{ Posts Tagged ‘bulbs’ }

New garden, new mission to outsmart the squirrel population

I think my problem with squirrels is pretty well-documented throughout the archives of this blog. They changed me from an optimistic gardener into a hand-waving, cayenne-sprinkling lunatic. I think my green thumb is in for an even ruder awakening. Two weeks ago I moved from my little cottage with its modest yard to a much larger property in the town of Dundas. The yard, with its well-established cedars, peonies, rose of Sharons (roses of Sharon?) and other well-pruned shrubs, is an amazingly blank canvas. Moving in the fall means I have the whole winter to start figuring out what I want to plant, landscape, etc.

In the meantime, I picked up a few bulbs the other day from my new local nursery, the Holland Park Garden Gallery, and planted them on the weekend. As I was digging my holes, one new neighbour stopped on her way by and warned me about the squirrels and chipmunks. She was told that shaking the bulbs in talcum powder helps to remove the human scent. I tucked this bit of advice away, but unfortunately I didn’t have any powder on hand, so I kept digging.

Next, our neighbour on the north side of us gave my husband and I a tour of his garden and his wife warned me that despite buying bulbs squirrels won’t like, I had better lay down some wire mesh to keep them out. Apparently they’ll still dig up the offensive bulbs, but toss them aside and move along. So, I found a roll of some sort of synthetic mesh in the garage (I can’t recall why we would have bought it in the first place, but thought it would do the trick). It’s about a foot wide, so I cut it in strips, laid it over where I planted and secured it in place with old metal tent pegs. I’ve included a photo below.

It's not very pretty, but hopefully it will keep the squirrels away from my daffodil and hyacinth mix!

I also planted some tulips and daffodils in my front garden. They’re in kind of an awkward spot for the “mesh” treatment, so I’m hoping they’ll be okay. (Note: I just glanced outside and there are a couple of freshly dug holes. Drat!)

Well, I’m sure I have plenty of lessons to learn in this new garden of mine besides having to put up with a rampant squirrel population. Did I mention there are also rabbits and deer to contend with?

 

It’s getting to be bulb planting time…

I’m not generally the type to pay a lot of attention to advertising, but I do have an admiration for a clever tagline or whimsical campaign. So when I first saw a Dig.Drop.Done magazine spot, it peaked my curiosity. A brightly colored home, with a vaugely Leave-it-to-Beaver mom at center, precariously icing a zillion-layer cake? And it’s for flower bulbs? I love bulbs. What is this?

I went and had a look at the website. It was started by a group of bulb companies to “promote the joy of bulb gardening and ensure its future in North America.” Much of it is aimed at the beginning gardener as opposed to the seasoned vetran, but some of the pop-up tips from the three “ladies” — mascots of bulb planting — were helpful to me though I’ve been planting bulbs for a good ten years.

Check out their “bulb-pedia” for planting and species info on a very respectable range of flowers; and the ladies’ videos if you’re up for a groan or two…

My case of the gardening blues

I’ve had a wee case of the gardening blues this past summer. You see, I sold my house at the very end of April and then thought for sure I’d be moving by the summer. Then we did buy a house with a summer closing, but had to make the heart-wrenching decision to walk away after our house inspection went awry. So then when we finally did find another house, it came with an October closing date. I never imagined it would take me six months to get into my new place. I had dreams of working in my new garden, seeing what came up and adding a few little gems before working on a bigger long-term plan.

This has made me feel somewhat disconnected from my own little garden. My summer has consisted of halfheartedly planting some late veggies, dutifully giving my pots and gardens the minimum water requirements to live, and woefully picking weeds out of our new front garden that we converted from lawn (hey, isn’t mulch supposed to suppress the weeds?). I admit it. I have had a really bad attitude about my garden (which is also why I’ve had a hard time blogging), but my heart just hasn’t been in it this summer.

October is still really far away and I don’t want to wish away the rest of this gorgeous summer. So I’ve decided to suck it up and start fresh. It occurred to me the other day that I could still have my fun with this garden while planning a little for the other. First of all, I’ve started taking a garden inventory of all the plants I hope to plant in my new garden. I’ll cover more of this in a future post. Secondly, BULBS! I can order bulbs for the new garden and still safely get them into the ground before the first frost (I hope). I’ve dug out a couple of catalogues to start taking a look.

First on my list, however, whether I like it or not is tackling those darned weeds…

Have you ever suffered from the gardening blues?

A floating flower market in Amsterdam

I left two ‘Pink Emperor’ tulips that had just bloomed behind at home to come to the Netherlands, the birthplace of the Western world’s obsession with these spring bloomers. My day started with Van Gogh’s botanically inspired paintings and ended at the famous Bloemenmarkt with a wonderful guide by the name of Paulina. This ‘floating’ flower market on Amsterdam’s Singel canal dates back to 1862 when shipments would arrive by boat. Nowadays the stalls are more permanently secured with endless varieties of bulbs and blooms for sale. Paulina picked up some blue tulip bulbs, which she had never seen before, to plant in her garden. I hope she sends me a photo when they bloom! Here are a few photos I took of the market. Wish I could bring home 50 tulips for six euros!

A view of the Bloemenmarkt from the canal.

A view of the Bloemenmarkt from the canal.

50 tulips were 10 euros at the other end!

50 tulips were 10 euros at the other end!

You could even by dead flowers at the market!

You could even by dead flowers at the market!

Repotting my amaryllis

I'm going to re-pot my amaryllis bulb (which has been in a dark room in a basement since last winter). I took a look at an article from the archive, and then asked Anne Marie if she has any recommendations for repotting. Here is what she had to say:

  • Repotting is fine in the late fall. The bulbs should have been dormant long enough by now so that the flower buds have formed.
  • Use a good sterilized houseplant soil and just move the bulb into a pot that is slightly larger. Amaryllis like to be in a small pot for their size (and often are top heavy because of this).
  • Clean off the old soil from the bulb roots and replant it so that ½ to ¼ of the bulb is showing above the soil. Firm the soil and water well.
  • Once a flower bud or leaves start to show, give it a diluted half-strength fertilizer application every week.
  • For reblooming bulbs, many times the leaves will grow first instead of the flower stalk. Move the bulb to a warm, bright location and enjoy.

Last year my sister’s amaryllis had three huge blooms while my bulb grew a sorry-looking little shoot. My hope is that mine measures up this year.

Golden days

Here in Toronto, we’ve been having the most fantastic week of beautiful weather. Blue sky days with wonderful golden light, and foliage colours so radiant and vivid they almost look electric. I took this photo from the deck off my bedroom, which is on the third floor of my house. The neighbour’s silver maple was looking at its autumn best, untouched as yet by the inevitable and cruel November winds that will surely come soon to shake its branches and loosen the leaves. (I had to laugh listening to Tom Allen on CBC Radio Two Morning, who remarked on how it was so Canadian to rejoice in great weather but somehow not to trust it, needing to mutter darkly about paying the price for it later, etc. So true.)

Anyway, I was out there emptying the last of the annuals out of their pots before it got too cold to do it comfortably (the deck faces west and gets great afternoon light, but also the prevailing wind, so it can get pretty darn nippy out there if you leave these jobs too late). Once emptied, the pots were stacked in a corner where I can’t see them through the sliding door, while the potted junipers and cedars were grouped where I can. I lightly bound up the junipers with garden twine to keep their branches from being pulled down by snow, watered the evergreens within an inch of their lives and mulched. If the weather stays warm, I’ll keep giving them big drinks until the cold sets in.

Out in the garden, I planted some pure white bulbs sent to me by my friend Sally Ferguson of the Netherlands Flower Bulb Information Center. In went crocuses, species tulips, hyacinthoides, alliums and more, and the thought of them emerging next spring, joining the plethora of other bulbs already out there, will keep me smiling through another long, grey Toronto winter.

In the front, the autumn pots were definitely looking past their sell-by date, so I yanked out the spent plants and popped fresh dogwood branches in one and curly willow branches in another, then topped things off with moss and stones. Presto! Talk about a five-minute facelift. If only there was something that worked this quickly and easily on humans.

Tips from the pros–part one

Canadian Gardening‘s Green Room at last weekend’s Style at Home Show was a busy place. The glorious plants in all their autumn glory, lent to us courtesy of Sheridan Nurseries, drew many admirers. And as the organizer of much of the programming and master (mistress?) of ceremonies on Saturday and Sunday, I had the opportunity to listen to some super-knowledgeable speakers. Here are some snippets of good advice they offered. Look for my next post for info on flower arranging and creating winter container displays.

Dugald Cameron (of gardenimport.com) informed us that fall is the best time to plant (or divide) your peonies. The reason? This is the only time of year they show their “eyes”–those little white bud-like affairs seen just below the soil surface when you dig them up. Any divisions must have at least one eye, though several are preferable (Dugald often goes for four). When you plant your peony, make sure its eyes are level and positioned 1 1/2 to 2 inches below the soil. It’s also not too late to plant many spring bulbs. (Of course, this depends on where you garden–here in the Toronto area [mostly Zone 5 and 6] many hard-core, forgetful or procrastinating gardeners don’t even think about planting their tulips or lilies until November.)

Charlie Dobbin demonstrated a lasagna-type layered planting of spring bulbs in a large frostproof container, which then gets buried underground (or stored in a dark root cellar if you happen to have one). Here, you’re forcing the bulbs to come into bloom earlier than they would when planted in the ground, so that in very early spring, you can excavate the pot outdoors, put it in a prominent place in your patio or garden and enjoy waves of spring blooms for six weeks or more (those lucky folks with root cellars need only move their pot up to a bright spot indoors for a grand show). Charlie says, “make sure the container has drainage holes, and use a commercial potting mix. Start with about four inches of soil, then place the largest bulbs at the bottom of the pot and ignore the advice on spacing. Just jam them in, cover with about 4 inches of soil then add another layer of bulbs in the same way until you get near the top, and top it all with four inches of soil. Water, and “plant” into the ground–or store in a dark root cellar.”

Denis Flanagan talked about putting your garden to bed for the winter, and the news is good if you’re a bit lazy. “Basically, don’t do too much,” he advises. Don’t clean up–leave your perennials standing so their seedheads provide food for birds and a place to catch the snow [good advice, too, if you're a novice gardener, as it'll prevent you from inadvertently digging up plants next spring before they show signs of life]. And don’t rake the leaves off your beds, instead, pile more on. Both Dugald and Denis remarked on how handy it was their neighbours put out big bags of leaves for collection by the city–they could go around and help themselves. Water in evergreens well, and use an anti-dessicant spray, such as Wiltproof, on prized broadleafed evergreens–such as euonymus, mahonia and holly–spraying the underside of their leaves only. This is where their pores are, and the spray helps lock in moisture to protect leaves against drying out.