Pasque Flowers and Indoor Peppers

New Mexico Joe Parker pepper in our house

 I am growing a New Mexico Joe Parker pepper indoors with success, if that can be measured by the peppers it is producing.  Of course, being an indoor plant, there are no bees to pollinate the flowers.  I pollinate them by hand with a kids' paintbrush.  All the un-pollinated flowers and their stems simply dry up and drop off, so you can have total control over how many peppers you want the plant to grow.  Potted peppers need a generous-sized pot.  Both tomatoes and peppers have large root systems.

Outdoors, I captured the growth of a Pulsatilla vulgaris on a sunny slope, where it started blooming recently.  The video started in the last week of April, with a day of snow at the beginning.  This video shows 13 days of growth, with a still shot taken every 10 minutes.  The plant "bows it head" every evening and stretches its flowers towards the sun. 

Spring Clean Up

The spring clean up is nearly done. Shrubs are pruned and dead leaves are pulled out of flower beds.  The roses showed absolutely no winter-kill this year, likely because the snow cover was quite generous.  I pruned them only for shape and size.  The spring bulbs are up, and I inevitably squashed a few while tromping around out there.  Now that things are cleaned up and I can finally see the stepping stones, the rest of the bulb shoots should be safe!  I can see greens of the tulips, daffodils, species tulips, alliums, pushkinia and grape hyacinths.  The other early spring bulbs are blooming, with large flowered crocuses done already and scillla, chionodoxa, and the tiny spring irises blooming now.  I've found that the bulbs here all do best in the sunniest spots available.  Bulbs planted in shady areas never get around to blooming until it is too late in the season and seem to bloom very poorly, maybe because of the warm temperatures.

Chionodoxa is blooming in a sunny spot

Spring clean up around here seems to be best done in the first week of May, which is before anything produces much new growth.  I noticed some grubs and some little brown pellet-things in the crowns of the siberian irises.  I'm not sure of the significance of those, but the evidence will be in this year's growth.   

Alpine bed, with a healthy dwarf mugo pine

Iris danfordiae, a tiny yellow reticulated iris just starting to bloom

Scilla sibirica

Rhubarb just emerging from the ground

Kona, the northern doggy, lounging on the deck

Otherwise in the garden, I should be putting in annual seeds as soon as possible.  I see that the self-seeded annual corn poppies are already up.  I'll have to thin those out quite dramatically.  I also want to add a few other flowers to the mix, including some Nigella, bachelor's buttons, dwarf cosmos, and some sunflowers.  I also received some gladioli bulbs in the mail last week, but really don't know when to plant those.  I think I'll soon put them in a pot in the garage, for lack of any other ideas. 

Kona got a very early morning walk today, and thoroughly enjoyed sniffing all trees, bunches of grass, poles, and tires.  She ate a rabbit that entered her fenced yard last month, and I'm sure she's looking forward to more tasty wildlife this summer.  Huskies and malamutes (she is a cross) are breeds known for high prey drive, and are very distracted by potential food running across their path (i.e. biking with her can be precarious).  Despite this, she's pretty mellow, mostly ignores other barking dogs, and tolerates a very affectionate 3 year old.       

A Very Slow Spring...VERY slow

There is still not much action in the garden, aside from a few brave (though late) crocuses.  I did a time lapse video of the first brave blooms over last weekend.  The blank field of white in the video is the day we got a blanket of snow over everything (see the last picture in this post to get the full picture).  I've heard there have been some "protests of winter" in the province and I can't say I'm not also getting a bit weary of the cold and ice. 

Today was sunny and followed a night of strong winds that appears to have shattered the neighbours plastic garbage bin and moved our barbeque across the deck.  The ice on Lac La Ronge is turning dark and should hopefully sink in the next 10 days.  We will look forward to the tinkling bits of the ice making their final appearances.

Blue herons at Montreal River, just west of La Ronge

Montreal River at sunset

Our yard 7 days ago (April 21, 2013)

Thankfully, most of the snow has melted, except for in shady spots where it had been piled up over the winter.  This does mean that the spring clean-up in the perennial beds will need to be done soon.  Though a little later than usual, I should also be planting my direct-seeded annuals soon.  I have a few dwarf cosmos to try out.