Summer Recap & Other Things

Journal Entry No.5
It's Raining!

You read that correctly, I am sitting in February and it's raining. I love it. I even dreamt that I woke up, ran downstairs and proclaimed to my husband, "It's raining in February! I love it!" Because rain and February are rare instances in Southern Ontario. In fact, the whole winter has been a bit screwy. While we aren't out of the woods yet, we've all been fairly surprised at the lack of winter. But what it lacks in quantity it has certainly made up for in quality. When it has snowed it's been blustery, frigid cold, with heaps and heaps of snow to shovel. I'm not sure what the perfect winter would be. This is like a bizarre trade off where we get several weeks of warm spring like weather in exchange for a few brutal winter ones. I think I can handle that, all we've done is bunker down during the worst of it. Now that temps are rising and there's no longer a -25°C wind chill I've been able to go for my walks again and I'm losing those pesky Christmas weight pounds! And all of this balmy weather has me thinking about the garden, what's to come and what has been. I never did publish a recap on the end of summer so here it is!

My last post was in July, so there are few months to look back on. July was the height of the bloom period for most of my garden. Many plants ran through their cycle and by August others were beginning to take hold. I had struggled with plant loss due to a rather large rodent colony that had taken up residence beneath my deck. As luck would have it my neighbors installed a brand new deck of their own, which lead to a lot of construction noise and vibrations. I wasn't thrilled that I lost the use of my backyard for several weeks (my side garden abuts their yard so I was directly in line with all of the activity), but the noise was a blessing in disguise: I noticed a marked improvement with the rodent activity, it must've scared a number of them off. Better still, after construction halted, I noticed an uptick in predatory birds! Bonus. This created the prefect opportunity for my remaining plants to thrive. I can only hope we enter in the new year with this luck.

Last spring I endeavored to plant annuals by seed. I had no experience with this sort of thing and results were a mixed bag. I struggled with properly thinning plants out, I think I might have over thinned some, where others looked wild and unkempt to the point I couldn't identify which was flower and which was weed, so I left them alone. It's painfully obvious that I struggled with the Candy Tuft and Alyssum. I did not get those magnificent croppings of full bushy growth. For the effort I think it's better to buy those at the nursery instead. Several plants never made it past seedling stage, the Sweet Pea was one of those. The Scented Stock barely made it's presence known. Even my pansies didn't fair very well, although they are somehow still surviving in the garden bed so perhaps this year will be their chance to shine. The most painful experience was when I lost my Teddy Sunflower seedlings to slugs and rodents, even with protective cloches. I did everything to save them. It was disheartening to say the least.

The things that did manage to grow from seed, for the most part, didn't grow in the way that I had envisioned or hoped. I had some Chinese Forget-me-not that bloomed in the late summer into autumn. The flowers were beautiful shades of uniformly soft blue, but they were leggy and falling over top of other plants. By the end of the year they looked a tangled mess. I don't think they received enough sunlight. I might try planting them again this year but further into the sun bed. Likewise my Zinnias produced flowers continuously but the blooms were very small and the stalks long and leggy. I think I'll try planting Zinnias again but perhaps purchase young ones from the nursery. I can't help but feel things lagged due to a combination of our unpredictable weather and the time I chose to directly sow the seeds. I should have started them indoors first. My mother had assured me my Four o'clocks would flourish but results were all over the place. Those in the deepest shade bloomed best and grew to two feet tall. Those that were located in partial and direct sunlight did not grow more than a couple of inches and never bloomed. And to add to that they were not Four o'clocks but more like 9PM to 7AM's, if I got up early enough I might catch them in bloom. As such, I don't think I'll revisit those flowers, their foliage isn't so fancy it makes up for the lack of blooms. 

My success stories were unexpected. I had planted Moonflowers in the spring, greatly anticipating white dinner plates on my trellis, but instead found Flying Saucer Morning Glories! They certainly were a UFO. I don't know if I was sold the wrong seeds by mistake or some combination of soil acidity caused them to turn this way? It was utterly bizarre but they yielded great blooms. I had also planted Heavenly Blues in the same container and they looked lovey together. They did become quite unruly and began to strangle each other out, so this year I plan on building a larger trellis for them to climb and hopefully plant the right amount so it doesn't go haywire. My other triumph were the Marigolds that I had grown from seed. I had somehow managed to produce several plants with enormous yellow heads which I could see from the back windows. I loved to look out and see them swaying in the wind. They looked fabulous with the purple aster that I had unknowingly nursed back to health after I planted it in my garden for fun. I can envision a whole row of aster wrapping themselves around and supporting the yellow marigolds.

All that being said, I have struggled with my garden. I'm finding some plants will need to be transplanted elsewhere if they do not produce again this year. I've already shifted some into other parts of the bed and I was fortunate enough to get several seedlings of Lungwort, Coralbells, and Columbine to spread out. This year I want my focus to be on mostly store bought annuals. I had a great year with my petunias and impatiens, and I was amazed at how easily they can "fill" the gaps in the beds. Since the neighbor removed the mulberry tree, and we cut down our cherry, the beds will receive different quantities of light. I think it's best I play it safe this year and get a feel for the change before committing to new more permanent plantings. I'll see if I can control my impulses when out shopping! Easier said than done. 

Happy Gardening!