My Garden

poppies

2012-06-02T09:09:00.000-07:00

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

2012-05-28T21:42:00.000-07:00

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

2012-05-24T22:14:00.000-07:00

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

2012-05-18T20:13:00.000-07:00

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.

Polyanthus - primrose

2012-05-06T22:05:00.000-07:00

the polyanthus (primrose) are doing quite well. There are some along in front of the rhodos by the steps up to the deck, some beside the pond, and some along the edge of the old sidewalk behind the garage, which is the edge of the 'woodland' area. I could move one or two to the front, maybe.

this is another photo taken from the boat as we went along the Ynngtze. The heavy industrial has given way to a bit more rural look as we get closer to the Three Gorges. As I look at my photos I realize how much I learned on this trip, despite my whining about not wanting to go, and being ill from flying, as usual. I wait for my next phlobotomy and hope the headaches desist. Stress is not good and neither is higher altitudes... c'est la vie!

Yesterday, I managed to get the grass mowed... I do not have much to do, and I have a very nice rechargeable mower. I cleaned up beside the house.. that is, moved the planters along there, to the back and to the garden. These are the plant boxes that Andy and Tara left behind. So, I am not sure what I will do with them, as I have plenty of pots. I could use a couple of them turned upside down as bases for a couple of my willows that are in pots and are hanging down over the sides. ... perhaps beside the pond and I could use a really tall one at the front by the roses to set up the Japanese Quince which looks like it will be doing just fine. Hope it blooms next year. I see the one that is along the chip trail, where an old home was taken out, is in bloom now... so I hope mine blooms next year.

Today, I trimmed one side of the boxwood hedge and the trimmer's battery died. Its a very good machine. I would hate to be doing this manually, now. The trimmer works very well, but does not hold a charge for very long. I think I used it for about 1 1/2 hours today before it died. I have it plugged in now and the light is still red. Its been about 5 hours since I plugged it in. Oh well.. this is its first run of the season. It was unplugged and charged so, I do not know how much of its charge it lost while sitting unplugged over winter.

While waiting for it to charge I got a bit more weeding done at the front and a bit at the back. As I get the grass and hedges trimmed, I see that there is not too much to do. I could spray the rock paths with weed killer to make the weeding easier. The bluebells in the woodland need attention.

Woodland area in April

2012-05-03T20:28:00.000-07:00

this is a view of the back corner of the woodland. You see the trunks of the colony of sumacs. Under the trees are the dames rocket (hesperis), the fawn lilies. There is a little black bamboo in the back corner. There is a well established Japanese anemone, a huge herb with leaves and stems that can be used as a sweetener, there are several little shrubs that had to be moved and this seemed like the space for them. There are columbines (one very nice red one and the blue ones that self seed everywhere) I let a couple of thistles grow as the butterflies seem to like them, and finches like the seeds. These are the ones with the big purple flowers. I have to keep after these too as they spread everywhere. There are a couple more large leaved perennials, the names of which I have forgotten, but they add a lush, forest floor in the summer when it is so dry. There is lemon balm and numerous other surprises in this area over the year. The worst thing about it is the bluebells which are very aggressive and crowd out everything. They do did down but are too thick to make a good show. I must pull them out this year and try to get them under control if not entirely eradicated.

A close up of the yellow fawn lily

some of both kinds of the fawn lilies. They are slowly spreading but are very well behaved.

This is the Saskatoon berry trees above the half barrel water feature. The Saskatoons were covered in blooms this year, so perhaps I will get a pie from them about mid July! From the water feature back to corner, plus the area across the chip trail and behind as well as beside the garage is the area I think of as the woodland area. The tall tree next the Saskatoons is a Japanese cedar that is a bronze green in summer and quite a colorful bronze orange in winter. It needs to be cleaned up, higher up the tree than I can reach, but at the bottom it is looking quite 'Japanese-ish' in the way it grows with sweeping, graceful boughs. Across the chip trail there is a rhodo, a lily of the valley shrub, huge ferns, daylilies, a gorgeous hydrangea. As you can see I have planted a few bulbs also. There are white and purple water iris in the tub, as well as the required goldfish to keep the mosquitoes under control.

This is a couple of the woodland plants at the side of the garage. Along this 15 foot area, there is a cedar hedge with the trail and then the plants next to the garage. The dames rocket also self seeds in this area along with honesty. The bleeding heart, below, is at the end of the woodland area where I keep the large green bin for my compost service. I also have my old black compost bin behind the garage, under the lily of the valley shrub. I took a few bags of compost out of it last Fall and put them on the vegetable garden. It still has some well done compost in it, but is hard to dig it out.

We have had a bit of rain today, and it has been cooler out, so I have not been out mush. It won't take long once I get out there, I am sure.

We have had a rufous sided towhee attacking its reflection in the window next to the front door. We taped a piece of cardboard on the window and that seems to have stopped this birds behavior. It makes the entrance to our house look a bit shabby!

All of the photos were taken in April. We had a warm winter with a few good wind storms. Now we are still having cool, rainy weather.

Front Garden in April

2012-05-03T10:46:00.003-07:00

This is a view of the fern leafted peony, the corsican hellebore, the west coast planter and some of the other alpines that are thriving in this little rockery under a deciduous tree in clay soil with a covering of flat field rocks.

The mountain avens are spreading quite nicely. I need to keep them clipped into the space there is for them.

This little rhododendron like shrub is doing very well and is surrounding the little sundial in the little circle. The alpine daisies are doing well in this little circle, but I cannot seem to get thrifts to survive here. One other plant would be good to have in the circle.

This sedum with the pinkish hue is spreading under the smoke bush that has plum colored leaves. Its a good combination and allows a flat area. There are self seeding alliums in front of it as well as a few other taller perennials. The front part looks a bit messy and I should clean it up more.

This bridal veil sprirea bush is good every year. I clip it. If I did not clip it the branches would be long and hang down like a veil, in white. I prefer the clipped look. It looks good against the dark hedge. The new line of blue muscari make a nice layer of detail to this area of the garden that is between the street and the hedge. I need to get that little hedge trimmed up this year. I cut it back quite a bit last year and it was looking quite scraggly. It is filling out now and needs careful pruning back. All part of the fun.

This shows the sundial circle and the sedum just across the rock border of the sundial bed.

This is a shot of the canola along the Yangtze river. You can see how industrial the area is from all the smog in the air.

More April in the Garden

2012-04-29T20:51:00.001-07:00

This is one of the thrifts on the front little rockery. A very good plant, but I should replace them when they get older and start to fall apart. There are quite a few more choice alpines in this area. This is the season for them. Hope to get out and weed the area, soon.

The white hellebores are spreading into a large clump under the deck. They are easy to keep in check, though. Here you see some of the moss garden.. it too, needs to be cleaned up. The moss is spreading quite nicely.

This combination of the corsican hellebore and the fern leafed peony is excellent. It sits in front of the west coast planter. Both plants bloom at the same time. The surrounding alpines are thriving under this deciduous tree that leafs out late... all in clay with leaves falling on them in the Autumn.. everything alpines do not like. :-))

This is not a great photo of the dark hellebore by the back steps. The primulas are in front of it and the rhodos. The ferns and things under the rhodos need to be weeded and thinned out too.

This is one of the photos of the heavy traffic on the Yangtze. They seem to grow canola in every available bit of ground. There was actually a lot of smog and the sky was not quite this blue. It hurts my eyes just to look at the real smog in the photos, so I gave them a bit more blue sky using exposure adjustment in photoshop.

This is one of a few more photos I managed to get processed from our trip to Carlsbad Caverns in 2007. Amazing place.

I was out to the garden for a few minutes. I got a bit of weeding done. I was so pleased, yesterday, to find that one of my trilliums in the woodland area has come up. The leaves look a bit ragged. I wait for the other one. One of these trilliums had 2 huge blooms last year, and now I have this pitiful showing, this year. The little one at the front is almost finished. It is turned red. It has 2 flowers this year.

We had a salad with a few leaves of the swiss chard, some dandilion leaves, chives, lemon balm, sage, and then the pecan halves, strawberries and feta cheese with balsamic vinegrette. Was surprisingly good. I made a rhubarb and strawberry pie. The rhubarb has nice big leaves this year, but the stems are still pathetic. I did manage to get a cup and a quarter of rhubarb for the pie; which is really very good.

I am slowly getting over this cold, but seem to be sleeping a lot.
The last report I had from my site meter reader says I had an average last week, of 99 hits a day! Many google bot views..presumably in response to searches.
Looking for the place to add tags... guess they are now called labels.. ok, fine, that works, I think.

April in the Garden

2012-04-27T23:06:00.000-07:00

Bergenia Cordifolia had some nice blooms earlier. Then a couple of days ago I noticed the blooms were cut off, as though some one had taken them off with a scissors or a pruner. The leaves are looking pretty nice, except that something is taking big chomps out of them There are more alpines blooming in this little rockery area at the front. Photos soon, I hope.

The beautiful white daffodil is a new one I planted last Fall. Wish I saved the name of it. It is in the back in the woodland area. The trilliums should be blooming in front of it, but they seem to have disappeared this year. Could it be the compost I put on them? They were doing so very well last year.

The arabis in the container and along the driveway strip is doing very well this year. It looks so good in the spring and has a long bloom period. Then the leaves are ever green. An easy very nice plant.

I was disgruntled with the performance of the contest on Megashot and felt inclined to express my opinion. This little dog was fiercely defending his doorstep in Tongli where we went for lunch and a sampan ride in the canals. I added the hydrant... which will be going into my collection of hydrants for my web page someday.

This is one of the photos from an evening's entertainment on the ship. The costumes and lighting effects were stupendous. Of course it was all in Chinese, so we had to make up our own stories... although, the MC, Aaron did provide a bit of an explanation at each set.

This morning I was greeted in my email by a notice of some spam on my 'free' blog on my webpage. I had to search around about how to access this 'easy' blog and finally got to it. While I was there I removed over 100 spams that had been languishing on it. No doubt it will be filled up again in no time. It is called Out on a limb and since I was there I managed to do a post to it, as well. I see GoDaddy is using this free blog for advertising. I don't see any revenue from it. I might dump the thing, next it gives me bother.

Now, today I find that Blogger thinks it is doing me a big favour by improving this blog. Well, I don't see a lot of difference. Just enough to confuse me. I have no idea why they need to make us change things every second minute. ... more bother.

I am finally getting over my stomach problems and this vicious cold I have had. I am reading pocket books voraciously. Even thinking about going back to hard copy of my garden journal. It was relaxing to write it up and was easy to keep track of plant names and expenditures. I have a garden journal on this computer... but have not kept it up, either.

In some ways this infernal machine makes things easier but it also seems to add more and more things to do!!

Our group from the trip have a private album on photobucket where we 'share' our photos. So far I have 61 added and I am only adding a fraction of what I took. Others have hundreds added ... no processing, just upload. So good shots, actually, too.

April in bloom

2012-04-18T22:50:00.000-07:00

We returned from our trip to China on the 16th of April. The magnolia tree is magnificent and very fragrant.

Last Autumn I planted a row of muscari along the front strip of grass in front of the crocus field. I thought they would bloom at the same time and the muscari would be the border. As you can see the crocuses are finished blooming. The muscari will spread quickly, though, I think.

The two pasque flowers are in bloom and looking good. All of the beds need to be cleaned up and the weeds pulled. The daffodils are finishing up and the tulips starting. I have more photos of the garden to process. It is all looking pretty good. The little rockery is slowly coming along. I have room for maybe a couple more plants, but hesitate to get more right now, as they need to be watered carefully the first year in the ground, and our summers are so very dry.
The pump on the pond's waterfall has been shutting itself off. I use the reset button to turn it on again. I guess this is not too big of a problem as I can turn it on when I am out there and enjoy it, otherwise no one else is seeing it anyway.

This is my best shot of the Great Wall of China. We had quite a busy trip with many steps up hill and down. Our ship for the 8 days on the Yangtze was not quite up to Uniworld standards, but we survived. By the last day of the 18 day trip I was not so perky and well ready to go home. We have our days and nights mixed up and are still getting them sorted out. It will be some time before I get any more photos processed.

All about the Island

2012-03-25T21:08:00.000-07:00

This is an older photo. I processed this in Camera Raw and a few other things. I like the way it has turned out. I shall load it to my Megashot account for the Butterflies are Free community.

Last week end, on Sunday, we were up to Nanoose Bay for a meeting of the Antique Chapter of the VCCC. We picked up Vancouverites at the ferry so I had the opportunity to get this photo of this Long Tall Sally hydrant for my series of hydrants on my old web page. I am getting quite a large collection of them. I have not managed to get anything done on the page in 2011, but am slowly working on the Gardening page.

This is a panorama from my little Sony, of Nanoose Bay from the back garden of the people who hosted our Antique group for a garage tour after the meeting. What a marvelous location for their new home.

This is a shot of the murial on the side of a building that backs on to the Capital Iron parking lot. JB will be using this photo, no doubt. hey! is that copy right infringement? ;-}}

This photo is from the stormy day we had in February when the birds were going crazy on the feeder. There was every kind of bird trying to feed at the same time. I have not seen so many, since then. Our hummingbirds seem to have vanished. Perhaps they are nesting.

We have had some very "March-like" weather. Despite light frosts over night some days have been so warm and just about perfect. More and more of the spring bulbs and perennials are in bloom. The garden is looking good. The grass might need a bit of a trim. The rhubarb is up and the swiss chard that was out as a winter vegetable should be ready for eating in a couple or three weeks.

My new orchids seem to have survived the transplant and are doing fine. The masd. dark star was in bud when bought has opened .. nothing spectacular... it seems to be a muddy wine color, but an interesting shaped flower... photos later, maybe. The potted on orange trees might survive, after the loss of a few leaves. One of them in particular has lost quite a few leaves and is sprouting new little leaves. So, maybe they will all survive. Hopefully, I will have some producing fruit in a few years.

My site meter reader has informed me that I have had an average of 76 hits per day over last week, on this blog. That's a bit of an ego booster. At the time of typing this post, I had 90 hits today! Well, I do have to blow my own horn.

I am reading a very old book about Elizabeth I that was written by a Scottish history professor (if I remember correctly) and was written 40 years ago. 'Tis the year for it. Elizabeth II is having a diamond jubilee this year - 60 years. While shopping at Zellers last week I picked up 3 books on sale at less than half price. This should keep in reading material for awhile. One is a Phillipa Gregory book, but not her newest.. about Jacquetta Rivers, the mother of another Elizabeth who was queen when she married Edward IV. Now this is a character to rival Eleanor of Aquitaine.

I am packed and ready for our trip to China! I was dreading this trip, but now that I have read over the information about the weather, what to pack, what to see etc... I am getting quite excited about the trip. We have a house sitter, have almost all of the renovation to the suite finished and are ready to go! Let's hope the Vancouver Air Canada workers don't have to go out on wildcat strike again. They were legislated back to work and are breaking the law by these 'long coffee breaks'. Air Canada is supported by tax payers money, so I really do not see how these guys can complain about no raise in 10 years when the company, if not support3ed by the government would be in receivership and they would all be out of work. ... Not to mention the pensions that are totally unsustainable and will have no way of being paid by the next generation of workers. well... rant for the day... glad I got that out of my system.

2012-03-16T01:30:00.000-07:00

this is one of my $12 Phalenopsis that I buy at the grocery store, after the plant has gone out of bloom. It is easy to bring them into bloom again on my light garden.

This is an airplant that Ihave had for several years. It is coming into bloom, at last! These plants are very easy, and interesting. I have only 2 of them, both have had spectacular blooms. Otherwise, they need very little care. I mist them every day as I am misting the orchids and African violets.

This is Ludisia discolor. It gets planted into ordinary planting mix. I added a bit of cactus mix for better drainage. I bought it at the orchid show for its lovely foliage. It was featured with some of the dark lady slippers in a display at the orchid show. Looked really good.

This is one of the winning plants at the orchid show. There were too many people for me to get any good photos, so I gave up trying to get any worthwhile photos. The show did not seem to be as big as it has been in the past. The vendors in the sales room seemed to me to be showing less variety, also.

These are my new purchases from the orchid show and sale. Five plants for total cost of apx $85. I will list them below; and hopefully in my garden journal... if ever I get time to do it.
My new Plants:
1. Ludisia discolor - lovely floiage, It spreads easily in ordinary planting soil.
2. S/C Jewellers Art x S/C circie of life. This one is interesting. It is about 4 years old from seed. When it blooms the breeder will apply to have it registered and named. It is tiny and may come into bloom in a couple more years. I think it is a miniature cattleya.
3. Masd. 'Dark Star' - macrura x cucallata - this one has a tiny bud. A new kind of orchid for me. I believe it will have several flowers on the the spray of blooms. (Chow)
4. My notes say: Pot. Lisa Taylor Gallis "Nora" (BLC. California Girl x SC. Beautort) A small cattleya, in pink/purple tones, I believe. We will see when it comes into bloom in a couple of years. (H & R Nurseries, Hawaii)
5. Paph. Wossner's Vietnam Love (Forest View Gardens www.fvgardens.com
I attended the orchid show and sale on March 3, out at the Students Union Building at UVic. The show did not seem to be as big as I have seen it in the past. There were some fine displays but the opportunities for photos on the day I attended were limited by the number of people, as well as more photographers.
I have repotted my orchids and they all seem to be doing ok. The Masd's little bud is progressing. I hope to have a flower from the little Paph. in a year or two. The miniature cattyleyas may take awhile. I do have a lovely 'Pixie" cat. that blooms and is very forgiving of my neglect. I have no success with dendrobiums. I have 3 of them languishing at the back of the light garden. I might liberate their pots and space for something that I can get to bloom.
I am quite excited about the air plant. It is going to be spectacular. These plants seem to take ages to bloom, but are worth the wait.
I transplanted my orange trees a couple of weeks ago. I might have lost one or two of them. I transplanted them because I had some with 2 plants per pot. I mist them every morning. Yesterday, I watered and fed all the indoor plants. All are doing well, but will watch the Orange trees.
Otherwise, I have been cleaning cupboards, closets, etc in the suite. The renovation is coming along quite nicely. Painting is finished. Flooring is done. Counter top needs some adjustment. I have one side of the cabinets to clean and do shelf lining. The drapery is to be done on the 20th. It smells of paint, but that is far better than the cat stink.
We have had some high wind storms recently. There have been a lot of people with their power out. Lots of wind damage. Fortunately, we had no problems. Our power was on all the time.
Since taking the photos of my crocuses, the crocus field has suffered a bit of damage from the high winds and rain. The daffodils will soon be open. The hellebores, cyclamens and a few of the primulas are in bloom.

the Flower Count in Victoria

2012-03-04T23:11:00.000-08:00

the crocuses are looking very good in the front garden strip along the street. This is the area I call my crocus field. These photos are from merely a week ago. Since then there has been many more added to the crocus field. It was glorious today when the sun was shining. As soon as the sun is gone they all close up. More photos soon, before they disappear. I have an outside boarder of grape hyacinths that I planted last Fall. They are up but not blooming yet. The crocuses are multiplying throughout the front garden area in front of the cedar hedge. The dark purple ones are along the top of the front garden, by the grass path. I fed them bone meal last Fall and the flowers are spectacular, this year.

This is a photo of the cyclamen on the back garden by the old garage. The flowers and leaves just glow in the Spring light. These leaves are popping up all over the garden. I will watch them to see if they are cyclamen. I wonder if ants carry the seeds around. This plant is a bulb, so I do not know how it might otherwise spread to different areas, except by insect transport. I sure hope all the leaves I see growing produce equally lovely bunches of cyclamen as this original one.

the camillia trees are in flower. This is a shot of the one by the back stairs up to the deck.    All of the above photos are from a week ago. In just one short week, there are many more blooms out. I did not count them for our Victoria Flower Count, that is happening over this past week end. It has been a very warm winter. I am sure we will have record breaking counts of blooms.

On Saturday I was to the Orchid show and sale.   I have brought home 5 new little treasures, and lightened my bank account by $85.   I will have to wait a few years for most of them to bloom, too. I got a couple of little cattalayas, another lady slipper,   I shall need to list them in my garden journal... or at least in the plant lists. I do not seem to have time to start and keep up a garden journal... unless I change a few of my priorities of the use of my time.

Today, I was out for a few minutes looking at the garden. I think the bulbs are going to be fantastic this year. Many of them are up and in buds so it won't be long until the Daffodils and early tulips are in bloom. Some of the hellebores are blooming, the winter jasmine, and a few primulas are open.

Inside, I repotted the orange trees.on the 22nd of Feb... almost 2 weeks ago. I am watching them closely, to see if they survive. They get misted heavily in the morning.   I have 4 big pots and 3 small ones. One of the small ones contains a double tree... which should be a good candidate for producing fruit.   I should get it into a larger pot. In the light garden the 2 ladyslippers... Andean Fire and the yellow Concolor are in bloom, as well as a couple of the phalenopsis, and the African violets. I have an air plant that will be blooming... a rarity. I will need to repot the orchids soon.

We are making good progress on the renovation of the suite. Pictures later, perhaps. The place smells so much better with the old stinking carpet gone and the walls with fresh paint. Finished my income tax return, too. So, I feel like the pressing matters have been lightened to ease my too busy schedule. I should like to get some stuff done on my old web page, too.

Copyright Infringement

2012-03-01T11:00:00.001-08:00

This is Cyrus Khamak's photo that is being used on another website without notification to him or request for permission to use his photo. The full story is on our Megashot.net 'Image Theft" page on Facebook.
Quote:

THE RABBIT HOLE IS WAY TOO DEEP !!!
Few days ago, I learned that 4 of my images have been stolen by a rather large Electronics company. They have used them without my permission to sell Photography related products, as high as $2,000.00 each. These products have been sold GLOBALLY and in places such as Ebay and BIG electronics distributors we all know about.
What makes this so shocking, is the fact that this company is actually a US based company located right here in the good old US of A, in California ! This goes to prove that some folks out there, don't give a damn for our intellectual properties and for our copyrighted material. most of the photographers I know, work awfully hard at their profession to be able to feed their kids and their family. Their hard labor only to be stolen by big corporations, or those of us out there who use them ILLEGALLY to promote themselves or their fan pages.
This matter is in the hands of the lawyers and I cannot reveal the name of the company or the products just yet.

Unquote

Come join us to try to help 'educate' people in regard to copyright infringement, on Megashot.net's Facebook page: Stop Image Theft

There is a firefox addon to assist you in finding any of your photos that are on line and being used by someone else; in fact, stolen. The addon is available HERE

I have found many people using my Peace Rose, my David Austin Rose, my minature Yellow Water lily, and that was just a few minutes search. More on this later.

Come join us on Megashot.net for customization of your own page, contests, critique forum, communities, and much more.

Death Valley Feb 2011

2012-02-19T22:35:00.002-08:00

I have quite a few of these photos from Death Valley, when we were there last year at the end of February. I have been looking them over and sorting them as to which ones I may want to add to my web page eventually. I have a few processed from the RAW files. In the critique forum on Megashot.net Cyrus did a few critiques using the soft light blend mode which is what I used on these two. It really helps, and is very easy to do. I click layer via copy, right click in the layer pallette of the copy, choose blending option and click the drop down menu of soft light.. done.

I found a very depressing news item today about yet another crisis in the mid-east. I wonder why there needs to be this saber rattling, the world over, when we are suppose to be highly intelligent beings. I suppose they won't stop until they have the whole world looking like Death Valley. This will make that doomsday clock's second hand go flying around to midnight, or high noon, which ever it is. This is a no win idea for the solution to the economic depression.

On a happier note, we went bowling with the VCCC this afternoon. Was really rather enjoyable.

Yesterday we went up to Cobble hill for lunch with Andy and Tara. Their place is looking really good. We have a start on getting the suite cleaned up. John Gray and his son have started on the painting.

On Friday I was out in the garden for a couple of hours. We have been having warm weather, with a bit of rain. I did a bit more dead heading of perennials, picked the leaves off of the grass, cleaned up the deck plants. In the house I now have 8 orange trees left. I want to get 4 larger pots and transplant the bigger trees into them. I will then have the four smaller pots for the smaller trees. One pot has 3 trees in it. I hope I can get them divided without killing any of them. I wonder how long it will be before I can expect fruit? Here is a good answer from a question to UBC Botanical gardens forum:
The seeds of most fruit that you buy will be the product of a hybrid plant developed by breeders. Plant breeders often spend years developing new varieties and may grow thousands of crosses to select desirable plants for industry. These are then propagated by asexual means to produce clones of the desirable plant. If you plant seed, you will not get the same type of fruit that you bought at the store. (You may not get a plant that produces fruit at all.) And of course the time required to bring trees to bear fruit can mean a decade before you even know if you have anything.

You may be lucky, but you will probably have to grow many trees to find a really good one. Many old apple tree cultivars developed as random hybrids. (Granny Smith apple was discovered from seeds tossed out in Australia.)

So not entirely a myth, but not an unworthwhile project either. I am currently growing 4 apple trees that I started from seed. I think it is fun to see what might develop. Could be something totally new. So if you have the time and space, I say go for it.

__________________
Eric La Fountaine
Forums Administrator

Out in the garden the yellow crocuses, the first hellebores, the winter jasmine and the cyclamens are in bloom.

Lady slipper Orchids

2012-02-15T19:52:00.000-08:00

Paph. concolor

This lady slipper orchid blooms every year. It has interesting foliage for the rest of the year.

Phrag. Andean Fire.

This is the Andean Fire from a different angle and some back lighting. You can see that it has a second bud.

The orchid show is the first week end in March, at the University Student's Union Building

I moved my photos, videos, music, and few other documents into my storage drive. My backup also has storage, but it changes every Thursday, with any changes I have made. The thing about the storage drive is that nothing will change... in case I accidentally delete something, and do not notice it, and the backup gets changed also. I will need to up date my storage drive folders, also; especially the photos and any thing I do on my web page.
I have read Kathryn Stockett's book "help" in record time. I stayed up late at night to read. I could not put it down. It is a movie and nominated for oscars. We must go see it.

Bamboo diplomacy: Giant pandas coming to Canada

2012-02-11T14:02:00.001-08:00

There are no photos on this. There was a share button to connect to Blogger, so I tried it. It seems we are are renting Giant Panda Bears from China.

So here is a photo ... something I was working on a few years ago. Today I took photos of my two lady slipper orchids that are in bloom, but have yet to process them. More later.

Bamboo diplomacy: Giant pandas coming to Canada

Panama Flats Video

2012-02-09T16:34:00.000-08:00

I have spent some time installing Windows Live Essentials on my computer to get the Windows movie maker. After the crash of about a year ago, my techie did not add these window features to the new computer he sold and set up for me. I also found some updates for my Microsoft mouse and Keyboard, which took some time to update. It has improved the speed considerably. I seem to be positively zippy now.

So, now I have the movie maker.... more play time. This saves the created video for playback in Windows movie player, of course. I would like to save to .mp4 or any other ending. I can load the video directly to my you tube account, but there is considerable degrading of the quality of the video from the original, after running it through the Windows Movie Maker. I understand Adobe's Lightroom has a good movie maker, but I am not sure I want to put out the cost of Lightroom at the moment.

So here is a small video I made with Windows Media Maker and loaded to my you tube account. I had taken 2 clips with my little Sony. I have somehow managed to add them together and trim off most of the wobbly parts of the video. I think if I do this again, I will be sure to trim each clip before I add them together, if I can remember how I managed to do it. I got obsessed with this and was up playing until 3:00 am on Tuesday night.

This is Winter, isn't it?

2012-02-07T23:10:00.001-08:00

We have been having balmy weather for the last 10 days, or so. There were many people and dogs using the trail through the Panama Flats/Hill park on Feb. 2nd.

My stop at the Pond where I tried to get a good picture of the red winged blackbirds. I used my little Sony to do a video and captured some good birdsong from these birds. In trying to edit my video, I found that I did not have the Windows Movie Maker. So, that lead to an afternoon of downloading Windows Essentials, which included the Movie Maker and a few other things. I have yet to edit the video. I don't think the Canon video editor will accept the Sony. So, more playing required to get the two clips edited ... hopefully I can add clips from one into the other to get a good video.

This is not a good photo of the classic red winged blackbird on a reed by the water. I need a longer lens!

These birds, I think, are eared Grebes. Could not get close enough to them, either. They were diving. There were also mallards on the pond.

This was farther along the trail and past the pond. This area is the bog that is covered with a shallow depth of water. The geese seem to like to feed in this area. I like the layers of color in the grasses and shrubs in this shot that I have cropped to a wide angle format.

This is a majestic Garry Oak tree at the top of the hill along the path. Of course I have photos of it every year, in every season.

Here it is, the same day. I was playing in Photoshop, as you can see. There really was no sunset, but there was a rather interesting cloud formation.
We have been having lovely warm, sunny weather for the past few days. Today I was out piddling about in the back garden for a couple of hours. I cleaned up the patio a bit, added 3 fruit tree feeder spikes to the front plum tree, added a bag of compost to the perennial bed next to the old sidewalk. Cleaned up the ferns a bit, and the fig tree. There is really not a lot to do right now. The cyclamen is in bloom! This is the most fantastic plant. I see more of the leaves growing where I was cleaning up the ferns. ... Hmmmm... I wonder how they move everywhere. I will have to keep an eye on them to see that they are not those invasive ivy with the lovely patterned leaves.
My yellow lady slipper is in bloom and the Andean Fire (orchids) has a fat bud. I shall need photos of them both to record the blooming times and to try get some good 50mm lens shots of them with my dslr. In the light garden, I have 5 pots of orange trees.. containing 9 trees. Marlene and Art are still deciding and Tara said they would like one or two at their new place. They are still not finished moving or cleaning up downstairs place.
Megashot is really quite busy. I have made a 'Butterfly" community and hope to get some good discussions going... like forums, to make the optimum use of the community. These Megashot communities still seem to be stuck on the Flickr type with a free for all of dumping photos and trying to collect these silly whirling blinking awards. Except, we do NOT have the ugly things on Megashot, and so people are beginning to pay a bit more attention to photography. We do have a lot of good photographers on Megashot.
I have been spending quite a lot of time in the kitchen... soups, oysters that he likes, lots of good vegetables. Life is good on the West Coast.

Winter wind

2012-01-31T19:26:00.001-08:00

On January 22 we had some high winds and our power was out for about 4 hours.

The weather forecast had said that we would have this wind storm, so I was ready for it. I had heated the soup. Found the candles and flash lights. We had plans for cooking on the wood burning stove in Pat's room. Just like camping; we were going to have our treat... fried spam. The power went off before lunch. I spent the time building and maintaining a roaring fire in the fireplace, and Pat had his stove going. I really like this fireplace heat but never seem to be bothered to make a fire. The power came back on again before supper, but we had our fried spam anyway. The house smelled rather like a campfire, so this worked well. The photos were taken later in the evening when it was dark out. These little lamps each contain a different alcohol based fuel that burns in the three colors. Very pretty.

During the storm, the birds were flocking around the suet feeder that Andy has hanging in the back patio area. The humming birds were hungry too.

Rufous sided towhee

Starling

There were more birds and I have more pictures, but do not have time to process them all. Our big patchy colored robin still dominates the robin population this year. Next year, maybe I will have to put the feeders out in the front, on the tree. Maybe I will see the woodpeckers visiting again. I want to see more butterflies and think too many birds might be bad for the butterfly population.

Andy and Tara have moved into their own home and we have the suite empty again. We will do some renovation -- floors and paint and then decide what we want to do with it. Its kinda nice to have our home to ourselves again. They might take an orange tree or two; but later.

Marlene and Art were over to dinner. We had mulligatawny, smoked turkey legs with ratatouille and quinoa, with chocolate mousse for dessert. Was all good. They are thinking about whether or not they want an orange tree for their new place. They are slowly getting unpacked, too.

I have made batches of soup and ratatouille, and so have some good lunches and dinners on hand, without a lot work. The indoor plants are watered and the laundry is done. Now, I need to find some time to do some stuff on Megashot.net. It seems I am going to be creating another community for butterflies. An internet contact from Megashot and before who is from Oregon has become very gung ho about raising Monarchs. This is very exciting and to be encouraged. We need more monarchs on the West Coast. I need to get some milkweed growing. Dave has some plants on order already. Last autumn I brought home a couple of milkweed seed pods. I put the seeds into pots last Autumn and they have been on the deck for the winter. I hope they sprout. The milkweed seems to be on the noxious weed list. Strange. I don't see any of it growing here. There are different kinds of it, so hopefully I will be able to find some plants at the nurseries later this year.

I managed to get the rose by the front door pruned back a bit. It has been very warm out today. I also cut the butterfly bush back to about 12 inches high. I stuck the cut ends in to the ground along the strip between our driveways. Hopefully they will root. These plants, too are suppose to be invasive. I have never noticed too many of them around, either. Broom... yeah... far too much of that stuff. What good is it anyway? Maybe sheep can eat it?

January - snow

2012-01-20T22:25:00.000-08:00

We have snow!!! Of course we all freeze in place for a day! But by the next morning the radio broadcasts are telling us that all the schools, and everything else, is business as usual. All the photographers go crazy with trying to get the best exposure for the snow while it lasts. I have a bizillion photos of birds and kids. :)) I love the contrasts of the colors against the black and white.
By tomorrow, the snow will be gone. It is raining and sure to wash it all away in a day.

Reviewing trip to SW US in March 2011

2012-01-16T19:51:00.000-08:00

This is the Tonto monument in Arizona, the cliff dwellers habitat. The photos on this post are from our trip to the South West US last March. I have many more of them the best of which will eventually appear on web page. Some of them will be added to my Megashot page as the spirit moves me to do.

We had a light covering of snow, that soon melted. We are promised more for tomorrow. Other places around us are getting much more of the white stuff.

I have spent the a few hours after lunch cooking a double batch of ratatouille, and a big bowl of cole slaw. Today, for lunch we finished the Curried Shrimp bisque which was delicious.
       Curried Shrimp Bisque

3   Tbsp. butter              1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1   Tbsp. curry powder        1/4 cup finely chopped celery
1/4 tspn paprika              1 garlic clove finely chopped
1   Tbsp tomato pase          3 1/2 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup light cream                  or vegetable stock
3   Tbsp. Flour                  Salt and pepper to taste
200 grams cooked shrimp (1/2 lb.)
2 green onions, finely chopped
2 oz. brandy (.5 oz per serving)

Melt the butter in a soup pot over medium heat.
Add the onion, celery and garlic; and cook until tender,
3 to 4 minutes.
Mix in the flour, curry, paprika and tomato paste and
blend well. While stirring gradually add the stock.
Bring to a gentle simmer and cook 15 minutes.
Add the shrimp, saving a few to garnish the top.
I blenderize it and put it back in the pot.
Add the cream (I use 2% milk) Cook 3 to 4 minutes more.
Divide the brandy among 4 heated bowls. Pour in the soup.
Sprinkle with green onions and saved shrimp, and serve.
Makes 4 servings.

Note: I had some fish stock with chunks of salmon to use
and about 1/3 of the stock was chicken and the other third
was vegetable.
I used OLD BAY SEASONING (1 tbsp) instead of paprika and
salt and pepper. I used extra tomato paste, also.
It turned out very well.
Note 2: Irene left me a big can of the OLD BAY SEASONING
that she bought when they were down East on their long trip

I have been reading Magnus Magnusson's 'Scotland - The Story of a Nation'. It doesn't exactly move along. You have to really want to know this history of Scotland to get through this 700 page volume. It has its moments though.

January gardening

2012-01-12T18:42:00.000-08:00

A walk in the park from a few days ago.

While on my walk I stopped to snap the flock of geese that were feeding on the school grounds. Of course, Leroy and his little friends who were also out for their walk had other ideas about the geese.

The geese

The school grounds in a panorama with the little Sony

I guess this is the last rose of the year.

And the first snowdrop of the year... both on the same day.

On two days this week I spent two hours in the garden. It was wonderful to be out. I have been cutting back the perennials and doing a bit of clean up. I cut back some of the Virginia creeper and some of the mountain ash. I cleaned most of the leaves off of the moss garden and the dry stream. And off the alpines and the thyme circle in the front garden. The vegetable garden, grass and some of the perennials have had lime spread on them. Then I added a 1.75 kg box of bone meal, mostly on where the bulbs are to be soon coming up. I spent a bit of time digging up some of the blue bells that are spreading like crazy at the back. These are a campanula bulb and are rather nice in small bunches. These plants are sprouting up leaves and so are easy enough to dig out. Trouble is, I am not sure if all of them are the bluebells. I have noticed that some of the dutch iris are up. I expect to see the Saxatillis species tulips, that grow in the same area in the back garden woodland strip, coming up soon too. I can keep the bluebells under control a bit if I do not let them go to seed, and do more digging them out when I find out which ones they are for sure.

The weather this Fall and Winter has been almost balmy. It has been freezing lightly over night and this week the days have been sunny and up 10 degrees.

January - Happy New Year!

2012-01-06T23:55:00.000-08:00

this is a photo of the Fraser River, at a photostop over looking this great deep chasm. We stopped here, just before Lilloet, on our way home from Barkersville last August. We took the Duffy Lake Road back. It is a very challenging drive, with many switch backs with 20 km hairpin turns and very steep grades. Our brakes were smokin'.

this is something from 2006, shot with my Canon S3IS at the Tillamook Aviation Museum.

This is a shot from our moving Bentley, on the New Year's day run with the VCCC. I was using my little Sony and laughed to see it capture this wonderful flare on a random shot out of the car window. This photo lead me to an enjoyable couple of hours reading about auras. I checked out the color of my aura and think it was blue... the first time. :-)) Now this lady seems to have violet and even a few sprinkles of silver (which seems to be the major fairy dust) I have to work on getting some of that stuff! I probably should be adding hot links ... but .... hey... who has the time to follow them?

these wild flower shots were taken at the tourist information building at Wells, B.C., just before our visit to Barkerville, B.C. in August. I was moved to look them up because I was pursuing an idea of making the front grass strip of my garden into a wild flower meadow. This strip of grass is now called the crocus field and has crocus bulbs blooming in the Spring. Imagine, if, in August, it could look like this. And so, I went to find some wild flower seeds that I might use to over seed this grass. I found a very interesting site ... that I actually have been aware of for some time... West Coast Seeds And then, while looking at the wild flower blends, I came upon a Butterfly Garden blend. One thing lead to another, of course, and hours later I was prompted by Pat, that it might be time to make the supper. On the topic of the butterfly garden... I had saved a pod of seeds from the milkweed which is the flower that the monarch butterfly larvae feed. I have planted the seeds. I hope they grow. But, the plants are available from nurseries, too. The monarch butterflies recently suffered a reduction in numbers when there was a killing frost in their Mexican over wintering home. There is someone on our Island who breeds Monarchs and releases them. I am not seeing them ... I guess I don't have any milkweed plants for them.
As you can see, over the past week, I have been all over the map, with my hobbies and interests. In addition to the above I now have my copy of the Amen Solution. My brother, Dan, mentioned this book to me, with regard to weight loss. I was down to Russel books to pick it up, after they had ordered the paperback version in for me. The on-line only had the expensive hard cover copy. Its an interesting book. Dr. Amen is probably making a fortune on his books and solutions for weight loss. I won't link it. If you want it, you will find it. One of the foods mentioned in the book... after a very quick scan ... was stevia. I googled this and find that it is a herb, called sweet leaf. The seeds are available but hard to germinate, and it is annual. The made up portions are actually less expensive than the seeds. This is a herb that the Japanese and South Americans have used for years. I believe a derivative of it is used by the Coca Cola company in a specific brand of their sodas now.... but I could not be bothered to follow up on that, as all Cola products and Pepsi taste like dirt, to me. I seldom drink pop or soda or soft drinks of any kind. Was interesting to see them using stevia as a sweete4ner, though.
On a completely different tangent, as I returned home from my walk today, I noticed an empty beer can thrown on my front garden. As I picked it up, I noticed a snowdrop in bud in the front garden! This is January? right?

The last post.... of 2011

2011-12-31T22:01:00.000-08:00

Playing with the 50mm lens and the tulip boquet. Nancy brought a lovely boquet of tulips over Wednesday to our dinner party. Lovely, thanks so much. I think the dinner went well enough.

More playing with the 50mm lens and the foot of my new teddy bear. Loaded it to Megashot on JB

This is something from 2006 shot in RAW on my old Canon Powershot A50. Tweaked in Photoshop, RAW converter. I kinda like how it turned out. I tweaked it some more to get the background less dull and blurry. Shall loaded to my megashot for the Deserts Community.

This is a panorama from my new little Sony, downsized, of course... pretty much right out of the camera.

I walked a couple of days ago, into the Park, with the intention of using my new little Sony, with the Carl Zeiss lens. It seems to have pretty good color and sharpness. I am learning how to set the functions on it, slowly. Its a very fun new toy, and so light and easy to carry.
Our weather has been very mild. We have had some rain and a bit of gusting wind, but that is to be expected this time of year. The garden does not need much attention, now. I should get out and add lime to the veggie garden and the grass. Should put fertilizer spikes in for the fruit trees too.