November colours

As the days get shorter and the sun refuses to shine, we know the dark days of winter are around the corner.  But there is still colour to be found.  The mild November weather means the flowers are down, but they aren't out yet.  This calendua is blooming, but lying down on the job.

This I believe is flax, which grew from a pack of mixed wildflower seeds from Veseys.  A very intense blue on flowers that bloom for a very long time.

Another intense blue-purple on johny jump-ups that bloom profusely from spring to late fall.  All you need to do is give them a hair cut once in a while to get rid of the spent flowers, and they will keep on giving.

The glorious pale-yellow snapdragons reseed and come back on their own year after year.  Behind is something I splurged on in September:  three species fuchsia with long orange tubular flowers that were visted by hummingbirds before they flew south.

This little burning bush seedling makes up for its small size with fiery leaves.

Can't get enough of these bright Chinese lanterns.  After the pod fades to a tracery of veins, you can see a bright orange seed inside.

Fluffy white seed plumes from ornamental grass look like clouds come to earth.

We took a walk in the woods near Mount Stewart and found scattered under the trees some yellow chanterelle mushrooms.  They seemed pretty hard and tough, but we soaked them in water for a half hour, and they were tender and delicious. We have been told that the mushrooms must be cut, not pulled, or they won't grow back next year.   Our recipe:  soak mushrooms, clean and chop.  Saute onions and garlic in butter until transparent.  Add mushrooms, saute for a few minutes, then add some white wine and cook till reduced.  Delicious! 

Here's a downside to all that glorious mild November weather.  I visited Eureka Garlic to try a different variety this year, and ended up choosing "Cuban Purple".  I didn't clue in that Cuban winter is nothing like ours, so I planted it a month ago and it has already sprouted, which means the cold Canadian winter will kill it dead.  When you are this far north, this type of garlic should only be planted in spring.  Lesson learned.

carrots and tomatoes

Although I have a big vegetable garden in my back yard, I also rent a plot at the Legacy Garden, a community space in downtown Charlottetown.  Why do I do it?  It started because I couldn't get carrots to grow in my own back yard, so I thought I would try a change of venue, and now my carrots are fabulous, if I do say myself.  But an unexpected benefit was the company.  Gardening can be a bit solitary, if not lonely pursuit.  But at a community garden, there is always someone around to talk to about the bugs eating the cucumber leaves, or to brag up your beautiful lettuce.

Here's my plot.  I plant just carrots and tomatoes, rotating them every year.

The sunflowers reseed themselves, growing anew every year.

From 10 tomato plants, I get an enormous amount of fruit.  After all the hard work of nurturing the seedlings, enriching the soil, digging weeds, and planting carefully, it's all worth it to harvest each beautiful tomato at the end of it all.

This tomato plant is a volunteer, growing from seed that must have survived the winter.  It produces big cherry tomatos, and they are really sweet.

The carrots did surprisingly well, powering through even though we had no rain for 2 months.  I always plant the variety called "Rainbow" which produces a range of colours from orange, pale orange, yellow, to pure white. I also plant a dark purple variety.  Last year, I found that the paler the carrot, the more bug damage it sustained.  The purples had no damage at all.  I was delighted to find almost no damage to the roots this year.  Maybe the carrot rust fly larvae don't like dry conditions.

One strange thing I noticed is that the tomatoes growing on the side of the plot facing west are not ripening as quickly as those facing in the other direction.  No shade falls on these plants during the day at all.

fall flowers

Fall is here, but the flowers have not given up yet.  There are still lots of pretty petals to check out!

Two years ago, I planted a few hibiscus.  Last year, they were full of buds - which all dried up without opening.  I was pretty disappointed, especially when I see what I missed - check this out!  The flowers are about 8 inches across, totally out of proportion to the 3 foot size of the plant.
Hibiscus is very late to come to life in the spring, so don`t pull it out too early thinking it didn`t survive the winter.

These frothy pale purple beauties are fall asters, which grow wild here.  All I need to do is recognize the plants and not pull them out thinking they are weeds.

Queen of the Prairie is a magnet for fall bees.

This brave rose is blooming, even though its leaves have been chewed and sucked dry.

Phlox `David` in the background, `Autum Joy` Sedum in front.

A dried alium has lost its purple flowers, but it`s still a striking sight.

Rudbeckia (Black-eyed Susans) and Purple Coneflower and wild mallow make a great combination.

It's a good year for hydrangeas.  This one started life as a multi-stemmed shrub with flowers as big as your head, so big that they hung to the ground.  this left a big open space in the middle of the plant, and flowers dragging on the ground.  So I cut off all the stems, and the next year let just three grow.  Then I cut out the two weakest ones, staked the remaining one for a year, and voila - it's now a standard holding its flowers high!

The Chinese Lanterns seem bigger than usual this year.  They really shine in a forest of green leaves.

I never get tired of the look - or the fragrance - of sunflowers.

Just one more - sunny Calendula reseed themselves every year. The chickadees gorge on the extra seeds all winter.

flying jewels

PEI is seeing a bumper crop of pained lady butterflies this year.  It's a great sign of the basic health of the ecosystem. Hope things continue this way.  According to an article from Nebraska I found on the internet, much of North America is seeing an increase in the population of these flying jewels this year.

"Painted ladies often lay their eggs in soybeans. When those eggs hatch, the caterpillars feed on soybean foliage. Fortunately, those caterpillars have not been seen to have done much damage to soybean crop this year.

"The hordes are not limited to Nebraska. Numbers are high in almost the entire upper Midwest, including Illinois, the Dakotas, Iowa, and Kansas.

"Jonathan Larson, a Nebraska Extension entomologist in Omaha, attributes the butterfly boom to ample rains earlier this year in California. In an interview with the World-Herald, Larson said painted ladies start their migration in California. They spend the summer in cooler places like North Dakota and Canada, but head south through Nebraska as fall approaches. 

"The natural forces that keep a check on the painted lady population evidently didn’t occur this year, Jarvi said. Conditions were ideal, with not many predators or diseases.

"In the insect world, it’s just a matter of weeks to go from egg to adult. We’re probably on a third or fourth generation this year already.”  According to Wikipedia, the lifespan of a painted lady butterfly is two to four weeks.

"It’s interesting that these caterpillars have not caused soybean problems this year.  That shows that a plentiful insect population doesn’t always translate into a problem.

"The caterpillars would do more damage to soybeans if they fed on the developing beanpods.  Soybean plants can withstand quite a bit of defoliation. Caterpillars can eat up to 20 percent of the leaves before it makes sense economically for farmers to apply insecticide.

"Painted ladies are often mistaken for monarch butterflies, which are larger. While painted ladies feed on many plants, monarchs consume only milkweed."

I don't think this is a painted lady caterpillar, - the pictures I found are spiky but less hairy - but it sure is fancy.

out with the hydrangeas, in with a shady spot

This is my sad clump of hydrangeas.  Every year, they bloom their heads off, and the weak, brittle stems bend and break.  I try to stake them up, but they always get out of hand.
So this year, I have made a painful decision:  out with them!

Weak branches break under the weight of flowers as big as your head!

Of course, this job became more work than I imagined.  Cutting off the stems is easy:  just pile in a big mound, and toss.

But getting out the roots is another thing.  I know if I skip this step, they will be back next year.  So I need to do a lot of digging and pulling.  The plants are joined by underground runners, and the roots hang on tight, which makes it quite a job.

Stay tuned for the finished product:  a six-foot deck, which will be a perfect shady spot to rest when the sun beats down on my east-facing deck in the morning.

OK - well - so after doing some research on the internet, we discovered that putting in a deck involves digging 4-foot holes for footings and a whole lot of precise measuring and cutting.  That dream just will never become reality.  So instead, I took away some of the good soil to spread around the garden. raked the surface level, piled on lots of eelgrass seaweed, and plunked down a comfortable chair supported by 4 patio stones.  Voila!  In no time, I had a comfy shady place to survey my kingdom.

spiders spiders everywhere

This morning, the sunlight slanted through the livingroom, illuminating dust motes and something I probably should have noticed a long time ago.  This little guy has been making himself quite at home.  The web is huge.  I don`t know how it managed to attach the web to all the different angles of the room, but it did a great job.  Alas, its home is now destroyed.  I scooped up the little guy and set it carefully outside.

This web attached to my newspaper slot looks like a comment on the state of paper-based media today.  But the opening of the slot is clear, and I can`t eat breakfast without my daily paper.

This is the web of a funnel spider.  They attach their web to grass or low plants, and the web can only be seen when covered with dew.  The hole near the top is the spider`s lair. It waits down there until an insect gets tangled in the web, and then comes out for a meal.

A line of funnel webs in the rock garden waits for prey.

a visit to Kingsbrae

In June, the Garden Club of PEI hopped a bus and visited Kingsbrae Garden in St.-Andrews-by-the-Sea, New Brunswick, a mere 4.5 hour drive from home.  The long ride was worth it.  Over 50,000 perennials, shrubs and trees, goats, alpacas and ducks, and a wonderful restaurant.  It was a wet day, but the misty rain just added to the otherworldly feeling of serenity and magic.

So many varieties of Japanese maples I have never seen.  This one, Acer palmatum dissectum 'Waterfall' truly lives up to its name.

The red-leafed Japanese maple makes a lovely contrast with the pale varigated foliage.

Huge potted dracena dot the property.  I'm trying to imagine how much work it would be to bring them in for the winter.  

A big peony flower has been coaxed to bloom from a tiny plant.

Brugmansia, a tropical tree, produces huge drooping flowers.

Why is this tree in a cage?  

An interesting idea:  creating a "stream" with glass pebbles.

The resident goat reaches for a meal.

A lovely view with a bubbling water feature.

An old grindstone repurposed as a fountain.

A series of raised vegetable beds was covered with netting

 to keep the deer from munching the salad greens.

This obelisk mirrors the plants and the photographer.

A raised spiral is an interesting way to display a plant many don't like growing in their lawns:  wild creeping thyme.  

A fanciful sculpture of a hard-working gardener

a perfectly manicured knot garden

the perfect symmetry of culver's root (centre)

an enticing walkway

no - this isn't a tree.  It's a cast-iron frame crammed full of begonias.