Colours of the Deck

One of the nicest things about gardening is that when you go away for a few days, there's usually a nice surprise waiting for you when you come home. I've been away for the past four days, and my deck gardens have been blooming furiously the whole time. The happy state of the flowers is in no small part thanks to the constant care and attention my husband has been providing them in my absense. He is a master of plant maintenance, not to mention a fine photographer. So in addition to keeping the gardens alive, credit for the photographs in this entry also go to my husband, Roel.

You can see from the first two photographs, that my goal of filling in spaces and providing us with some privacy on an urban deck have been accomplished. If you go way back to the entries in early June, you will notice that some of the plants have been replaced. Sadly, the palm tree did not survive and has been replaced by a planter with African daisies and purple trailing petunias.

The clematis continues to bloom. Since it's first flower last week,which is still beautiful, it has opened up almost a dozen more blooms and there are still lots to come. I continue to be amazed at this performance in it's first year.
I may have been a little disparaging about the overuse of petunias on decks and in planters in some of my postings. But you really can't beat petunias for hardiness, colour and long-lasting blooms. I admit to the use of petunias to fill in spaces and provide vivid splashes of colour. Here is a shot of an ivy geranium amidst a sea of deep purple petunias. The boxes on the deck railing are filled to overflowing with ivy geranium, lobelia, petunias and trailing ivy.

The canna has grown to over 6 feet tall - always a giant in the back rows of my bigger gardens in the past. This year, I tried them in planters and they didn't disappoint.
I'll leave you with two shots of the canna - the last a closeup of the bloom, beautifully backlit on a sunny morning. I hope you enjoy them as much as we are.

July Gardens

The best thing about flowers is that they need so little from us, and they offer us so much beauty. Summer after summer, I continue to be amazed that a little dirt, some regular water and sunshine and maybe a little fertilizer produces such splendid colour and beauty. We're well into July now and I can barely remember those sad little plants I set out in the freezing rain on May 24th weekend. Just look at them now ...


The canna lilies are both well over 6 feet tall now and the flowers are a vivid orange. The foliage I planted at the base to 'add some interest' is reaching out beyond the planter looking for more space and the variation in colours from brilliant yellow-green to a deep purple is beautiful. The Morning Glories have done their thing and are happily climbing the trellis, covering it in rich green folliage and the purple flowers I've always loved. It's hard to believe the seeds were wrapped in a wet paper towel on my counter less than two months ago!

The produce section is already paying off. We've begun harvesting our summer crops of basil, sage, oregano and best of all the cherry tomatoes have begun to ripen and are a delicious addition to our nightly salads. A cautionary note on growing herbs, though, we are a bit overrun and have had to resort to drying them already. They're out of control. It's a good thing Zeus the Wonder Puppy likes to nibble on sage and basil from time to time.

I've saved the best for last. The clematis have bloomed. I am very pleasantly surprised to have this happen already. I wasn't expecting a bloom at all in the first year, but it looks like I'll be getting quite a few in the coming weeks. This is a Crystal Fountain clematis and is good for small spaces, likes decks and planters. It is supposed to bloom twice each season, in June and again in August.

Canada Day Weekend

My husband, Roel, and I had the pleasure of spending the Canada Day weekend in St. John's, Newfoundland. The photographs today are compliments of 'Roel'. I had never seen our eastern-most province and am very happy to have addressed that shortcoming. We stayed at an excellent bed and breakfast - the 'Angel House Heritage Inn'. A stay in Angel House is definitely recommended if you are visiting St. John's.

Our hosts, Patricia and Russel, were knowledgeable, interesting, welcoming and non-intrusive. Angel House, itself, is a charming and lovely place for a getaway weekend. Two very appealing elements of this particular B&B were the exquisite breakfasts and the gardens. For breakfast, Annie, the chef, offers a a different mouth-watering local specialty every day - or you can have Patricia's homemade organic granola with yoghurt. The best granola I've ever found! Sunday evening, we were invited to dinner, offering another local specialty, something called Jig's Dinner. We had other plans for that evening, and judging from the smell of roasting turkey when we came in, we missed something very special. Russel and Patricia create a very unique atmosphere at Angel House. Though my husband and I were only there for three days, we felt we had become a part of a small community. Breakfast every morning brought a lively discussion with the other guests on politics, sightseeing opportunities and some pretty bad jokes. We shared a table with some very interesting guests from Nova Scotia, Toronto, Orillia and New Jersey. The company was as appealing as the food.

The rugged coastline was beautiful, made even more so by the fog and mists. Since we had rented a car, a dashing PT Cruiser, we spent most of our days sightseeing. Newfoundlanders have the most colourful names for towns and bays I've ever heard. Witless Bay, Ferryland, Placentia, Argentia, Mistaken Point ... We drove first to Witless Bay - and missed it. So we kept heading south to Ferryland. The rugged coastline was beautiful, made even more so by the fog and mists. On our way back from Ferryland, we managed to find Witless Bay. From there you can take boat tours to go whale watching and to see the bird sanctuary, home to 500,000 puffins. We did both, though we didn't count the puffins.
On Sunday, we headed cross-country toward Placentia Bay then south to Cape St. Mary's. This is about a 3 hour drive and there really isn't much between Placentia and Cape St. Mary's. At the cape, though, there is another bird sanctuary. Home to thousands of gannets. We made the 20 minute walk and it was not a waste of time or effort.

This was definitely a trip worth making, though our time was short. I haven't mentioned the walks through St. John's itself. The city isn't large, compared to some, but you will need a map as the streets tend to change names frequently and feel no compunction to run in any consistent direction.

Then and Now

I always find it amazing how quickly gardens, especially annuals, take off once the warm summer sun starts to shine. The scrawny little petunias, lobelia, ivies that were planted in the freezing rain on May 24 have started to fill out and add colour to our deck. Indeed the constant watering and fertilizing my husband lavishes on them have them flowering profusely and beginning to cascade over the sides of their containers.

The canna have settled in and started to reach to the sky. And the foliage and bacopia I planted around the base are beginning to fill in nicely. We had a near disaster this past week with torrential downpours of rain and even an afternoon of hail. The hail did do some damage, especially to the broad-leafed canna and even broke a secondary shoot off completely. After just 2 or 3 days of sunshine though, the intrepid canna has recovered beautifully. There are still some reminders of the hail in the shredded leaves, but I think we will still see some spectacular blooms later this summer.

I think the most amazing progress has been with the herbs. Last February when we planted the almost microscopic seeds for basil, sage, oregano and thyme I don't think we ever truly believed we would be harvesting our herbal crops and using them to season our dinners. The herbs have taken root, so to speak, and are quickly outgrowing their containers. Many times every day, we find ourselves in the 'herb section' gently ruffling the leaves of the basil and sage to enjoy the aromas they release. We have recently added rosemary, chives and lemon balm to our little herb garden ... not to mention the lavender and nigela damascena or love-in-a-mist that is reputed to be good with lamb - but I love it purely for the delicate flowers.

To add an extra element to our deck garden, we have had a few visits from humming birds and some very hungry finches ... mainly purple finches. The neighbour's cat is quite intrigued with the finches. The clematis is growing nicely spreading it's tendrils around the wire frame and I do believe I see quite a few buds that I am looking forward to enjoying in August. The morning glory seeds, started in wet paper towels last May are happily climbing the trellises though I don't see any flower buds yet. The tomato has managed to flower quite a few times and I can count at least 30 perfect little tomatoes forming on it already.