One Sunflower

I planted fifty sunflower seeds in the spring, and thanks to the healthy weeds in the yard they choked out forty-nine of the seedlings.

There was a vegetable garden this year

I think I was a little overzealous thinking that I could dedicate enough time to caring for a veggie patch properly while in full reno mode and having huge projects to do at work over the summer.  While sweetpeas, carrots and zucchini grew nicely, tomatoes, corn, sunflowers and pumpkins suffered.  Ah well, there's always next year.

Zucchini

Overgrown grapevines that have a mind of their own.

Springtime

Here are just a few shots of what things look like outside around here lately. It's been a warm winter -- I don't remember spring arriving this early in the past (but I'll take it!). It's a huge surprise watching what's popping up around here as it's our first spring. I'll be taking notes so I can try and figure out what everything is.

Buds on a plum tree.

A ton of daffodils.

Frosty Sunrise

The night the tent blew away

The one that made it.

With all the crazy storms that have come rolling in lately, (and the fact that we don't have any good places to store things) we had a few casualties. The major one besides power/water/heat loss was our poor storage tent. We have two, one that made it, and the other that didn't.

It up and left during the night, and coincidentally, Trevor had a dream that night that it had blown away so he got up to look out the window, and lo and behold it had taken flight. It wasn't like we just sat the tent on the grass, Trevor had pounded rebar into the ground to hold it down -- but Mother Nature just laughed at that and flung them out like bent toothpicks.

The tent managed to drift/tumble/gracefully take flight to this location, and not the ravine further back:

Boo tent! Boo Mother Nature!!

Here's the really sad part, because of all the rain, we haven't been able to get back out to resurrect it to it's former glory (and pound in double the rebar, and then say 'screw you' Mother Nature). Luckily we weren't actually storing anything in it yet (another issue altogether).

Rainy days

It's been raining like crazy lately, and things around here are waterlogged and muddy (from taking that photo above until now, the wheelbarrow is overflowing). Puddles are everywhere, and places that dip down and turn flat are small lakes. The duck pond has risen a ton -- all of the plants I put in at the end of the summer are gone (hopefully they come back!). Wellies are a must around here! Even with all of that, there are still a few pretty areas that I've managed to find:

Mushrooms, of the flat mushroom-y kind. (I know nothing about mushrooms.)

More mushrooms.

A piece of the fence in the pond, with all the leaves that blew in (which, by the way, I haven't touched a rake this year thanks to the wind).

Conquering the giant vine

One of the fine specimens of our garden was growing up the side of the house. Sure, it hides a lot of the ugly, but it's really not good to have little tendrils working their way into the siding, and then possibly tapping you on the shoulder while you sleep -- or worse, waking up covered in creepy vines. (Sorry, that's my worst-case overactive imagination talking there.)

I couldn't take looking at it any longer, so I decided to tackle it with whatever tools I could find laying around (and there's many). I came across a broom initially and smacked the living daylights out of it with some success, knocking most of it from the house. (I was like a horticultural gladiator...in my mind.)

Take a look at my handiwork, and notice the fact that windows exist under all of that:

A-mazing.

Not too shabby

Here's a photo of what the outside of the house looks like right now.  Neat and tidy, and almost ready to put up for sale.

How the garden grows

There's a lot of different plants crammed into this little postage stamp sized yard.  Right now the lilacs (there are three) are all in bloom, and when I keep the back door open the house smells amazing. 

A nice mistake

I put the camera down in the yard and accidentally took a shot, and I think it looks lovely.  A fresh and green (and yes, it has been mowed since!).  

Lack of posts last week, much of the time here was spent attempting to put much of the house back together.  The main floor bathroom has been put back together and the laundry room has been finished.  The kitchen is still in a state of flux (but it's almost there!).  Far too much time was spent taping, filling, sanding, painting, painting again, and removing said tape from moulding in the stairwells -- not something I want to repeat anytime soon, but it looks all fresh and bright now.  Photos to come this week, of course, providing that I can clean up all the stray tools and garbage bags.

Plants, plants, plants

These are the containers I've planted this year.  I chose a mix of annuals and perennials, and tried out some used in rock gardens (and suited for draught, if I get lazy with watering!).  I've also bunched the plants tighter together this year, and hopefully they'll get nice and full around the time we plunk that 'for sale' sign on the lawn. 

Sneak peek

I'm still sorting out the photos I've taken of the containers, but for now here's a little peek at some of the plants I used.

Ideas for container planting

Pretty, pretty.

I'm going to keep this year's garden purchases for my containers (I did a count and I've got 12 pots/boxes and 3 baskets).  I'm trying to get a few ideas for plants and plan things out a bit -- I've decided on a colour scheme of greens (surprise!), purples, creams and whites.  I really like the idea of playing with texture too; last year I added cabbage and kale to the containers on the porch, and they worked out really well.  Here's a few ideas I've seen:

Good for shade.

A cute salad garden.

So you can use hostas in a container (I was wondering about this).

All green.

Out in the garden

It's almost time to get the container plants going, but I've managed to hold off (tempting...oh so tempting!) so far.  The magnolia tree is in full bloom, and the grape hyacinths and tulips are popping open.

Seedlings have sprung

These are my seedlings one week after sowing.  Not bad, right?  I was surprised to see how fast they all germinated (especially since Lulu had a fondness for plunking her big grey rear-end on the top of the box).  Most of the zinnias are a bit leggy, so I'm keeping the box closer to the window from now on.  

Planted

I've got my little seedling starter kit all finished and sitting near a sunny window.  I used peat pots and sowed Zinnia, Gallardia, Rudbeckia, Nemophilla and Silene seeds.  I didn't sow the Scarlet Runner Bean seeds because I can start those outside in containers once the threat of frost has passed (beginning of May, I think).  Now I have to start thinking about the rest of my containers.  Here's some from last year:

On the front porch.

In the back yard.

And this photo from 2 summers ago...

What a difference a season makes

Well, that and 11 bags of bark mulch.  I spent most of the weekend outside (and who wouldn't want to, it was 18C and sunny here!) cleaning up the garden, dividing a hosta, re-seeding the lawn and planting dahlias.  I didn't get to the front yard like I wanted to, but I've got a date with a sunny evening and more bark mulch planned this week.  

It doesn't seem too long ago that the back yard looked like this...

Garden weekend

I don't want to go too crazy in the garden this year -- I don't want to put a lot of money into plants if we sell the house.  I do need to get a few small plants to fill in an area where I've been tearing out an invasive plant (I seem to attract those) that was smooshed by the snow.  I think that some rudbeckias and dahlias might be nice:

Rudbeckias.

More rudbeckias (black-eyed susans).

More dahlias (so pretty!).

I'm also going to divide up some massive hostas that I have this weekend and spread them around -- they're great at filling up gaps and choking out weeds (always good in my books!).