Karma Candy One

Karma Candies are my thing. I like to look for them, notice them, savour and enjoy them. Then I like to share them. A Karma Candy is when everything in the universe comes together in an unexpected way all for the benefit of you (or in my case, me)! I got not one, but two Karma Candies in my garden this year, all from the kindness of a friend.

Last year, Heike gave me two daylily divisions (well, actually, she let me dig up her garden) one of which was 'red' and one of which was 'yellow'. That was the totality of the description. Red sounded good to me. Never met a red daylily I didn't like. Yellow had me seeing bright, dark, golden yellow and feeling a little worried. I am not overly fond of yellow and really dislike a lot of yellow shades. I always think that if I don't like the flower, I will get rid of the plant but when you have a lot of space, you never really get rid of anything. The Knautia here is a good case in point. If I bring it home, I am usually stuck with it. But I am always willing to take a chance on a flower so I jumped at the chance to take them both.

Last week, I stepped into the garden and immediately noticed her. Heike's Daylily, 'Little Rainbow'. Isn't she stunning? In fact, when I saw her I thought now who are you and where did you come from? I got a load of plants at an end of season sale that were not all blooming last year so I went to my garden journal to figure out the puzzle. She was unexpected.

As I stood in the garden with my camera and journal sketch that passes for a garden map here, it really looked like the daylily in this spot should be Heike's yellow. Clicking away trying to get every angle, I kept thinking my map had to be wrong. Surely she would not have described THIS as yellow!

So I start texting pictures and peppering her with questions. Does your 'yellow' daylily have any pink in it? Is this it ? Then came the answer. Yep, this is it. But she is soooooo much more than 'yellow'. She is a rock star. My new favourite. 'Little Rainbow'. Even her name rocks.

Karma Candy number one. Number two will be in a following post (as soon as it opens and I can get a photo).

Showing Off Daylilies - Red

I've had a bunch of daylilies bloom this week, many are new in my garden this year. The shades of red really vary.

daylily - unknown red

daylily - unknown dark red

daylily Nona's Garnet Spider

daylily Creature of the Night

daylily Fushia Fashion

daylily Cameroon's Twister

Random Blooms in July

I my Saskatchewan garden :)

Daylily 'Stella D'Oro'

Rudbeckia - yellow

Rudbeckia - orange

Rose, 'William Baffin'

Maltese Cross

Osteospermum

Marilyn's Rose

Linda's Yellow Lily

Rose, 'Morden Blush'

Lily, 'Tiny Bell'

Double Pink Peony

Lily, 'Landini'

Delphinium

more Delphinium

Columbine

Clematis

 

 

Big Flowers

One flower doesn't make a garden, but it sure can look impressive on its own.

First up is a new daylily bought on one of our trips to Harbour Breezes last summer. Of course, it's not a big patch yet, but the flowers are huge and it sure is eye catching.

daylily Heavenly Orange Blaze

We've already made our first trip to Harbour Breezes this year and came back with this stunning white Japanese iris - blooming before we got it into the ground.

iris ensata Grand Island

First of the Clematis

I've certainly had my challenges growing clematis over the years, mostly to do with giving them enough room to stretch out - something to grab onto in the garden. What works for one, does not work for all.

This one, which I think is 'The President', is always the first to bloom right in the middle of a patch of early yellow daylilies. Its flowers are huge and start out dark purple, lightening up as you see below.

clematis 'The President'

The second to bloom is 'Blue Ice', also with big flowers. I've had this one the longest. It grows new from the ground each year, has outgrown its trellis and twists in among the tall phlox stems. The first blooms have this pale purple tint, with later blooms more white.

clematis 'Blue Ice'

I'm anticipating more clematis blooms during the next couple of weeks - all of the rest are full of buds!

Corner of the Drive

I almost titled this post, My Favourite Spot. Then I realized that I don't have a favourite spot. I have many, many favourite spots. So unless I wanted to do a very long series of posts, I'd have to find another title!

This corner is passed by if you move from the house to anywhere, or from the car to anywhere. It sits at the junction of the road to the Campground yard (which also leads to the dogs building), the drive parking, the path to the firepit and the entry to the Boardwalk Garden. It is impossible to move around without passing by here and yet, Sean still does not notice the blooms... but that is another story, for another day.

The 'William Baffin' rose fills with blooms here, even if it does stretch forever to reach the sun, making it lean all to one side. Still, the roses are pretty with a lovely, soft scent. The lamium continually threatens to take the whole spot over and Iris were added last year. They are my most scented Iris so it is a nice spot to stand when they are blooming. Johnny-Jump-Up shows up in the rock, outside the garden edge, as often as the many, many weeds. But still this spot manages to put on a magnificent display year after year.

I think this is one of my favourite spots because it represents the way I see my garden. A little messy, slightly overgrown, never weeded enough but still dazzling me daily!

My Monet

weigela 'My Monet'

After 6 years, I'm finally getting a beautiful show from My Monet. I bought this small weigela in 2007 with the intention of planting it my rock garden - appropriate since the size was listed as 12"x24". As I was trying to figure out where in the rock garden to plant it, I realized it wouldn't even be seen among all the round pebbles. It's leaves are mottled shades of cream, greyish green with a little pink and would blend right in. We ended up planting it with some bigger rocks as part of a small retaining wall in the front garden. This year it's full of blooms and grown to about 24"x36".

Oh, the weather!

 

There are days when I wonder how I became a gardener in Zone 3. How can I love something so much that is so dependent on the weather when I live where it is winter forever, it seems? I have been busy reading about how to diversify my greens in the kitchen garden, advancements in urban gardening and now, most importantly, how to protect my early flowers from frost. I have been doing all of this reading in preparation for the coming garden season and in anticipation of spring. Little did I know that winter is just arriving! We have had the most wonderful, mild winter in Saskatchewan this year. Last week the snow finally arrived and has not stopped since. The temperature is beautiful though so we have been in a cycle of melt, freeze, melt, freeze, melt, freeze.... which is great for ice photos of the trees but not so great for the spring flowers. I think they are likely getting confused. I hope I don't lose too many of them. The freeze/thaw cycle here can wipe out whole gardens if the temperature drops at just the right time. I am ready though. All of my sheets are steps away from the garden if I need them after the first buds pop out. This is a year when the Boy Scout motto is well advised - be prepared!

Organic Container Gardening

 

I love containers! They are one of my favourite things in the garden. I have been known to turn anything into a container and I continue to use all my broken pots to grow plants in. The more they are broken, the deeper they get placed.

Containers are easy to do organically. I start with an organic potting soil and add a little bit of my own compost, making sure to keep the mix light. Heavy soil will compact. Do not plant containers with soil from your garden. Garden soil is too heavy for containers and becomes compacted over the season with weather and time. Roots need oxygen.

The compost I add to the potting soil helps to feed the plants over the season but containers need to be fed regularly throughout the season as well. There are a lot of organic feeding options such as fish emulsion or seaweed extract. I use compost tea. It is easy and free to make by steeping my own compost for a few days in a covered bucket of water placed in the sun. The resulting tea can be used weekly to feed my containers.

In Saskatchewan, we have long, hot, hot, hot summer afternoons that make containers a challenge. It is very hard for containers to survive without daily watering. Daily watering makes me feel guilty about my garden so I have developed a two step trick for watering containers. Step one is heavy mulch. I use straw. It can look a bit messy in early spring but the plants will completely cover any mulch long before they are full grown. The mulch prevents evaporation from the top of the pot and helps keep the roots of the plants cool. Step two is to water completely through twice each time I water. When I water my containers, I water until the water is freely running out of the container bottom and then I move on to the next container. Once I have done them all, I do it once more. I go back to the start and water until the water runs through. This doubles the time the job takes each time I do it but it reduces the number of times I water from daily to once a week, with the exception of the very small containers that I toss water on with the watering can almost every time I walk by in the summer. This trick has allowed me to plant far more containers than I could have managed if I was watering every day or even every second day. I am a lazy gardener at heart. Watering daily would reduce the amount of time I have to smell the roses!

Who doesn't want more flowers?

I couldn't let this article from Organic Gardening go by without posting it. The title says all you need to know... Five Simple Steps to More and Better Flowers. Now who doesn't love that? Simple steps usually means I can accomplish them despite my lazy gardening habits. More and Better flowers sounds divine. A couple of them were good reminders and one of them would have saved my fern patch two years in a row. Worth the read.