Tag Archives: plants

thirst…

15 Saturday Aug 2020

Posted by in garden, life, loss, nature, travel, Uncategorized, weather

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

happy to check out the garden after being gone for a short time… enjoyed walking through and seeing what was about to bloom, what had just about finished and checking for caterpillars… unfortunately I haven’t found any more monarch or swallowtail babies…

I had asked my grandson to come by and water it while I was away and was very happy that he did…

the front flowers were a bit sad, as he hadn’t remembered to water them. but a quick dose of water and they all revived…

the ability of most plants to recover from thirst is quite amazing, lol…

monarchs…

26 Sunday Jul 2020

Posted by in family, garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized, weather

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

yesterday morning my youngest grandson was dropped off at ten by his two older brothers who were heading off to a two-day Pokémon event…

about fifteen minutes after they left he spotted the first of our monarchs as it emerged from the lily of the valley where they had gone to turn into their chrysalis stage… I had been watching this chrysalis for a number of days as it was the only one we could find…

perfect timing, and he spotted three more as they came out to dry their wings…

the first one had a wasp attached to its wing and it took me quite a while to get it off… not sure if that hurt it or whether the wasp had already injured it…

the others eventually flew off after their wings dried out, but this little male spent most of the day with us… finally it was gone, so we are hoping that it was able to fly…

what a wonderful experience to share together;-)…

wandered…

15 Wednesday Jul 2020

Posted by in garden, life, moments, nature, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

woke up to quiet this morning… the power was off so nothing in the house or neighbourhood was running… was thinking I wasn’t going to get any tea, but just fifteen minutes later it came back on…

took my cup of tea outside and spent some time in the garden…

wandered around admiring all the flowers…

also happy to get a few shots of the various critters who stopped by…

I need to get back into the pond to deal with the algae but it was a little cool today, so I will do that in the next few days…

blossom…

14 Tuesday Jul 2020

Posted by in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

the water lilies are doing very well and I think the fish are enjoying the shade they provide…

I purchased two from RPGC and have been checking daily in the hope that there might be a bud coming…

on July 10 I spotted something that might prove to be one…

I’ve been checking everyday and was thrilled to discover I was right…

it takes a long time for one to emerge from the base of the pot and climb up through a couple of feet of water…

waited patiently… and on Sunday it popped to the surface…

yesterday, it opened a little bit and today it opened completely;-)…

happily…

14 Tuesday Jul 2020

Posted by in garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

enjoying time in the garden…

the dahlias are doing well and happily they are opening at different times so there should be some blooming throughout the weeks, rather than all at once and then nothing…

when I planted them I put the plastic bag they came in into the pot and now I can’t read the name, lol…

so far a purple one has bloomed next to the house…

and then a delicate white with purple tones bloomed… 3 flowers last week and 3 are blooming right now…

I cut them and put them in a vase to enjoy in the house…

currently that plant has 4 more buds on it… looks like another white one is starting to open… looking forward to how beautiful it will look when it is completely open…

that leaves two still to develop buds… can’t wait to see what colour they turn out to be… when I ordered them I asked for purple and white varieties…

with my retirement, I am enjoying the ability to spend each day in the garden all summer long…

pinching…

08 Wednesday Jul 2020

Posted by in business, family, garden, nature, technology, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

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

Posted by in garden, life, moments, nature, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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

Posted by in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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

Posted by in business, garden, life, loss, moments, nature, technology, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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;-)…