Summer is zooming by

August 1st has arrived and that means we are getting dangerously close to summer's end.
Day lily season is in progress and we have been enjoying our own selections plus those of a couple of other day  lily  aficionados.
Here is a link to some of our day lily varieties
Last Saturday we had a pleasant visit to Truro to visit Pheasant Gardens. Cecil and Lillian Dunlap have a lovely range of plants, many of which they have for sale via their website. Cecil visited our June Garden Club meeting and left behind a sample of Night Beacon for everyone. 
Ours is in bloom this week.

Bill and I went up to Arisaig Tuesday and had a tour of Dave Runnalls' Day Lily garden. He has over 400 varieties and they were in glorious form.

Needless to say there were a few samples which are bound to get on a wishlist for next year.
One named 'JT Davis' is reminiscent of lemon pie.

We picked a nice bunch of Sugar Lace Peas today along with the first cucumber. Beans are almost ready, so we hope the deer do not make a return run. There were some fresh tracks out near the pole beans. That is the first we have noticed since very early spring.
Today was partly spent installing a new refrigerator and all that that entails. I guess it will take a few days to figure out the best distribution there.

Spring Evening April 25

We had a lovely working day with lots of sunshine and warm temperatures. A bit more spring clean-up was accomplished and even a few items potted up for our upcoming Plant Sale (May 18th and 19th). Grace and I had a little walk around the front yard to admire the Glory of the Snow and other things.
I subsequently stumbled upon the Movie Maker in Windows Live and had a little play with today's pictures. Come share the walk. If the video doesn't start here, click on the YouTube button.

Begonia grandis Adventures

Begonia grandis is one of our favorite plants. It is , in some ways, similar to other tuberous begonias, but has some distinctions. the tubers are very dense and never get quite as large as regular begonias. They need to be planted significantly deeper than typical begonias and are also much hardier. In a zone 6b-7 climate, they could likely be left in the ground over the winter. Even here we have had little volunteers come up , either from tubers left in the ground or bulbils that have "seeded" off. In our area they are best stored indoors overwinter in a dark, cool dry area.

They get "potted up" about mid-April each year for the next years growth.

They are beautiful foliage plants that prosper both in planters or in ground.  It would seem I don't have a nice image of the lovely deep red underside of the leaves. They are much sturdier than regular tuberous begonias, so withstand the rigors of weather a bit better. 

They bloom late in the season and continue to be beautiful until a hard frost. we often dig them before that hard frost has happened.

Our supply of B. grandis started off with only one or two little tubers that Bill got from Cruikshanks back in the day. There has been quite a bit of multiplication, so we now have many.
About 2004, we discovered a very large number of little bulbils on the plants leaf axils when we were harvesting the tubers in late fall. We decided to see if they could be grown. 

The little bulbils were "sown" in medium and kept just slightly damp for a few weeks. Expecting they would typically get a cold period, we packed the packs in plastic and put them in the fridge for the winter.
The packs were brought out in early spring, put under lights and in a short time little sprouts appeared. These grew into small tuberous plants  which made significant growth by the end of that summer.
They  were harvested and stored the same as the bigger tubers and the next year, were blooming size.
Last fall (2012) there were an inordinate number of bulbils formed, so I thought I would save some and list them in the ARHS Seed Exchange. The many bulbils were put in three packs of mix and treated as before. Some were shipped off packed in a bit of medium for orders received. Many were left and the packs were taken from the fridge March 14th. Growth started to appear about two weeks later.

They have grown very fast and were transplanted to 4-cell packs April 8th. 
This is the storage pack popped out to show the roots profile before separating them into individual little plants.

They were very easy to handle and came apart with very little apparent disturbance.

It would appear there are sixteen packs plus a couple of small packs with some tiny remnants.

That prompted me to check the stored tubers from last year which were in the cold room in a box. All were showing a small sprout, so they will need to be potted up in a few days. 

I usually put the larger tubers in 3" pots, the medium ones in a propagating tray and the tiny ones in 4-cell packs. They get planted with the sprout just showing, but with room for them to have a greater amount of mix added to increase their planting depth. They are put about 5-6 " deep when planted outside.

We try get some sold at our annual Plant Sale, many are planted , and some are just given to friends or neighbors. Being a rather unknown plant, it takes some degree of public relations. 
A bit of an update from late April. The little plants have grown beautifully. 

Even the two packs with so-called scraps are full of growth.

If anything, we may have too many of these lovely plants. I have kept a count (more or less)  and there are  from the old tubers thirty six 3" pots, two trays with 24 per tray and sixteen 4-cell packs (56). Add in the ~64 little guys and it gives a large number.
I have been trying to find out if there are other sources for B. grandis here in Canada, but haven't found any. Several places in the United States list them and there are one or two seed sources.

March has a hint of spring

We go through each winter with the countdown to spring being a frequent musing.
The last few days saw lots of snow disappear and made the possibility of a reasonably easy walk possible. 
This seemed to be the day for other spring pursuits, as I finally started some seeds. We were given some Blue Poppies and Delphiniums last week at the ARHS meeting, so felt compelled to start them. There were also a few items from the ARHS Seed Exchange list I wanted to try. The old Planting Calendar got updated and ready for 2013 entries. This is a snippet of the page. This planting calendar has been the mainstay of my record keeping for many years. Each year I add a new page for the current entries. We have a similar file that is used for Rhododendron and Azalea plantings.

The day had some nice springy items in store, even though we know it will likely stay cold and perhaps snow again. The snowdrops waste no time popping up.

A similar phenomenon was happening in a spot in the Beech bed. Crocus shoots emerging even as snow lies adjacent.

The dogs were very keen on the walk, even if they had to mush through quite a bit of snow. The rhododendrons way back in the hollow were still pretty surrounded.

Grace made a lot of turns and needed a small break.

The purpose of the walk down those rather "slippery slopes" was to see if the witch hazel was in bloom. We were not disappointed. Loads of bloom and a lovely fragrance , which seems quite shocking this time of year.

The little blooms were beautiful against the bright sky.

Bill had a walk also and announced that it appeared there was not much apparent damage to small plants out back, and that the Tree Peonies looked very happy.
This pic is of an actual bud on our "Blue Heaven" rhodies. This will be the first year they bloom at the ripe old age of 12 years.

Other than knowing we will likely have a period of muddiness here and there, it is nice to see these definite signs of spring.

November is Proceeding

November is not renowned as the favorite month of the year, but this year we are having quite an enjoyable month so far.
It seems we have the usual annual chores that need to be done.
Bill embarked on a gutter clean out a few days ago. The biggest virtue being that it was a nice warm day (Bill will wear his toque regardless!).

The potato pit has had its insulating blanket of leaves added and covered.

This group of baby rhododendrons and azaleas are settled in for the winter. They are not in the usual nursery bed arrangement, since they were very small in early summer. Hopefully they will survive the winter this way. We may put some evergreen boughs over the area to give a little more protection.

After two lovely summery days, we are back to cooler, wetter conditions.
Before that we were the proud recipients of two truckloads of old horse manure. They were added to the manure area. 

Now if time and energy would cooperate, we might get some distributed before winter descends.
Each walk around the garden seems to yield some little surprises. This rhododendron seems anxious to bloom . It would normally bloom towards the end of May. 

We have been trying to conjure a name for this rhodie, which we had propagated a few years ago. It has rather interesting "peppermint " stripes when flowering, plus doubling of the calyx.
Most of the leaves are down , but the red oaks and several shrubs still are in the process of changing color before leaf drop.

This little Rhododendron dauricum has lovely foliage with different coloration at different times of the year. This species is considered semi-deciduous and will retain part of its leaves and lose others.

Some of the deciduous azaleas have lost their leaves, but others are still vibrant. 

This is a nice time to admire the flower buds which will hopefully add to next spring's show.
Some of the Magnolias have pretty buds as well. This is from 'Butterflies', a nice yellow magnolia.

Others don't seem to set their flower buds out in prominence.
We were amazed that these seedlings of Magnolia macrophylla are still very green.

There are always a few little blooms here and there. Some areas of the Vinca minor have a few flowers.

We always admire the Pieris in bud. 'Dorothy Wycoff' is getting fairly well established and is very attractive in the fall. Pinker buds are logical, since she blooms quite pink.

She is much pinker in bud than the "regular" Pieris.

The theme of browns and green is offset by so many things, but is attractive nevertheless. This is Heuchera 'Lime Ricky' nestled among fallen leaves.

The permanent green provided by the rhododendrons is really appreciated this fall into winter time. The good foliage plants will look good most of the year. Some of the heavily "tomented" rhodies are starting to have that surface tomentum worn away as the seasons progress.

The rest of the month will have some birthday celebrations(Ava's and mine) plus the annual Jingle Bell Frolic sponsored by St. Martha's Hospital Auxillary. That event is on November 30th at the  Marie Clare at the hospital. I am in charge of the "Fudge" table, so hope there will be another good year of volunteerism. Lots of calls to make this week regarding donations of baking and fudge.
Winter tires are getting installed today, so perhaps that will ward off winter for awhile longer!
Here is a slideshow of these and other images from our mid-November garden.