Recreation – Page 11

My gigantic rose bush is blooming

June 2, 2012 by Tricia

I’ve been using some of my spare time to work in my garden. I don’t seem to have as much spare time this spring as I have other years, but I’m trying!

I’m slowly getting the annual flowers that I purchased a week or two ago planted in the garden and I’ve been trimming and pruning the roses and other plants as I work in the garden. It’s amazing how fast some of my roses grow.

One of my roses – William Baffin – a Canadian Explorer rose, is absolutely gigantic. I was taking pictures of it the other day because it’s in it’s first huge spring flush and it’s just heavy with flowers. I swear there are well over 1000 roses on the plant. There could even be 2000 roses. I kid you not. The rose is at least 16 feet tall and maybe 12 feet wide. It’s almost impossible to take a decent picture of the whole bush in my tiny yard because I can’t get far enough away from the rose to take a full picture.

William Baffin Rose - A Canadian Explorer Rose, it's Huge

Unfortunately it rained all day yesterday and that beautiful rose plant couldn’t take all the rain. A lot of the big branches in the center that were heavy with roses drooped to the ground and now it’s going to take two or three of us to lift them up and get them standing again. The rose is just too big!

Huge William Baffin Rose after rain storm - broken

Considering where the big branches fell it might be a good thing that the outdoor dining set at BistroSets.com that I ordered didn’t arrive yet because that’s just where I was planning on putting it. It would have been toppled over by the huge rose branches. I know most people don’t think of a rose plant as being so huge it could be destructive, but I know it’s possible.

Looks like the weather is getting better

May 8, 2012 by Tricia

The weather is getting nicer. Finally! April was cool here in Toronto. That probably wouldn’t have been that bad, but when April turns out to be cooler than March and has snow when March didn’t .. well .. I’m happy that May has arrived. So are my plants! My garden is looking lovely.

The other day is was nice enough out that I spent some time working in my front yard. I was weeding the garden beds and fixing up the look of the front boulevard. I have a planted boulevard, but crab grass was starting to grow in the flower beds there so I spent a lot of time pulling it out. Hopefully it doesn’t grow back.

Everyone was enjoying the nice day when I was working in the garden. Lots of neighbors were outside either working on their own yards – cutting the grass etc, or out walking around. I said hello to a lot of people as I worked on my garden. One of the people that passed me was wearing one of those funny t shirts that made me laugh out loud .. but I can’t repeat what it said on here .. it was bad! I just about fell over into a bush when I saw it!

My front yard looks great. Now all I have to do is work on the back yard! The back yard isn’t that big, but compared to my front yard it’s a lot bigger – it will take longer to tidy up. Perhaps this weekend if the weather is nice. How is your yard and garden?

Here doggy doggy!

April 28, 2012 by Tricia

I got some unexpected exercise this afternoon. Just when my husband was about to go to work he opened the door and we both saw a scruffy little dog running loose on the other side of the street. I just hate seeing a stray dog in my neighborhood. I always worry that the dog is going to end up getting hit by a car since the street I live on is fairly busy.

I decided to try to catch the dog if I could. Usually when I’ve seen a dog on the loose in the past the owner isn’t too far behind. So I put on my coat and grabbed one of my dogs leashes and off I went in the direction that I’d last seen the dog run in. As I walked down the street I caught sight of the dog running across the street in front of a car. I cringed – but luckily it made it safely across.

It took me a few blocks, but I managed to start to catch up to the little dog. Naturally just as I did it turned down a side street and went off towards some Housing for seniors. That was actually better because it was a quieter street so it was safer for the dog if it started to run across the road again.

I did manage to get close to the dog. Not close enough to pet it or to put a leash on it. I think I would have gained it’s trust but it’s owners finally appeared and the dog ran to them. They were nice and they thanked me for trying to help their dog. They said their dog slipped out when they opened the door to get the paper. Hopefully that doesn’t happen too often!

Do you ever worry when you see loose dogs running around your neighborhood? Do you try to go out and help them like I did?

What an amazing Spring

April 22, 2012 by Tricia

I can’t believe how well my garden is doing so far this year. If I didn’t know that it was the 22nd of April I’d swear that, just looking at my garden, that it was nearing the end of May. My garden is just that far ahead of itself.

Of course it’s all because we had one of the warmest winters we’ve ever had this past winter. Barely any snow, much warmer than average temperatures. Hey I was was wearing shorts some days in March. I even watered the garden a few times in March. I’ve never ever done that before. I mean, I live in Toronto – part of the Great White North!

In the past I could rely on my raised garden beds to put my garden ahead of others by a week or two because my garden beds, being raised, would warm up a little earlier than ground level gardens, but I didn’t need that advantage this year.

Oddly enough March was warmer than April has been so far. In fact I hear that we might even get some snow tomorrow. Imagine that. It was so warm for a couple of weeks in March that I could wear shorts and people were wondering if we skipped to summer and now here we are expecting snow. Well I did say I live in the Great White North. A place where you learn to expect the unexpected. I should not be surprised!

O’ Canada Indeed!

Canadian Flag

What a gorgeous day

March 22, 2012 by Tricia

It was absolutely gorgeous today. Here it is only March 22nd and it reached 26 Celcius today and with humidity felt like 30 Celcius (86 F). Considering that I’m in Toronto, Canada and it’s usually only about 4 Celsius at this time that’s pretty remarkable.

What’s even more remarkable is that it’s been pretty warm for over a week and well, all of this month has been well over normal temperatures, in fact the whole winter has been a warm winter. I think they said on the news that it’s the second warmest winter on record for this area.

My garden has all kinds of plants coming up and even blooming. My crocuses came up last week. I think it was the 14th when they first appeared and now they’re pretty much done. The heat did them in. My hellebores are blooming as are my Glories of the snow and Snow Drops. It won’t be long before my tulips and Daffodils and Hyacinths are blooming too, most of their leaves are already almost a foot high and I’m sure I’ll see flower buds soon. Half my roses have tiny leaves and my two honeysuckles vines are already leafed out as well. Several of my Clematis vines have leaves already too.

I swear my garden doesn’t normally have this much grown until the end of April most years!

I actually went out and watered my lawn and garden this afternoon!

Now if only I had a wooden swing to sit on and enjoy the lovely day it would have been perfect.

My gigantic rose bush is blooming

Looks like the weather is getting better

Here doggy doggy!

What an amazing Spring

What a gorgeous day

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