Spring in the Garden

The mermaid sits on top of the water fall now observing the top mossy water running down.  There is a view over the top of the variegated lily of the valley shrub to the back of the water garden.  Sadly this view includes Mrs. Pee's barren, cement back yard.  You see the green foliage plants beside the pond by the deck... a geranium, a monks hood and some primula.  The marsh marigolds are making a lovely big golden clump and are reflected in the pond.
  This evening when I looked out to the pond, I saw 2 little gold fish.  So, there are some fish in there!!  Hope to see more of them as the temperatures warm up.

There are two trilliums in the back woodland garden.  The big one has 3 blossoms.  It was buried beneath a big leaf of a plant.  It is doing much better since I uncovered it.  This area needs some attention to curtailing the invasive blue bells.  I hope to carefully use the Weed be gone spray on them.  They are getting all over the garden, not just in the woodland area.  Across the sidewalk from the trilliums and hiding the old compost bin, is the old lily of the valley shrub that is in full bloom and is perfuming the garden.   The white fawn lilies are showing in the photo.  You can see some of the bluebells in there.  They will be very carefully painted with weed be gone, and hopefully give the lilies a chance.

 A daphne, a lewisia, and two tiny alpines on the small rockery at the back.  I am happy to see a few of last year's alpine purchase surviving.  The lewisias are not the showy ones, but are nice little rockery plants.  This little rockery needs top dressing of compost and perhaps more pea gravel.  Most of these tiny alpines do not want moisture around their crowns.  I have yet to transplant this year's alpine purchases.  I really only have two or three to go in.  I will be putting the cyclamen coum in the front little rockery area where is is better shaded.  The willows will go into larger pots until I get time to transplant them in the right locations. 

Spring, at last

Erythronium or fawn lilies or trout lilies require a long period of growth before they bloom. It takes a seed seven years, usually, to reach blossoming size seven years while the bulb grows deeper and each year -ends up a single Leaf. In the sixth year there are two leaves, and in the seventh springtime there come two leaves with a flower bud between them, and the trout lily finally blooms.  They seem to like to grow in Oak woodlands.,  I purchased my yellow fawn lily from a nursery on Saltspring Isand,  a few years ago.,  It was at the blooming stage when bought.  This little beauty has now expanded to several plants in its clump.  It seems to be happy in the woodland.  The white ones are just a bit later in opening up.  We see a lot of the white variety growing wild here, but I have not seen yellow ones.  I hope this one seeds around.  I will try to take seeds and scatter them where the white ones grow.  Fortunately, there are several patches of these lilies near me, by the river, in the park.

 My first trillium is up and in flower.  Only one bloom, so far.  Its tiny compared to the other one that grows in the woodland area and which I have not seen yet.  They are different varieties.  These trilliums also grow wild in the the parks and are protected.  I have not seen any near me though.  I guess I need to scatter some of these seeds too.

Marsh marigold are just starting in the pond.  With the water fall running, there is under water plants growing and keeping the water clear.  Oh dear, there seems to be a lot of leaves collected in the pond.  I did not see any fish today, except for the one in the deck pot.  I might need a few new fish.  I did see a baby one a couple of days ago, in the pond.

This is a fairly new plant that lives in the front garden little rockery.  Its spectacular against the rocks and the leaf mulch.  While photographing it I notice that the plants around it are sprouting too.  I saw 4 lilies sprouting up.  I need more compost on this little rockery bed.  It seems to have shrunk about 6 inches below the top of the retaining rocks.  .. strange.

This is the brightest and biggest clump of primulas.  The doubles seem to need drier conditions as they are growing better at the back near the woodland,.   The area where this one is is quite damp, as I thought primulas liked early wet feet.  I imagine I will be seeing quite a lot of these at the VIRAGS spring show and sale, as it seems to be the season for them. 

Mill Hill Regional Park

On Sunday I went on the Wild Flower walk at Mill Hill Regional Park. We followed our naturalist guide up the rocky trail to the summit.  I did not make it to the very top.  Apparently there is a marvelous view that I missed.  The photo above is a tapestry of some of the wild flowers in bloom now.  Drabas, camas, shooting stars, fawn lilies and many more. 

These tiny blue flowers are blue-eyed mary, the pink ones are a variety of thrift or armeria.

Two of my best shots of the calypso bulbosa orchids.  There are quite a few of these tiny beauties out now.  They need a special soil fungus to grow, so I have not found any available at the plant nurseries, yet.  They would be very difficult to grow, with a very short period of bloom.

This is a large patch of camas.  The death camas have white blossoms.  The native people would remove all of the white flowering camas, so that they could eat the bulbs after they had matured.  I have a very nice camas growing in my garden.  I must keep all the 'blue bells' away from it, as the foliage is similar and the blossoms are the same color and look similar too.

a draba.  I am not sure which one this is.  I now have 2 tiniest ones in my little rockery.  This is a macro shot of the plant.. They are very very tiny, also.

A fawn lily.  There are large patches of these lovely lilies.  I have some growing in my woodland area.  I also have a yellow variety. 

This is miner's lettuse with the flowers open.  The photo from my previous post of this flower, had the blossoms in bud. 

There were many of these showy shooting stars (dodecathenon) in bloom.  I have not been successful in getting one to grow in my garden yet.  Perhaps its because the leaves look like they might be a dandilion kind of a weed.

The skunk cabbage were quite a distance away and down from the path.  We were not to go off the path, of course.  These were not very prime specimens of this plant either.  I hope this colony expands and grows larger plants.  The leaves seem to be under attack from something. 

a Trillium.  three petals, three leaves.   There were quite a few of these in the park.  Its nice to see these protected flowers becoming more abundant.  According to our Naturalist guide it takes 10 years for a plant to reach the flowering stage.  I am doubly amazed at the one in my woodland garden that has to blossoms, this year.  There is a large leaved plant growing over the area where this trillium grows.  Maybe they like it crowded, because the one in the front garden is not doing quite so well.  I keep the other plants from growing within its 12 inch diameter circle.  Perhaps it needs more leaf mold and a bit more shade.... a cool, moist root run.

the little yellow wood violets are really very pretty up close.  I have purple violets in my garden and find them very invasive.  These little plants did not seem to be quite so invasive. 

In the Spring Garden

This trillium and the easter lillies or fawn lillies are in bloom in the woodland garden.  These are both indigenous plants.  The woodland is very much in need of renovation.  It would be a good idea to clean up the area around these plants before they are gone to dormancy.  The blue bells, thistles and lemon balm are taking over.

The gentan is one of the good rock plants along the edge of the garage garden bed.  The primulas are along in front of the rhodos in the back garden.  There are more primulas and I have close up shots of some of them.  I hope to eventually have an annual garden album on my web page.

The marsh marigold is looking good on the pond.  The water hawthorn is in bloom too.  Yesterday I restarted the water fall.  The water level has stayed nicely up.  We have not had rain today.  That slow leak must have somehow healed itself.  I have no other explanation.  There is clay around the pond.  Perhaps the clay is fully saturated and blocks the tiny hole in the liner.   I have seen quite a few small black fish in the pond.  I understand that baby goldfish take about 2 years to turn colors.   I am going to have quite a lot of gold fish in there next year.

These are anemones and hyacinths that are in the bed by the garage.  These are across the old sidewalk from the gentian.  Very colorful mix and making a nice show right now.  The end of this bed needs cleaning up also.

This red pasque flower is in the front garden by the bamboo.  There is another purple one in the area.  I am slowly getting the weedy flowers out of this area.  The iberis along the front of the border are filling out.  I seem to have got rid of the violets.  There are still a lot of dandilions coming up all over the garden.  I need to be vigilant in getting rid of them.  I should like ti get a rabbiting spade to use to dig them out. 

On Saturday we took the new old Model T on its first run.  McMorran's is closing... after all these years.  It  has a big place in the history of Victoria.  There were many old cars out, and many other people.  The McMorrans started the place as an icecream stand, and so we had hot dogs and icecream for lunch.   Too bad it was such a cold day!  The car ran beautifully.
Today I walked back from the lab where I had to go for blood tests.  I brought home a couple of fuschia cuttings, a marguerite, a parsley and some seeds.  Maybe I will get out to plant them later in the week.
Last nite I finished reading Whitley Streiber's Critical Mass.  Now I need a book to read and want to pick up another Strieber book or two.  So, tomorrow I will go down to Monroe's or Chapters and spend a few enjoyable hours browsing books.