20 April 2013

IT'S SPRING!!

What better time to begin my blogging than Springtime?
It's finally here!  After a dreary not-so-cold winter of rain, rain, and more rain, the air is warming, hummingbirds are fighting ruthlessly over the feeder, blossoms are popping everywhere, and the breezes are wafting fragrances of hyacinths, daffodils, violets, and daphne throughout my little piece of Heaven here on BC's Sunshine Coast.
It's the best time to pull unwanted buttercups, fireweed, dandelions, and other seedy intruders, since I can still see the soil clearly between the emerging new growth of resident plants. And I can spend time outdoors without freezing.




I'm not much of a farmer: I no longer grow many edibles.  Gone are the half-dozen huge raised beds with beans, carrots, beets, radishes, onions, zucchini, chard, tomatoes, and myriad salad greens.  Gone are the ever-spreading patches of strawberries and raspberries, and the giant clumps of rhubarb.  I'm down to a small bed of salad fixings and two compact tomato plants.  These are the crops that really do taste so much better when they're home-raised than store-bought.
So now my garden truly reflects who I am: I'm a flower girl!
Most of my flowers are not grown especially for cutting: I'd rather see the riot of colour in the garden than confined to arrangements in my home. Granted, I do love to place arrangements of lavender, violets, grape hyacinths, roses, and various shrub-type blossoms around the house for their wonderful fragrance. But these particular plants produce so profusely that their reduced numbers in the flower beds is scarcely noticeable.

I've designed my garden so there is something blooming in every month of the year. Even the dreariest of Januarys is brightened by the pungence of tiny sarcococa flowers and pink viburnum blossoms by my back door. And the brilliance of sunny yellow winter-blooming jasmine is always a lift.

But, of course, spring heralds the best and brightest of the garden stars. Bulbs and early perennials are abundant; and there's not long to wait for my rhodos, irises, peonies, phlox, and.... oh, so many I can't think of them all.

The showers have let up for a few hours, so I'm off outdoors again to spray my bulging tulip heads with deer repellant "stinky spray".  Ah, the deer battle .... but that's a tale for another time.

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