Tricia’s Garden

I have dumb roses

November 2, 2008 by Tricia

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 …

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

October 26, 2008 by Tricia

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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:

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:

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?

Lovely fall asters in bloom

October 19, 2008 by Tricia

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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.

The Toad Lily and it’s freckled petals

September 28, 2008 by Tricia

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If you thought Lilies only bloomed in the spring or early summer I have one for you that blooms during Autumn. It’s called the Toad Lily:

These little beauties are just starting to form buds and only a few have begun to bloom. However in a week or so they will all be in bloom and what a pretty sight that will be! I love the Toad Lilies freckled petals. They are so tiny and delicate.

I must admit that the plant isn’t much to look at as it grows through the summer, but once it begins to bloom it becomes one of the stars of my Fall garden.

Do any of you grow any of the Toad Lily species?

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We definitely need more lighting in our backyard

September 22, 2008 by Tricia

At some point in the afternoon I realized that I hadn’t watered the garden in ages! In fact, I think the last time the plants got any water was when it rained last Monday (remnants of Hurricane Ike)! definitely

So at about 5:30 in the afternoon I went outside and pulled out the hose. I started watering the front yard and by the time I reached the back, Chris came out to join me with Midnight, our Lab puppy. Like most Labs, Midnight loves water and she tries to bite the water coming from the hose. I don’t know if she thinks it’s solid when it’s coming from the hose or what, but it’s hilarious to watch.

Needless to say we soon had a soaking wet dog!

So once I was done watering we decided to stay outside and sit on the patio having a drink or two while Midnight hopefully dried off. Of course it got darker and darker the longer we sat outside and Midnight being a black lab … well, after a while, we could barely see her when she was at the far end of the garden.

That got me thinking – we need more lighting in the backyard. We have solar lights, but they don’t really light up the backyard all that much, although they do help. We also have a very bright flood light that lights up the whole backyard, which I mainly use when I’m doing some extreme gardening after dark … but that’s too bright if you’re just trying to relax while having a drink on the patio in the garden.

So I visited Buy.com when I came inside and searched for outdoor lighting. I found a few lights that I liked, but I think the one I liked the most was this Outdoor pendant lantern in Misty pewter. I think that if we added a couple of hanging lanterns near the back of the yard they would look attractive and help us see Midnight in the dark!

The lantern is a decent price already, but since our money’s kind of tight right now I think I’ll keep an eye on Buy.com’s Weekly Deals page to see if it goes on sale in the near future. I do visit this page once or twice a month as they sometimes have great deals on things we need. Now that I’m actually looking for something in particular I hope it goes on sale soon!

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I have dumb roses

Some of my favorite summer flowers

Lovely fall asters in bloom

The Toad Lily and it’s freckled petals

We definitely need more lighting in our backyard

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