Wednesday May 27, 2009 6:30 am......12 degrees and soft gentle rain. I just took a stroll through my garden with my umbrella, if my neighbours are up they must think I am nuts but the birds are singing and our garden smells so wonderful. No better way to start the day.

I love looking at the rain drops on the Hosta leaves. Yesterday we had tons of wind so there are white apple blossom petals everywhere, including in the fish ponds. The wind also broke some of my ferns, I see a bit of work to do when the rain stops. I love my garden.

Went a little crazy with the cedar mulch this year, put it in most of our beds, I really like the way it makes the plants pop.

This bed has assortment of Hosta, Hydrange, Bleed Hearts, Trilliums, Mini Roses, Clematis, and Columbines. Plus some Marigolds, Impatients and Geraniums.

This is a small deck we built at the back of our yard. The farmers field behind has a big pond and when crops grow in the field we can't see pond with Canada Geese and Ducks so we raised up this little deck for a couple of chairs. We call it our Cottage. I love clematis (you will note I love alot of plants) and have wanted to put one here somewhere to pretty up the deck. I will show you in a couple of months how it did.

Did an inventory count on Saturday, two days OK, up to 103 Hosta, not all different breeds, 103 plants. Hubby thinks 103, 104 came home yesterday and got planted when he was not looking.

And I saw 105 at the garden centre, I do not have one and will watch for it to go on sale.

OK, I know pots do not look that full, but this part of my gardening on a budget. Each fall these pots are full of ivy, I take ivy out of pot and place in my garden for the winter and then in Spring use again. I will show you pots in a month once ivy takes off.

OK, I know I am late blogging, like to do early Monday morning to update what I did on weekend but #1 I can barely move. My body hurts really bad spent all weekend planting planters, weeding flower beds, planting flower beds and spreading cedar mulch. We went a little crazy with the cedar mulch this year, have used it in almost all my beds.

OK so my hubby is correct, I have an addiction. Pots Pots and more pots. Hopefully this afternoon, it is such a beautiful day, I will get these planted. 4 window boxes, 6 hanging planters, 9 planters, assorted clay pots, plus there is probably 20 or more in "potting shed" still not brought out. I will try to get this group done today, see how my back holds out.

Victoria Day Long Weekend here in Canada, first long weekend of the summer and Saturday rain rain cold cold but Sunday, cold windy and sunny so good day for heavy work. We finished our expanded Hosta Bed area, bought more stone, lugged more stone, placed more stone, spread cedar mulch but Sunday evening could not walk. Even tylenol did not help. Check my profile yes I am 48 but after this work day felt 78. But note that it is a great hurt, I always feel like I have done a great job and do you know I can just not stop smiling every time I look at this area. Very Proud, will put larger pictures below so you get the effect.

Just a quick thanks.....couple of months ago blogging was something other people did but due to some education from my brother and his very computer savy misses I am here and enjoying it.
The info from my sister-in-law has been awesome and eventually I will master this new art.
Thank you so much you two.

So I have decided I finally want to do hypertufa pots, troughs, bird baths ??? Made something today, everything I have read says trial and error for a while. For me the mold seems to be the biggest issue but I now have my top man on it and sometimes his brilliance amazes me. Here I sit typing and he is building me a mold. I will keep you updated on how it goes.

Saturday of the Victoria Day weekend and sure does not feel like the first weekend of the summer....cool, actually cold and rainy and windy. But the robins are doing their home building anyway.

This is on my garden shed and every time I go in or out to get a tool etc she takes a hairy at me but we will make friends eventually. This is in a clematis vine .

OK.....so 6:30 am this morning the rain in just pouring down and my eaves trough is plugged so rain in bouncing on deck and just soaking / dirtying my windows so even though it is raining I go out to clear......

We have a house mate couple in the eaves trough, they overbuilt and thus plugged gutters. I was able to clean downspout and prayed Mom would come back to her two eggs. Sun is out now so I took my camera.

Steel roof, she must sure get wet when the rain comes down. More pictures below.

Dedicated Mom.

6:00 am....today I will plant seeds for Marigolds and Yellow climbing beans. Should not plant tenders outside till May 24 weekend in this part on Ontario. Love my climbing yellow beans, find the yellow are more tender than the green, these seeds are from my dad. In small garden good idea to grow up and I like the climbers because the beans are much cleaning when you pick them.

As part of my gardening on a budget.....almost zero dollars I decided to grow geraniums from seed. I have tried in past overwintering in the house, did not work for me. So I purchased seeds from Walmart $2.29 for 13 seeds and 12 plants came up. Purchased two packages of $2.99 seeds from one of my favorite garden centres, only about 45% came up. They are in my kitchen window and doing well.

Hosta Nature's Perfect Plant

I know that my number one favorite plant has to be hosta. Yesterday afternoon I needed more.....have 92 now, so I split 1 into 3. Great timing as nice soft rain overnight, just what is needed after splitting. They really are good value when you consider how many times you could split for just that 1 inital purchase. During my 6:30 am walk around noticed another that needs splitting. Do that this afternoon.
Reason I know I have 92 is my hubby counts......couple of years ago got him interested and now he keeps counts. PS not 92 varieties, 92 plants. I do have quite a few different varieties not sure how many. Should list them some day.

Before and After.....I am not good at before and after, this a bed outside garage before the flowers, window box etc......couple of weeks I will show you the after. It will so be worth all the work.

Hydranges - I think I first fell in love August 2007, Martha Stewart magazine had a terrific article on hydranges so I decided to try. I did some research and decided since I live in a windy area I would go with the short varieties. I bought a book called "Complete Hydrangeas" by Glyn Church. A few pages in I knew I was going to try this plant. The photographs are wonderful. I have 1 blue hydrange now and just added two more. I have another bed with three 20 year old need to be replace shrubs so I will monitor my local garden centre for hot deal.

Next project, fix the grass. When you have female garden designers they can be hard on your grass. Our local garden centre has a product that fixes the earth, then we re-seed and by June the Spots are gone.

Monday May 4, 2009

Yes I have not been here for a few days but that is because I have been so busy gardening. First Job - move rocks, love my rocks but move a ton of them around this year.

Second Job - create new flower bed, cross the front of our home we had a hedge, installed a steel roof a few years back and it has been so hard on hedge, snow sliding off, so we got some edging, hate the stuff but keeps the grass out of flower beds, planted Hosta's house faces north so they should do alright there and spread some cedare mulch.

Third Job - moved trilliums.