Of mating squirrels, Peace Gardens and sudden snowfalls

The view from my ktchen window in summer. Today, it is white with snow but I see the colour in my mind’s eye.

Sunday, March 3

I slept with the windows open last night and awoke feeling wonderfully refreshed this morning, even though it was well below zero both outside and in my bedroom. I awoke once or twice and was lulled back to sleep by the sound of the wind chimes in the apple tree. Surely this is a sign of spring. The rotting snow is another sign, and while it reveals the ugliness of well-sanded streets before spring cleanup, you can’t help but be heartened by the length of the days and the activity of eager small animals. The rabbits are very busy and, I suspect, so are the squirrels.

You know about the promiscuity of the female squirrel, don’t you? She is in estrus for only one day, but she makes the most of it. She announces her interest by leaving a scent trail that can attract many suitors and she doesn’t turn any of them down. While they play chase games, she is easily caught and she will mate with 4 to 16 different males in one day. Scientists haven’t found any identifiable survival or population increase reasons for this behaviour, but since it’s only once a year who can say its not just for fun.

Some red squirrel female don’t even mate in their first year, although others will mate twice in one year but most mate once a year and bear as few as one to as many as five offspring.

This behaviour is interesting because squirrels do not have a lengthy life span — they are prey to cats and birds  such as owls and goshawks. Most don’t make it much past year two. While they can swim, they can’t swim indefinitely as I have learned to my sadness in the skimmer of our pool. I must build another squirrel and chipmunk ladder this spring.

This morning, my guest on my radio show on CJOB was Doug Hevenor, CEO of the International Peace Gardens. The Peace Gardens, which straddle the U.S. Canadian border between North Dakota and Manitoba, opened in 1932 in the name of everlasting brotherhood between our two countries which pledged never to take up arms against one another.

Doug spoke about the beauty of the Gardens and what he calls the symphony of an aspen grove and poplar forest in the park, where the leaves conspire to make wonderful, mysterious music. It’s a magical place, says Doug, who described how a mist rises in the park and often causes hoar frosts that glisten in the rising sun. He said that the weather there is unusual in that winds seem to swirl around the park affecting the space differently than other and nearby places. This may be due to the fact that it is in the southeast corner of Turtle Mountain Provincial Park. Here, the land rises to over 700 metres above sea level, the southern edge of the great glaciers that receded from Manitoba 10,000 years ago.

It rains and snows here more than in surrounding prairie lands and one-third of the park is covered by shallow waters, some of them small lakes that disappear in the heat of summer. The International Peace Gardens is tucked into a southern corner of this interesting land. I will revist there this  March 30 and many times after that as a privileged member of the Board of the Peace Gardens. I hope that I may be of use in serving this lovely and too often forgotten space.

 

It snowed . . . and snowed some more.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

It snowed last night. And it snowed some more. We, in Charleswood, were blessed with 19 cm, a mark of pride for those who gallantly dug us out. The ironic Manitoba winner of the most snow last night was, however, Miami, Manitoba with 56 cm.

Already by late this afternoon many of the streets were bare and there were fresh puddles to delight children. The city says it will spend $4 million clearing the snow on residential streets starting on Thursday. Why? The sun will do it better and much less expensively. The benefit from the snowfall was eye-relief from the worst of the sand be-smattered snow banks.

Oly 19 cm last night, but lovely snow filled the back garden and obliterated all traces of the pool.

Now go back to the  top of the page and feast your eyes on sunshine from my kitchen window . . .

 

The wanton ways of flowers in springtime

The cosmos seems to say, “Ta da!” as it opens to the sun.

I love the wanton ways of flowers in springtime. They like to open up and spread their petals when nobody is looking, but now and then on a shining morning I catch them flaunting their freshness.

They are so playful and replete with joy as they offer themselves to passing pollinators. Some make me laugh at the way they seem to sing “Ta da!” as they fling out their petals in a burst of sun-warmed enervation. There is a rhythmic dance to the way they emerge, all bright and flawless, some enticingly perfumed, dressed in their blazing colours. Even in the rain they can’t restrain themselves, unfolding more slowly, looking dewy and innocent.

Some, the peonies, unfold their petals one-by-one in a lazy sort of way. They can afford to take their time, there are so many of them. The daisy types, though, are more spontaneous, more willing to bare it all in one grand gesture. Petunias shyly un-crumple like poppies but their wrinkled petals soon turn satin smooth in the sun.

“Pick me! Pick me!” the lily begs of the bee.

Tulips unfurl in a tentative way, gradually revealing their hearts to the sun until, throwing caution aside like an unwanted blanket, they spread their petals wide in abandon. Lilies do the same, stamens reaching for any passing bee. “Pick me, pick me!”

Zinnias unroll their petals more sedately; anthers slowly unbend into an upright position like dancers in the Rite of Spring.

The parabolic crocuses are very forthright in their seduction by the sun. Long before the snow has completely left the ground, the crocuses entice fingers of sunlight to reach inside, concentrating the warming rays into the centre of the flower to fuel early seed production. This is serious business for the crocus; a late heavy frost can put it out of production for the year.

This weekend, there was a heavy breeze on Saturday that carried traces of the coming spring. It felt like March, during those blood stirring days when you know that the sun will win in the end and that all the snow will soon wither and leave, shrinking and slipping away into gray puddles, its dazzling white now past history.

Today, there is a blizzard outside the city limits. People are stranded in truck stops on the highway just a stone’s throw away because the roads are sheer ice and visibility is zero. That’s part of the coming springtime, too. This is when we usually get our deadliest winter storms that can dump several feet of snow overnight and then, aided by a biting wind, fling back it at faces and unprotected spaces like a sand blaster.

But this rebellion is all for naught in the end. The winds will die. The sun will win. The snow will melt. For a time the earth will be laid bare, looking barren but only hiding its secrets: the teeming life already thrumming beneath its surface.

Gently, the warmth of the sun will penetrate the earth, stroking awake the billions of bacteria and protozoa, and fungi, the millions of nematodes, worms, beetles, grubs, slugs, ants and spiders and all the beauty and richness of the eco system that surrounds the roots of our plants. The world beneath the surface of the earth is so many times more diverse and rich than our own. No wonder the plants want to reside there. Why be concerned about mobility when everything they need is so ready-to-root? The symbiotic relationship plants have formed both below and above ground allows them to exploit the best of both worlds.

And they put it all to such wonderful use, providing us with food for the body and food for the soul.

The crocus knows how to entice fingers of sun into its centre to start seed production early.

Lupine buds ready to burst into the open.

They are bright and flawless when they emerge.

A zinnia unfolds its anthers that look like dancers unbending in the Rite of Spring.

They all add food for the soul.

 

The transience of tranquility

It snowed last night, but the early morning sun promises a brilliant day.

The snow is piling higher and higher on either side of the driveway.

It’s minus 24 this morning, a relief from the frigid temperatures we have been enjoying, temperatures that have dipped into the minus 30s and below when the wind is factored in. In spite of the cold, it snowed yesterday, fine snow, falling relentlessly and building on the already formidable snow banks that line our driveway. Today, the weatherman predicts a day of brilliant sunshine where the fiery ball lights up the sky with a blinding lemon glow.

The snow speaks when you walk on it with that squeak-squawk song, this time a low and guttural sound because it is so cold. It is an almost perfect winter. The snow is white, not gritty-gray from sand — it’s no use putting down salt when it’s this cold, thank goodness. Driving is tricky. You have to pay attention because it is quite slippery on the streets. But our cars remain clean.

People are bundled; you can often see only a slit for the eyes of the bus people waiting at the stops. We seem to feel the cold more this winter after the balmy weather last year but there is a cheerfulness in their voices as people come in from the outdoors, saying, “Awfully chilly out there, today!” There is a pride in the acknowledgement. And we all feel vitally alive.
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After writing the above, I drove to work, mesmerized by the sundogs that I chased with my camera. They are so elusive when I try to capture an image on the fly. It was very slippery on the icy-glassy streets, so the going was slow, but it didn’t matter because the morning was very beautiful. Exhaust fogs followed cars as they pulled away from street lights. The sun dogs danced on either side of the sun, which seemed so close you could almost touch it. January is the time when the sun is closest to the earth, although the earth’s axis tilt keeps us in the north from feeling its strength.

I drove to work chasing sundogs, caught here as I waited at a red light.

 

I had no sooner arrived at the office when my bookkeeper, Margot, came in and pointed out an accident on the corner right outside my window. One car had been rammed up the snowy boulevard and into the street light. The other was sprawled across the intersection, its front end completely crumpled. A red-haired woman was frantically trying to open the rear doors of the car and when she succeeded two young children, a boy of about 8 and a girl of 11, came tumbling out. They began walking in our direction, the girl holding her stomach and crying. They looked confused and in shock.

 

“Open the back door and bring them in where it’s warm,” I shouted. In a few minutes they were all inside, including the other driver who kept saying, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” I think she had gone through a red light, or perhaps couldn’t stop on the icy road. The little girl continued to cry and moan and now her brother started crying, too, frightened, I suppose. The mother was trembling and breathless.

We supplied phones and chairs and comfort and soon the fire department paramedics arrived. Some came in to see to the children. Others efficiently blocked the street until they could move the cars and clean up the debris. This was all done and traffic was flowing within half an hour. Inside, the children had stopped crying and mom was getting in touch with her family. It was finally decided that they would take the little girl to the hospital “just to be sure”, as her stomach was still hurting. The little boy had a goose egg on his head, but he seemed all right. In two hours they were all on their way.

It made me think, though, about the transience of tranquility and how it can be so easily exploded by a chance act, a split second of bad judgement or inattention. It appears that no one was seriously hurt in this case, but I can’t help but think of the disruption to their lives. The children will have missed school that day. The mom will have missed work, not to mention the funeral she said they were going to. The grandmother, who came to take the boy home, had her day turned upside down. Dad, at work, must have been frantic with worry — I could hear the kids talking to him on the phone. The family will be car-less for some time. The other driver may face charges — her car, too, was inoperable because, while it was in better shape, the front wheel had been broken.

And yet, when they were all gone from the office, the turbulent space they had occupied closed behind them as though nothing had ever happened. Our day went on as before and only the snowy tracks of all the firemen’s boots were left to attest to their presence. The snow soon melted in the carpet and dried, leaving no trace.

Outside, other cars passed unharmed through that space on the corner, creeping along to deal with the treacherous ice. The sun beamed down, flooding the world with lemon and leaving the sundogs behind as she rose. The day went on.

Soon the house will be all but buried in the snow if it keeps up.

Of New Year’s and fish stories

It’s almost 2013 and I wonder where 2012 went. It flitted across my consciousness like a wraith or like those wispy mists you see on a summer’s morning, hanging just about eye level, barely there.

It wasn’t an unhappy year, although it was filled with anxiety for much of the time while Glenn was ill. There were some ups and some downs and lots and lots of activity. There were moments of quiet joy and others of deep dismay, but that is normal for all of us.

But still, how did the year slip away like that?

When you are very, very busy, it is hard to hold on to time. I live always in the future, it seems; one event is behind and another already looms on the horizon, but what I really want is some time to dream.

I would like to lie in the warm grass in a quiet place with a good book and handful of raisins to munch on, savouring their sweetness one by one, slowly, so make them last all day.

That is what I used to do as a girl when we lived high in the East Kootenays where there was no sunset, only light followed by darkness as the sun dropped behind the mountain. I used to long for the prairies then, never glorying in the pure, cold water that ran down the mountainsides in rills and brooks and by our house in a roaring creek; or in the sweet black cherries that dripped from the trees of a deserted but fruit-laden orchard that yielded other treasures such as crisp apples, warm pears and fuzzy peaches. The pattern for my life was already set then — living in one paradise and dreaming of another.

Now I long for that mountainside where I used to take my book and blanket on a hot summer’s afternoon and lie beside the brook with its waterfall, listening to the soothing sound of insects buzzing in the sun-burned grass. It smelled of home.This small clearing that faced the afternoon sun reeked of the wonderful, wide open spaces that had been imprinted on my heart as a little girl. I knew then, at 13, that home was where the sky meets the earth like an upside down bowl of blue and where, if you stood on a knoll, you could see forever. I knew I would come back here to live or I could not live at all.

But for their brief time in my life, the mountains slipped into my psyche and I dream of them every now and then; of the channel we children dug through our yard so that a rill that disappeared underground when it came to our property would run through the garden on its way to the creek. Our digging was done fruitlessly, I am afraid, the water having a mind and a path of its own; this was an early lesson in gardening that I wordlessly absorbed. There were wonderful wild things there, too. Devil’s club filled us with terror lest we get scratched by what the local kids told us were its poisonous thorns. Hemlock, we were told, could kill us without provocation if we touched it and then our mouths. We believed all these things and they added delicious fear to our everyday existence.

We learned to fish in the cool streams there. My sister and I would take our fishing rods and our golden Labrador, Buster, for early morning adventures, telling our Mom we were going to catch trout for dinner. And often we did. Once though we were having a hard time living up to our promise. The fish were just not co-operating. We tried all the usual spots but with no success. Then we came across a still pond above a little rapids in the creek. Swimming aimlessly in the pond was a very large trout, much larger than the usual eight- or nine-inch youngsters we usually caught. Legend had it that these trout were spawned in some lake further up the mountain beyond where the road ended, past the deserted gold mills, further even than the glacier that fed the creek its icy temperatures.

We immediately set our hooks for this beauteous fish but neither of us had any luck. Still, I had another plan. I had read about fish tickling and I thought perhaps we could apply this delightful trick to the catching of our heart’s desire. Being the eldest, I tried first, confident in my superior abilities due to a 15-month earlier entry into the world than my little sister. But I tried in vain. No matter how still I kept my arms in that chilling water, and no matter how close the fish swam, I couldn’t make the final connection.

“Let me try,” sang Carole and, of course, I  yielded, if somewhat contemptuously. How could she do what I could not? Within a minute she had the fish flipped out onto the gravel beach, flopping and flapping furiously as it tried to regain the water.

“Get the crutch, get the crutch,” she shouted, meaning the “Y” of a branch we had cut earlier to string our fish on when we caught them. Holding the fish at the short end of the fishing line, you skillfully ran one side of the fork through the gills and, if you were lucky, you could extract the hook without ever having to touch the fish. But this time there was no fishing line, only my foot to hold the fish down and the subject was not taking this imposition without objection. Getting the crutch through the gills was turning out to be a difficult task. To subdue it, I stepped down a little harder but, instead of controlling the squirmy little beast, it squirted out from under my foot and right back into the water — this time not into the pool where it had been trapped, but straight into the main stream of the creek and away!

We went home fishless and dejected after many hours of pointless labour. Mom was frantic with worry because we had been gone to so long. She was not amused or convinced by our story about the fish that got away.

As for Carole, she never forgave me. Who could blame her?

Adventures in the Carolinian forest

October 4, 2012

I used to be the chair of Tree Canada because I have a passion for trees. I love them in every season although I feel most closely in touch with them in winter when they lose their fancy dresses and reveal themselves so eloquently against the sky. I don’t do anything weird like talk to them or hug them, but I feel their presence as an easing of the heart.

So this week, I have been off to London, Ont. to attend a meeting of the board of directors and have a presence at the biannual Urban Tree Conference. I had been especially looking forward to a field trip to the Carolinian forest, a little corner of Canada where quite tropical varieties grow.

The meetings were held and then the big moment came to grab a box lunch and board the buses. My staff had encouraged me to take my video camera to share the experience with you, so camera in hand, with an extra battery in tow, I set off with great expectations. Nor was I disappointed. There was a magnificent black maple, standing all orange and fiery reds right at the outset. There were hazelnuts, spice bushes, unusual oaks and a venerable and gigantic black poplar. As we walked through the woods, with me bringing up the rear and using my camera as an excuse for not being able to keep up the pace of the guide, I paused and took great shots of the multi-coloured leaves waving in the warm October breeze, of the shaggy bark of a shaggy barked sycamore, of the tough and craggy skin of the ancient poplar.

As we walked down, down, down, I pretty much kept up – staying within hearing distance of the guide when he stopped to identify and point out a special species. The afternoon was humid and warm, the tawny October sun painting the falling leaves on the forest floor with spangled light.
Giant beech leaves mingled with maple of equal size, red and gold. Then suddenly, the species changed and the leaves became small, the maples like coloured stars in an upside down world.

I could hear the tour in the distance. They had picked up the pace and now we were on the penalty side of that downhill stroll. I trundled along, ever upward, not sorry to be alone surrounded by tall straight trunks in an obvious plantation, much like the forests in Germany where order prevails – how dare it not? – among the trees.

I could feel my breath becoming laboured; the humidity triggered a bit of asthma and I regretted leaving my purse with its rescuer back in the bus. But mind over matter, I counseled myself, pausing to point and shoot videos less often now. I too tried to pick up the pace. I hurried along, eyes on the ground to watch for roots – I had almost taken a tumble at the outset. The air was very warm now – we had been following alongside a river and the humidity was stifling.

At last, the terrain leveled out and coming into a clearing I could see the bus in the distance across an open field. A very young parks person was waiting patiently for me in case I had somehow taken a wrong turn. It’s only 10 more minutes, he encouraged.

I was hot and tired, but smug with the thought of all my great movies to share with you. As soon as I boarded the bus, I called them up to relive the experience… but all I found was a group of images of my own feet hurrying along! I had mixed up the camera signal – counter-intuitively, green meant stop and red meant go!

Oh dear! Here is a tiny bit of what I salvaged. . . .

Autumn looms and spiders spin

September 8, 2012

It’s a blustery, blowy day today. The wind has knocked over my vase of flowers on the table where I write and there are yellow leaves on the back lawn, blown off the old cottonwood and over the rooftop by the wind. Although the annuals are still heartily blooming, it feels more and more like autumn, with cool nights and an edge to the mornings.

The magic spiders have been busy weaving their webs, some silken, some more like cotton. The webs catch the falling debris as well as passing insects. One on my window has caught a maple wing which looks as though it is floating in the wind. I welcome the spiders to my garden and I admire their industry and individuality. I learned some amazing things about them when I wrote about them in my 10 Neat things About Spiders E-letter a few weeks ago; for example, collectively, the spiders of the world eat more insects in weight every year than the weight of the entire human population!

(Image from Wikimedia Commons)

But I didn’t learn why they are so busy in autum, except that hunting is good when the insect population leaps in fall. In one case, the yellow house spider prefers to weave its web at this time of year. These little guys also bite, leaving an itchy mosquito-bite-like swelling that can last up to ten days. They leave the house in spring. Orb weaver spider also come inside when they get the chance and often weave their webs around lighted windows, doorways and so, on. They wrap their victims in webbing. The cobweb spider is another that likes to come indoors for the winter. They don’t bite.

As I watch the busy arachnids at their work, keeping the insect population in check, I marvel at their abilities. In looking for new territory, some spiders can launch themselves, by means of their spinneret and its silken thread, 50 to 60 miles away and as high as 5,000 feet in the air. This is known as ballooning. They spin as they travel on the wind.

Many spiders do not weave webs to entrap their meals: wolf spiders chase their prey and weave only a silken sac to carry its eggs in. Crab spiders ambush their prey. Jumping spiders leap on their prey.

All spiders have eight legs and a two-part body.

 

September 16, 2012

Suddenly many leaves are golden and fall confronts us with cool reality. In spite of 27 degree temperatures yesterday, it is only half that today at noon. It is 12:02. I picked the last of the cucumbers and the blushing tomatoes today, including those that are light green, because frost threatens us later this week.

Last week was a week of endings. One day, I noticed something floating in the pool and looking closer I could see that it was a little red squirrel, a juvenile. I felt sick at heart and when Ian came over to help with the yard, I asked him to help me retrieve the poor little thing. He got the net and I, cowardly thing that I am, stood with my back to the pool as Ian did what had to be done. As I stood there cringing and feeling very sad, Ian quietly said, “I hate to tell you this, Dorothy, but Mom’s in here too.”

I had a vision of the baby desperately trying to get out with Mama frantically trying to effect a rescue. There was suddenly water in my eyes and I was angry with myself for not reinstalling the chipmunk ladder!

But already there is another little red squirrel running up and down the fence and hiding pine cones in the old water fountain . . . Or could it be the same one who has been scolding me all summer and only two strangers who lost their lives in the pool? Or perhaps it was Little Red’s children, those tiny beings she so carefully moved from one nest to another this spring to protect them from some predator and for whom I insulted the neighbour’s cat when he came bounding into the garden with great enthusiasm as baby squirrel was just finding his climbing legs.

Somehow, sad as this all is, it would be good to think that Little Red is still here. Either way, there is comfort in the fact that a squirrel lives on in the garden. But sometimes it hurts to be a gardener and have to face the unrelenting reality of life, death and rebirth.

 

 

 

Gardening dreams and August harvest

The view through my kitchen window

Dreams of gardens go drifting through my head at night; I am filled with flowers; enlightened by landscapes; swooning from scent. It is the overload of a day spent photographing lovely gardens for my magazines. My frustration is boundless – how can I teach that callous camera to see with my eyes, to capture the gardener’s meaning and give it back to her – or him – as a reward for the exquisite pleasure they have given me? Their gardens make my own efforts seem so puny, but I am glad that they have this power. The beauty they coax from the earth proves so much that is fine about the human race at a time when there are so many pressures for evil.

In my little garden, the annuals around the pool are laughing in the sunlight. Some are past their prime, but they had such a glorious youth that it is hard to blame them for feeling their job is done. The lobelia are very easily tired, the more so if they don’t get enough water, and addicted as they are to garden center fertilizing habits I have a hard time keeping up with their needs. The petunias are hardier, not minding the odd drought and the geraniums seem happy as long as there is plenty of room for their greedy roots and no competition from any other than their own kind.

Today is a lovely day, warm but not blazing and with gentle breezes that keep the mosquitoes at bay. I wish you could hear the music of the garden. When the wind blows, the wind chimes answer with tiny notes that suit the flowers around them. They have many voices, some low and cool, some higher and more delicately warm. They add variety to the whispers of the leaves and the rustlings of the smaller plants. Every now and then, there is a deeper creaking of a tree trunk, forced to speak by the pressure of the moving air. But the apples hang round and silent on their tree, concentrating on getting ripe.

Tomatoes are ripening on the vine

Tomatoes are also working toward that end. I see one or two turning red, but it has been too hot for their colours to develop. Tomatoes will refuse to ripen when the daytime temperatures are above 30 degrees C and the nighttimes, are above 20 C. The heat and, inversely, the cold below 10 C, interfere with the chemical requirements of the pigments carotene and lycopene that are responsible for the red colour in tomatoes.

Fingerling cucumbers will soon be 8 to10 inches long

 

 

 

 

Last week I picked two luscious cucumbers, about ten inches long each – they are the long, thin English type. Now I see two more showing promise at the top of the trellis. I give them a gallon of water to help them along.

My August garden would never win any prizes. The front yard is a disgrace – it is impossible to keep up with the watering so most of the perennials are simply trying to survive and don’t have the energy to bloom. This year the daylilies disappoint – even the weedy orange ones have not been spectacular. Ithas simply been too warm.

It is still some time before the faithful Clara Curtis chrysanthemum will appear in her pinkish-mauve dress, smelling somewhat unpleasantly of cat pee, but beautiful nonetheless. Still, the white David phlox is just coming into bloom and some blue allium are also showing. It is the annuals, however, that provide the colour now. This year, the vibrant oranges and reds and purples and yellows have added joy to every view.

Claire has gone home to Toronto but Ian’s mom is here from Jersey – I have promised to make them dinner, so I must fly away to the store. Glenn is still recovering (badly) from his second last bout with the chemo treatments. He wanted salmon for dinner and I am hoping he will feel well enough to eat it. Poor darling. He is so stoic about it all, but one more round then we hope it will be over and he can recover.

Tree tomatoes and blooms

July 8, 2012

A fat robin is perched on the edge of the birdbath, preening itself but not yet daring to take the plunge. I wouldn’t either. There was no time yesterday to clean it and add fresh water. Our birds have been trained to be fussy, so he just sits there, combing his feathers, puffing himself up and looking disappointed. As soon as he leaves, I will take the hose and refresh his bath.

All is noise, not as loud as at 4 a.m. but still loud and melodic. The chorus is almost over, but there are echoes still to be heard in the air at 8:00 in the morning.

Now people are stirring. The neighbour next door peers over the fence and says good morning, startling me as I water the flowerpots there. She tells me of her pregnant daughter, the grown woman who was once the 12-year-old girl throwing chewing gum over the fence and into our pool as she and her girlfriends dreamed of being grown up in the cool of the night. I see them in my mind’s eye as they floated in their pool, just a gum wad’s throw from ours. Now she is lovely, married to an important older man, just as she had always dreamed, and about to be a mother to her own beautiful child.

The daring notes of orange that I introduced to my once pale garden are glowing with a seductive heat in the morning sun. They don’t clash with the purples and wines that adorn the picotee petunias. They don’t fight with the blue (well mauve) wave petunias or the lime coleus, but they outshine their pretty yellow and peach ‘Pink Lemonade’ cousins that I was so wild about this spring. Sad things. They are puny and unvigorous, barely peeping over the edge of their pot even now in mid July. Meanwhile the Papaya petunias of a shy orange are well behaved, leaning sedately over the pool in a tidy fashion that hints of good breeding.

Did I tell you about the tree tomato? Several years ago, a listener to my program on CJOB sent me a small packet of seeds he had rescued from his own efforts after answering one of those “Most Amazing!” ads in some men’s magazine. I meant to plant them but never did until this spring when Ian and the girls potted them up in their early springtime planting frenzy. Now this tomato is a giant, fighting the evening-blooming, but oxymoronic, morning glory for space on the small tripod I put in their pot. It is now about 4.5 feet tall and has happy flowers, ready to set fruit. Ian read that the fruit is black and sweet; people eat these tomatoes with sugar, he says. We shall see if it matures in our short season, although it was planted early in the greenhouse.

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July 18, 2012

It has been cloudy the last few days, the heat slipping away into the atmosphere, replaced by a refreshing 22 degrees C during the day. While I long for the sun, the plants needed this breathing room to recover from all that heat-induced rapid growing.

The pink lilies are lovely right now and the filipendula is just coming into bloom. The hosta are all waving bell-shaped flags. I race around the garden taking pictures in the fading light. Everything is happening so fast in the garden this year that it is hard to keep up. I must be out, camera in hand, every day. Blossoms last a day, then wither and drop.

The bugs, encouraged by a warm, snowless winter are just as busy. The lime potato vine is a lacy, wrinkled imitation of its usual lushness.

We were in a very beautiful garden yesterday, the garden of an artist. Its beauty made my little efforts seem pitiful, indeed. Yet, I can savour every plant as it comes into the fullness of its beauty. May I pity the artist? The huge banquet set before him every day must dull his appetite . . .

How can I explain to you how sweet the air is this evening. It is scented with petunias and lilies and honeysuckle. It is swooningly sweet, heady with tenderness. Every night-flier must be heading this way, yet the mosquitoes are few. Perhaps they are drunk with the nectar of the flowers they eat while they ready their eggs to be nourished by your blood.

It is so hard to say goodnight.

The long, long days of June

Now it is green – green with a depth of luxury that most people associate only with tropical places. Here in Winnipeg, at the joining of the mighty Red and Assiniboine rivers, there is an unexpected lushness in June.

The massive elms and cottonwoods that line city streets and haunt the riverbanks, the towering cedars and spruces and tidy ashes and lindens that guard our homes, all contribute to the affectionate blanket of green that wraps us in summer comfort, offering shade from the blazing sun and shelter from the temperamental winds that spring up spontaneously, gently at times, but on occasion with a frightening ferocity. Sometimes the wind is a great relief, especially when the air is heavy with humidity off the lakes. Then its cool fingers help dry drenched skin and caress fevered faces, lingering just long enough to provide a promise of the coming nighttime chill.

If June could last forever, no one would ever leave here. To be wrenched from so much beauty would leave too large a wound. The memory of our Junes keeps us happy through scorching July and golden August to the blaze that is September and October and then through the dark months until the glittering beauty of January and the final promise of spring.

It rains in June. This year it storms. Lightning and thunder and even hail have fallen, punishing us but nourishing the earth, releasing nitrogen for the plants and perhaps even rehydrating the parched soil if it rains long enough. When the sun comes out, it shines persuasively on this prairie opulence, calling on the spruces to lift their branches, the flowers to raise their heads, the small animals to come out and bask in its beneficence.

I do love June. I love the long, long days. I love the sound of the birds chorusing with the sunrise at four in the morning. I love the chattering of the squirrels and the whisper of the wind in the trees. I love the occasional rain coming down in harsh splatters, even when it tears the long awaited blossoms of my tree peony into silken, scarlet tatters only a day after blooming. There were no blossoms last year and only two this year. The rest were victimized by a fickle spring and late killing frosts. Such is the fate of the gardener.

It has been a strange year and I get strange reports from my fellow gardeners. I hear of trees that have green branches but no leaves, of apples that will not blossom and of lilacs that are weeks late into flower. The brilliant red Oriental poppies that usually bloom in May, this year have only just emerged (falling to the same fate as the tree peony) and hundreds of tulips thought it not worth the trouble to send up leaves. I have found some of them, lying inert and mushy under the soil, frozen and thawed repeatedly until there was no heart left in them for living.

Other plants, though, are fully pleased with themselves, looking well dressed and prosperous. The delphiniums are about to blossom and are upright and proud. Not so, the poor double pink peonies, which are prostrate on the ground – I was out of town and left them to their own devices when the sun coaxed them into opening too soon. If the rain stops, I will try to rescue what is left for my vase.

But peonies last longest when cut in the hard bud stage – you can even keep them, either wrapped or in a vase of cold water, for as long as six months so that y

The sun comes out

ou can please your daughter’s heart at her fall or winter wedding. Prevent mould by adding a few drops of household bleach to the water.

The Double Pink herbaceous peony is one of those bomb type peonies that were bred for the vase and always need staking. Peonies that can stand on their own two feet include the magenta ‘Big Ben’ and the lovely ‘Bowl of Beauty’, an anemone type peony. The Itoh intersectional hybrids are all upright without help.

This morning, the sun appeared. What heaven. It is heartbreakingly lovely.

 

 

 

 

 

Spring rain

I awoke to the sound of the rain this morning, just a few musical drops at first and then a hearty splash as it rained in earnest – for all of 15 minutes. Now it has stopped.

I worry about all the living things beneath the grass, only a little damp from the fast melted snow. The plants and the animals down there need rain; a good deluge lasting a few hours would soak the ground and clean the dusty trees.

It is very dry. Already this year, there are wildfires sweeping across the prairies and destroying homes and machinery. One man, 72, who lives near the peat bogs of eastern Manitoba, lost his 100-year- old home and outbuildings. He had no insurance because who would insure property beside a burning peat bog? And yet, the farm was fine for a century. Now he is homeless. The land that nurtured him for so long turned against him. It is that kind of year.

I gaze out the window above my desk. Raindrops cling to the window and to the leaf bud tips of the old cottonwood. And now – how lovely – the watery benediction has started again in a nice steady, gentle way, so good for the earth. The grass is flushing green in the dawn light and the earth is black with gratitude.

Teeming with life as it is, the rain must send shivers of delight deep beneath the surface, waking up the dormant bulbs and teasing into action the hair-like feeder roots of the trees and perennials. There are 600 million microorganisms in one gram of soil; what a party must be going on right now. All the tiny voles and moles, the snails and slugs and sleepy beetles, the worms and grubs coming out of their estivation will be stirring with a tingle of excitement, like a small electrical shock waking them from their long rest.

The frog-sicles, the frozen wood and tree frogs, will be thawing and the male frogs will be urgently looking for females.  In Manitoba, a whole list of frogs – the boreal chorus frog, the gray tree, the spring peeper, to name some – overwinter above ground and freeze into these frog-sicles each year.

It is quite an amazing thing: the heart slows, the blood stops flowing, there is no breathing, the eyes turn dead white, little frozen marbles in the frog’s head; 65% of the water in the body becomes ice. They start freezing, thanks to the aid of special ice nucleators – bacteria or blood proteins – before it even reaches 0 degrees C (32 F). This slow freezing gives the metabolism time to adjust. At the same time, high concentrations of sugar alcohol are forming in the cells. It works like antifreeze, creating a syrupy solution in the cells, which, surrounded by a protective layer of ice, do not completely crystallize.

Procreation is their first urge after the big thaw, coming even before food each spring. The urgency of this need has them singing now in ditches and other wet places, a sure sign that spring is here to stay – the frogs seldom get it wrong.

We are doing a television show

This spring, we will be starting a garden television show on our local community access channel. On Saturday, we filmed the first segment of the first show. We went to the garden center of our friend and client, Kevin Twomey of T & T Seeds and explored his seed catalogue operation. We also planted the first few trays of seeds that we will grow in his greenhouses and which will become part of the show.

Both the show and the planting party this weekend were spearheaded by our sales leader, Ian. The camera work this time was done by our manager, Steven. The planting was being done by members of the staff and Steven’s daughter, Kate. Several of our other staff was there for the planting and many of them will be part of working on the show – editing, filming, and setting up venues as we explore some of the city’s loveliest gardens during our 13-week season.

We’ll share some of the segments with you here. We hope we can capture the magic that makes Manitoba such a special place.