A Fluffy Day

For the last few weeks, the poplar trees have been releasing their fluff like snow, except this snow drifts around in the breeze and collects in corners until it germinates more unwanted awful trees.  Can you tell I don't like the poplars?  They make me sneeze, invade my flower beds with their suckers, and aren't really attractive.  Unfortunately, they grow everywhere around here.  I can't do much about it.  My three year old looks outside and calls these "fluffy days".  To her, they are good days to be outside. 

Poplar fluff in the air

My white herbaceous peony "Lotus Queen" is in full bloom.  It is described as a zone 3 perennial and does very well here.  I only wish I had more peonies.  Ah well, someday I will. 

Peony "Lotus Queen"

Our first strawberries are ripe!  They are covered in netting so no critters get them, aside from the ones that live in our house and walk on two feet...and I see that I got a lovely dandelion leaf in the picture too!  Someday I'll get some time to weed again.  At least the power is on and we can bath and enjoy working kitchen appliances again.  The long weekend is sure to be a crazy one here.  Wish I didn't have to work!  

Transplanting Day, A Procrastination

Gardening was a welcome diversion from the monotony of studying today. Thus, there were some productive bursts of gardening between the flipping of pages. I am excited to see that I will have my first peony blooms soon. I've had peony plants for about four years now, without blooms. I managed to kill one (planted in a bad spot) but finally my remaining peony has buds. Peonies aren't particularly hard to grow, and are quite hardy to this province. Someday, I will dedicate more of my gardening space to peonies.
My peony is now visited by red ants, thought they don't harm the plant:

Primula saxatilis, a nicely naturalizing primula in a partly-shady part of the raised bed:

I let this primula go to seed and spread its progeny around. In large groups, it makes a nice show with its shades of lilac flowers.
The alpine garden at midday:
I keep meaning to take some pictures when the lighting is really nice, like in the early morning. This raised bed (below) is in full shade by evening, so morning pictures would be best. However, that will require getting up at 4:30 am. Sunrise this morning was as 4:23 am. At this time of year, the broken window shades in the bedroom window are pretty noticeable, with a full three hours of bright sunlight before it's time to get up. At least that's better than going to work in the morning in the dark and then going to home for supper in the dark, during winter.
This raised bed has taller shrubs (dogwood, highbush cranberry, Saskatoons) and delphiniums at the back of it, against the gravel lane. The Saskatoon berry bushes have white blooms right now:

There are still some open spots in this bed, where plants died out in 2009. Thankfully, with a yard this big, there are plenty of perennials to be divided and perennial seedlings left over to fill in the gaps. I spent some time moving tall perennials to the back and short ones to the front. I try to create complementary textures too, like a balance of fine leaves with broad ones, or tall grassy foliage (irises) with low and broad plants (hostas, Alchemilla). I'm sure my garden could make room for some new plants, though. I'm looking for some tall, part-shade loving perennials with moderate water requirements. Ah, that will require studying some other books...another diversion.

Planting Rocks in my Rock Garden

I decided to do some rearranging of the rock garden this week based on design principles I've been reading about. Besides that, I'd always been dodgy about calling the sloped flower bed a "rock garden", mostly for the lack of rocks. Actually, my real dream would probably require large mechanical equipment and aim for some small recreation of the rock gardens at Kew, so I'll stick to what I can do with my hands and a spade for now.

Principles in rearranging my rock garden:

• less "currant bun" effect, with rocks looking like they're just sitting ontop the dirt
  rocks should look like icebergs, meaning that nine-tenths of the rock is buried out of sight


• blasted rock looks more like natural stony outcroppings than rounded fieldstone (which can be better used for Japanese styles)


• align the rocks so any striations match directions


• use local rocks (resident-lawnmower-man hauled blasted rock in from a construction site)


• use similar-type stones, rather than a collection of novelty or multicolored stones
  
• plantwise, I removed dead or raggy-looking plants then moved some narcissus into the bed from elsewhere in the yard
  

Okay, so the picture shows that the little rock garden probably violates half those design rules, but settling of the dirt and planting a few more rock garden plants should help it out. Another gardener gave me some alpine Arabis, Gentiana verna and Gentian septemfida today! Within 2 weeks, the phlox and muscari should be in full bloom and should make the bed look beautiful. Or maybe I'll be out there tomorrow adding more rocks...

Flowers blooming now: Scilla siberica, a hardy bulb that produces these deep blue flowers: Muscari armeniacum "Dark Eyes" (Grape Hyacinth) , which is different from the regular bulk-purchased grape hyacinths in that there are little white rims on the bottoms of each "grape". The planting of this new variety really wasn't worth it in my opinion:
This is how far my single-flowered peony has come this spring. Yeah, I know those of you in warmer climates are probably staking their peonies to prevent their blooms from flopping over...and I don't really want to hear about it! But if you're growing peonies north of my latitude, please do tell.