the wild world of strawberries

Wild strawberries are considered by some to be a weed.  Their runners snake through flower beds and the grass, and they give the lawn an uneven look.  But if you are patient and just leave them be, you will be rewarded with a tiny treat.  The most lucious, flavourful bite of heaven, nothing like those hard, bred to travel the continent commercial berries.

On the left is a normal size strawberry, and on the right is the biggest wild berry I have ever seen - about the size of a big blueberry. 
I have a special stash of a wild patch in the hedgerow behind my house.  The berries are there for the picking, but for the mosquitos, who I swear defend the patch furiously by swarming and stinging any exposed flesh.  And there's another enemy - slugs.  This guy is just one of a legion of slugs which eats a hole in the berry and then hollows it out.  I grab a berry that looks ok, only to find it collapses in my hand.

After posing for the picture, this guy was dispatched with a shake of salt.

free mulch

Most people who would encounter a beautiful view like this would be thinking sublime thoughts of the beauty and serenity of nature.  Being a gardener, I immediately thought:  free mulch.  This is Lord Selkirk Provincial Park in eastern Prince Edward Island.  It is a very shallow bay.  At high tide, huge amounts of eel grass, a finely-cut seaweed, is washed ashore.  At low tide, it's free for the picking. 
Eel grass is ideal for mulch.  Compared to purchased mulch like shredded bark or wood chips, it decomposes much more slowly, and it adds nutrients to the soil while wood chips rob the soil of nitrogen as it decomposes.  And did I mention it was free? 
I actually did stop to appreciate the fresh air, the blue sky, the red cliffs, and the blue herons chasing fish in the shallows.  And then I snagged 6 bags of eel grass and headed home.



two weeks early

The weather here on PEI has not exactly been balmy - 18 C is a warm day.  But I was surprised to notice that the plants in my garden are moving along more quickly than usual.  Everything is about two weeks early.

This is something I didn't expect to see until the second week of July.  The garlic leaves are browning, and scapes (seed heads) are twisting everwhere.  It's important to cut off the scapes as soon as they appear.  If you don't, the garlic bulbs will be much smaller, because the energy of the plant has gone into making seeds, not making food for itself.  That's the beauty of reproduction - parents sacrificing themselves for the sake of their offspring!

ivy revitalized

This is my English ivy monster.  The vines travel half-way across the room, and some have even developed suckers that stick to the wall as they make their way up to the ceiling.  It has been about 3 years since I repotted it.  Some of the leaves are developing a reddish tinge, and they are certainly becoming smaller.  A sign of nutrient deficiency.  The pot is so crowded that with every watering, it overflows and makes a mess.

The ivy has made its way right through the roof of this little weather house, and continued on for 10 feet to curl around the window.
Something had to be done.  I couldn't move the plant to repot it, so radical surgery was required.  I thought about making a few cuttings to start a new plant, but I haven't always had luck with that approach.  And I felt sorry for the main plant, which is only doing its job by growing so well.  So I cut off a huge ball of vines.  Cutting should be just below a leaf node, which will encourage branching.

I was left with a much shorter plant that I could actually carry outside, where with great difficulty I pried it out of the pot, loosened the roots, and tucked it into a bigger pot with fresh soil.  Unfortunately, I ran out of soil before the job was done, so the final picture will have to wait.
One job leads into the next.  Once the plant was gone, the shelf was revealed in all its dusty glory, with spilled soil mixing with dust and dead flies.  I spent an hour taking down and washing knick-knacks and shelves and vacuuming fallen leaves.

rainy day musings

It's still raining, so I can't finish filling my outside containers, or wander around talking to the plants, so here I am again.  Here are some recent pics of what's happening in my garden.

Even though I knew not to buy a plant in full bloom, I brought home this iris last year anyway, not able to resist the fine tracery of brown on the falls.  It rewarded me with three perfect flowers this year.  And they smell heavenly.

Solomon's Seal never fails to amaze me.  After buying and killing at least 4 specimens, now they have finally caught on and I've even divided them. 

A lovely blue centaurea from Carolyn is doing very well.

a late May garden

So much to do in the garden this time of year.  There is hardly time to get all the weeding and deadheading done.  And the pictures don't make it to the blog until a rainy day keeps me inside.  So even though it's a month late, here's what the garden looked like two weeks ago.

This tree peony has been in my garden for at least 5 years.  It wasn't blooming, so I moved it, and waited with much anticipation and no luck until this year, when 2 big fat buds appeared.  They bloom before regular herbaceous peonies, and are much bigger.

15 years ago, I planted three ferns upside down in the fall, and had to dig them up and flip them around in the spring.  Now they have taken over two beds, and are invading the lawn.  I dug up a bunch last year, just to make room for everything else.  But they sure are beautiful as the fronds unfurl.

piggish hogweed

In late May, we were travelling through Quebec and at a picturesque roadside I saw something I had only ever heard about.  Giant Hogweed was brought to North America by avid gardeners who admired the huge, toothed, tropical-looking leaves and white umbrels of flowers that look like Queen Anne's Lace on steroids. 
But this is the stuff of nightmares.  The leaves and stems contain a sap that can burn the skin and even cause blindness if it get in the eyes.  The sap can't be washed off, and the effects can last for years.  The skin becomes super sensitive, and will burn over and over again when exposed to light.  What's more, this plant likes to colonize stream beds, and it produces thousands of seeds, which drop into the water and float on the current to colonize new areas further downstream.  Removing the stuff requires extreme care and a haz mat suit, so beware!

Purple spines along the stem are a sure way to identify this hazardous invasive.