Another Planting Day

This time it was not Bruce or myself doing the planting.  There is no 'Little Red Hen' syndrome in our home.  You want specific veggies you plant as well.  The girls have helped plant from the time they were small.

Swiss Chard to be planted in this container.

Taking a break!

Swiss Chard was planted in the middle pot,
sunflowers were planted in the rest of the containers

Looking toward the patio table.

Patio with planted containers looking great!

It's going to look like a jungle at the end of the season!

Clematis in containers in the garden
in front of the wrought iron trellis

The planted containers on the patio

Allium in bloom in the back garden by the fence.

Clematis in container in front of the wrought iron trellis

When the plant in front of the clematis grows,
you will not see the black crate

Whistling Gardens Botanical Gardens & Retail Garden Centre

On Saturday afternoon we went to Whistling Gardens Botanical Gardens & Retail Garden Centre.  Bruce spent a while walking around the retail garden centre.  When he finished he said "If I had more money, more space & a truck, I would be taking half the plant material home with me."  I think he was impressed.

We were there for a presentation on the partnering of a Horticultural Therapy program with Whistling Gardens.  After the presentation we went on a tour of the Botanical Gardens.

This is the newest arrival at Whistling Gardens along with pheasants, doves & ring-necked doves.  The pair of swans will make their home on the man-made lake.

Royal Mute Swan

Man-made Lake

View looking back to the bridge & amphitheatre area

Here are some of the plant material and vistas of Whistling Gardens.  We both really enjoyed the tour of the gardens.

 The rock/alpine garden was incredible with all the plants growing in the rocks.  It is nearly 1 acre in size.

Weeping Nootka in background.

Weeping Nootka

Conifer Garden

General view across the Botanical Gardens

 First picture is an up close shot of the purply blue cones of a fir.

This structure in the middle of the gardens is actually not finished yet.  On those four posts at each corner there will be domes placed.  This is going to look magnificent.

Love this structure!

Another structure with a view down a walkway.
On right side is Monument Maple, it has no branches

 Weeping Redbud

Espaliered trees in background
Weeping spruce also trained into a wall.

Whistling Gardens
698  Concession 3, Wilsonville, ON
www.whistlinggardens.ca

The gardens & garden centre are open 9:30 am - 5 pm, 7 days a week including holidays.
Open from 1st weekend in April until last weekend in October

Whistling Gardens mission statement is:
To establish an internationally recognized destination attraction, featuring exclusive contributions to our plant collections.  focusing on new and viable ornamental plants for today's gardens with a special emphasis on conifers.

Employ innovation and technology in the pursuit of research activities in horticultural, evaluating plant species and cultivars, with emphasis on new plant cultivars and rare species for ornamental and/or commercial use.

To share knowledge in botany and horticulture, by cultivating an appreciation for our natural environment, through education workshops, seminars and guided tours.

Provide a social, unique and accessible experience in a natural environment to be enjoyed by all ages.

Explore 20 acres of colour and plant material at Whistling Gardens with many more acres to come.  The potential of these gardens is phenomenal.  Keep up the good work Darren!

Freddy & The Pukeho

Wow!! Freddy is looking rather marvelous this year.  'Freddy' our Acer Palmatum dissectum 'Crimson Queen' is really doing well.  He has grown quite a bit from last year and is also much brighter in colour--well I think so. 

A few years ago, when attending the Landscape Ontario Golden Horseshoe Chicken Roast I won a gift certificate from a nursery.  We used it towards this Cutleaf Japanese Maple.  It only took me 18 years to acquire 'Freddy'

Bruce made this freestanding stone bird from rocks.  The head he bought back from Muskoka a few years ago.  It already had the 'eye' (drill hole) in it.  Nice touch!  Bruce calls it his 'Pukeho'  (Does look rather similar)

Pukeho in the foreground, Freddy in the background.

Cutleaf Japanese Maple with golden Globe Cedars

Here 'Freddy' looks great with the Metasequoia glyptostroboides behind it.  The golden globe cedars are on each side.  The larger on on the right is 'Sunkist' and the smaller one on the left is a golden globe cedar.  There is also a heuchera in front of 'Freddy' as well.

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall

Bruce has always wanted a mirror in the garden.  He found this one on Kijiji.  After reading quite a few websites on how to waterproof the mirror he set about doing just that.  He placed it at the end of the quiet garden on the fence.  I really like the effect.

At the end of the quiet garden.

Mirror on the fence

Overall view

View of the mirror from edge of the house

View from the patio

Fence Armor

We love our Fence Armor! & it is really standing up to the wording on the box - Protect your fence posts from damage caused by powered edgers.  Our back fence backs onto a city park.  We all know how the city workers weed whip the perimeter of the city parks.

With the grade changes of the park behind us, we decided to put a couple of fence armor on this fence post.  With only one fence armor to protect the fence post, it didn't look to be enough.  Well we were proven right!  See the pictures below.  This is the damage done to the fence armor on the city park side of the fence post. If we didn't have the fence armor, that damage would have been done to our fence post!

Two Fence Armor  installed onto one fence post.

Both Fence Armor were even when installed.

Fence Armor protected our fence posts

This is the post we decided to add another Fence Armor too.  Most of our fence has only one Fence Armor but this one, because of the grade change has two.  So glad we did!

Here is the review I did in September 2010 when we got the Fence Armor

Got Mulch? Part 2

Once the mulch was dumped onto our driveway, then comes the task of moving it to where you want it.  This took both Saturday afternoon and most of the day Sunday.  What a job!!

Bruce loading up the wheelbarrow with mulch.
Getting close to the end of the pile!

We made a walkway with the mulch along the fence beside the neighbours property.  The grass that was there did very poorly as it is far too wet. Those plants in the corner are bog plants, cannot remember the name of them. 

Walkway made with mulch.
Too wet to grow any grass here.

We back onto a city park--have you seen the state of city parks lately?.  This is our back fence.  This area was infested with weeds and we could not keep ahead of them.  We ripped out the weeds and remaining grass and decided to put in a mulch walkway.

Walkway made here as well.
Fence backs onto a city park.

Another area for the mulch we got, as at this time we were running out of space to put the mulch.  This is an area for mulch storage.  If we need mulch for any other area we can take from here.  These are the bog plants.  They grow wonderfully here as it is extremely wet.

Mulched gardens

Mulch around the hostas at the edge of our patio and beside our neighbours to the east

More mulched gardens

This is just a sampling of the gardens we mulched.  With 4 cubic yards of mulch, we mulched EVERYTHING!!

Yet another mulched garden

Got Mulch?

Got Mulch, oh yeah we got mulch!  A friend rolled up to our place on Saturday around 1 pm with this truck.  Bruce had asked for mulch.  Well we got mulch around 4 cubic yards of the stuff.   

The truck that delivered our mulch.

Backed into our driveway.

Look who got in my way!

This is the amount of mulch we got.
About 4 cubic yards.

This is the logs that got lost in the pile of mulch in our driveway

Now to get this mulch from our driveway into the walkway and gardens.  This took 2 days--Saturday and Sunday.