Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



You are here: Home / Archives for Recreation / Gardening

I have dumb roses

by

Join Green Thumb Sunday

Join

My roses and other garden plants must be quite dumb.

It’s getting colder and colder here in Toronto, yet my garden is still very much alive. Smart plants would have shut down and begun to go dormant by now …. but no, not my roses! Some of my other plants seems to be on the dumb side too.

Along with several other roses, my Compte de Chambord is still putting out lovely rose buds. Oh and they smell heavenly! Compte de Chambord has a beautiful old rose perfume scent and as I said, the roses and rose buds are still full of their lovely scent.

Compte De Chambord rose bud
Compte de Chambord rose bud

I took this photo last weekend. It was quite windy so I had to hold the rose stem while taking the picture, but the leaves and other plants near it were blowing in the wind, hence the interesting blurred effect in the background.

Even my Lavender has started to bloom again … I have no idea why. It’s not like I’m out there watering, amending soil or putting my secret sauce (Alfalfa Tea) on my plants. I’m not doing a thing to my garden .. yet it’s thriving.

Here’s a single Lavender bloom …

Lavender bloom
Lavender bloom

And here’s one of my Lavender plants, blooming (a little bit) and looking terribly healthy for this time of year.

Lavender blooming in October?
Healthy blooming Lavender plant - October

Is your garden asleep for the winter or is it still struggling to perform as if it were summer?





Some of my favorite summer flowers

by

Join Green Thumb Sunday

Join

I was just saying on my gardening blog that it’s about time we started doing some Autumn gardening tasks, like cutting down the sunflowers in the front boulevard.

Yup … it’s time to put the garden to bed for the winter … actually it’s well past time, we should have started doing some of these Fall tasks at least two weeks ago.

Some of my flowers are still blooming, but most of the plants are beginning to lose their leaves and either die down or are becoming dormant as it gets cooler.

Some of the flowers I’ll miss is my Butterfly Weed:

milkweed Aslepias tuberosa

Such delicate bright colored flowers. This one really attracts Monarch butterflies to my garden.

Another flower that I’ll miss is the Balloon Flower. I’m sure the bumble bees will miss them too:

beeballoonflower2

I have several clumps of Balloon flowers growing in the back and front garden beds in white, pink and blue. I love their balloon like buds and bright cheery flowers.

What flowers will you miss as the winter season approaches?

Frost already? Time to get the yard work done!

by

Early this morning (6 a.m.) I was awoken by the sound of my dog retching in her crate. She must have eaten something that upset her stomach the day before, poor thing. I got her out and comforted her and after a while I could tell that she was feeling better so I took her outside to do her business.

Let me tell you, I was extremely surprised when I emerged outside to see that the car was covered in frost! I knew it was going to be cool last night, but I didn’t think we’d get frost! At that moment I knew that I was going to have to do some yard work today in order to prepare the garden for winter.

We have a number of tropical plants that needed to be brought in. Passion flower vines, another vine that I haven’t identified (might be a trumpet vine), and of course the cannas all needed to be brought inside. I also had three orchids, a Thanksgiving cactus and a Christmas cactus in the enclosed front porch and they all needed to come indoors as well.

As I was scurrying around outside gathering up all of the plants that need to be overwintered indoors I noticed that the lawn had a good covering of fallen leaves so once I was done putting the plants indoors I set out to find our rake.

Our rake is broken! The wooden handle was snapped off near the base of the rake. I guess I could duct tape it back together as a quick fix, but we might as well get another rake. So once I came inside I started looking online for a rake. I’ve decided that I want to get a Pivot Leaf rake as it’s an ergonomic design so it will be easier on my back when I’m raking.

This type of rake isn’t the cheapest on the market, but as I said if it helps keep my back from aching when I’m raking it will be well worth it. Now if I can just find one that’s on sale I’ll have it made.

I guess over the next week or so Chris and I will be outside doing a lot of yard work. It looks like winter is going to come early this year if that frost on the car is any indication!

Is it starting to get cool in your area too? Did you get your Fall yard work done yet or are you going to have to scramble to get it done too?

Lovely fall asters in bloom

by

Join Green Thumb Sunday

Join

IMG_1840 copy
New York Asters

My New York Asters are in full bloom.

Every time I look out my kitchen window it seems as if the plant has grown larger. I guess it’s just that more and more blooms are coming out and that makes it seem so much bigger each day.

It’s absolutely lovely though. There must be hundreds of small Asters covering the plant.

It’s getting cool here now in Toronto, but on nice sunny days I still occasionally see a bumble bee hovering around the Asters or some of my other flowering plants.

My passion flowers are finally blooming

by

Join Green Thumb Sunday

Join

It’s been a strange gardening year.

There was plenty of rain so for the most part the plants were getting enough water and we saved money on the water bill, but I think that since it was overcast quite a bit some of my real sun loving plants might not have gotten enough light.

My passion flowers (I have 5 or 6 plants ) barely bloomed all summer. I’m actually noticing more blooms now that it’s cooling down than I did in the height of summer.

IMG_1712 copy

Passion flowers certainly are pretty when they bloom though aren’t they?

Meta

Search this site

Tags

blog blogs camera Canada Chris computer crohns dinner dog Family flower flowers Food friends funny garden Gardening Green Thumb Sunday Health and Fitness Health Fitness and Beauty holiday home Home and Lifestyle house husband IBD Inflammatory bowel disease Internet Music neighbors pain photo photos plants puppy Shopping sick sleep spring Toronto TV Video visit website Wordless Wednesday