POT(S)

"It is spring again. The earth is like a child who knows poems by heart...." -Rainer Maria Wilke

  Waiting.Like Mini here on the bench.  On a cold grey spring day.  My oodles of perennial pots  lie dormant with  their dirt. It's all very exciting ( By the way, the cats you see, are NOT mine. They are the neighbours' cats who hang out here, on  a daily basis. ) They have neat personalities. They feel comfortable here. Winter. Spring. Fall. Summer. So cute.

Petawawa , 1989. Everyone on our block at the base had a garden of some sort.  Families used to gather in the warm evenings , on the street, in front of our MQ's ( married quarters) and share stories from the day. We also passed around plants and flowers to share in the  dirt  we dug up ourselves, ringed with rocks from the Ottawa river.   It was a wonderful time. Children ran around  us, while we laughed and talked  till the sun was set. Till the next evening, then we'd do it all again. Was a great time. It never happened anywhere else but there.

I didn't have a garden at each posting. But in 1994 , in Fredericton. I clawed up more grass again. Shoved in as many annuals as I could. They grew up wild. Until the garden guys mowed them all down one day. 

All I have left of that year is the 30 year old rhubarb. I dug it out of an elderly lady's yard in Fredericton. A lovely old house with a white picket fence that faced the water.   I had met her at the garden centre, where she was chain smoking at the perennials. She said she was drowning in rhubarb and I could have some ,if I brought my own shovel. She drank lemonade( well, she said it was lemonade) . There is a piece of this plant in every yard of every house we have lived in across country. This is the last of it. It has travelled 4277 Km, in those years. LOVES to live in a large pot. So that's where it is now. In the dirt. With the worms. 

In 1996 , St. Albert, I decided to chew  up more grass. Carved a strip , stuffed in more flowers.  Unfortunately, before they were mowed over, again, it snowed on May long weekend. Everything died. And then it was mowed over. 

White Rock, B.C. 2005 was my rock era. Rocks and flagstones.  And a wheelbarrow of dirt , with stuff piled into it. It worked. Sort of. Nothing got mowed over at least. But  then we moved to the Island.....

84 POTS and counting.........

....and counting. Adding about 15 more perennial pots this April,,..as soon as the last frost has passed. I think I've lost count.

NO POTS on the hill. Decided to go for blueberry bushes instead to fill up space. No potatoes, or sunflowers, or sweet peas, centaurea, veggies,  squash,  watermelon, etc.etc. 

"Spring shows what God can do to a drab and dreary world.."

                                                -Virgil A. Kraft

And Sweet Simon overseeing it all . Will be adding a pumpkin plant or two. Just for fun. 

POTS everywhere.......

Perennials only. No annuals need apply.

                                              "Winter is dead......"- A.A. Milne

Old sinks, old buckets, dollar store give aways, pots that were three for one deals.....

Pots you can move around. They only need weeding about once a year.  Easy easy gardening. They take care of themselves.  And no one can mow them over.....

You can rearrange pots to your heart's content.  Or count them......endlessly....

In the meantime, Spencer the Cat Plant will be on duty........waiting for the day we plant  Catnip...

 "And come the sweet days of summer. There will be a joyful noise...." -R. Raphe

Photographs 2023

MAY GARDENING TIPS

 "I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we only will tune in."(George Washington Carver 1861 or 64-1943)

  May is the time to plant.  I don't know about you, but I can hardly wait to get outside and throw dirt around and go googly eyed over  flowers to pot up.

 Everything is  exploding from the dirt.

 This year I gathered flats from all over  different garden centres, and kept them in my greenhouse till needed. I  found that flats from grocery stores were cheaper and had just as nice  selections.

 Some years I make lists of exactly what plants I want. But this year  I decided to  let loose and  just get a large selection of as many varieties as I could.  I didn't think. I just  mixed and matched.

 The only thing I searched for was Rhodochiton. My ultimate favourite to have in hanging baskets.

 When I did find a couple of flats I just bought them all up cause I never knew if they would show up again.I only do this for Rhodochiton. I hunt for it every year.

 "The course of nature is the art of God." (Edward Young  1683-1765)

 The result was that I had tons for two or three hanging baskets of Rhodochiton. I tried using seeds that I ordered, but none of them took. If there are certain flowers that you just HAVE to have, try phoning in a request and see if it can be filled.

 This is a good time of year to play in the dirt, add compost and get all purpose fertilizer pellets that you can add to the pots as you stuff in the flowers.

I also have water soluble fertilizer, but the pellets are easy to toss in as you're potting along.

 I'm not even sure how many pots I have......tons on the patio, about 15 on the porch and this year I found a few more to add. I also use up any small pot that I come across. They can be stacked together in groups or layered down steps. I must have 80. I think. I've lost count.I use the same potting soil year after year, and top up with fresh soil as it needs it.

Even though you can plant this month you have to watch out for rogue frosts. They blight  tender shoots. Be sure to keep tomatoes under cover in greenhouse, or under homemade covers that you can do up with milk cartons, or plastic hoods, or check the local hardware store for other ideas to cover tomatoes.
                                     
 Also a great idea to set up a rain barrel for collecting extra water, and also use dishwater that is not too sudsy.  This is great when the season gets going and there are bugs to kill off. Toss leftover dishwater over flowers that have aphids and it will help.  You can also try Safer's Soap.

 You can also purchase ladybugs from any local greenhouse that carries them and release into the garden.   They chomp up those aphids very smartly.This is the month that the roses start up. I don't do much to roses, just prune off the black spot and yukky stuff . I don't fuss with them.The only thing I spray on roses is Bobbexx which keeps the deer at bay. They tend to eat all the tops off. Bobexx does not  harm the deer. It contains rotten eggs ( ikky), fish meal, fish oil, meat meal, garlic and cloves, plus Epsom and Urea. THE deer  do NOT like. Scares them off anything you do not want them to eat.

 "Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light." 
                        Theodore Roethke 1908-1963)

 Treat yourself to a few new flowers that you have not tried before. Don't be afraid to  mix and match. Make sure shade is for shade and sun is for sun.

 This year I planted a gazillion sweet peas. Everywhere. Last year I was much more careful and kept them in certain areas. This year I have seeds comping up in every pot, and hanging basket, plus troughs and  wherever there was space. Seeds are cheap. So I stuffed them into everything. They can hang down from baskets like vines, or you can train them up trellis.

 It's all about experimenting and seeing what  happens.

 Be inspired and let yourself go. Look for plants that are inexpensive and sold in packs rather than individuals. Don't try and stay with one colour scheme. Try all your favourites and then add some surprises. See what happens.

"Wherever you walk, cool gales shall fan the glad. Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade. Wherever you tread, the blushing flowers shall rise. And all things flourish where you turn your eyes."  (Alexander Pope 1688-1744)

83 pots and counting.....

 The end of the flowers for sale grows nigh. Great opportunity to pick up hanging baskets for about half price of what they would have been in May. Instant colour. Instant reward. Pick up leftover petunias, begonias, whatever that is still sitting on the shelves. Time to stuff odds and ends into those leftover pots. All those pots just sitting around. Waiting to be stuffed.

 Even Cordelia likes a day like today. She helped this afternoon.She supervised. I picked up a flat of Cosmos as well. Have been looking for Cosmos for a month. Found some at last. The very last ones on the shelf. Perfectly good.I can use some of the last annuals to fill random pots I keep on hand.  Something like 83 pots, I counted. Pots that were gifts, pots that were my mothers, pots that I found, bought, accumulated from all those moves.If there is a corner.....stuff a pot into it.

  Some water. Some fertilizer.

 "Into the sunshine, full of the light, leaping and flashing morning and night." (J.R. Lowell "The Fountain")

 Not bad for end of the line baskets. Potatoe Vine spilling out in purple haze.

 "Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, little flower, but if I could understand what you are, root and all, all in all, I should know what God and man is." ( Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

                          

                  Pots can start like this. A little scarce. A little staggered. A little pale in the flower department................

 And end up like this. Boom. Colour. Light. Froth. Happiness in every corner.

                

            "Today, as I was reading in the garden, a waft of summer perfume...." (by George Gissing "Summer") Summer and pots and pots and cats and clanking chimes and worms and pots. And cats.