It's been a while since I've done an update on my garden but a lot has changed in so here we go. I'll start with the backyard.
We patiently waiting for all the flowers and plants to grow in and wondered what it was all going to look like.
In the end there wasn't much change from before. After the daffodils and tulips disappeared, not a lot happened.
There is one peony plant that came out fast and hot and then fizzled away right quick. From start to finish it came and went in less than a week.
The flowers bloomed all pretty like for three days and then immediately wilted and died. I think it was the heat at the time and the lack of us watering it. I'll try to remember that novel idea for next year. "Note to self: remember to water the garden!!!"
We have a bleeding hearts plant back there as well which lasted a few days longer but not much.
Other than that we have a few hostas back there and some allium but that's about it. Everything else is periwinkle, an invasive ground cover that takes over everything. There are also a lot of weeds, which isn't surprising. The backyard garden needs a lot of work to make it look nice but we haven't begun and don't know where to start or what we want to do yet. Making a garden look nice is harder than it seems, and its expensive. In general we like self propagating plants like hostas and peonies and such because you can cut them and plant the cuttings elsewhere without having to pay for new plants. "Damn yo, flowers are expensive!"
I planted some tomatoes at the side of our house.
Five different varieties including two different types of cherry tomatoes, and three different slicer types, one of which is naturally yellow in color.
The space doesn't get much sun at all, just a couple of hours each day in the afternoon, so the plants are somewhat stalky and sparse.
But I've been watering them regularly so at least I learned from our first mistake in the backyard garden.
They are starting to bear some fruit too, so that's a win in my opinion.
I had low expectations, knowing that they wouldn't get enough sunlight, so any tomato growth is a win.
"Ooo look! They're getting close to harvesting. It almost time for some salads."
Here is a quick partial look at the front garden.
There is a beautiful red Japanese Maple tree out front with some shrubs and hostas around it.
Then there is this vine that I don't know the name of that has been pruned and groomed into this small tree out front.
That is accompanied by various hostas and ither plants strewn about randomly and its all surrounded by Black Eyed Susan that isn't in bloom yet.
It's a really nice base to start with but its all gotten a little untamed over the years so we plan on changing it up a little this fall so that it comes in nicer next year.
One of our favorite features about the house is our front deck.
It's set up high, level with the Japanese maple and almost in the canopy of the trees along the street.
It's very private and when the tree are full of leaves, to the point that people walking on the road can barely see us sitting up there.
Something kind of neat are the geraniums that the previous owner left for us.
In Canada it isn't common to bring annual flowers indoors for the winter but the man who lived here before us had been growing the geraniums in pots and bringing them in each winter for over 15 years!
We put them into the planter boxes on the deck and have been tending them for the season.
We patiently waited for months for them to start budding, wondering what color they would turn out.
My wife bought two white geraniums to replace two that had died, since white pretty much goes with any other color.
Eventually we saw some red buds forming and got all excited that they were finally going to bloom. The red geraniums are two to three times larger than the new white ones that my wife bought.
They took a really long time to flower but once they did they went absolutely insane producing 10+ flowers poms per plant.
They are especially pretty looking in the evening when the low sun hits them. They almost seem to glow in the golden light.
We have never tried to save flowers over the winter but we got instructions from the previous owner and are going to give it a shot. The plants are very large and really beautiful so we feel that it would be a waste and a shame to let these plants die and not keep the tradition going. Wish us luck!