Pretty in Pink

I love this time of year, when something new is blooming every time I visit the garden.  I am fortunate to be able to view my pink tree peony (I am too lazy to look up the name, which I have recorded somewhere) from my kitchen window.  A few days ago, a bud began to swell, and was quite large when I left for work yesterday.  When I returned home, the flower was open.

How gorgeous is that?

I have another tree peony, with pure white blooms, but I managed to plant it so that it is hiding behind a bush, and not visible from the kitchen window.  So I'll need to visit it often, to make sure I don't miss the blooms.

I love my bleeding heart, which after a number of years, is finally taking hold, and produced a lot of blooms this year.  I like this branch.  It made me think of hearts, and love, and how it can be up and down sometimes.

Today it suddenly turned to rain, after a long (more than a week) stretch of dry warm weather in Vancouver.  So now it feels more like Spring again.  I'm glad for the garden, I think it needed a bit of watering.

Garden Awakening

I realize it's been a long time since I posted photos of my garden.  And part of me feels guilty for boasting about my spring blossoms, a good part of the continent is still under snow.  But it has been such wonderful blue-sky weather lately, I had to break away from my computer and homework (work has followed me home this weekend) to walk around the back yard and take a few snapshots.

There are all the usual signs of Spring out there...

... mini daffs, galanthus (snowdrops), and a Japanese plum in bloom.

My Mom always asks me about my young Hellebores plants.  I have a few scattered around the yard, and at least 3 different colors/varieties...

It's funny that the plant with most blooms (top right) is the one in my underutilized kitchen/herb garden.  It has thrived since it has lots of space there, and sun.  Many of my other plants are squeezed among other plants (that is my gardening style), so don't produce as many flowers.

But speaking of Hellebores with lots of blooms, I was walking about Century Gardens (Shadbolt Center) in Burnaby BC today, and they have some mature Hellebores plants with LOADS of blooms.  Look at this one :

And a look down a path lined in Hellebores :

Here's another look at the Century Gardens, looking back at the Burnaby Art Gallery :

I can't remember if this rhododendron has bloomed before (it's tucked away in my "secret garden" near my exotic Korean lilac), but it is pretty :

And funny enough, there always seems to be a single yellow crocus which emerges near the base of the sleeping monster Gunnera (see similar photo from back in 2009) :

And speaking of sleeping monsters, I'm pleased but surprised to see that some of our rock creations from almost 10 years ago are still holding up fairly well (I must have really sprayed them well with acrylic coating, since I haven't even touched up the paint since, and these rocks stay in the garden year-round) :

Sony NEX5N Garden Photos

Recently we bought a Sony NEX5N camera which is an ultra-small digital SLR camera with some full-size camera capabilities.  Other than its resistance to taking super closeup macro photos (which my little Nikon Coolpix L21 was surprisingly good at), I have been impressed all around with this Sony camera.  The feature which really sold us was the low light capabilities - up to ISO 12800, so it practically takes images in the dark!

This weekend I had my first opportunity to play with the camera, and took a number of photos of my mother-in-law's garden.  I've compiled the results into a few mosaics.  First, just in "normal" modes:

Good camera speed, good focus, good colour.

Then I discovered an effect called "Posterize", which was pretty cool for an in-camera feature, something you would expect to find instead in digital post-processing :

My favourite, though, was a feature by which you could select to see only green, blue, red, or yellow, and the remainder of the photo was in black and white :

Since you actually see the result through the digital display (which also swivels, to handle some extreme camera angles), I wonder if you could use this to help finding lost keys, if you marked your keys with a dot of one of these colours?

Garden Glimpses - Early October 2011

I have not posted many garden photos this year, but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy in the garden, nor that I haven't added to my plant collection.  I wish I had taken more "before" and "after" photos of the garden beside the front driveway, but I am pleased with the progress I made in cleaning it up, and the new additions, mostly from Phoenix Perennials in Richmond, BC.  Here are just a few of them, which are blooming now.

This rosy beauty is Echinacea "Raspberry Truffle" :

This cheery yellow beauty is Echinacea "Now Cheesier".  I love coneflowers for their bold blooms, and strong stems which usually don't need any support :

This is a Schizostylis coccinea (Pink river lily).  This dramatic late-bloomer caught my attention last year at the UBC apple festival (which, by the way, is Oct 15 & 16 this year).  I bought a pink one, but I think I'll go back and buy a bright red one also :

I wish I had taken more photos of the other additions.  I'll try again next summer.

The back yard is not without its colourful blooms, also.  Most notably are the gigantic sunflowers outside my kitchen window, which the squirrels have not raided yet (although I'm sure by now they've figured out my work schedule, so know when the opportune time will be) :

I made this yellow / purple arrangement from some of the available blooms a couple of weeks ago :

Garden Glimpses : Mid-August 2010

Before I show off photos from the garden, I was reminded yesterday about how important friends are.  Sometimes in the busy-ness of life, I tend to forget about the imporant people in my life.  I was driving home at 3:20pm to pick up the kids from camp at 4pm, which is normally about a 35 minute drive, across the Knight Street bridge from Richmond into Burnaby.  But as soon as I turned onto Knight Street, I knew something was wrong.  It was a parking lot.  I had a sinking feeling, that there was not even any way to turn off (without doing something illegal and dangerous), so I had to just inch along and hope for the best.  But within 15 minutes, I realized I had no chance to make it back in time to pick up the kids, so tried phoning my parents.  No answer.  So I phoned my friend Andrea. 

By the time I explained to her where they were, and she looked them up on Google Maps, and headed out, needing to pick up gas along the way, she arrived about 15 minutes after the camp official end time.  But still within an acceptable period of time.  Meanwhile, back on the bridge, I was just crawling along, approaching and crossing the bridge (which usually takes 10 minutes) in 1 hr 50 min.  So if Andrea hadn't saved me with her quick action, to pick up the kids and take them out for pizza at the Mall, I can't imagine what would have happened if I had left them there for almost 2 hours!  I didn't even have a phone number to call anyone at the Camp (which is an outdoor adventure/canoeing camp this week).  Thank you Andrea!

Tonight I picked some more tomatoes from the garden.  I started some from seeds I collected from a small container of specialty tomatoes (purple, striped, etc) which I bought at the grocery store last year.  I seem to remember a few plants of a small purple variety, but they must have been hybrids and not have come true from seed, since the tomatoes I got are considerably larger and less purple than I remember.  But they were still juicy and sweet.

The yellow pear tomatoes (bottom right) are one of my favourites for their unique look and mild flavour, and I grow them almost every year.  The turnip-shaped one on the bottom left must have been one from my specialty tomato purchase, although I don't remember it.  It is very pretty also.

The Italian Plum tree is doing very well again this year.  There are lots of small plums lying under the tree, as it goes through its self-pruning process, but it looks like there will still be lots of fruit for our family to sample also.

This is the first year I bought a number of flowers and seeds through mail order, and I have to say, the results have been quite disappointing.  I may expand on that in a later post.  On the other hand, I made some purchases in the Spring plant sales which have turned out very well.  I also picked up a small pack of bulbs (corms) of the crocosmia "Emily McKenzie" at our local garden shop, Gardenworks, and I was pleased to notice it blooming tonight.  Although maybe a bit deeper orange than I expected, it is certainly as beautiful as the photo portrayed, and I am surprised by the large size of the blooms!

This was a good find, and addition to my garden!  I may seek out some yellow crocosmia next year.  I already have the common orange one, and the tall red crocosmia "Lucifer".

Garden Glimpses : Mid-July 2009

A couple of blogs I've visited recently are celebrating anniversaries... Which got me to looking back to when I started, which was 19 Jan 2006. So yesterday was half way to my 5 year anniversary. I guess that's some sort of half-anniversary...

When I first started this blog, I had all sorts of ambitions of providing plant information, tips, maybe even plant advice.... But it seems that visitors have appreciated my garden photos more than any witty or intelligent information which I had hoped to provide.

One of my favourite "series" has become my Garden Glimpses, where I post photos of my garden at specific times in the year. It is fun to go back and compare year over year, so I had created (mostly for myself, but feel free to check it out in the left margin of my blog) a keyword "garden glimpses".

So here goes for another (as always, click the photo for a slightly larger view)...

I love this handsome daylily Kwanzo / Kwanso I received from my father-in-law. It has a large triple bloom, and spreads somewhat aggressively (sending out fans some 6" or 12" from the mother plant), so is great for filling an area and for sharing:

Here it is again, in front of shaggy red Monarda:

I don't know if I have the name of this maroon daylily, but I like the colour:

I was surprised to see this Campanula glomerata "alba" finally blooming this year, but long after its purple counterparts had faded away. I had bought and planted it last year, and thought I lost it over the winter, and the Euonymus alatus (Burning bush) had grown over it (wow, that is a fast-growing shrub!!), so that the bloom ended up poking out from under the bush upside-down:

This borage plant sprouted up between the crocosmia I dug & replanted earlier this year, perhaps delivered by birds, or the seed was in the soil (although I haven't grown it for some while). The star-shaped flower is edible (just pull off the hard dark bit), and pretty as a garnish for potato salads or fruit salads or even cakes... So I left it there, just in case (wishful thinking on my part). I was trying to catch the bee in flight, which I did:

I planted this young Buddleia davidii (Butterfly bush) to block some of the view of my lower neighbour's house. I was amazed at how strong and vigourous it grew this year. These are the green flower spikes, before they bloom purple. A dragonfly landing on the bush had prompted me to pull out the camera, but sadly he didn't wait for the photo:

Garden Glimpses : Late May 2009

One of the great things about gardening is that every day, there is something new to discover. Lately I have been too busy during the week, so doing major gardening (mostly weeding) sessions on Saturdays. But I try to get outside every couple of days to at least walk about and see what is new. This evening did not disappoint.

A number of plants have seeded themselves among our stone-faced steps and gravel pathway which connects the lower yard to the upper yard. I pull the ones which look out of place or are too weedy, but have left some where they fit in nicely. This one found a very cozy and natural-looking spot:

I plan to relocate these weedy daisies when they are finished flowering, but even these "common" flowers add some charm to the pathway:

This tricolour honeysuckle is filling in nicely against our cedar fence, and it loaded with blooms this year:

I discovered that the rhodo which is tucked in the corner against the shed, now almost hidden behind the Italian Plum tree, is just coming into bloom:

I found the first bloom of the year on my white iris, a treasured gift from my friend Irene:

The first flower has appeared on my tomato plants. I have 2 "sweet 100" and 2 "sweet 1000" tomatoes this year. So if all goes well, I guess I can expect approx 2,200 fruits:

My climbing hydrangea, which started as a tiny shoot less than 5 years ago, and now completely covers its concrete retaining wall, has finally shown 2 flower heads (umbels, I guess?) this year. Not that I was anxious about flowers, since the twisty vines in winter and the lush foliage in summer is more than enough to earn its spot in the garden:

I don't have the name of this orange flower handy, but its yellow relative grows as a native weed in this area, some of it just beyond my fence on the ravine side. I sure do like this cheery orange version, though:

The smoke tree is getting ready to smoke:

There were lots of fruits to discover also, such as these Bartlett pears. I am amused by how they grow "upside down" until they get heavy enough for the fruit to drop to the orientation I'm used to seeing pears in:

The espalier trees always perform well with fruiting, mainly due to all other growth being so restricted, the tree has nowhere else to expend its energies other than into producing fruit. This is one of our espaliered apples:

...and espaliered asian pears:

I try to thin the espalier fruits to only 1 per clump, and even then that may be too dense, I should probably thin more aggressively, and try for one fruit every 4 inches.

I started grapes against the shed a couple of years ago, and they are really filling in nicely this year:

And for the first time ever, I see lots of tiny grapes forming:

The Italian plum tree, which bore 5 fruits last year, seems to have dozens of tiny fruits, hiding among the leaves (and hard to photograph well):

But the biggest and most exciting surprise tonight, which prompted me to call my husband and kids out to see for themselves, was our peach tree. Do you remember how we just got the peach tree last year, and it played dead for a long while after it was planted? Then this year, it showed that single flower? Well, that single flower has produced a tiny, fuzzy peach! It is so small, you still need to use your imagination on this one, but it is for sure a little peach!!:

Garden Related Glimpses : mid-Aug 2008

Here goes with some more garden photos, and other miscellaneous photos from August. Instead of my usual close-ups, here are a few wider views of my garden:

Here is our fairy house, with blooming lilies towering above it:

Here is my hummingbird corner, with a lush butterfly bush cascading over a clump of crocosmia, and a set of red monarda falling to the right:

Here is one of challenges I regularly deal with, blackberry vines reaching over the fence into my garden (those nasty things seem to grow one foot or more per day!). The large purple plant on the right is a purple sage. To the left of it, the straggly flower stalks of Stachys byzantina (Lamb's ear). I don't much like the look of the flowers, but I leave them for the bees (especially the little mason bees) which are all over them. To the far left, our red currant bush, which bore more than a 4L (1 gallon) bucket of berries this year:

I was very pleased to gather a large harvest of lavender flowers from my neighbour, before her landscaper removed the large plants this year. While I had the lavender drying on a number of cookie sheets and other trays on the kitchen island, the fragrance throughout the house was amazing:

I also made a batch of lavender jelly. I was very pleased with the natural colour of it (yes, just lavender, certo & white sugar, no other additives or preservatives). Oh, and did I mention that it tasted good, too? My 9 year old daughter has been asking for it on toast for breakfast ever since.

While I'm posting photos, here is one of Alouette Lake, BC, from above. My husband and I discovered this viewpoint while off-roading a few weeks ago:

Yesterday (Sunday) we took the kids canoeing from Barnet Beach across and up into Indian Arm, to escape the heat. It was indeed much cooler there, and ended up being a beautiful day to canoe, with only the occasional drops of rain. We spotted this harbour seal with her pup on the shore, mainly because a pair of kayakers ahead of us had already stopped to watch. Otherwise we may have missed them on the rocks, since they were quite well camoflauged:

Here is a closeup from the same photo, you can better see the mother seal with her pup (he was not interested in looking at us, so that is his back end, you can see the flipper on the right side):