Spring is here, and, with it, the first roses! My rose bushes were pruned back quite severely, this year, so, it will be mid-April before the majority of them will be in bloom, but I've a couple of first roses, already, and several buds!

Flowers on my orange tree, as well.

We had a good, soaking rain shower last weekend, so the ground is ready to be worked. I need to make time, this weekend, to do some gardening - weeding and preparing planting beds.

I've another piece of sugar cane rooted and ready to be planted and I have a sweet potato which has sprouted, which should be planted, too.

Anybody else planning a spring garden yet?

A lot of our stuff has bloomed like our freesias and we have flowers on our citrus trees but we're holding off a bit on planting our garden. The few things we did plant are being eaten by something and we don't want to put a bunch of money into plants to have them disappear!

We have a large, complex compost system in the backyard and we also back up on to the water treatment plant for the city so there are large water ponds back there. Between the two, I'm guessing there must be rats that are eating everything. We've never seen anything but our dogs also go nuts near the firewood piles and the compost so there's something back there.

It's still a little early for planting here, even though we have had several 80 degree days already. The flowering trees are beautiful, & we a bumper crop of dandelions.

Spent an hour or so, yesterday evening, watering the garden and admiring the roses. Planted a stem of aeonium (a succulant plant) that the cats had broken off. Hope they'll leave it alone long enough for it to take root!

I've been delighting in the crocuses that DS and DDIL planted for me in the fall, all over the yard. They are my little spring surprises, I find a new one or two every day. Also their tulips are starting to come up here and there, so I am hoping they will bloom successfully.

Another lovely surprise yesterday was discovering that the trailing arbutus was in bloom!

The forsythia is starting to bloom, and it is only a matter of time before the amelanchia and wild cherries are blossoming.

Haven't done any actual gardening myself! : D

We desperately need rain! The bush is getting so dry. Yesterday afternoon it occurred to me that the bulbs might enjoy some water so I went round with a watering can and got most of them. Also watered the rhubarb which is coming up nicely in its metal planters. It amazes me how much it loves them!

Bushlady, your garden sounds delightful!

We had cooler temps. and rain, last week. This week, we are in the 80s and dry.

I did a bit of weeding on Sunday and watered the front garden on Tues. and the back garden on Wed. (yesterday).

The cats have dug up the piece of sugarcane I planted, but the sweetpotato is still in place! They had pushed down the newly planted aeonium, too, and I found several other pieces that they had broken off from other plants, so I replanted them all. My garden is their playground!

The loquat tree is having fruit and some are just about ripe enough to be picked!

I've cleaned up the doggie droppings from the patio and swept. The weatherman assures us there will be no snow this weekend so I'm hoping it will be warm enough to clean up the patio containers.

Bushlady your garden does sound great. I am delighting in NOT doing much other than picking up the leftover messes of winter, the last of the twigs are falling out, trees are starting to bloom, daylilies and hostas coming up nicely and the tulips have bloomed. I did go around the yard applying weed killer to the thistle the birds flying overhead have been so kind to "drop" in my yard, and also went along the fence spraying weed killer there to cleanup the edges so I can cut out some of the overgrowth.

Have talked with SO about a regular garden, but may end up just creating a fire pit this year, not in a hurry as I plan on being here for a while.

My garden is great, but wouldn't win any prizes! I'm so thankful that the bush is well soaked, even if the weather has been miserable on and off, because there was a real fire risk all over.

Our huge garden is mostly wild, except for a few flower beds round the house and bits of lawn along the sides.

Some of my best flowers are weeds! I enjoy looking out for the sheep laurel, the "bird on the wing", the blue bead lilies, ladies slippers and a lot of other delightful plants that I never have to do anything to encourage!

The actual flower beds are a mess, having been neglected while we lived away, but I shall be able to work on them. I did a little in the fall to tidy them up but didn't get too far. I'm looking forward to seeing the lilacs and the lily of the valley.

BL: Just thought you might be interested to know that thistles, in general, are edible (same family as artichokes). The stems (once stripped of the prickles by peeling), can be steamed, boiled, stir-fried, etc. The roots, too, are edible and can be boiled (or eaten raw, according to what I've read). The leaves of milk thistles can be eaten raw or cooked. Perhaps you can come to an agreement with the birds!

Didn't know about edible thistles, but years ago I collected one or two books on edible plants, so I must look them up. However, I've only rarely seen a thistle here. BL, the birds must be targetting you!

Bushlady: It's quite amazing the number of plants that are edible. I started learning about them when I first moved into this country, because I was discovering plants that were new to me. I borrowed books from the library and set out to forage! My roommates would roll their eyes at me, but they were, for the most part, willing to try eating cattail stems and milkweed pods with me.

These days, I live in a more urban environment and I still find numerous edible plants growing along the roadsides, but due to the amount of pollution (from vehicle exhaust fumes, pets, etc.), I am not as willing to eat what I find. Even the edible "weeds" in my own yard (dandelions, purslane, mallow, etc.) are being passed over due to the resident cats and possums.

However, with our water restrictions, I am moving towards drought resistant, edible landscaping. If I am going to water, then, I want to get my money's worth from what I am watering! Currently, not everything in my garden is edible, but a good 75% of it is!

i live in a condo and have no indoor plants, but i find i enjoy reading this thread. i was amazed that bless can grow sugar cane as far north as cal.

mary

Bless, thanks for the info, but they start out as bird droppings, if you get what I mean......so no I don't want to eat bird poop starter!!! Besides those darn prickers are awful. So I cover the leaves with roundup and wait a few days then go dig them up so when SO's son comes over with his dog, she doesn't get prickers either. Believe me she would as she is all over the yard and has actually already caught her first squirrel of the season. SO politely finished it off before I got home......and no....I am not eating squirrel either!

BL: Think of it (the bird droppings) as "organic" fertilizer! After all, that's what organic fertilizer is: naturally occurring fertilizers such as compost, manure, guano (bird & bat excrement), etc. In fact, guano is considered one of the best fertilizers there is! Something to keep in mind when we buy and consume "organic" produce - they were grown using organic fertilizers.

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We had RAIN overnight, last night! This is great for the garden! I am happy because it means I don't have to water the garden mid-week, this week.

I'm planning to pick loquats from my tree this weekend. Wonder if I'll have enough to make some jam...

We had the AC on all weekend and now it's 57 and rainy again! Yes, we need the rain but blech!

I'd like to get started on our garden but we still have to rebuild the boxes.

BL - wasting a good squirrel? I've got a book somewhere which seems to have a recipe for just about anything that moves. No, I haven't tried any!

Bless, I hear you about the pollution. Wild stuff can be just as chemical tainted as commercial crops, if it grows in the wrong place.

I've had to drain the hosepipe as the forecast is for -10°C overnight - ridiculous!
Anyway I don't need it, we are having plenty of rain to water the garden.

Yesterday evening, I picked the first of the loquats from the tree in my backyard and we enjoyed them. Nothing better than freshly picked ripe loquats. One generally doesn't find them in the grocery stores, however, last year, one of the local ethnic stores sold them, $4.99 for a small container!

The gardener mowed the front lawn for me, yesterday, so the front is not looking quite so unkempt. I still need to decide what to do about the parkway - that strip of land between the curb and the sidewalk. Currently, it's just a bare patch of ground.

Spent some time weeding in the back garden, this evening, and then, watered both front and back.

Picked more loquats, today. Also, did 30 mins. of weeding.

Started to weed yesterday. Doing one little area at a time each day, hopefully I will beat the weeds!

While I was gone, DS2 and DDIL burned my burn pile and put new sand out in front in the brick walkway, picked some flowers for my bedroom! They are doing it for mother's day, that is what I requested was yard work help for mother's day, and they wanted to surprise me, believe me they did!

I have one daffodil half opened, and another almost ready, and several tulips just taking their time to get ready to bloom!

Raked lawn and raked leaves off flower beds, turned compost with a fork, did a wee bit of pruning.

So good to see the rhubarb growing more each day. We love to eat it.

My iris are starting to open. My little bit of prenennial garden.

Ladies, your spring gardens sound lovely!

Spring is definitely the best gardening season for me. Right now, I have roses, jasmins, hibiscus, oleander, and geraniums in bloom. Plus gazania, lantana, plumbago, African daisies, dusty miller, California poppies, etc. There are flowers on the pomegranate tree, too, and the feijoa (pineapple guava) and cherry guava trees. And the bottle brush tree is also in bloom. Fruits are lemons, oranges, and loquats.

I put water to the front on Sunday and to the back on Monday. It's going to be 90F today, so, summer is just around the corner!

I've composted around the roses, but need to do the remainder around the azaleas. Everything got feed, then Mother Nature did the watering. Weeds are in control, thanks to weeding a section at a time. On my daily laps around the yard, I stop and pull a weed or make note of what to return to do the next time. Nice way to exercise and have something to immediately show for it.

Today's planned garden activity: deadhead the roses. With 90 rose bushes, I am estimating it'll take me an hour.

My half opened daffodil really surprised me when it turned out to have 3 heads on one stalk! I guess it might be a jonquil, not a daffodil. I have others almost opened and am on the lookout for more multiple heads.

There are two deep pink tulips almost open and others showing hints of colour.

The amalanchiers are almost done and I enjoy their blossom so much as it comes before the leaves and makes quite a statement for a wild tree. I've tagged them now so they don't get cut down accidentally when not in bloom. The wild pin cherries will bloom next, so I won't feel too sad now that the amalanchier blossoms are dropping.

Bushlady, I read that amelanchier berries are edible and can be made into jam, etc. Do you make jam with the fruit from your trees?

Gave my gardener some money to buy bags of mulch for me - it's time to start weeding and mulching.

Proud to say I have been pulling a few weeds each time I go outside with Gypsy. Yea ME!

Bless, those berries, also known as service berries or saskatoon berries are certainly edible but mine don't seem overly good, the few within reach, although the wildlife probably benefit. I once saw a lovely huge tree west of here and it was laden with excellent fleshy berries that you could just pick and eat right away!

I have more jonquils in bloom and more tulips opening out and surprising me with different colours, including a pretty yellow with red stripes inside and red with yellow inside!

Planted my herbs and tomatoes this morning. Did more weeding in front.

Diana, good for you, getting your herbs and tomatoes planted. Hope you have a great harvest!

Today, I did some weeding at the back.

Bless'
They are in larger pots! Hopefully they will take. I think the squirrels like to share the tomatoes.

I too have been weeding when I take GypsAy outside. A section, here and there.

Diana, pots are good. Lots of veggies can grow in containers without any problem - tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, etc.

Yesterday, I looked through a gardening book while waiting for DD at gymnastics. One of the gardens featured was designed to be enjoyed in the evening and at night, because that's when the homeowners were at home: lots of white/cream/yellow flowers, grey foliage, and night-blooming, scented flowers. I thought that was a very clever idea and good for me, because I am home mostly in the evenings/nights!

Another garden in the book had something called a "white border" - again, featuring mostly white flowers and grey foliage. Then, yesterday evening, as I went out to collect the mail, I realized - I had a white border too! And totally by accident! The flower bed in front of the house, along the walkway, is planted mostly with white flowers and grey foliage! I have Iceberg roses, paperwhites, white African daisies, sweet alyssum, and dusty miller (grey foliage/yellow flowers) growing there!

I never planned it to be an all white border, which is why there is also a red flowered pomegranate tree and 2 blue flowered agapanthus (Lily of the Nile) sharing the bed! Originally, I had yellow flowered shrubs growing there, but when they died, I just planted various other plants as a stop-gap measure (except for the pomegranate tree, which was a gift from the monks when we moved into this house, since, in our culture, it is considered lucky to have a pomegranate tree growing in the front).

I am amused by how my white border happened. I planted the paperwhites because I had some leftover bulbs after planting them at the back and the dusty miller because it is drought tolerant and takes the hot afternoon/evening sun in the summer. The iceberg rose is a gift from my gardener - he had it in his garden and it wouldn't grow, so he planted it in my garden and it is thriving (along with another red rose he couldn't get to grow in his garden!) The white African daisies self seeded themselves from plants grown elsewhere in the garden and the sweet alyssum seems to grow as a weed in my garden, although the garden center sells them in packs.

But now that I have become aware of the fact that I have a mostly white border, I think I will develop that concept a bit further! From now on, anything I plant newly in that flower bed should be white flowered! Maybe, too, I should have other flower beds devoted to flowers of a single color? An all pink flower bed? An all blue flower bed? I already have an all purple flower bed at the back, but that is because it is all planted with one kind of plant (geranium).

Isn't amazing how that happened Bless! I love the paperwhites, and sweet alyssum. I have some ground cover on either side of the drivewat, that is a grayish green leaf, and white little flowers blooming now like baby daisys. It was from 2 plants on either side, and has been filling in more each year! Don't know what it is though.

Got some Gerber daisies, and love how they look (in front).
Still pulling weeds. I can grow those very well!

Bought my mother 12 tomato plants, a big bag of potting soil and some purple flower plants and dropped them off to her today. She loves nothing better than tending to her garden on her small patio. Should keep her happy for a while.

Those all white borders must be so pretty.

I am finding new tulips open every day and there are some delightful colours. It is pretty dry out, so I watered them and also the jonquils that are popping up here and there.

The amelanchiers have dropped their blossoms, now it is the turn of the pin cherries to shine! Later, the birds and chipmunks will have a heyday with the fruit.

My rhubarb is looking very healthy, and the lilacs have buds, and I was amazed to find that I have buds on the lily of the valley. I'll swear there were hardly any leaves coming up yesterday and now they are racing into bloom! Instant spring!

A friend gave me a plant yesterday that she had won. Put it out on the screened in. Will keep you posted on its progress.

I need to water the garden, today - both front and back.

I sometimes water the tulips and daffodils scattered around, as well as the rhubarb. Watering is not my favourite activity with the insect life around now, but worth the effort.

DH and I both make a point to walk the trails that DS cut. Our neighbour came over with his chipper and helped get rid of some brush piles and DH scattered chips on parts of the trail that needed smoothing out. We have a giant brush pile to get rid of soon, so we will always have enough chips to define trails.

Wooo hooo! Spring has finally arrived in my neighborhood. As long as the rains stay away, I plan on planting my potatoes and veggies this weekend. My garden space got rototilled this past week so I'm ready to go.

Bushlady: Oh, your garden sounds lovely with the tulips and daffodils and trails! I planted both tulips and daffodils one year, and they all bloomed the next spring and it was lovely! But I didn't dig up the tulip bulbs and chill them, etc., so they never came up again. The daffodils, too, I left in the ground and only a few came up the next year - our summers are too hot and our winters too mild for them to naturalize and I am too lazy to dig them up and store them, etc. However, one or two very hardy daffodils still do show up, year after year, I am hoping that these plants will eventually naturalize. Paperwhites, however, seem to have naturalized very nicely.

Darlene: Hope the weather stays dry so you can get your veggies planted this weekend. What kind of veggies are you planting?

Yesterday, I helped my gardener weed and mulch one of the six large circular flower beds in the back garden. Each is planted mostly with roses. Today, I plan to put water to the front garden.

I finally went out and trimmed the azaleas as they need to be done just after blooming. Since everything bloomed early this spring it's hard to schedule things already!

Mums need to be pinched back in June but they are already budding. My ground covers are overlapping each other. So there is more work ahead.

The roses were lovely this time. Waiting for those awful beetles to show up next.

Watered the garden, again, yesterday. It has been very hot, so, watering twice a week.

Jo, I wonder if those are the same beetles our son has (rose-chafers I think). Awful certainly describes them. One summer when I was visiting, I went round and dropped them into a soap solution, because DS doesn't want to spray poisons with DGD and her friends playing in the yard. How do you deal with them?

Bless, I hope I will be able to locate all the bulbs once they are finished and the leaves died down, as I will heed your suggestion to dig them up and put them somewhere cool until fall. I want to replant them all where they can be more easily watered next spring.

The yard is lovely, not so the bugs! DH repaired the gazebo screens and put the roof on and I washed all the chairs and table, so we can sit out there now without getting eaten alive.

The pin cherry blossom is now almost done, and I have seen chokecherry blossom, also we have one labrador tea plant which is blooming. I've found "Bird on the wing" (fringed polygala), and a couple of ladies slippers or mocassin flowers. I love these flowers that grow themselves.

The actual flower beds are a disaster and I have to get at them, but it will have to be windy or I will have to kit up in screening and repellent. The grass needs cutting but DH is now reluctant to fetch the mower out as it is stored just a few feet from a Phoebe's nest in the woodshed!

The lilac is blooming, also the bush honeysuckle. I missed these for 3 years!

Forgot to mention the lilies of the valley, that seemed to be barely pushing up one day and in bud the next! Spring happens fast around here.

I was disappointed to find that my lavender is almost dead from the winter. It may have been because of the freezing period after we had some hot weather, because there would have been no snow cover to protect it then. I cut off the dead bits, but it doesn't help that the whole flower bed is an overgrown mess. I'm not sure where to start! Really it needs to be dug up entirely and the plants saved and replanted. Not sure when or if this is going to happen!

Rain, where are you?

DH is enjoying the long handled pruner that DS got me. He uses it to reach into the raspberry/blackberry/blueberry patch to cut out dead and vicious canes.

The wild honeysuckle bush at the end of the porch seems to survive on abuse. Squirrels and birds have peeled off bark over the years, and I have often drastically pruned it to keep its branches above us on the footpath. Year after year it grows bigger and is loaded with blossoms, Right now there is a steady buzz of bumble bees among them.

I do have a problem with it later on each year, when it puts up what I think are called "witches brooms", little spikes of masses of leaves that don't look right.

My other problem bush is the highbush cranberry, which produces curly leaves. I suppose if I was not such a lazy gardener I would have sprayed it by now or something. Must look up the problem on-line.

You are all so good with your gardening abilities. This is the fourth spring/summer in my house and the biggest thing I have done is to get rid of the overgrown bushes and trim back everything else, including all the trees.

I have 2 enormous red maples in the front yard and 2 green maples immediately behind the house so have nice shade. I also have an overgrown flowering bush in the yard and 2 other trees adn a dying cherry and apple in the far back.

What I have done is gotten the old over grown boxwoods pulled, all the overgrowth trimmed and started planting reblooming things out front. The 2 front beds mainly hostas and daylillies, which I have split over the past couple years to spread across the front. The left front corner has a patch of lily of the valley, and I was able to get for free some ground cover 2 years ago that is finally growing like a weed this year in the left front bed and filling in everywhere. I just have to keep clear an area for the hostas to fill in. The right bed with the abundance of hostas adn daylillies in the center just gets mulched so easy to maintain.

I did do one foot borders around the whole house and filled in with a cedar mulch for easy lawn maintenance. Behind the screened porch out back is a long narrow bed with mulch and hostas.

I am hoping next year to start a garden. SO plans on cutting down the cherry tree as it is almost dead and the apple tree(lousy fruit) and will be drying it for use as he and his friends do lots of grilling and will use the fruit woods for smoking to impart some great flavor to the meats. This will leave a nice area in the far back left of the yard for a garden next year.

The only thing I plan to do this weekend outside is to get one flat of colorful flowers to plant on either side of the walkway to the front door.

Watered my garden pots yesterday. The clematis is just so full and gorgous this year. An abundance of flowers. This is the first year I didn't trim it back~wonder if that is the reason.
It is on the side of the garage so I have to walk around to see it.

DH is cutting the "grass". (some of it is not actually grass but it is green and hey, we live in the country and it doesn't show from the road!)

We had some rain the other night and the weather is a little cooler today. Everything is a mass of green at the back, almost overwhelming with so much growth everywhere.

No rain, here, either.

Gardener called to say he's bought more mulch for me and will deliver it tonight. He will continue to weed and mulch tomorrow.