Of course I love my gardens, but the real delight of my garden are all the creatures that come to hang out with me in it.
The most frequent visitors are, of course, the squirrels. They are also the most destructive… but I just love their antics.
If you look closely, you’ll see that this guy is covered in dirt from digging in my veg beds.
But, clearly, it’s tough to be a squirrel, so I try to give them a break.
And I’ve put the bird baths out, all freshly cleaned…
But this Robin decided a big puddle by the road was the perfect place for a refreshing bath! It was a pretty warm day, so I guess I can’t blame him.
It had just rained (as you can tell by the puddles) and that meant it was a good day for hunting worms.
I love these pics because you can clearly see the difference between male and female. You don’t always notice how much lighter the female is when they aren’t together.
And it appears they’ve been making good use of their time together…
We’ve got a nest in the maple tree. They’ve been chasing away everything that gets too close, and frequently make a big ruckus outside my office window. Sadly, I can’t see the next from the window – it’s blocked by the tree’s main trunk. I got this shot from below. I’ll be keeping an eye on them though, and I’m sure we’ll see them when the babies start to fledge.
But they aren’t the only red-breast to grace the garden.
A Rose-Breasted Grosbeak has been frequenting the feeder in Willow Grove. And as you can see – he’s a stunner.
He was a little shy at first, but he got comfortable with me pretty quick and I was able to get these great shots.
And no garden friend post would be complete without a blue jay
My new craft paints arrived on Monday, and I’m so excited to give them a whirl!
Now it might look like I went a little bit overboard, but I wanted to get the free shipping. Plus, it is nice not having to mix paints – Especially when you are dragging out a project over a couple of days. It’s near impossible to mix the exact same shade twice.
And besides… they fit just perfect in my paint box, along with the few older paints I kept (Dave took the crappy CraftSmart.. I don’t know what he thinks he’ll use it for, but he wouldn’t let me throw it out)
The older paints I kept are the few Martha Stewarts leftover, as well as some Folk Art Metallic which are at least 25 years old! And still paintable like they were the day they were bought. I really hope the new ones are just as good.
Hopefully, there will be some time to get back to the other planters soon.
If course, there’s other projects in the works…
I’ve been collecting Fairy/Gnome Garden things…
But working on them will have to wait until the garden centres open and bring in all the fun sedums and tiny plants. It shouldn’t be long now!!!
Much like with knitting, there wasn’t much time for cross-stitching this weekend. In fact, I was lucky to get a little more than an hour to finish the lighter leaves on the left. It’s going to have to wait until next weekend to get balanced out. Then there some more leaves and flowers top and bottom. But with garden season here, it’s going to take longer to finish this project than I planned. Things should calm down by the end of May… maybe.
Thank you for all the lovely comments on the garden so far. But as the title of the post suggests, not everything is rosy in the garden.
And I think it’s important to share my failures, along side my triumphs. Now that we are almost to May, the things that didn’t make it through winter are more evident
I lost my favourite dark purple Delphinium. Delphs are somewhat short-lived perennials, usually lasting only three – five years. But this one was only two, so it was a bit of a disappointment. I have some Delph seedlings started, so hopefully there will be a dark purple one among them.
None of the tender Sages I planted have returned. They were a definite gamble, but I hoped that the mild winter, along with mulching them heavily would have helped, but it doesn’t seem to have.
It looks like many of those pretty Tickseed I planted last year did not make it through. The pinks were not a total surprise, as they aren’t as hardy, but the pale yellow, and a couple of the reds aren’t showing signs of life. I’ll give them a few more weeks before I give up hope completely.
My Hardy Glads are gone. I’m really ticked about this… you’d think from the name, they’d be hardy – right? Well – I missed some fine print on the website I bought them from “Lift in fall Zone 3 to 6”. I’m in Zone 6. It’s a shame, because they were gorgeous! I’m debating on getting more and trying again (lifting this time).
I lost one of my lavender plants. I had three, and the other two are doing great, so I’m not sure what happened to the third (they are in the same general area in and around the catio). I will probably get some more – but I think I’ll put some out front.
One of the Mums by the catio gate up and died. They only live about five years, and it came from the townhouse so I guess it was just done. It means I might lose the other two next winter. But I don’t mind buying more Mums!
Most of the roses are coming back beautifull, but I was worried about a couple: Caroline de Monaco and Good as Gold were not looking good. I cut them back hard – almost right to the base. Gold put on some new growth and seems like she’ll pull through.
But Caroline… I’m not so sure. There’s some growth on her, but it looks like it might be growth from root stock. Like the tickseed, I’ll give her a couple more weeks before I make a decision on pulling her or not.
And… I’m very sad… out of 10 asparagus plants…
Only ONE is sprouting!!!! I think I didn’t plant them deep enough, and then the squirrels digging probably didn’t help. I will probably get more, because I LOVE asparagus – and they take 3 years to get going enough to harvest.
I’m sure there will be more failures to come as we come into May. But they will balance out with the triumphs. Like irises in bloom!
These are a dwarf iris – they are very special, as they came from Mom. They are almost always the first iris to bloom each year. But they won’t be the last. I think I have at least a dozen different irises in the garden now.
And the mystery plant in the front garden was ground cover tulips, as I suspected. But I really don’t remember planting them there – maybe I did! Or maybe the squirrels made their own revisions to my garden design!
Plants are starting to show up at the garden centres now and I was amazed when I saw the pot containing these beauties. They are Ranunculus or Persian Buttercups. I’ve tried to start them from bulbs, but without any luck. i’ve never seen them in any of the garden centres. This pot had three beautiful colours. They aren’t hardy, so I’m going to try to save the bulbs over winter, and replant them in the spring. But now I’m going to enjoy every bloom.
It’s still early to put much out, but these pansy hanging pots were on clearance for just $7 at Home Depot.
I have no idea why they were on clearance already, but I snapped them up. I’ll have to bring them in if the overnight temps are going to drop below zero – but other than that they can take some cooler evening temps.
Despite the inevitable fails, it’s going to be another amazing gardening year!
I wouldn’t say it’s been an exceptionally rainy April, but we have had plenty of moisture. And the flowers are a-blooming! We are coming into the time of the Tulip!
Since we moved in (summer 2021), I’ve planted probably close to (or even more than) 500 tulip bulbs!
And you may or may not know… that not all tulips are perennials. Some of the fancier tulips (like the frilly parrot tulips) don’t tend to come back. And if they do, it’s usually only for one more year, and they are much smaller than the first year. It’s the simpler Darwin and Triumph tulips that tend to make a longer show.
I’ve got a mix of both. In fact, some are here from the previous owner’s mother, and she passed away in 2013.
They all come up where the old side fence used to be (now the border of the woodland garden) and are all a mix of red, yellow, orange and combinations thereof. They are my favourite ones for picking, and bring bringing in the house. When picked early enough, they can last for a couple weeks a vase.
But of course, it’s not just tulips here. I have daffodils that will last until well into May (with some not even in bloom yet).
This one is called Mount Hood and it’s a new one I planted in the fall. It’s a big, solid white (though that trumpet is a little more yellow when it first opens). It’s not quite as big as the catalogue made it out to be, but as you can see by my hand there, it’s still a good-sized daffy.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have “Minnow”
I think this is my favourite of all the daffs! It’s just so tiny and cute!!! I planted it two years ago, in a couple spots, and all the clumps have multiplied. I’m debating on splitting them up this year, or waiting until next year.
Both my bleeding hears are blooming beautifully. They don’t seem to be as big as last year, but it does actually feel a little early for them to be blooming. I’m pretty sure they didn’t bloom until mid-May last year.
In fact, everything is a week or two early compared to last year.
But I’m not going to complain – it cheers me to no end to go out and see new blooms every day!
As you know, some of the cats love to be involved with whatever I’m doing. Mostly Burton and Lemmy – but of the two, Lemmy is definitely the MOST interested. And he absolutely LOVES it when I’m doing something in the catio.
Especially weeding. Weeding is like party time to Lemmy. He bounces all over the place, and loves to come and sit on whatever patch of weeds I’m trying to pull up. It makes the job take twice as long, but he does not care.
This past weekend I was in there weeding, and relocating/splitting some of the perennials that are just starting to bush out. As such, I had a pile of small pots in there with me. Can you guess where this is going…
The pots were just the perfect new addition to his game. Every time I turned around he was shooting one around. And yes… he loves to pick things up and run away with them. If he can fit it in his mouth, chances are he’ll take off with it! He really is a little brat.
I did a little painting on the weekend… though not the painting I planned.
I had planned to paint the new raised beds I put together a few weeks ago, and maybe even get a good chunk of the sun porch painted. But the weekend ended up being much cooler than predicted. It stayed above zero, but below 10 C.. so a little too cool to paint.
So Saturday, I spent a chunk of the morning in the garden weeding and moving plants around until I broke my small garden spade (don’t get me started on how things just aren’t made as good as they used to be).
Then I came in and decided to pull out my craft paints, and maybe get a little work done on those decorative planters I got from Michaels a while ago…
And speaking of things not like they used to be…. When I first got back into painting pots a few years ago, I’d bought a pile of Martha Stewart craft acrylics. By last year, I’d used up most of my supply and went to buy more. But it turns out, they aren’t made any more. So… I bought a pile from Michaels from brand called CraftSmart. I didn’t get to use them much until this weekend…
And boy was I disappointed!!!! I’ve gotten better craft paint from the dollar store. The pigments are so weak, you’d need about eleventy billion coats to get any sort of even coverage on your project. I was not a happy camper.
In the end, I gave up after finishing my mushroom planter.
It was done with red and white from the Martha Stewart paints (the two colours I still had left), and the beige base mixed from the crappy paints and the MS white.
I have a collection of good-ole fashioned Folk-Art brand paints in an online shopping basket. I’m just waiting for payday to hit the by button. They were the best brand when I was a teenager, and I hope that hasn’t changed.
If it has, I may just have to suck it up, spring for a few tubs of expensive artist-quality acrylics from the art store, and go back to mixing my own colours!
I am happy to share that I finished the first sock, and have a start on the second..
It’s not much of a start, but a start none-the-less. I am a little dubious about whether I will be able to finish the second one by the end of the month. It’s creeping up awfully fast. And I have our taxes to do this weekend… as well as a tonne of garden/yard stuff. April may be a bust for finishing a knit project, but maybe I’ll be able to double up in one of the other months to come!
I got a fair bit of stitching accomplished on the weekend.
As you can see, we made some nice progress on the greenery in the little time we had. I didn’t have much of that lighter green left, but Dave needed to make a trip to Home Depot, so I popped next door to Michaels to get another skein of it.
But the skeins were only .79 cents. And I felt silly putting just .79 cents on my card. But I didn’t really need anything else… so I just grabbed a few other colours that tickled my fancy.
Wandering Cat Studio 