Tag Archives: plants

pinching…

08 Wednesday Jul 2020

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so, I signed up for a 3-part video course on flowers in the garden… it is from @floretflower on Instagram… they are located in Washington State and have a flower farm and seed business…

yesterday I finally got around to watching the first of the two that I have received so far…

it was all about pinching the plants… this morning I decided to give it a try and it was difficult, because it does feel counter-productive to trim back a plant that is growing nicely… but I did it, and I also removed the flowers on the dahlias and put them into a vase…

it will be interesting to see if it really does double the number of blooms produced…

I will watch and see…

obsessed…

05 Sunday Jul 2020

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maybe, just maybe, I am obsessed with the Monarchs… I can’t even think of how many times I have gone by the milkweed to check on the caterpillars, lol…

saw more butterflies landing in the plant and maybe leaving eggs;-)…

there are small caterpillars, medium sized caterpillars and large caterpillars…

such fun to see where they are on the plant and how much they have munched through…

both of the biggest caterpillars vanished this morning… I was worried they had fallen off the milkweed because they were in leaves that were bent way over…

wasn’t sure if they were getting ready for the next step, but then found both of them in the lily of the valley… so I put them back on the milkweed…

now that I’ve done some research maybe they were moving on… apparently they can travel up to ten metres away from the milkweed to move to the chrysalish stage…

if they move again I will just search to see where they end up…

molt…

04 Saturday Jul 2020

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it was overcast when I got up yesterday morning, but I went out before 7:30 to see what flowers were blooming and what the caterpillars were up to…

there were a bunch of morning glories and two dahlias were almost completely open…

the caterpillars were going through some of their instars… during the caterpillar stage they molt five times…

I was very excited to spot the largest one with the molt left on the leaf… after a while I noticed that another much smaller one went through the process…

this was exciting as I’d never seen this piece of the lifecycle previously…

the remainder of the day was spent quietly as I was not feeling well, so I slept and read in the shade, although I did check out the caterpillars now and again;-)…

fluffing…

03 Friday Jul 2020

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what a full and hot day…

Hilda the Gardener came by to do some weeding… she has been busy and hasn’t been here since May so there were lots of weeds for her to deal with, lol… her comment was that possibly the fluffing of the earth when she loosened it last time, made a great space for the weeds to come back;-)… so clearly I shouldn’t weed, lol…

she filled four large bags, and I filled one very small pail;-)…

but it looks lovely everywhere including behind the back deck… she also brought some purple gladioli and added them to the flower bed… below are before and after photos… they do not do justice to her work;-)…

and then my books arrived from Chapters/Indigo… nine in total… lots to read for the next while…

this batch are hard cover, not my favourite, but they were all a great price;-)…

eggs…

30 Tuesday Jun 2020

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so excited to have spotted monarch eggs on the milkweed…

after a bit of research I discovered that it takes four days for them to hatch…

I’ve been checking every day to see if any have popped out… and I found some;-)… they are the teeniest little things…

I’ve watched them before, but only when they were large, so it is very cool to see them at such a small size…

a number of times each day I check over, under and around the edges of the leaves…

now I know to look under the leaves with brown spots as they don’t always eat right through the leaves at this stage… it appears they like the newest leaves as they are clearly more tender…

sometimes it is easy to spot them and other times I don’t see any, lol…

very exciting;-)…

ceramic…

17 Wednesday Jun 2020

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one of the pots around the pond was a black pail that I had put a dahlia in and then a butterfly bush as the dahlia didn’t grow… could be the problem was no drainage…

a few days ago, I pulled a ceramic pot out from under the deck and repotted the butterfly bush into it along with one of the pansies that had been in too much shade…

looks much better, I think.. hope the plants like this one better…

rogue…

15 Monday Jun 2020

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had lots of company yesterday…

a friend found white alyssum and brought it over for me, as well as some other plants from her garden… I have been searching for alyssum for ages…

spent some happy time planting this morning… and still have some left…

while she was still here, my middle grandson was dropped off so he could mow and whipper snip the garden…

he even cut down a rogue elm tree in the back lane, lol… after he got the work done we had a lovely conversation before his brother arrived for a short visit and to pick him up…

I certainly am blessed…

elephant…

08 Monday Jun 2020

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the fish have finally come out from the bridge… I think they are happy that the waterfall isn’t running…

and the water plants arrived… yay…

two white water lilies, elephant ears and parrot’s feather…

they turned up on Monday, but I left it until yesterday to put them into the pond…

the temperature was only 15° C but the sun was out so it was quite nice… I think they are all firmly settled in…

and the fish are happy as well… one little guy came out from under the bridge while I was in the pond and then couldn’t get past my legs to get back under the bridge… finally I moved both legs to one side and it returned to safety…

milkweed…

08 Monday Jun 2020

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so happy when the plants arrived from Ron Paul Garden Centre just after nine this morning, so I didn’t have to wait around for them…

finally got milkweed and butterfly bush… took them right out into the garden and got everything into pots… one of the milkweeds already has buds;-)… hope the monarchs find them…

the butterfly bushes are quite small, but I am hopeful they will grow quickly…

also added fuchsia to one of the already planted pots and used the last few to fill a basket…

I am hoping that the garden is going to be lovely this summer as I anticipate spending lots of time there…