August Garden

        August has arrived and along with it the temperatures have gone up. It's also been smoky the last few days, from all the forest fires burning in BC. If nothing else, the smoke keeps it a little bit cooler out there.
    A couple of years ago I bought a few milkweed plants, a pink variety and a white. The pink ones didn't survive the winter but the white ones did. They grew slowly and barely bloomed, so I moved them last fall and this year they have been flourishing. I haven't seen any butterflies around yet but the bees seem to like it too.
     I planted two different packages of cosmos this year. A mix called Cosmos Mini Blend and Capriola. I really like the look of the Capriola but the Cosmos mini blend are more vigorous and have many more blooms.
      One of our local garden stores closed their doors recently and I am sad to see them go. I picked up a few plants on sale, and squeezed them into my yard. One of them was Veronica or Speedwell and the other was a fragrant honeysuckle vine. The vine has been sulking but the veronica is blooming.  Happy Gardening!
   

Milkweed

Cosmos Mini Blend

Cosmos Capriola

Drumstick Allium

Daylily

Daylily Strawberry Candy

Hollyhock

Coral Palace Purple Palace

Veronica

Our cat Oliver

Still Blooming

     September is one of my favorite times of the year and while there are a lot less flowers blooming in my yard, I still found quite a few. The dahlias and zinnias are especially blooming well now. I decided to dig up my beloved Hansa roses, which makes me a little sad. The leaves have been plagued with a mysterious problem for three years in a row, and this year they had black-spot as well so they were looking less than lovely, to say the least. They had also outgrown their space. I am trying to save a small section of it that looked healthy and will see if that carries over the leaf problem or not.

     Last year I grew two tomato plants from seed that I had saved from store bought grape tomatoes, and they all grew and tasted like the original tomatoes. Since I still had a few seeds left, I grew them again this year. While one of the plants produced grape tomatoes, the other one produced larger tomatoes. They are pretty tasteless so I am saving them for recipes instead of fresh eating. I knew that I was taking a chance on that hybrid seed coming true but it is fun to experiment. 

Dahlia 'Blue Boy"

Dahlia Crazy Love

Figaro Dahlia grown from seed

Grape tomatoes

Balloon flower

Bleeding Heart 'luxuriant'

Chrysanthemum

Cosmos and Sedum

Feverfew

Hibiscus 

Hollyhock

Soraya Sunflower, the blooms are all small now

Morning Glory

Perennial Sunflower

Persicaria

Russian Sage, not sure what's in the back

Sedum

Spirea

Zinnia

Oliver with Chester in the background

February Happenings

Spring! Okay, it's not spring yet but it's been quite mild all winter long, and things are starting to grow so it feels like spring in my neck of the woods. Some of my perennials didn't even die down completely, like the hollyhocks, and the Nigella started to grow in the fall and stayed green all winter. The early crocus are blooming again, and the later ones I bought last fall should be blooming in a week or two. I can hardly wait. 

      I planted my first seeds of 2016 today, which is always fun. I planted some dahlia seed for the first time, and I also planted two varieties of cherry tomatoes. One from my own seed and one called Tumbler. I grew Tumbler last year and wasn't very impressed but I'll give it another try this year. I also bought a new shrub, Sarcococca ruscifolia and yes, I bought it for the amazing fragrance. It's supposed to be easy to grow too. I'd love to hear about what new plants or seeds you are growing this year. 

Crocus and Ivy

Crocus

Camellia buds

Hollyhock leaves that stayed green all winter

Nigella seedlings and a tulip coming up

Pink dawn Virburnum

Sarcococca ruscifolia or Sweet Box

Summer Blooms

    It's been been a hot and dry summer here, and many plants are stressed out and some are even dying. You can even see the effects of the drought in the native plants and trees. I can't recall this ever happening before and I've lived in this area my whole life. 
     My dear friend gave me some hollyhocks seeds a couple of years ago, and they are blooming now. I've never grown them before but they are pretty, and very tall! This would have been a great year to try growing cantaloupe or even watermelon but by the time I decided to grow some it was too late to start them from seed. Maybe next year. Anyways, I spotted a new plant at my garden centre called a cucamelon, and I decided to give it a try.  They produce little "cucumbers" that look like little watermelons. They taste like cucumbers with a hint of lime. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them since my family isn't crazy about them, ha ha. There's a photo of them down at the bottom. 

Butterfly Bush and Nigella

Dahlia

Hollyhocks

Daisy

Pinks

Echinacea

Lily Lollypop

Hibiscus

Shirley Poppy

Shirley poppy

Shirley Poppy

Cucamelons