Red-winged blackbirds: they’re back!
The red-winged blackbirds are telling me that spring is right on track. I had predicted that they would be back around March 12, and today on my golf course walk with the dogs I heard them for the...
View ArticleSigns of an all too early spring
It’s an all too early spring when the golf course across the road has already opened. They actually opened yesterday — in the 12 years I’ve lived here, I’ve never seen it open this early. My neighbor’s...
View ArticleToo much spring, too early — but who’s complaining?
We have jumped from winter into spring, and over the Easter weekend, it felt like we had leapfrogged straight into summer. Easter weather is usually cold, windy or wet, in a word lousy, but this year...
View ArticleGarden update – rain at last!
Don’t you just hate when the gardening season starts out like this? After a dry winter, we get a dry spring – at least so far. We’ve just come out of four weeks without a decent rainfall. But tonight,...
View ArticleToday in the garden: the crabapple moment
Our crabapple trees are in full bloom this week. This one is actually a just a tiny bit past its prime, but conditions were not great for photography all week with harsh light and lots of wind even...
View ArticleOur wettest spring in 35 years
The spring of 2011 has been the wettest spring I have ever experienced in my 20 years as a gardener. According to Environment Canada, in the Hamilton area we have had an amazing 259 mm of precipitation...
View ArticleForced forsythia branches in bloom
A couple of weeks ago, I cut some forsythia branches from the garden to force into bloom. I put them into the basement near my plant lights (where we keep our non-hardy succulents over the winter), and...
View ArticleHeat wave in March? I thought I had seen it all…
Well, I thought I’d seen it all in my 20-plus years as a gardener. But I have never experienced a late winter heat wave like this. We are enjoying end-of-May temperatures in mid-March. We live across...
View ArticleSpring’s frosty disappointments: droopy daffodils
Ah, spring 2012, what a challenge you are! As one would expect after a non-winter, a March heat wave that lasted more than a week — followed by nights of hard frost — there have been casualties. We...
View ArticleBring on the spring whites
The landscape around here is white, but it is winter white, and we are all longing the white flowers of spring. Here is a sample of all the lovely blossoms that are not too far off. We have a lot to...
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