I’ve got a little experiment going on right now. The Duke blueberry bush that produced throughout the summer is now inside. Because it is loaded with new  buds. Now, it’s -13˚C right now and snowing and it’s supposed to drop to -22˚C tonight, so I can only think its happy to be on the right side of the patio windows.

I’ve also noticed that a few little bug buddies travelled in on the bush, so I’m on alert to try to keep them at bay. I admit I’m a little surprised to see the flower. But generally I’ve been surprised by this plant since I hauled it home, because it was planted in almost solid clay. So we’ll see how it goes. A flower today – maybe a fresh, tender leaf by the weekend.

Back at it and what a class to start off the year.

Dr. Ken Fry was the morning speaker. Ken luvs bugs. He gave a great presentation about managing pests in the garden. More importantly he talked about good bugs and that you have to know about insect life cycles in order to know what to look for and when to look for insect problems in your garden. He’s a big fan of smart integrated insect management and biological control of insect pests that might be bugging your plants. His philosophy is nicely summed up as ‘no harm, no foul’ as opposed to ‘see bug, kill bug’.

In Zone 3 here on the prairies, we have a nice selection of critters that might cause problems. Luckily they are no where near as big and threatening as bugs from warmer climes. But they can still do damage. Balcony gardeners are not immune from pests but we have an advantage over our ground dwelling gardening colleagues. Bagged container soil is clean and sterile and depending on how high your balcony is, the number of bug visitors decreases. It’s easier to hand pick bugs off container plants and customize your response to an insect attack by moving and isolating problem plants. It would be interesting to test how high up you need to be before aphids disappear from a balcony garden…

The activity of the day was a matching game – damage to culprit. And Ken brought along his bug collection, including larvae in little jars, which was pretty cool.

I’m patient when it comes to nursing plants through insect attacks. And granted, insect attacks are pretty few and far between on the balcony. But I’m finding that when you garden in a small space a quick response to insect problems is required to minimize the damage to other plants.

I’ve had two forced removals this year, one due to bugs, the other due to the damp. The first retirement was the Cerinthe major ‘Purpurascens’. I thought I was being vigilant in my attempts at keeping the aphids at bay and had actually won a couple of battles, but recently had to admit that I was not winning the war. And the plant looked like it is starting to loose hope too. So as sweet and endearing as that gangly plant was, the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few. Cerinthe is no longer part of the balcony garden portfolio.

The second retirement was Euonymus, a lovely green and yellow waxy leaved shrub. I was attracted to it because of its glossy foliage and the promise of ‘stunning’ autumn colour and berries. But I’ll never know as this plant is done and gone from the balcony garden. It just wasn’t tough enough to take on our cool damp June and caught itself a nasty case of mildew – I know – hard to imagine that problem in the middle of the bone-dry prairies.

I sense a shopping opportunity. So many plants and two empty pots. 

Brushed the first shiny green aphids off of my Sweet Fairy miniature rose. Tough little bugs, and bright and early in the season. I’ll have to report them to the Weather Network so they can add them to the bug report.