September in my garden

 This is one of the photos of the Panda bear at the zoo in Bejingfrom our trip this spring.  These bears scarf down a lot of bamboo.  Maybe I should have just a tiny one to keep my black bamboo in check.  Actually, it does not run too fast.  Just enough to dig out and give to friends.  Derek  picked up his sprouts yesterday, along with some crocosmia.  I removed the crocosmia from the area by the roses at the front, as they were flopping over the path and being quite annoying. They multiply like crazy.  I had divided them into 4 bags and put them out at the street for Free pickups by anyone who wanted them.  3 bags were taken and I had the one left to add to the ones I gave to Derek in his bamboo pots.  Hope they grow for him.  I think Ray and Nancy's is growing.  I am going to plant the Japanese quince in the spot where I took out the crocosmia.  The leaf mulch from the trees keep the weeds down here.  I might have room for a few more pinks along the edge of the border of the stone path.

 This is one of the last of the figs from this year.  There were 10 big ripe ones.  We had the last of them last nite after we got home from the Greek Festival.  Good lamb and spanakopta.    We have small green figs left on the tree yet.  The stepping stone path around the fig is covered with the wonderful little Corsican mint.  There is a bit of grass trying to grow in it.  I must keep after this grass to get rid of it.  I shall try to get the mint to grow in the stone path at the front too.  I had to weed those little orange flowers out of this year.  I think they might come with the sand I buy and apply to the paths. 

 The germander is in bloom for a long time!  The bees love it.  It is nicely spreading and keeping down the weeds where it grows too.  This is in keeping with my present plans of making my garden lower maintenance.  This is along the back fence, in front of 3 hedging cedars and a yew.  Next to the germander is where the tall bearded iris bed starts and extends to the water tub.  Next to the tub is where the woodland officially begins.  Across the old sidewalk from these plants is the gorgeous big lacecap hydrangea underplanted with sweet woodruff, and a few other voluntieers, as well as daylilies.  I think I will get rid of them, as the orange colors clash with all my colors in the garden. Like the name... the flower lasts for a day, only so it is no good for bouquets.  There is a huge evergreen fern and a lovely lily of the valley shrub at the end of this bed, and officially in the woodland.  :-) These two plants hid the old compost bin very effectively. 

 The purple plums are almost ready for harvesting.  The yellow ones are just about finished, so that works out nicely.  I do not know what has happened to some of the purple plums but they seem to be scarred .. at least the skins seem scarred.  It appears to be only skin deep.  I am happy to see that the tree is producing this year.  It seems to have some kind of fungus or something that causes these lumps that look like burls, but at the end of a fruiting shoot.  I must try to look it up with Google and find out how to treat it.

 This Autumn Joy sedum is a lovely easy care plant.  This one grows along between our driveway and Shawna's.  The one I started along in front of the new cedars along Mrs. P's driveway, does not seem to be doing as well.  Needs better soil perhaps. 

 Last week I had hoards of these little skippers in the garden.  The day I went out to shoot them, it was windy, of course, so it was not a very successful shoot.  I need to entice more butterflies to the garden, somehow.  The butterfly plants on the deck do not seem to be working, at all.  I never saw a butterfly on them this year.   This is the second year for the butterfly plants container, so I will probably take it off the deck, divide the plants and put them where ever I can find space in the garden.  At the moment, this space might be where I am not very successful at growing vegetables, as there are too many tree roots and not enough sun.  The little rockery is on one side of this area, so this will become the cutting garden, or to be more realistic... the catch all spot. 

This is the last of the yellow plums, photo taken a few days ago.  I have 4 jars of these plums made into a preserve and frozen.  The plums are very juice.  I boil them for a minute or two with a bit of sugar to help preserve them, and then freeze them in the glass jars.  It works well for me.  Leave space at the top of the jar because when the liquid freezes it expands a bit.

I imagine that serious vegetable gardeners have had their winter vegetables planted about a month ago.  It is time to get bulbs to plant.  My crocus field at the front is doing fine. I don't really have space for any more tulips, or bulbs of any kind, so I can just look at whet is for sale.  And then go home with a pail of bonemeal to feed the bulbs I already have planted. 

August gardening

the little miniature water lily in the tub on the deck has had a few blooms.  Its too bad they last only a few days. 

 The yellow plums are actually quite abundant.  We are eating them as fast as we can with ice cream, or the best -- mango swirl frozen yogurt.  Figs are ready,too.  Tomorrow we have some of them.

This cone flower (echinea) is holding its blooms for a long while.  This is one of the planters that I put on the deck last year.  This one holds far too many plants that are butterfly flowers. I made it up following the directions in a magazine for butterfly flowers.  I have a few more planters on the deck.  The willows are from the rock and alpine gardens show.  These special little willows like a lot of water, so I am not sure if they will survive a move to the back garden.  Since the vegetable garden is hopeless due to all the tree roots it might become my extended rockery and catch all plants place. I might want to move this crowded butterfly planter out into the garden, along with the big delphinium, from another pot.  The deck is just looking too cluttered with all the pots.  I must think about down sizing, too... and give away pots, as well as books and so many things that really should be cleaned up.

August in the garden and elsewhere

 We returned home from our trip to Saskatchewan, a week ago.  I am scurrying to catch up on house, garden and on our photography site.  The above photo is one of a few of the forest fire damaged area that I want to process in photoshop and add to my Megashot.net account.  There were big forest fires in the Barrier, Merritt, Kamloops areas in 2003.  The damage is still apparent.  We see this area when we travel back and forth to Saskatchewan. 

On thursday last, we went out to Genoa Bay .. not on the motorcycle . . this time, much to Pat's disappointment.  I cannot seem to make the effort to ride on the bikes.  I just find it too noisy, dirty and stinky.  I have no idea what the attraction is to all the people who have taken up this passtime.
This is a photo of a distant Kingfisher.  I have a closer one, but was shooting into digital zoom and that never produces a satisfactory photo.  The sun was very bright, the temperatures into the 30's which is very hot for me.  We could not sit out on the patio for our lunch but had to move inside as we had no shade out there.  My crab cakes were delicious.  The art gallery has a wonderful pink  alabaster carving on burled walnut.  I was very attracted to this  "dreamer" piece of art.  I thought the price was very reasonable at approximately $550.  When I thought about what would I ever do with it...I decided more people could enjoy it in the art gallery there, than if I took it home.  Of course the artist could probably make more of them.  I guess I am not the acquisitive type and not a collector.  The dreamer was calling my name, though.  I may have to go back.

 This is my butterfly bush, now in bloom.  Unfortunately, there were no butterflies on it when I went out to shoot it.  This is its real color, and it is gorgeous.  Across the sidewalk from it is the beautiful blue with hints of mauve lace cap hydrangea.  They bloom about the same time and make a terrific show.  This is the first year for the buddlia.  Its a fine combination!  It is in the 'woodland' area of the garden.  Now, I must keep this area better weeded.. that is, remove the invasive plants that are growing and get some more well placed plants. 

 This is the hollyhock in the rectangle bed on our driveway side of the front garden.  It is on the street side of the cedar hedge, so I see this area of the garden when coming or going from home, or when I am working in that area of the garden.  I hesitate to call it work, as this is always an enjoyable time spent when I am out there.  This color and bloom time would be a good match for the butterfly bush and the hydrangea in the woodland.  I once read that if you repeat a plant throughout the areas of your garden it helps to tie the garden together as a whole unit.  I think it works.  I have planted tall bearded irises, self seeding malvas, dames rocket, campanulas, and other plants in all parts of the garden.  They all have their season of bloom, and when planted all around the garden, it gives you a pleasant feeling to see the colors and combinations you were hoping to see, again. 

This is a double daylily.  I am not too fond of the orange colors.  They do not seem to me to go with any color very well, except yellow.  I do not have very much yellow, so may reduce the very prolific daylilies to just a few well placed plants.  They are suppose to do well in shade.  I think they actually look too stringy in shade.  I think I will be taking most of them out.  Also considering removing most of the montbretias (crocosmia) also.  They have a tendency to flop over the paths and over other plants, as I do not have them staked.  They are a fire engine red and do not really go well in the colors in my garden.    As my garden becomes more low maintenance, I hope, with mounding easy plants like heathers, thyme and the moss, the big floppy perennials will have to be tamed.  I will be able to control the weeds with heavy mulching.  The back corner of the woodland looks good cleaned up.  So I can begin to mulch it, and remove the plants that are contributing to the cluttered look.
The germander is also in bloom near the hydrangea and buddlia and it is a blue/mauve color and a nice mounding plant that is choking out all the weeds where it grows.  After bloom it just needs to be clipped back.. I can do this easily with my hedge trimmer.  The yucca just behind the germander finally bloomed this year.  It has been in its spot for years.  The yucca in the front of the strip between our driveways had three wonderful tall, tall spikes this year.  These plants respond very nicely to a good clean up in the spring and a bit of compost for food.
There are, after all, quite a few yellow plums.  Most of them are quite high up in the tree though.  I shall need some tall man to get up on the ladder to get them.  They are ready to eat.  We have the ice cream ready too.  The purple plums at the front by the street have last a lot of their fruit.  Its a bit late for June drop, isn't it?  While we were away, the tree did not get the watering I was treating it to, and we had some hot weather too.  I watered at the back last Friday and watered out at the front for a couple of hours last evening.  I need to get back on a good watering schedule.  The apple tree is full of apples, and there seem to be lots of figs that are going to ripen this year.  The red currants are ready to be picked.
I have a rum pot going and this year it is being kept in the fridge.  I had it out of the fridge for a couple of days and it started getting the bubbles.  It is not suppose to do that.  So, its back in the fridge again.  Here is a quote from a recipe:  "Check periodically to make sure there is no extra fermentation taking place.  If you see bubbles beginning to develop, you have fermentation.  If this happens, add rum that is 151 proof to suppress the fermentation."  As there is plenty of liquid, I don't feel I should add more brandy.  Here is the link to recipe referred to above.

This is not the recipe I followed, but I see this one contains red currants, so I suppose I could use my currants in my rum pot instead of making jelly that no one seems to eat around here. The currants are very seedy, though.  If I make jelly the seeds are not a factor.    I have also used blueberries and intend to use blackberries too.  They are delicious and I don't care if they discolor the other fruits.

While in Alberta we stopped in at the Future Shop and bought my ipad2.  It was on sale, plus we saved the provincial tax that is payable in B.C. to make it even a better bargain.  I have been learning to operate it.  I have managed to get a few books and have been reading a lot too.  I am afraid my garden has been suffering a bit from this time spent on the ipad.  Its a fine toy.  My bookshelves in the library are full, so this will also be a space saver.