It blooms! Woo Hoo!! And just look at how BIG the bloom is!!
photo by SVSeekins
And durable. This bloom is a week old & has endured rain several times. Bonus!
I know Peony as an old-fashioned perennial. There are several in our garden. But Tree Peony? Doesn’t the name sound exotic?? They’re a recent discovery for me.
in February 2012 I bought one from Joe Harvey, a local fellow who develops new varieties of peony. So, this ‘tree’ is still a baby. I’m impressed it produced a bloom in its 3rd spring.
Now I’m excited for the future….
How much longer will the bloom last?… How tall will the ‘tree’ get this year? … Will there be more blooms? … Will the deer leave it alone? (The baby deer are arriving in the garden these days & they’ll usually try a taste of anything.)
So many questions. Always so much to learn. Isn’t gardening grand?
Certainly it’s the talk of gardeners in Brentwood Bay & Saanichton.
Now the mystery is solved. Paul, the gardener, was in attendance when we drove past the other day, so I stopped to chat with him.
He says it’s just a regular heather that started to climb the ground wires of the utility pole. He thought that looked kinda cool, so he encouraged it along by tieing the heather further & further up as it grew. The ties wear out & fall off about the same time as the new branches mature enough to hold themselves in place.
It’s famous, says Paul. The local newspaper reporter also stopped by for the photo-op. Pretty cool, eh?
After the year-end feasts & holidays, I need exercise. So how can I avoid that stinky gym?
Consider this:
photo by SVSeekins
The garden has died back for the winter, and there’s a little more elbow room in those beds & borders.
The soil is soft enough to make dandelion digging fun & effective.
The last few scattered leaves give the garden a kind of messy look.
What to do?
MULCH !!
Mulching is for:
protecting tender roots & shoots from the cold
fertilizing the beds
giving the garden that ready-for-spring look
Fish compost is my choice of mulch. And yes, there’s usually a little fishy smell that lingers for a week or so… So now’s a good time, considering most of the neighborhood is staying indoors. 🙂
Plus, I’d rather not have that ocean odour in the spring garden when we’re wanting to smell the flowers.
photo by SVSeekins
It might be a bit early for spreading compost because seasonal rains may leach some nutrients away, but the garden is most open now. It’s faster to lay mulch without having to spread it carefully around spring growth.
As this garden features many winter bulbs, it’s nice to have the tidiest beds showing the early flowers to their best.
Before I know it, weeds will be popping up too. Covering their seeds NOW will slow them down & save me hours of weeding in spring.
photo by SVSeekins
Inspecting the beds gives me a chance to easily spot & remove the few weeds that are still around. I take a close look at what’s really happening in the garden:
Bulbs are already poking out of the ground &
photo by SVSeekins
Sedum Autumn Joy is just showing signs of returning for the year.
The delicate looking flower of the Cyclamen Coum is making its appearance.
photo by SVSeekins
Preparing for the delivery of a BIG pile of black gold, I spread a big tarp on the driveway, keeping enough tarp aside for protecting it all from rain. (This mulch is otherwise pretty light!)
This year we had 5 yards of mulch delivered. It was an intimidating pile indeed. No question it was all needed in the gardens, but it would take some effort getting it there. 🙂
I paced myself, by moving about 1 yard each afternoon.
photo by SVSeekins
The many ice cream buckets & yogurt containers I’d tucked away particularly for this chore, came out of the depths of the shed. They make great covers for the few plants that don’t like mulch on their crowns.
photo by SVSeekins
The wheel barrel, grain shovel, & a couple of 5-gallon buckets are also my friends. They’re tools that require using different muscle groups so I got a little more work done before I petered out.
When it was completed, and all the tools cleaned & put away, I was happy knowing I had:
Garden Variety Life 