Blooming This Week
September 7, 2010 – 10:10 amThe neighbourhood is blooming this week. Here’s a peak look’n up.
Roses in Sydney Too This Week
August 26, 2010 – 10:10 amMy habit of traveling off season to visit gardens is intact.
The Sydney Royal Botanic Garden is at rest right now but still amazing on quick glance – spring buds are starting, and the scale and scope of the plantings and trees is impressive. It’s cold here, but that’s certainly a relative term.
Blooming This Week
August 23, 2010 – 10:10 amThe roses at Lougheed House are blooming this week. I miss growing roses – I used to have a large hardy shrub rose garden. All of the roses were prolific bloomers and frankly, quite easy to grow if you paid attention.
The Lougheed House garden has a small collection of shrub roses in its borders. The top image below is a Morden Blush bud, my favourite Canadian-bred rose developed in Morden, Manitoba. Foliage on all of the roses looks really good, which is amazing considering our lousy summer weather. When the weather is consistently cool, like we have had, powdery mildew is a typical problem for roses especially if they are top-watered or watered late in the day. But the gardener at Lougheed obviously knows this and is dong all of the right things. Full points.
And I applaud any gardener in Calgary who believes that a rose arbour that you can actually walk under is possible to fill in a single gardening season here. And enough faith to think that the established roses on the arbour will winter-over and be more magnificent the next year. This is a great start.
Thanks J
August 15, 2010 – 11:10 amThanks J, for garden-sitting and making sure the harvest continues.
Balcony Garden – Blooming this Week
July 18, 2010 – 10:10 am
Ptilotrichum spinosum is blooming in the balcony garden. This little alyssum is a pretty purple pink, and its loose wandering flower stems and leaves are a striking contrast to the solid, structured saxifrage in the troughs. It likes the full sun and a well drained soil.
Balcony Garden – Blooming this Week
July 12, 2010 – 10:10 am
Potentilla shrubs are native to Alberta and the common yellow-flowering variety is considered by some to be a ‘gas station’ shrub, because they are tough, drought-tolerant, can survive in poor soil and be completed neglected for a while before they final succumb.
But take this much maligned shrub and shrink it down to an alpine variety and you get a pretty rock cinquefoil with a white flower that looks right at home nestled up to some rocks in a trough.
Potentilla rupestris nana is in bloom on the balcony right now. It will grow to be about 10cm (4 inches) high and wide. I really like the dark green foliage and although the first blooms on this young plant are going to be short-lived, the bold yellow centre is quite lovely. I have grown the yellow-flowering variety, and the spectacular red- flowering Potentilla atrosanguinea. Common indeed, but a balcony gardener favourite.
Sweet Snacks
July 8, 2010 – 10:10 am
Bringing in the harvest is always an exciting time, but I have to admit, there’s a certain amount of produce that doesn’t ever make it to the apartment. One of the true pleasures of gardening is being able to sample and enjoy fruit and vegetables warmed by the sun. Now these strawberries are pretty sweet and loaded with seeds. Needless to say, they are best eaten early in the morning when puttering around the garden.
Not only is the fruit ready now, but the happy plant is setting more flowers. This plant could be moved into a sunnier location – ideally strawberries should be getting 6+ hours of sunlight each day. But it is producing a good quantity of runners and because it’s tucked in between the troughs the neighbourhood birds have yet to discover that I’ve serving breakfast snacks of the balcony if they wanted to indulge.
Unfortunately I haven’t had any luck wintering over a strawberry plant. I always intend to take it downstairs and tuck it into the bigger planters around our building, but each fall, I never quite get that done before things start to freeze up.
I’ve also got a small blueberry bush that has set fruit. First time trial for me. It’s a Duke Blueberry that is supposed to be cold hardy and resistant to frost damage. But it’s definitely an annual on the balcony. I can only hope the rock-hard green berries eventually turn the right colour. Agriculture Alberta says that ‘blueberries should be grown in full sun, like acidic soil and need a good supply of water during fruit production. Good snow cover and constant cold are essential for the winter survival of the blueberry. Two cultivars from Minnesota, Northblue and Northern Country, are worthy of trial in gardens with acid soils.’
You’ll be the first to know if the blueberries ripen.
Balcony Garden – Blooming this Week
July 6, 2010 – 10:10 am
This candy-striped little flower is Lewisia cotyledon v. purdyi. It has been in flower for a couple of weeks in an alpine trough. The plant itself has a nice waxy leaf, so I’m optimistic that it might winter-over. As for the flower, I thought that the transition between the two colours would be a little more subtle, not so stripey-looking. Oh well, a beautiful specimen any way to brighten up the trough.
This plant came from Rundle Wood Gardens. As described in the catalogue, the form is rather tight rosettes of short, broadly obovate leaves, earning it the name “button rockrose.” Deep pink to butter-yellow flowers. (Family: Portulacaceae; Native to: Western N. America), likes full sun, well drained soil and will grow to a height of 3 cm (1 inch).
Balcony Garden – Blooming this Week
June 28, 2010 – 10:10 am
As you know, I’m not a big fan of annuals, but every year I get sucked into buying a few. It’s either the colour, or a memory connected to a plant. I was so close to not buying any but succumbed when I saw these two plants together.
Calibrachoa Superbells Tickled Pink and Hypoestes phyllostachya happen to share the same pink base colour. So you just can’t go wrong partnering these two together. The calibrachoa is really easy to grow and will probably take over the polka-dotted plant by mid-summer – just how I planned it because the decorative foliage doesn’t like the hot sun. Hypoestes phyllostachya also likes a bit if humidity. Sorry about that, shade is going to be the only thing I can provide, although I have the annual containers tucked close to the ponds.
The pink calibrachoa is settling in and starting to bloom profusely this week – and with a little bit of attention, those blooms will continue to frost. That’s another good reason to by annuals.
Balcony Garden – Blooming this Week
June 21, 2010 – 10:10 am
I have two pepper plants in bloom this week and they are also starting to produce fruit. Variety is Garden Salsa. Erin in Iowa is also growing the same variety on her balcony. Maturity is 73 days and the slim shaped peppers should measure about 23 cm (9 inches) when fully grown.
This is the first year for this pepper on the balcony and so far, so good. These plants have been in and out of the apartment for the last month as evening temps have dropped, but lucky for me they didn’t drop their flowers. This pepper is a relatively short plant and could be easily tucked into a mixed container planting.