Returning to Ontario for a 3 week stint, I am amazed at how the garden holds together with only a few hours of work each June.
Admittedly not many people would covet the plants that are the backbone of the flower garden, but each year they put on a show that starts in the spring and lasts all summer.
My secret is to have planted a lot of thugs in the garden and as they fight it out with each other there isn't much room for weeds to move in.
In June I have columbines, hardy geraniums centaurea and iris adding a dash of colour both in the garden and in the vase
As I am about to abandon the garden again for another year I notice that the evening primrose, perennial sunflowers and spider plant are about to bloom, and in a few weeks the bee balm, black eyed Susans, lilies and hollyhocks will fill in with phlox following close behind.
To fill in the gaps with interesting foliage there are clumps of hosta and cimicifugia(black snake root) and don't under estimate the power of the rhubarb foliage. Mine grows enormous.
The veg garden of course isn't producing a lot but there are herbs - thyme,chives and lots of self sown parsley.
Some old sugar snap pea seeds I planted last year for a green manure have self sown and we have manged to harvest a few peas from them. And the rhubarb has produced many fine deserts.
I spent a few hours weeding the vege garden. I left the self sown parsley seedlings in place as well as a few columbine and hollyhock seedlings. The rest of the space I planted some extra pea, bean and sunflower seeds. Any other bare areas got a sprinkle of some buckwheat seeds I had around.
I am hoping that once again this small amount of work will take the gardens through another year....til I return next June.
Admittedly not many people would covet the plants that are the backbone of the flower garden, but each year they put on a show that starts in the spring and lasts all summer.
My secret is to have planted a lot of thugs in the garden and as they fight it out with each other there isn't much room for weeds to move in.
In June I have columbines, hardy geraniums centaurea and iris adding a dash of colour both in the garden and in the vase
As I am about to abandon the garden again for another year I notice that the evening primrose, perennial sunflowers and spider plant are about to bloom, and in a few weeks the bee balm, black eyed Susans, lilies and hollyhocks will fill in with phlox following close behind.
To fill in the gaps with interesting foliage there are clumps of hosta and cimicifugia(black snake root) and don't under estimate the power of the rhubarb foliage. Mine grows enormous.
The veg garden of course isn't producing a lot but there are herbs - thyme,chives and lots of self sown parsley.
Some old sugar snap pea seeds I planted last year for a green manure have self sown and we have manged to harvest a few peas from them. And the rhubarb has produced many fine deserts.
I spent a few hours weeding the vege garden. I left the self sown parsley seedlings in place as well as a few columbine and hollyhock seedlings. The rest of the space I planted some extra pea, bean and sunflower seeds. Any other bare areas got a sprinkle of some buckwheat seeds I had around.
I am hoping that once again this small amount of work will take the gardens through another year....til I return next June.
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