our planted boulevard quite a bit.

Overall I’m quite pleased with how well my garden is doing this year. It’s been fairly hot this month, yet we’ve had a record amount of rain (and storms!), so the plants are getting lots of water, free nitrogen in the air from all the lightening storms and some good heat to get growing. I actually think I’ve only watered the garden twice this month. Yay! I’m saving money on water too!

I think I’ll make up some of my famous Alfalfa tea later today and let it brew for a week or so. The garden has been doing so well I haven’t thought of using my secret sauce (great organic fertilizer that alfalfa tea is!) on it yet this year, but at least one dose won’t hurt it at all.

How is your garden doing so far this summer? Has the weather been good for it? Have you been getting a lot of rain and like us haven’t had to water much?

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Water gardening tips and ideas

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lily-pond-water-garden2.jpg Perhaps you’ve been wanting to do something different with your backyard this year.

Rather than just doing the standard garden, you would like to do something more unique. After giving it some thought, you have decided that water gardening might be a unique concept.

What is Water Gardening Anyway?

You are met with confusion when you tell your family and friends about your plan to attempt water gardening. Your friends and relatives don’t understand that water gardening is using water and plants in such a way as to give a garden-like effect. One of the easiest forms of water gardening is creating a small pond in your backyard and adding plants to it.

The first step in creating a backyard pond is to decide how big a pond you would like to have. To begin with, it is best if you make a pond that is only slightly larger than a moderately-sized birdbath. The size of the pond can always be made larger later.

Once you’ve dug a hole in your backyard or within your garden you will need to find a liner for your pond. Simply filling up the new hole with water won’t work as the water will drain back into the ground. Visit your local garden center to find a liner. For small ponds you’ll probably be looking for a formed hard plastic pool. Purchase it and then take it out to the hole you already dug and make adjustments to the hole so that the liner will fit in snugly.

Once you have the liner ready, make sure that it easily fits into the hole that you have made in your lawn. Place it in the hole, and fill it with water. Your small pond is now ready for water gardening! The next step is adding plants to your new pond, let’s consider using water lilies.

Water lilies are very lovely and make for beautiful water gardening. Perhaps you have seen water lilies on display at your garden center during the summer months. They have a unique root system which supports itself on the surface of the water, and they are available in a variety of different colors. It is, however, important to note that water lilies are delicate and only thrive in warm weather.

Water Lilies are just one example of the type of plants that can be used in a water garden. There are all kinds of water loving plants that would be suitable for a water garden. It just depends upon what type of climate you live in and what type of water you are using.

One other thing that you should keep in mind in regards to water gardening is mosquitoes. Standing water attracts mosquitoes as they usually lay their eggs in still waters. You’ll probably want to look into some ideas for keeping mosquitoes away from your pond. Skimming the water daily to remove larvae could work. Ask at your garden center as I’m sure they’ll have some great ideas for you.

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