a bird in the garage is worth a look

Back in October, I accidently left the side garage door open when I grabbed some gardening stuff.
When I came back in, I heard some loud rustling and squeaking.  Struggling to get out a window it didn't understand was this lovely bird.

I couldn't figure out how to get the bird out of the garage.  I thought about throwing a blanket over it, but I didn't like the looks of its claws and beak. When my husband Wayne came home, he came up with the obvious:  just open the big front garage door.  He went around to the outside of the window, gave a little tap on the glass, and the bird finally got the idea.  It swooped out the door and into the blue sky.  What a treat to see this magnificant bird up close, and I'm so glad all ended happily.

The visitor was a ruffed grouse. I have never seen one before.  Here are some facts about ruffed grouse from http://www.ruffedgrousesociety.org/grouse-facts

• adults are about 40 cm long and weigh 500 g
• less than half make it to one year, and their lifespan is 2-3 years
• live primarily on the ground, but are strong short-distance fliers
• eat the buds and leaves of poplars, birch, and alders
• live in areas recently clear-cut.  Old growth forests do not provide food
• foxes, coyotes, hawks and owl eat them
• males are territorial and make a drumming sound to attract a mate
• males do not help raise chicks

robin in the fall

I have never seen a robin in the fall.  This guy was hanging out in the grape vines the other day, looking for a snack.  Unfortunately, the grapes were not plentiful this year, and they have long since been picked over by the blue jays.

American Robins eat invertebrates and fruit. In spring and summer they eat earthworms, insects and snails. They also like chokecherries, hawthorn, dogwood, sumac, and juniper berries.  For a list of food suggestions to attract robins and other birds, visit https://feederwatch.org/

Most robins move south in winter.  However, some stick around in their summer locations.  They migrate more in response to food, or lack of food, than to changes in temperature.  Fruit is their main winter food source.

mystery plant

This guy magically appeared in my back yard, right against the foundation.
It's huge - almost 3 feet across.
I have never seen anything like it.
I have posted it on facebook and asked the Garden Club, but no answers.
The leaves are rough, scratchy, dull, and smell bad when you pick one.

Here is one leaf, almost 20 inches long!

I plan to wait till next spring, when I hope it will bloom, which will make identification easier.


Now it's July 2019, and the plant has taken off.  The leaves seem more pointy, and they are smaller than last year, but the whole plant is about 3 feet tall, with purple stems.
I need to wait for the flowers to open, which I hope will make it easier to identify.
I went away for 2 weeks, and when I got back, the plant was just a brown twisted stem on the ground.  I never did get to see the open flowers, and I am still in the dark as to what it was.  One thing it is not:  invasive.

potato bonanza

I have never grown potatos before.  Some volunteers come up occasionally, and are immediately attacked by potato bugs.  But this year I purchased some special coloured seed potatoes brought from the Andes by a world traveler.

I thought I would try growing them in a special potato bag.  this way, all those little guys are corralled into a small space, and I don't have to go digging for them.  The bag was on my deck, and the sprouts were really pretty all summer, until the plant started to mature and die back.

I watered the plant like I would any other, and no potato bugs found it!
















I lugged the very heavy bag out to the vegetable garden, dumped it out, and opened a door on the side of the bag to find my booty.
Out popped a great variety of spuds, from the size of marbles to the length of my finger.  And the colours:  dark purple, white, speckled pink and white.














The soil left behind goes on the veggie garden.















I started with six spuds, and ended up with 75. 
A pretty good haul!

I will let them dry on the newspaper for a few days before putting them in a dark cool spot.

blue jay wants a peanut

Last week, I was washing the dishes when a blue jay repeatedly beat its wings against the window where I was standing.  This morning, I was having breakfast when a blue jay perched on the thermometer outside the window where I was sitting.

I immediately knew what it wanted:  peanuts and lots of them.
It must have a very long memory, because I had not fed them since last winter.

I grabbed the bag of peanuts and tossed some on the frosty glass table top.  The birds landed with a skid on the slippery surface, but it took no time at all for the crowd to make off with every one.

I have been feeding the birds for years, but this is the first time the jays have communicated  their hunger with me.

So yes, they are demanding and bold, but I still like the idea that they trust me.  I laugh every time they pick up a small peanut, only to reject it for a larger one, or try unsuccessfully to fly away with two.  The entertainment is worth the bird harassment!

spring peeper in fall

Last night, we found this little guy clinging to our front door, about four feet off the ground.  With the help of a great resource for PEI plants and animals at https://macphailwoods.org I was able to identify it as a spring peeper.  It is tiny - just about 2 cm, and almost transparent.  Its eyes are red, and it has a faint dark x on its back.  I can't imagine how it thought climbing up on a pane of glass was a good idea, but who knows the mind of a frog?

I wish the picture was clearer, but it was taken at night with a flash.

from Wikipedia:  The spring peeper is a small chorus frog widespread throughout the eastern United States and Canada. They are so called because of their chirping call that marks the beginning of spring. There are two subspecies: The northern, P. c. crucifer, found all over the eastern United States and eastern Canada. Wikipedia

tomato holes

When I was ready to can some tomatoes this year, I checked out last year's remaining jars and found one that was caked with mould and just half full.  Of course, a jar that isn't full will not form a good airless seal, and will go mouldy, but this mould was on the outside, not the inside. 

When I washed off the mould, I found what looked like a bullet hole in the bottom of the jar.

In all my years of canning, I've never seen such a thing.  Maybe the stress of the hot water bath opened a hairline crack that was already there.  And then maybe it banged against another jar.  It took a whole year for just half the contents to seep out.

2 of the best container plants

The test of a great container plant is not at the beginning of the season, when the tiny transplants are just getting established in their small homes.  The test is not in July, when they are blooming their hearts out and actively growing.  The test is in September, when many of the flowers have faded and dry sticks replace green healthy twigs after months of punishing conditions.

The petunias have faded to dried buds and seed pods with a few scraggy flowers.  Some geraniums are still going strong, but others have disappeared.  The sweet potato vine and the canna lilies are fairly healthy, but not spectacular.

Two container plants stand out as being by far the most hardy, leafy, and healthy.  They have withstood neglect, lack of watering, wind, and blistering sun in a small container.

The leafy Livingstone Daisy on the left is a healthy beauty,
while the other type on the right is languishing on a thin brown thread of a stem.

Livingstone Daisy (Ice Plant Mezoo) (Dorotheanthus bellidifomris) has creamy white and green leaves that are shiny and show no sign of fading or drying up.  It has tiny bright magenta flowers that add a lot of punch.  I bought this plant last year, and because it still looked great in October, crammed 4 plants into one pot and kept it inside all winter.  In spring, I separated it again and it looked great all season.

bright fuchia flowers 

Strangely enough, I have another plant, also called Livingstone Daisy, that looks nothing like the first one. The two plants even have the same botanical name. It has big daisy-like flowers in neon colours, but dries out, needs constant deadheading, and is tricky to start from seed.

The other Livingstone Daisy in better days a month ago

Little Ruby is still going strong in mid-September paired with a few geraniums.  
This is just one plant that had just one application of time-release fertilizer when transplanted.

The other plant is 'Little Ruby' Alternanthera dentata.  Beautiful thick purple leaves, low growth habit, branches that billow out and cover a huge area.  It is another annual that is heat and drought tolerant, and stands up to everything nature throws at it, except for frost.  I plan to take this guy in for the winter as well.  I will keep both in a sunny window and hope for the best.

the leaves of 'Little Ruby' are thick and healthy

Quinte Botanical Gardens

While visiting family in Trenton Ontario, I discovered a very new botanical garden.  Only in it's third year, it is designed so that one garden flows into the next, the curving paths encouraging you to explore what's around the next bend.

The garden is divided into many sections:  the edible garden, knot garden, bird and butterfly garden, Japanese garden, a rose garden with a raised cupola perfect for weddings, and a colour wheel of flowers in every hue in the rainbow.

The area was suffering from a long bout of drought, but many plants were bravely blooming.

In the bird and butterfly garden, a hummingbird moth hovered and dashed away before I could take a picture.  But some interesting wasps posed for me.

Check the website at www.qbgardens.ca for directions to find this lovely, restful spot.

Kingsbrae Gardens, Saint Andrews by the Sea, New Brunswick

Winding paths and bridges invite visitors to explore deeper in the garden

Visiting Saint Andrews was such a treat this summer.  Deer wander through town nibbling grass and trying to get through the plastic netting wrapped around precious plants.  The magificant Tudor-style half-timbered Algonquin Hotel presides over the city.  And then there is Kingsbrae Gardens.  Such care and attention shows everywhere in the little details that make this an amazing garden.

A bowl of succulents 

The sculpture garden is for the birds

Imaginative sculptures good enough to eat

lily pond

a raised vegetable garden that is easy to tend

Nackawic, New Brunswick

In July, we were coming home from a long trip through the US and Ontario, but found time to get off the highway and visit the small town of Nackawic, nestled on the Saint John River.  It's home of The Big Axe, and it truly is a monster.

The handle is shaped like a real axe, not just a telephone pole, and the shiny metal business end looks real enough to do some damage.

The town is much more than just about the axe, which is part of a lovely park criss-crossed with paths and perenials and big shade trees.

A creaky dock just into the water, and it is irresistable to anyone looking for a bit of an adventure.

larder beetles

Oh yuck - who lives here? 
I spied a few undesirables in my cutlery drawer, and when I took out the utensils, I saw the full extent of the grossness.  Along with the dust and mouse poops were live disgusting larder beetle larvae.

This small beetle belongs to the Dermestidae family. Adults are dark brown or black and measure 6 to 9 mm in length. Their elongated, flattish bodies have a light brown to yellowish horizontal strip marked by 6 dark spots. Two club-shaped antennae extend from the head, and two pairs of wings are attached to the thorax.

The female lays 100 to 200 eggs after mating in the spring and early summer. The banana-shaped egg clusters are placed in groups of 6-8 directly on their food source—this might be the corpse of a bird or animal, or oily foods in your pantry. After about 10 days, small larvae appear.

In the larval stage, it looks like a small yellowish-brown worm covered with hairs. It is 3 to 5 mm long and has two curved horn-like appendages. The larva goes through 4 to 5 moults before transforming into a nymph and emerging in its adult form after a rest period.

Prefered foods:

• Cheese
• Cake
• Dry animal food
• Rodent and bird carcasses
• Insects, especially earthworms and ladybugs
• Flowers
• Hair and fur
• Dead skin
• Fabrics and natural materials
• the larvae of other larder beetles.

Unless you want to call in the big guns like a pest control company, the best solution is seal cracks where they get in, and to clean the drawers more often than I do.

livingstone daisy

For a true challenge, try growing Livingstone Daisy from seed.  The seeds are as tiny as dust, they need to be started indoors 12 weeks before the last frost, and the soil must be kept warm with bottom heat.  When the seeds finally germinate, the tiny plants must be transplanted because they are so crowded.  The plants themselves are floppy and sparse and hard to grow.
No selling points so far.  But the flowers are shades of neon pink, orange, and yellow, with purple and white thrown in.  They open in the sun, and close overnight. 

The plant stems are sparse and floppy.
Not much to look at until the flowers pop open.

perfect peonies

Most peonies available in nurseries produce big double flowers.  They are beautiful, they smell like heaven, but their heavy blooms are weighed down by the slightest shower and the plants need to be staked to keep them from hitting the dirt.  Plus, there is no way bees can penetrate those petals to find any pollen.

So I look for single varieties, which are much rarer, although I don't understand why.  There is just  one row of petals, with a yellow centre of stamens full of pollen that bees can find easily.  These varieties do not need to be staked - the stems are strong enough to hold the flowers through all kinds of weather.  The only down side is that there is no fragrance.

Dancing Butterfly  is the first single variety planted in my garden

A pink single struggles to break free of the surrounding buds

The most beautiful semi double - Coral Beauty
- the picture doesn't do it justice.

Tree peonies are another good choice for those who don't want to stake their plants.  Over the winter, their woody structure stays intact like a shrub, unlike other herbaceous varieties, which die down to the ground.
Unfortunately, these plants are more temperamental.
Some years their flowers are as big as dinner plates.  Other years, like this one, the flowers are smaller.   And last year, it didn't bloom at all.  They are also prone to dying for no apparent reason.  It's a challenge.
The best of both worlds is probably the Itoh peony, a cross between the tree and the herbaceous peony.  However, the Itoh is so expensive, that I have not had the courage to try them in my garden.