Spring Notes


Birdlife, Botanical Photography, Bulbs, Containers, Garden Maintenance, Herbs, nature, Plant Material, Spring Plants / Saturday, March 23rd, 2019

I have been most neglectful of late with posting on my blog.  I have to say during the first weeks of March I was getting most depressed.  The garden still coated with a thick layer of snow and temperatures still very low.  Needless to say within the last week I have had a total boost with double-digit temperatures, snow melting, birds singing, buds appearing….what more can I say.  Spring has finally arrived.  

Northern Flicker happily basking in the sunshine on my front porch.

We have gone from one extreme to another and at the moment I do not know where to begin first.  I have started raking the beds and pruning off stalks from last year’s perennials.  I have also pruned some of the roses.  I am a little disturbed though at the winter damage and concerned that again I may have lost some of the smaller rose bushes.   More importantly my arbour rose on one side is in a very poor way.  I will however be patient and not prune out old canes until later in the season. 

I am happy to see that spring bulbs and flowers are starting to show up in the nurseries.  I think I was at The Greenery in Kelowna BC (@thegreenerykelowna) within a few days of opening.  Even if you are not a gardener just entering the warm greenhouses with displays of pansies, spring bulbs along with succulents and tropical plants makes you feel good.  They even have annual geranium baskets on sale already.  It would be some time though before you would be able to put them outside.  

My husband is very pleased that I have now moved all the wintered over plants and shrubs out of the garage.  Some to my greenhouse and the bigger trees in a sheltered corner.  He now has more room to work on his classic cars.  I have been closely monitoring the greenhouse.  Although during the day time it is getting a lot of sunshine we are still experiencing heavy frosts in the morning.  We just have a small heater to stop temperatures dipping too low at night.  

Meanwhile I have started some seed trays indoors including basil and a few different varieties of tomato.   The basil is ready for second stage potting but will still need to stay inside.  

As the garden is looking a little sad I have potted up a spring themed container and planted a few pansies and primulas in my outside containers.  It just goes to show how resilient these early spring plants are as they have not been affected by the frost. 

 

Happy Gardening…until next time.

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