As a little girl I remember going to my grandparent’s garden in the fall and admiring tall, delicate, yellow flowers. My Grama would call them “false sunflowers”. Upon further googling I have discovered that they can also be called ‘rough oxeye’ and ‘smooth oxeye’.
When we got our first home, my Grama dug up some of these flowers and gifted them to me. They are a perennial that comes back year after year and they have the oddest roots. The roots almost go at a ninety degree angle to the stem. In my Grama’s words, ” if you aren’t careful you will have them everywhere!”.
As we moved from house to house we always made sure we dug up some of these original flowers. They made the journey with us ( we even transplanted some from my Mom and Dad’s house when they moved). Sometimes they stayed in a pot for longer than they should have, but they always seemed to survive.
I think the beauty of these flowers is that they can grow well beyond fence height. As well they are the perfect shade of yellow and they blow so delicately in the wind. Being hardy and pest proof is also an added bonus. They do reproduce a lot – I have learned that mid summer thinning is sometimes a good thing. They also make a beautiful bouquet to add to your table or share with a friend.
When everything else in the garden is starting to wind down, the yellow flowers are just getting started. Today, I was out in the garden enjoying the sunshine and watching the flowers blow in the breeze. This made my heart so happy. Even though we said goodbye to my Grama so long ago, little things remind me of her. I think she would be very happy that descendants of her original plants are still thriving today after all these years.
I love to garden, watching tiny seedlings grow and bloom into beautiful flowers is so special. I also love growing my own vegetables.
In the early morning or evening I love to just go outside and spend time in the garden. I take around my little empty pot and gather spent blooms, and dead head flowers that are done. I water all the plants thoroughly and refill the birdbath. I help the trailing flowers catch on to the trellis and twirl them around the stakes in the garden. This is my special place.
This is a very peaceful and quiet time for me. Sometimes I reflect and sometimes I just enjoy listening to the birds sing their songs back and forth. I am proud of my garden and the stories that it tells.
This year I have been able to find some gently used treasures to add to the garden. Including non-garden items in the garden adds a whimsical touch and a sense of beauty. I have a few items that I have found from antique places that I intend to clean up a bit and plant some low lying ground cover in.
I also know that lighting is really important in the garden. A few years ago we installed metal poles in our garden and then hung solar globe lights in the backyard. I love these lights and they create a beautiful warm glow in the evening. This year I got little fairy sprig lights that are small globes on a spray. They add a delicate sprinkle of light to some of my planters at night.
Along the picturesque Lachine canal in Montreal lies the beautiful, historic Atwater Market. I have been to this market many times with my daughter, who is studying in Montreal. The market is within walking distance of her home and it’s open seven days a week.
I’ve been to the market in all seasons, except for Spring. My daughter told me, “Mum you would love the market in the Spring, there are flowers everywhere!” I made it my mission to visit her in the Spring this year so we could go to the flower market together.
When we got to the market, I saw a few of the flower and plant vendors. I thought to myself, this is lovely. And then, as I turned the corner, the entire length of the market was lined with booth after booth of beautiful blooms. I was in awe! To be honest, I was a little overwhelmed. I wasn’t sure what to look at first and I certainly didn’t want to miss a thing.
Oddly enough we had gone with my daughter’s friend (who doesn’t have a car) and we quickly filled our car with her beautiful plants. The car was filled to the brim with little room left for more. We looked at each other and laughed, and I confessed that I honestly wouldn’t be upset to come back. We drove her friend home and then made our way back to the market. On the drive back we talked about which booth had what and what had stood out to us the most.
On our return we went to specific booths, as if our first run had been a recon mission. We picked out the flowers that we had felt a connection to, especially blooms that I hadn’t seen before in Ontario, and shades and colours that were just that little bit different. The veggies were also beautiful and lush.
As an avid gardener this made my heart completely full! It was a majestic sight and one that I will soon not forget. And I can promise you that this will become one of my new yearly May adventures!
One of my favourite things to do in the Spring is to visit some of my local garden centres. It is a time in between the seasons when you aren’t quite ready to put flowers outside but it is a great source of inspiration. I find that it gets me thinking of great colour combinations and gives me the opportunity to see those pops of colour that we have all been missing during the winter months.
Visiting a garden centre is also a great activity for a rainy day. Garden centers are not only a great resource for inspiration, but they also sell pots, seeds of all kinds, gardening tools, and lots of garden accessories. If you love plants there are also a great selection of tropicals and house plants that can add a fresh pop of green to your home.
Gardening is a hobby that I love. It is wonderful to get to be outside and watch things grow. I feel a sense of accomplishment and pride when I garden. I love seeing a tiny seed many months later turn into a beautiful healthy flower with many intricate parts. It really is incredible when you think about it. How a teeny tiny seed, some only millimetres big can grow and develop into a stunning flower or plant.
I’d like to share some of my tried and true tips and tricks to successful seed planting.
First, I have found that using a soil mix specifically for seedlings is a great start. This soil is light and fluffy and the seeds have a greater germination rate. Potting soil or top soil is often more compacted and dense making it difficult for the seeds to poke through.
My second tip, is to use great tools, above in the picture you can see a new tool I purchased. It is the Fiskars Hand Seed Sower. When I bought it, I was excited because it had two ends that I thought would be perfect for planting seeds. It has a skinny trowel for the dirt and a slender spoon like end. It wasn’t until I was looking up a link for this tool that I realized the small yellow end slid out. This tiny tool is called a widger. Apparently it can create holes to plant seedlings that are very small and you can use the widger to gently dig out the new seedling with minimal damage. What a great idea!
It is important to gently water the seedlings once they are planted, but not over water them. A few years ago I purchased a seed sprayer from Lee Valley. It is a fantastic tool and gives the seedlings a little delicate rain shower, by simply squeezing the silicone bulb.
Lastly, it is important to cover your new seeds with a cover. Most seed trays come with a clear lid that can be used for the first few days to encourage germination and a warm environment for your new seed babies.
I hope that you found these tips helpful and hopefully in a few weeks I will have some new seedlings to add to the garden.
Update: Everything is looking good and has sprouted!
Last year we made our new pollinator garden using a variety of West Coast Seeds. The results last summer were stunning. We had great success with all of the seed varieties in the seed packets.
In a previous blog post I wrote about the importance of keeping old growth in place. Keeping old stems and dried flower heads intact over the winter helps overwintering insects. This method offers protection for bees and insects to “winter” over, creating a safe place to stay during the colder months.
The other day I thought I noticed some spots of green among the old growth. Today, I began removing the woody stems, dried flower heads, and crumpled up leaves in the garden. I happily found lots of new growth had already started.
The wonderful thing about perennials is that they come back year after year. I am most looking forward to seeing the poppies bloom. In my childhood home we had poppies, and we could never get them to grow at our past houses (until now). I just love the delicate petals and the way they sway in the breeze.
The first step in Spring is to remove all the debris and old growth from the garden. Then, when the daytime temperatures start to get a little warmer, you till up the soil around the existing plants with a trowel. This loosens the soil and removes the areas where it’s been compacted over the winter. I also add in some fresh compost and a top layer of new soil. This step adds richness and nutrients back into the flowerbed for the growing season ahead.
I am looking forward to seeing what the garden has to hold for us this Summer. Let’s get growing!
After a closer look at these photos, I discovered that I need to give my gardening pruners a spa day!
My Mom and Dad love to listen to CBC Radio as the background of their day. My grandparents did this too, and so does my Aunt. They regularly share interesting little tidbits that they hear from the day’s stories. My Mom likes the gardening segment in particular, and she always shares the advice with me. Though she always wonders why they don’t give more time to the gardening experts; there always seems to be so many people with questions, and never enough time.
A couple of weeks ago she mentioned that one of the CBC gardeners suggested leaving your perennials intact. This apparently allows bees and insects to overwinter in the dried out stalks, as well as providing homes and food for wildlife. It just so happened that the week before, my Mom had helped me cut back some of my perennials in our backyard. If we’d known this then, we might not have cut them back. I then realized that our new bee and butterfly garden, still full of wild flowers, would be the perfect spot to leave untouched for the winter.
Our pollinator garden project has been a huge success this year. Perhaps there are already creatures in these hollow, dried out stalks and the flower heads with their shrivelled up petals, setting up for the winter.
The garden did its job in the summer months by producing beautiful blooms and nectar for the bees. Now, as we prepare for the winter months, it is providing a safe place to rest. So I will leave my dried up stems and stalks for the winter this year, and I will smile because it makes me think of my Mom and how she shares her stories with me. That makes my heart happy and puts a smile on my face.
It is time to be thinking about putting the garden to bed for the winter. As the temperature drops and the weather begins to cool, fall clean up begins.
Today in the vegetable garden, I cut back some plants and harvested my root vegetables. It looks so empty now, but I left the kale in hopes that it will continue to grow as the temperature gets cooler.
The process of putting the garden to bed offers a chance for reflection on the year’s growing season, evaluating successes, failures, and considering new approaches for the next year.
Elsewhere, some plants are slowly dying, but some are still blooming beautifully. The bee and butterfly garden is still thriving. It is safe to say that this new pollinator garden was a huge success! I will start trimming the perennials tomorrow and scatter seeds for next year.
Although this process of harvesting and cleaning up seems like the final phase of the year, gardening is a year-round activity that involves planning in Winter, planting in Spring, enjoying the fruits of your labour in Summer, and preparing (like today) for the next season in Fall.
Good night for now, my sweet garden!
The sunflower is such an epic flower, so big and beautiful. There are so many varieties of sunflowers available now. Within our local community, farmers have started to plant fields of sunflowers in mazes that they then invite the public to enjoy. These fields provide a great opportunity for people to come and learn all about sunflowers!
I have done the ‘Sunflower Experience’ at Pingle’s Farm Market every summer for the past few years. The tractor ride to the field allows you to see it from a different perspective. It certainly builds the anticipation of its beauty. At this farm they have done such a good job of setting up props for photo ops throughout the sunflower field.
Bees buzz from one flower to another collecting pollen, busy at work. The giant sunflowers tower tall above your head while others are more petite in size. It is incredible to think about each tiny seed growing into this grand flower. Then the middle of each sunflower is filled with hundreds more seeds. These seeds can then be dried and ready to grow next year to start the cycle all over again.
This year we created a pollinator and bee garden in our front lawn. We hand planted about 30 to 40 sunflower seeds of different varieties in the soil. Today, we have one sunflower that survived, and it’s almost ready to bloom. Needless to say the bunnies thought sunflower sprouts were a delicacy and they enjoyed them very much! This gives me a much deeper appreciation for all the hard work involved in growing acres of sunflowers, and being able to provide this wonderful experience.
If you get the opportunity to visit a sunflower field, I strongly recommend it. What could be better than soaking up some sunshine among the sunflowers?
As an Early Childhood Educator, I am always looking for new ideas and innovative methods of presenting educational content. Inquiry-based learning is especially important in our classroom. One of my favourite ways to discover new approaches is by exploring how different communities embrace educational opportunities. Sometimes it’s a library, a park, a garden, or other community spaces, and in this case, a museum.
On a recent visit to the small town where I grew up, I made such a discovery. The local museum, which is housed in a heritage home next-door to what used to be my grandparent’s house, had put together an amazing inquiry filled outdoor space. Under a canopy of oak trees on the museum’s lawn, there were games like ping pong, skee-ball, and giant jenga available to the public for young and old to play. There were also different seating arrangements scattered around, including picnic tables, muskoka chairs, iron butterfly benches, and stumps to sit on. There were people reading books and having picnic lunches while enjoying the shade of the old oak trees that I grew up with.
The space that I found most interesting was the many hands-on opportunities for children. There was water exploration tables, a huge sandbox, a giant bubble maker that you could stand inside of, small world play with sunflower seeds, and many more. The children visiting these stations had huge smiles on their faces as they explored their curiosity and made discoveries.
The centrepiece of the museum’s outdoor space was a community garden. Local varieties of flowers and lots of different vegetables filled the garden beds. As an avid gardener, I found the unique ways they used trellises for the climbing vegetables particularly inspiring. The potting shed had information for the public on tips and tricks for pollinator and native plant gardens as well.
I would love to meet whoever led this incredible community project. The rich content and attention to detail that went into it was admirable. There was also a sign with all the local businesses and volunteers who contributed to make this special project possible. What an amazing attraction to have as part of this small town community! Stay tuned for another post, when I have time to visit the museum inside.
