Garden Update

Solomon's Seal! A transplant from a friend. Very early to come up … fingers crossed that the deer don't discover it. 

How slack I've been about posting! Oh well, I've been busy with my gardening projects! That's my excuse. LOL!

An accumulation of snow on my pansies and a columbine in a pot! Who said it was spring!

It seems like a few short weeks ago, after putting out frost friendly things like pansies we had two snow falls in a row. Now everything is growing like crazy ….. yet only a couple of days ago we had a frost warning!! If I was a philosopher I would say that nature is telling us something. Not just that climate change is a reality that we have to deal with, but that our comfortable modernist lives are being challenged. Just when we think that modern science can save us from disease and that we have evolved past judging others according to their ancestry, here we are with new realities.

Since I have no answers to these serious questions, I choose to immerse myself in my little garden patch both at home and at our local community garden.

My little green house that Ross made. It has been great during the frost zone. The beauty of it is that it can be dismantled when the frost is finally over!

Fascinated by seeds 

In March I began starting seeds. How fun it was to watch them grow and turn into viable plants! I was most pleased with the tomato seeds that became strong and healthy plants and with the Cleome seeds that I collected from last year's plants. I also planted snap dragons, zinnias, parsley, basil, rosemary, and oregano. Notice that I spelled cleome with a capital "C" … that's because they are a star in my garden since the deer do not touch them! That is, unless mother nature decides otherwise, and that would not surprise me in these troubling times!

These seedlings will, hopefully become the beautiful tall, pink plants I had last year!

Hooked on Heuchera!

These are early days so my heuchera plants / coral bells are not in full bloom or developed to their full potential. However, I am looking forward to blossoms and leaf development over the next few weeks. Below I have  a beautiful lime twist (right) and another light coloured heuchera (left) planted in my shade garden. 

There is also a green foliage heuchera that produces red flowers and a "peach parfait" heuchera that has beautiful foliage already. From my research both can tolerate a fair bit of sun.

I have been a big fan of GARDEN ANSWER and below is a link to a video on planting a variety of Heucheras in a container for spring. When the weather warms up they are taken out and planted in the garden to make way for summer plants in the container. I love this ideas of having planters of plants that tolerate cold weather in spring and then switching them out when the weather warms up. Then they can be placed somewhere else and return in fall!

Garden Answer planting heucheras in containers in spring

Other New Additions:

I usually plant Johnny Jump ups but since I was only able to call in my order there was some confusion and I ended up with cool wave pansies. So far I am pleased with them!

I also came across a couple of sedums that I think are absolutely sweet! I hope they do well and look forward to incorporating them into succulent arrangements!

My "shed garden" is planted and now it is a waiting game. I have carrots, lettuce spinach,  scarlet runners, cucumbers and indeterminate tomatoes … all from seed! Fingers crossed!

So, now I wait, weed and watch as my garden develops! Looking forward to it!