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. 

Vancouver Island Rock and Alpine Show

Yesterday was a lovely day with 16 degree temperatures. In looking around the garden I see things popping up quickly. They seem to be making up for lost time in our cold Spring, this year. The aubretia, arabis, anemones, polyanthus, daffodils, hyacinths, hellebores, camillias, and others are showing quite a lot of color. My little rockeries need attention, but things are not looking too bad. The marsh marigold will soon be a mass of gold and green along the edge of the pond.

The Vancouver Island Rock and Alpine Gardening Society is having their annual show and sale this month. This is an annual event on my calendar, even though I am not an active member in the club. It is a very interesting club. They have field trips, open gardens, workshops, monthly meetings with speakers, a show of plants and sale of plants by the expert growers of the group. Some of the members are Internationally known speakers. This month, I missed the workshop on making styrofoam planters.... and I have a perfect round form just sitting on my deck, waiting to be made into a planter. Now I shall have to research it on the net, I guess.

Rock and Alpine Show and Sale:

Cadboro Bay United Church
2625 Arbutus Road, Victoria, B.C. Canada

Admission by donation.

Friday - April 17th
1 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Saturday - April 18th
9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
VIRAGS club members' plant sale: 11 a.m.

Specialty nurseries will sell plants during the entire show.
Seeds will be on sale throughout.

Afternoon tea

Waterfall - March - 2008

The waterfall in my pond is looking pretty good. This is the bottom fall. The top fall is becoming nicely mossy green. The marsh marigolds are beginning to bloom. The water fall is about 3 feet high, in total. I will add the photo of the top later.

Yesterday I did a bit of shopping and came home with a new, lovely purple vase, an out of bloom large white phalenopsis orchid, a new african violet, 2 fuschia cuttings and some johnny-jump-ups (violas), as well as books and other drug store items. The Phal. is going to be big! I don't have any more room on the light garden. Never-the-less, I still want to go back and get that out-of-bloom cattleya that they have for #12.00. It is large, too and white and pink colored, no fragrance. I am pretty sure I can get it to re-bloom. I should think about shopping on line for my orchids.

The primulas around the yard are blooming, the little cyclamen is still in bloom (That is the best little plant!), the daffodils, hyacinths, and camillias are blooming. The crocuses are about finished.

Last nite Cyrus sent me the home page he has designed for my Whimsies, Flares and Echoes community for the new site. The page is absolutely gorgeous. He has been showing me other pages he has designed for friends home pages... really good work. His design of this dream site with all the new features is marvelous. This site is really going to rock! Maybe 3 or 4 more weeks yet before we beta test it in pre launch stage. It is sooooo exciting.