making many from one

Buying plants every year is really expensive.  I spend way too much money every year to fill up my containers with beautiful plants.  And then I hate to throw them out and let them die at the end of the season.  But over the past few years, I got smart.  I potted up geraniums, a purple sweet potato, iceplant, and a giant citronella in the fall, and set them on my bright windowsills.

This citronella has happily spent the winter in my bright basement.
If you look closely at the base of the plant, you will see Whitie the cat,
who has found a new favourite nap site.

There he is!

In March, I cut 10-cm off the tips of many of the branches, making sure there are at least 3 nodes (where leaves join the main stem).  I snap off some of the lower leaves and set the branches aside for a few days.  This is an important step to let the ends callus and prevent them from rotting.

I pack small pots with moistened, good-quality potting soil, use a pencil to make a hole in the soil,  pop in a stem or two, and firm the soil.  The small pots go into a waterproof tray, and then they are popped into a clear plastic bag, with a few props to keep the plastic from touching the leaves.  I close up the bag, and voila!  It's a make-shift greenhouse that forms its own atmosphere.  The pots don't need to be watered because the mosture condenses and falls back onto the plants.

Citronella cuttings covered by plastic held up with a variety of bottles. 
Condensation has formed on the inside, which will keep the plants watered.

Ice plant cuttings in the make-shift greenhouse

When the weather finally warms up in June, I will harden these off by putting them outside in a shady spot for an increasing amount of time until they are ready to withstand the harsher light and wind, and then plant them in containers.  What a beautiful way to save money!  And this year with the COVID-19 shut-down, I don't know if we will be able to go to nurseries to buy plants.

As you can see, my efforts don't always pay off.  The greenhouse method worked ok for the ice plants, but definitely didn't work for the citronella.  What a mouldy mess.  I'm thinking I should have rooted these in water.

racoon visitor

A sure sign of spring is when my bird feeders get trashed overnight.  That's how I know that the racoons are back in business.  I can't understand how they can digest sunflower seed shells, but they lap them up.  Now every night I have to bring in two seed feeders and a suet feeder and the frozen water dish.
Last night, we were Skyping with our son at midnight, when we noticed a little masked face looking in at us.  I opened the door to get a better picture, and the racoon was in no hurry to get away.

this picture looks like a double exposure, but it is Wayne's reflection in the window
and the racoon outside.

signs of spring

As the snow melts, we need to walk further and further into our back yard before we can strap on our skis.  And as the soil begins to poke out, we have had to detour and develop a new route through the fields.  But there is is still plenty of snow out there, although often it has water underneath.  I have noticed that snow over plowed ground melts faster than snow over grassy fields.  My theory is that the dark soil attracts light and heat even under a snowy cover. 

Around the house foundation, things are definitely happening.

Snowdrops are blooming, and donkey's tail euphorbia are snaking over the bare soil.

Winter aconite is tiny in stature, but produces 2-cm flowers that smell like honey.  The bees love them and are already buzzing around.  This flower comes from a small bulb planted in fall.  Once established, they keep coming back year after year.

Another yellow beauty is this crocus, which is also visited by bees.

Iris reticulata is another beautiful flower that brightens in early spring.

Even the moss growing in a crack of pressure-treated wood is greening up.

These tiny leaves promise poppies in June.

making suet

Many birds love suet, including chickadees, bluejays, downy woodpeckers, hairy woodpeckers, northern flickers, nuthatches, and unfortunately starlings too.  If you don't feed suet, these birds will not show themselves, and you won't even know they are around.
Suet provides protein and fat for the birds that can't find insects in winter.  At my feeder, a cake of suet can disappear in two days.  It can disappear overnight if I forget to bring it in and the racoons get it.
I started feeding purchased suet, but as with most ready-made things, I could tell it was much inferior to home made.  The wonderful magazine called Birds and Blooms carried a recipe, and I decided I could do that.

First, melt two pounds of lard (not vegetable shortening - these birds are carvivores) and mix in a big scoop of peanut butter.  

Take the pot off the stove, cool to room temperature, and add handsfulls of peanuts, raisins, sunflower seeds, oatmeal, and cornmeal.  This mixtue smells as good as oatmeal cookie batter!

I saved plastic trays from purchased suet. Two pounds of lard makes 5 squares of suet.

Set the trays on a cookie sheet, fill with suet, and freeze.  When solid, stack them and wrap in a plastic bag, and keep them in the freezer until needed.  And if you are plagued with racoons, be sure to bring the feeder in at night!