Spring'08

Here it is Spring 2008 in beautiful British Columbia. The hummingbirds have arrived and can't seem to schedule their feeding times. Therefore it is quite busy at the feeder in the mornings and the evening. They don't seem to be very patient and spend most of their time chasing each other away from the feeder, making way for the few that are patient to get a drink. They have been a blast to watch and quite entertaining. We also have a smaller feeder on the front porch to take some of the pressure.



The big landscaping project so far this year was to clean up around the pond and try to keep the weeds down. It was quite a mess around there with lots of weeds, quack grass and volunteer flowers. I think I might have killed a few of the flowers in my haste to clean up the area but it certainly looks better than it did.



The flowers are blooming around the area. We spent most of the weekend filling planters and getting them situated around the house. The long planters border the back deck where we spend time when we want to eat outside or just sit in the shade in the evenings. They are wave petunias and fill up the planters nicely and cascade over the side with a lot of colour. We also filled some of the area along the lawn edge with some new flowers and Corrine worked hard to clean the weeds out of those gardens. We potted a bunch of sweet one hundreds tomatoes so should be eating a lot of salad when they start to ripen. We put some beefstake tomatoes that we started from seeds in the greenhouse. There is room in the greenhouse for more vegetables and I need to get busy and get them planted before it is too late.

We also filled some planters for the front porch. Corrine got some peat baskets to see how they will do. It is difficult to keep enough water on these with the afternoon sun on that side of the house. Hopefully they will do a better job of holding the water. We put some smaller pots on the deck in front of each post. They also have wave petunias. There are a variety of flowers in the hanging pots.... you need to ask Corrine what kind they are.... I am not up on all that stuff. We also filled some other pots along the driveway and up at the start of the driveway to dress up the place a little bit. We have some washtubs up there that are painted gold so show up nicely.

On the north side of the house the climatis is doing nicely. It is climbing up the trellis that we made out of crutches. The trellis is about nine feet tall so will take a lot of vines and flowers. Everything is a little slower to bloom on this side of the house because it sees little sunshine. The magnolia out front has had a rough life with being transplanted several times and it was broken in half with the snow last year. There were no blossoms but it is leafing out and doing much better this year. The rhododendrons are doing well this year and the azaleas are starting to bloom now. The roses all seemed to survive the winter and will bring us a lot of colour throughout the summer.

I made Corrine a garden cart this year. It is something more functional that a wheel barrow. The bottom tray is for plants, pots or anything else you might need to transport. The upper box is for tools, the top comes off and the box can be removed for larger loads. I'm sure the neighbours get quite a laugh out of seeing this goofy thing around the yard.... you won't see me with it... smile.

Have a nice Spring,

Tom & Corrine