Sunday, March 15, 2015

An Update on Spring

Hullo! I thought I would give a quick tour of our garden so you can see how things are progressing...

Ah-hem... here we have the Bleeding Heart. It has been growing like a weed. Just a few weeks ago it was only an inch tall and now it has flowers!

Next to it we have... Bergenia... Mama likes to call it Beringia, but that was the land bridge between Alaska and Russia during the last Ice Age. This plant belongs to the Saxifrage family. It doesn't do much the rest of the year, but in the spring it has gorgeous columns of pink flowers.

These are our winter onions... they have perked up a bit with the sun.

In front of them, we have our winter leeks. I hope they do more than this, otherwise, I think Mama got sold a bunch of green onions!

Last year we bought some raspberry shoots (another back alley deal). So they didn't do much last year other than grow. This year you can see new babies coming up.

These are the old stalks and they have flowers!! That means berries...

Here we have some primroses or primulas... these were rescue plants from the old homestead up the road that is now a bunch new infills. Sigh... At least we could give these plants a good home!

Oh yes... and some daffodils... they are from the burnt-out-farm... rumour has it that the property is going to be built on this summer so we may need to rescue some more bulbs before that happens.

And a hyacinth... a beary delicate and beautiful one. Behind that we have some Alium from our pals in Calgary.

The tulips are coming up... Mama put some twigs amongst them to deter the deer.

Oh... and the garlic has come up nicely. This is just some of them... The flopping white things in front of them (there are three clumps) are accidental garlic from the compost. Mama was rearranging the bins and saw these garlic desperately trying to survive so... she planted them.

Last fall we planted lettuce... hmph.... it didn't do much over the winter other than survive...

And spinach... I hope they start growing. We have some new seeds planted in between...

What else... oh yes... some parsley that survived the winter. I won't even show you the rosemary, tarragon, thyme and sage that survived the winter cause a couple of little bears in the American Midwest might faint at the thought of that!

Last year a friend of ours gave us some wandering onions. Right now they are just producing greens but later they should put out some really cute flower/bulbettes that will take root when they touch the ground. We'll see...

And... this was a bit of an experiment. Last year we bought a beautiful fuschia plant. In the fall, Mama cut it back and put the pot in the shed. This spring... it started putting out green leaves!! Isn't that cool??

Oh... and lots of flowers on the plum tree. Hopefully that means lots and lots of plums - the yummiest ones ever!

We have guests coming today (Sunday) - young Rose and her mom... Mama was madly weeding the fairy garden so it would look good for little Rose... who ain't so little anymore. Updates as they happen!

14 comments:

  1. You have some beautiful plants Sandy, they are coming along relly well. You must have green fingers xx

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    1. Thanks Dumpy! I just do the supervising - a beary important job you know.

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  2. Wow, your garden is far more Springy than ours! We had a great spring weekend last weekend but now it's cold and grey. But for today that's okay says G. because she has to do schoolwork today, writing the children's rapport cards. So it's easier to do work if you're not tempted to go for a walk;-)!

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    1. Really?? Usually you guys are so far ahead of us. We have a grey day this afternoon as well... but we did get strawberry babies moved to a new bed. It seems like they will take over the world if you let them!

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  3. Glad to see the garden is coming along. We have some winter onions popping up (they are volunteer onions in that we didn't expect them). Our neighbors crocuses are blooming nicely and our plum and cherry trees are starting to flower.

    Do the hyacinths you planted smell fragrantly? We have a hyacinth indoors and it's smells great.

    PS - I am curious about the back alley deal on the raspberries. Did you trade a bottle of honey for the raspberry shoots in the dark of night?

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    1. Thanks Little Fox. Our plum trees are in full flower although the pear tree is just thinking about it. I think the white hyacinth smells a bit.

      I would never, ever trade honey for raspberry shoots. Hmph. That would not be a good deal... no way jose... although, the lady did throw in three pampas grass soooo... for $10, it wasn't a bad deal!

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  4. We still do not have a garden but I am asking my mom if we can grow herbs or something, anything, this year...

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    1. That would be great Ajdin. Herbs are beary easy to grow.

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  5. Your garden is looking great! We cut some old plants back today, but it's still too early to plant. Ben is taking Jerry to the gardening store tomorrow to improve his spirits.

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  6. Good idea Ben. This must be a tough time of the year for Jerry. Spring will come soon.

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    1. Jerry is feeling a little better...spring seems to be very near, although he is often standing looking out the window while tapping his foot.

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  7. Wow, you sure have a lot of variety in your garden. Wandering Onions and Accidental Garlic? I haven't heard of those before :)

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    1. I'd never heard of wandering onions either - some people call them Egyptian onions. We call it Accidental Garlic but Gramma calls those sorts of things "Volunteers"!

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