poppies

The Welsh poppies do so very well in the shade, and partial shade of the woodland area and under the deck.  They self seed readily and so I let them spread.  They are a delicate and graceful addition to the garden.  The oriental poppies are huge and showy with a great burst of color.  The Oriental ones are almost finished, but the Welsh ones will continue over the summer.  The pots of big pink carnation like poppies germinated too early and in the early spring they seemed to have  died of exposure.  I hope there were some seeds left that did not germinate.  Its always a pleasant surprise when these poppies pop up somewhere in the garden. 

I was over to Cannor Nursery to get 8 fish for the pond... one for the tub in the woodland.  The fish, elvis, lives in the deck tub.  Elvis must be a resident on my deck for 4 years now.  He keeps the mosquitoes under control and so does not need much food otherwise.  The little yellow miniature water lily in the deck tub is going to be really good this year, as it has lots of leaves.  The tub in the woodland has a yellow water iris in bloom.  .. more on irises next post.

We have had some cooler, damp weather, recently.  The rain gauge shows about a half inch of rain.  This is good as the garden certainly seems dry.  I have planted allysum and radishes in a trough by the side of the vegetable garden and they are germinated.  There are some of the other flowers coming up as well.  I also added 8 half price gladiolas to my veggie/cutting garden.  I might see half of them grow. 

The eagles seem to have produced a nestful of 3 young ones this year.  A couple of weeks ago we watched them taking their flight training lessons.  Then, yesterday, we watched the mature pair doing the mating dance and mating... almost.  It was a long stretch for our telescope, so I would never have been able to get a photo with the lenses I use.  It is good to see the eagle population growing. 

Columbines

The columbines are all over my garden.  They self seed and always make a nice addition to any perennial group.  They are developing some very nice varieties of color.  The red one is one I purchased and I do not seem to be getting any crosses with it, although it is producing seedlings of its own color and growing into a larger patch.  The seedlings are easily removed from any unwanted spot.
I have the vegetable garden planted to a few beans, some mesclun, some old radish seed (not sure it will germinate) huge mammoth russian sunflowers, some dill, marigolds, cosmos, calendulas, zinnias, and allysum in a cedar trough that Tara left behind.  I have lupines in 20 little pots... I have no idea what I will do with 20 lupines if they all germinate.  They are not long living plants in my garden now.  Although I once had a gorgeous big clump of the most exquisite fuschia color growing for several years.  I hope to get one that is so beautiful, again.
On Saturday we were to Duncan to Vern's celebration of life.  We have lost one of the most active, knowledgeable, fine members of the old car hobby.  We all learned how to leave our families and friends in a graceful, dignified manner by his example.  We got back to town and took our 1912 Torpedo Roadster Model T out to the regular meeting of hobby cars at the Royal Oak Mall. 
There is a blog I like to go to read occasionally.  Today there is a post about the Bilberger Group that I found interesting. 
That should be Bilderberg

May in the Garden

 The fern leaved peony, corsican hellebore, in front of the West Coast planter

This gentian is at the back beside the garage.  The ones I had in the front little rockery did not survive.  I shall have to try to get one like this one established.

 More of the alpine plants at the front.  This are in front of the fern leaved peony and the west coast planter. 

 This little lewisia rediviva is in the lewisia bed in the little rockery next to the vegetable garden.  The lewisias did fairly well this year. I am slowly getting a few little alpines to survive on that little rockery.  I like the wee ones.  I have a draba, a douglasi (not sure of the names) and a coup[e more tiny ones-- two of which bloomed this year.  I want to establish a silene ... I think that is what the one at the front is; that has grown over rocks in a great mound.  I will have to leave it enough space, if I find one. 

 Yellow lily flowering tulips

 A very nice fringed tulip.  The tulips are about finished.  The irises are coming into bloom, the roses and the rhodos.  There are a few early perennials to fill in the colors.  Photos of them today and hope to upload them soon.. for June, perhaps.
I finished cleaning up the pond and refilled it on Saturday.  Its a messy job, but not too difficult, after all.  I was dreading having to do it.  I dumped the muck from the bottom of the pond over the vegetable garden and the Japanese garden area.  Threw some of it on the little rockery and in the bed by the fig tree.  It should be good fertilizer. I stacked the pots that the lilies were growing in and put another pot of water iris on top of that.  This ended up being just the right depth of water for the water iris.  The waterfall is working good, there are two bunches of blooming water hawthorn... lovely plants.  There is not enough sunlight for the lilies, but the water hawthorn, the marsh marigolds, and the irises look good.  I also have a small Lebanon cedar that is clipped and stretches over its corner of the pond.  The saxifragia, campanulas and other edging plants are slowly covering the rock necklace.  Now I need goldfish, as the water seems to be clearing up.
I have most of the vegetable garden dug over.  There was compost on it over winter, so the top 6 - 8 inches has good tilth but there are just too many tree roots.  I was happy to see some earthworms in it again.  The irises along the side are doing great and so are all the chives, and other herbs.  A little compost goes a long way.  The strawberries have lots of blooms.  I have filled the cedar trough that Tara left and today put radishes (old seed - not sure if it will germinate) and allysum in it.  I cleaned up the rock work at the corner of the veggie garden, and then planted more radish seed along beside the cedar trough.  I planted the verbena bonariensis by the irises and hope it self seeds in this area.  I think it is a good butterfly plant.
The daisies at the front are looking good, and should be nice for a few weeks.  After I finish the vegetable garden, I must week and dead head everywhere.  This should not take long, as I have been keeping it up in the last couple of years.
I spent an hour or so trying to cut out the dead wood in the old yellow plum tree, using the long handled pruner from up on the deck.  It is looking a bit better, but needs more work, that I cannot reach. 

I finally got up the courage to load the ink to my printer and spent some time learning about printing.  This is one I am going to frame and hang as I am really happy with how it turned out.  It looks even better printed than it looks on my computer.  So, I have spent a bit of time yesterday looking for a plain black frame, at Royal Oak mall, but did not find the right size.

More May in the Garden

This is my best columbine.  It goes well with the blue ones that self seed.  This one is in the woodland area, next to the chip trail.

 The solomen's seal is in the front garden.  I am thinking about moving part of it to the edge of the pond. 

 this is the inside of a tulip.  The tulips were the main feature of May... more to follow.  The rock plants were very good in May, also.  More of them, soon, I hope, also.

 Last week end, from Friday to Monday, inclusive, we were in the Parksville, to Port alberni area for the May Tour with the Vintage Car Club.  Pat put his 1912 Torpedo Roadster Model T Ford into the Judging.  He won best of Show.  We blew a head gasket just before arriving on the judging field.  So, we made quite an entrance to the judging field.  We were in a cloud of steam, and looked like a steam car.  Unfortunately, I did not get pictures of this special cloud.  ... more photos of it soon, also.

 Yesterday, I spent most of the day, downtown, shooting a few photos, stopping at Russell books to try to find a couple of books I want.  I found one, but in hard cover.  I prefer soft cover or paperback size.  I am reading the series on Arthur, Merlin, etc. by Bernard Cornwell.  I like this old history stuff.  It seems to me to be well researched by this author.  The Sony panoramas I did of the inner harbor did not turn out very well, so I will spare you the views of them.  This is the Native Art and totem poles on the way to the Museum.  I had to get the hydrant in one of the photos.  This hydrant will be added to my ever growing album of hydrants for my old web page.  So far I have 140 of them to tweak and add to my page. 

This is the only butterfly that is in my garden so far.  I looked it up in my new Butterfly book that I got at the Museum ($125.00 but well worth the cost)  It is an Island Marble Buttlerfly.  It feeds on arabis.  I have quite a lot of arabis in my garden, so this butterfly can survive here.  I have started a Butterflies and Dragonflies community on Megashot.  Dave Dube has been doing a Monarch and Milkweed restoration in his garden.  He is making videos that he loaded to youtube; and he has photos of the progress of his Milkweed and the hatched Monarchs.  Fantastic stuff!  It seems that the Monarchs on our side of the Rockies prefer "showy milkweed.  I want to get some of this plant established in my garden and then get some monarchs to release... and see if they stick around and breed.  It seems that the larvae eat vorarciously, so I will need to have a few of these plants growning and flowering.    Last year I planted a pot of 'butterfly' flowers on my deck.  I did not really see any butterflies around them.  I saw only one swallowtail last year, and have not seen one on my fennel for a few years.  Maybe there are too many birds.

I have the hedges trimmed, at the front.  Today I moved the grass again, this time taking down the crocus field as I think they were sufficiently hardened off.  I have cleaned out the tub garden in the woodland and refilled it.  It needs a gold fish.  My tub on the deck has the little miniature water lily showing leaves. I used the pump to empty as much water out of the pond  as I could before the pump started sucking air.  I will have to do the rest of the pond clean up with a bucket.  I have not cleaned it for a couple of years, so there is lots of leaves and mud in it.  All the fish died... they may have smothered when I had the duck weed covering the top of the pond... not sure how it happened, but I thought the covering of duckweed looked really nice, and was not running the pump.  I thought the duckweed would supply the oxygen for the fish.  The water oxygen must have been out of balance.  I should test the water but will finish cleaning it up and start over with new fish.  It is always a bother to try to catch the fish, anyway.   The daisies at the front are coming into bloom to do their show, just behind where the crocus field.