milkweed from Ingrid

For years, my cousin Ingrid gathered milkweed seeds close to her home in Kitchener, Ontario, and sent them to me here on Prince Edward Island.  I planted the seeds faithfully in a sunny bed, but they didn't grow. 
In December 2013 Ingrid died of undetermined causes.  She seemed perfectly healthy.  Being three months younger than me, it was a terrible shock.  The following spring, a surprising thing happened.  A single milkweed plant pushed to the surface, followed by many more over the years.  They even pop up in the lawn, but I'm ok with that.  I feel like Ingrid is giving me a wave, from wherever she is.

Milkweed is the favourite food of Monarch butterflies.  They have not found this patch as yet, but I'm always on the lookout for a striped green, black and white caterpillar.  I hope Ingrid will send some when she is ready.

in praise of volunteers

Human volunteers are unpaid helpers that add untold value to an organization.  Plant volunteers are just as valuable.  They weren't planted on purpose - they appeared from seeds spread by the wind or stuck to clothing or tools.  They keep their secrets, and are a delightful surprise.
These rudbeckia sprouted in the strawberry patch as if by magic.

A local nursery is selling them right now, but I don't know how they managed to make it to my garden.

Borage has become too much of a good thing, reseeding all over the vegetable garden, blocking the walking paths as they fall over.  The blue flowers are lovely, and the bees are all over them.  Today a horde of ants attacked me for pulling some out.  The flowers are edible, and the leaves are said to taste like cucumber, but not to me.  Their spikey stems force me to wear gloves to pull them out.

Creeping jenny:  this is sold as an annual.  A few years ago, I dumped my containers in the garden in the fall, and was delighted to find creeping jenny still alive the next spring.  I planted it in several places, where it took off.  It forms roots every few centemeters, chokes out other plants, and is impossible to remove completely.  Even pesticides don't work.  Now it is invading the lawn.

Sumac spreads by underground runners from the mother plant.  Luckily, it is easy to pull out or mow down the ones I don't want.

Here is a volunteer I actually like to see in my lawn.  Wild creeping thyme turns whole sections of the lawn purple in summer, and smells great when stepped on.
When I worked at Vesey's Seeds, customers from the Island would come in and complain about the purple stuff on their lawn.  I told them nothing less than a nuclear explosion would get rid of it.  And tourists would come in raving about the beautiful purple lawns, and want some to take home.  One person's weed is another person's treasure.

Golden rod is kinda pretty contrasted with purple monkshood.

This mallow appeared a few years ago.  It started small, but now it's about 5 feet tall and wide.

I planted poppy seeds in a garden far from where these two popped up.  This is an annual poppy with silky pink petals and gray-green leaves.  I cut off the seed heads to encourage more flowers.  But they still manage to reseed like crazy.

For a long time, I wondered why so many volunteer tomatoes popped up in the vegetable garden.  My husband Wayne is the culprit.  He hates tomato seeds and the gel around them, so he scrapes it all into the compost, where it sits over the winter.  After I spread it out over the vegetable patch in spring, the seeds spout.  The plants come late, but some do produce fruit.  I'm sure if I purposely planted tomato seeds directly in the garden, nothing would sprout.



Early this summer, we mowed around the clumps of ox-eye daisies that spring up all over the lawn and flower beds.  They didn't attract a lot of bees, but small flower flies came in abundance.  After the blooms faded, we mowed them down, surely spreading more seeds ready to pop up next year.

viburnum under attack

Last year, a lovely viburnum shrub appeared in the very inhospitable gravel around a drainage pipe in our front yard.  I carefully dug it up, and made a new home for it in rich soil in the back.  It looked green and healthy last year, and leafed out well this year.
Then I noticed holes in the leaves, and soon there was nothing left but the veins.
Viburnum beetles have been a growing problem in the US and Canada in the last few years.  Adults bore rows of holes in the thin branches, and lay eggs that hatch in the spring.
The larvae eat the green leaves, leaving only the tough veins behind.  Then the larvae fall to the ground, pupate, and in the autumn, the new adults crawl back up the plant, bore holes, and lay more eggs.
In the mean time, the plant eventually puts out a few new leaves, but is considerably weakened, and does not have the energy to flower.                     
Online research recommends waiting until fall, cutting off and destroying the branches with the tiny holes, which will break the cycle.  That chore is on my to-do list in October.

arbour time

Wayne in construction mode

One thing about my garden - there is very little hardscaping, because neither of us are adept at building walls or benches or stone pathways. 
I have always wanted an arbour to convey the idea of walking out of the yard and into the unknown - in this case, a path that leads through the fields to Veseys Seeds.  I have been nagging Wayne for years to build me one, and this year I received a little box at Christmas with a promise inside:  "this entitles you to one arbour". 
Arbours are not an easy item to find at the local hardware stores.  I wanted one made of wood, not that flimsy PVC plastic.  And I wanted it pretty.  So I went online.  You can pay frighteningly big bucks for an arbour with seats (that's what I really wanted) but I settled for a nice regular one.
We researched how to secure it to the ground, because I did not want a repeat of the disaster with my first arbour, a metal one that fell over a few times and ultimately was buried in the snows of 2014 and then crushed under their weight. 

We used a level to make sure the top was straight.

The kit was delivered in a flat box.  After putting the pieces together, Wayne set it up.  I loved it right away!
 

It took some shims and some elbow grease to get it level.

concrete footings

We purchased heavy bag of quick-set concrete, which came mixed with gravel.  We dug 2 18-inch deep holes, dumped in the concrete, mixed it with water, and then set in metal pieces that had been screwed to the arbor's legs.  We had to work quickly, because the label warned that the concrete sets fast. 

And that's it!  one arbour, built and installed in one afternoon.  Now for the fun stuff - installing plants.  I found a neglected clematis buried in a bed of tall ostrich ferns and bleeding hearts.  It had already grown about 10 feet.  As much as it killed me to do it, I snipped off that growth and left just about 6 inches, because the transplanted roots would not have been able to support all that top growth as they adjusted to their new home.  The clematis was well watered in, snuggled in with mulch, and didn't die.  The few remaining leaves are staying green.  Success! 

Now my dream of hardscaping has expanded.  I got Wayne to scrape and repaint my adirondak chair, and I'm dreaming of a bench.  A garden is a work in progress.