mercoldi musicale

Okay the first day of Spring was over two weeks ago and temperatures are still coming in the minuses - we even had snow for Easter, try finding white Easter Eggs in the snow!!!!

However here are two of my favourite chantootzies singing the praises (???) of Spring!

The great cabaret and Broadway star Julie Wilson died earlier this week and here she tells us about  one of the more melancholy aspects of the Equinox.

The wonderful Blossom Dearie has a slightly more optimistic outlook on the season - perhaps one we should stick with, even if it takes to June to prove true.

Oh look the forecast calls for snow and -10 tonight! Spring Fever? I don't think so more like the winter flu!

April 8 - 1820: The Venus de Milo is discovered on the Aegean island of Milos.

Lunedi Lunacy

Spring in Ottawa.

Lunedi Lunacy

A sure sign that spring is in the air!



24 marzo - dell'Angelo

Spring Has Nearly Sprung

Barring one gray, sprinkly day its been sunshine for the past two weeks. Not always warm - it went down to -2c a few days there - but warm enough to wake up sleeping plants. The mimosa and almond trees around town are in full bloom, as are Laurent's allergies, and the plants on the balcony are starting to bud.

The almond tree just below our balcony is in flower at the moment. Since our car is parked underneath it we have to clean the blossoms off every morning - well beats snow right?

Our friend Betty Jean gave us the chamomille tree when she was leaving for Damascus. Its starting to bud and already there is a hint of the lovely scent that we enjoy when its warm enough to sit out and have our dinner on the balcony.

This day lily (another gift from BJ) really didn't have much of a rest - it was still blooming at the end of October. And I noticed a tendril of ivy has hitched a ride in the pot and is doing just fine.

The sedum is starting to bloom and send off new tiny purple leaves. I forget the name of the plant in the second picture but last summer it was a mass of purple-pink bell flowers. I had worried that it was dead but new shoots reassure me it will be blooming again this summer. Sadly I'm not so sure about my lovely scarlett hibiscus.

Cyclamen is a much favoured winter plant here. These two have been blooming on the balcony all winter. It has been strange to look out on January 1st and see green leaves and bright coloured flowers.

23 febbraio - San Polycarpo

Spring Has Sprung - VII

I've been neglecting the garden lately - no in reality but virtually i.e. I haven't posted any recent shots of what's been flourishing in the back yard. Lori and Fred - the previous owners - worked hard to create a typical English garden with something in bloom from early spring to the autumn. Working with shades of green and purple, blue and yellow perennials and the odd splash of red or orange they gave us something that I have enjoyed over the past four years. Hopefully the new owners will find as much pleasure in it as we did.

In the next day or two this honeysuckle vine will be a mass of orange flowers and the hummingbirds should be around dipping into the tubes. Oddly it has no scent - I thought honeysuckle always had a perfume.

The ostrich ferns pretty much take over the back fence and are a great background for the bed of hosta, day lilies, periwinkle and bishop's scourge

In other years this bed of lemon-scented geraniums was a mass of purple-pink blooms but I didn't divide it last fall. The scent is still incredible on a warm summer night.

This old honeysuckle bush definitely has a scent and last night after a wild thunderstorm it radiated through the garden.

I always love the iris beds we had around the house when I was a kid - here I have these beautiful purple ones, some yellow that are just coming into bud and Japanese iris that will bloom in the next few weeks.

Spring Has Sprung - VI

I realize I have become a trifle obsessive about the garden - perhaps it's because I know at the end of July I will turn it over to other people to care for.

A colleague asked me why, if the house was sold, would I waste my time working in the garden?

Good question. Possible answers:

• Pride - damned if I'll turn over the garden in a sorry state to its new owners.
• I enjoy it.
• Plants are living things that, like all living things, need care and nurturing.
• It keeps me off the wild streets of Aylmer!
  

Lynette (Big Ass Belle) was asking what the pretty variegated ground cover was on a previous post. I knew it as Bishop's Scourge but it is commonly known as Bishop's Wort or Gout wort. Lovely but invasive - I've needed a machete to cut it back the odd time. But it is still a spectacular ground cover for the ferns, hostas and day lilies.

There are several types of Bleeding Hearts - I believe the low, spreading one is a Japanese variety. The two by the shed have become a good size in the past four years.

When the house was built back in 1885 the kitchen garden was where part of the family room and deck are now. Most of the back was vegetable and fruit gardens (there's an aerial photo from the '40s in the City Archives showing the garden and fields down to the river bank.) Every year the remnants of the strawberry and raspberry patches spring up. I just leave them - they bring extra colour and life to the garden.

Spring Has Sprung - V - Trilliums

We were always told as kids that it was illegal to take a trillium out of its natural setting in Ontario. According to the Wikipedia entry this is not the case though it is the law in a few States of the Union and Provinces of the Confederation. Though it may not be against the law, picking or transplanting a trillium can cause permanent damage or arrest growth. It takes a plant fifteen years to reach the flowering stage and if a flower is picked chances are the plant won't bloom for another seven years. The seeds are disseminated in a strange way - in ant excrement (see the link above for an explanation, I found it fascinating.)

I do not know how the three in the corner of our garden got there but they have bloomed the four springs we've lived in the house so I can only assume they've been here for at least eleven years. This is the first year they have been so predominant and I only wish there were more of them. Maybe if those ants get busy the new owners will end up with a glorious ungrowth of white in the spring.

Shortly the entire back of the yard will be covered with a jungle of ostrich plume ferns - at last count there were 51 of them - and the trillims will be hidden as the flowers fade. That back bed is wonderful come early July - shades of green and white with the odd flash of yellow, blue or purple: periwinkle, hostas, day lilies, ostrich ferns and even the accursed Bishop's Scourge.

Spring Has Sprung - IV - May 4, 2007

Conversation the first spring we were in the house - April 2003:
Laurent: Oh look at those blue flowers. They've bloomed over night.
Me: Yeah, very pretty.
Laurent: What do you call them?
Me: Fred and Mildred.
Laurent: No seriously, they must have a name.
Me: Damned if I know.

And I call myself a Gardener!

Spring Has Sprung - III - April 30, 2007

An ostrich fern is starting to send fronds out. There are 30 of them in the back flower bed - its a wonderful display.

My miniature Turkish tulips did survive!!!!

A touch of pink amongst the green from the very fragrant hyacinths.

When I was a kid - back in the forest primeval - they told us it was illegal to take trillium from the wild and transplant them in a garden. Something about it being the Provincial Flower in Ontario - but hey we live in Québec

A friend who immigrated from Egypt was overwhelmed by the shades of green when he first came to this country.

This is probably the last garden I will ever own; I am finding that realization hard to process.

Spring Has Sprung - II

It was a strange winter - uncharacteristically mild for the first half and the more typical bitter cold and miserable for the second. Each day the garden reveals a little more of what survived. Sometimes the most delicate of things seems to come through while more hardy plants have suffered.

Not quite Wordsworth's host but....

The beginning of a mature hosta which will end up measuring about 2 feet across.

A bit more like it!

I don't recall planting these tulips but they're blooming.

Sadly it looks like my minature Turkish tulips didn't make it through the cold. If I were staying I'd be tempted to plant more. They are the mother-bulbs brought to Holland from Turkey in the 17th century and cultivated, crossbred and morphed into what we now think of as Dutch tulips.

Spring Has Sprung!

Springs has sprung!
The grass is ris!
I wonder where the birdies is?
They say the bird is on the wing.
But we all know that that's absurd.
Because the wing is on the bird!
George Burns - a strange but loveable former boss

Laurent arrived home from Beijing last night for a two week stay. And with him came the spring. Okay I'm being a bit romantic there but its been such a great weekend - weather-wise too: it was sunny all day, the first tulip bloomed, it was warm verging on hot and there was a nice breeze most of the day.

It was the perfect day to finally dismantle that hideous temporary garage - ugly as sin but welcome in the dead of winter, get the family room screens installed, put the deck furniture in place and sit out afterwards with a bottle of something wet, white and winish.

An added bonuses:
My pasty winter palor has become a brillant cardinal red- I really must learn to wear a hat to cover that bald spot. Yep it was a great spring day!