gardenthoughts

gawd, this is just one of the most exciting times of the year for me .. it begins, naturally, in the winter flowering garden in october, where subtle buds come slowly and quietly, then bloom, their colours taking me through the winter months to march, and april .. and then, spring starts happening and things are bursting out all over the place! .. makes me so thankful to be here, doing what i’m doing .. gardening all year long .. never a dull moment ..

for instance, lately, in my own garden, i’ve been mulching beds .. i make a mix of compost and bagged composted manure with a good handfull of bonemeal (“you can never use too much bonemeal,” phil used to say), and another of organic slow release fertilizer .. then i lay that mixture about 2-3″ deep over all my flower beds, and around shrubs .. i have this dream that at some point i will be able to get ‘my’ gardens mulched like this twice a year .. once in the fall and once in the spring .. however, until that happens, these months of mid to late winter are perfect .. yesterday i mulched three of the rhodos in our yard .. because rhodos like acidic soil, this time i filled half a wheelbarrow with peat moss .. then i added water to moisten it so it just firmed up when i squeezed it .. to this peat mixture i added the bonemeal, fertilizer and a bag of composted steer manure .. i believe the extra tlc from the act of mulching helps all plants .. they certainly look happier afterwards ..

in the winter flowering garden, the hellebores are beginning to show themselves .. many of them already have flower buds standing up, and pushing their height .. for these guys i use a lime based mulch .. our soil here is quite acidic naturally, and hellebores like a bit of a sweeter soil, i’m told .. so, i mix up compost and mushroom manure, together with the bonemeal and fertilizer and lay it down at least 3″ deep .. instant response .. lilacs and clematis also like a bit of lime in their diet .. i make the same mix for them and have been spreading it in our yard ..

it’s also time to cut back clematis, and i’ve been working on that as well .. ours are so new to this yard that i’ve taken them all down to about 2′ hoping to stimulate their growth .. the only one i haven’t, and won’t, cut back now is the montana .. it’s an early bloomer so it’s best to wait until after it flowers to cut it back .. well, other than dead wood .. dead wood can come off whenever you see it, on any plant .. some of the clematis already have leaf buds developing, so i’m sure they appreciate the mulching ..

what else have i been doing .. oh, planting .. i planted many iris that have been sitting in pots for years, waiting patiently .. and i planted three vines along the fence .. one virginia creeper, one golden hops, and a hedera (ivy) of some kind which was here when we first moved here .. poor thing, it was completely enveloped by blackberries .. i put it in a pot and have been moving the pot around in an attempt to see where it wants to be planted .. well, it ended up being pretty much back where i found it, sans blackberries .. we’ll see how it likes it .. it’s a plant that our landlord had been given from his dad, so i’m pretty conscious of its presence in the yard .. now we’ll be able to watch it fill up the space along the fence .. hopefully ..

here, in our yard, i’ve noticed that primroses are putting out buds .. pretty soon they will be adding their splashes of colour around .. the brilliantly coloured polyanthus are for sale at our local grocery these days, so i’ve been picking up three every time i go to town .. i plant them in groups here and there to draw my eye .. they’re so cheering somehow, and their presence satisfies my craving for colour .. they also curb my impatience while i wait for the others to arrive ..

so, here it is february 10th, it’s snowing outside, the wind is blowing, and i’m inside, tending the fire and thinking of spring .. lovely ..

i was looking out my kitchen window the other morning, and happened to spy a large buck (who just recently shed his antlers) wandering across our neighbour’s yard .. he, the buck, was so comfortable there .. just sauntering through, no doubt, on his daily route .. my immediate response, once i finished oooo-ing at his handsome stature, was to get out the blender to make a batch of deer spray .. i’ve been using this spray in the gardens that i tend for over seven years, and so far, it’s the most deer proof method i’ve found ..

phil and i use to order cougar urine from somewhere in the eastern states .. when it arrived in the mail, we’d often speculate just how one would ‘gather’ cougar urine .. such speculation could entertain us for several moments, sometimes bringing tears to our laughing eyes .. spraying with cougar urine worked for awhile .. then, it was as if the deer came to realize that there was no real threat of a cougar in the area .. clever things, they simply returned to munching away at our favourite plants and flowers, fearless .. phil and i would lament our loss, and then attempt some other ‘proven’ method ..

i don’t recall exactly how i heard of this deer proofing remedy, however, i do know that a local nursery, whose property lies open and certainly available to any wandering deer, have also used it for years .. here’s the recipe:

fill a blender with 1 litre of water
add 1 egg yolk
add 1 tablespoon of baking powder

blend
(however you choose to do this is up to you .. i use the pulse and count nine or eleven pulses .. relatively gently, or you fill up with foam)

pour into a sprayer or spray bottle
(some people i know strain it because of the possible congestion created by the alum in the egg) and spray your garden ..

generally, i spray every three weeks or so .. or, when i know the deer are out in full force throughout the summer, i tend to spray every couple of weeks, or even once a week, depending how militant i feel towards them .. armed with a spray bottle i aim, and spray, determined to keep the deer at bay .. sometimes, like a premonition, i’ve thought “deer” and not paid attention .. the next day, without fail, my inattention is rewarded with munched plants .. you’ll find your own way with it, i’m sure .. for me, it’s been at least 90% effective ..

i spray everything, pretty much, except those plants i have come to know as “deer proof” .. i even spray it on veggies as i don’t see anything harmful in it, and, more often than not, i wash any veggies i’m eating .. (unless i’m grazing in the garden, that is) ..

so .. i just thought i’d pass this along .. i’d be interested to hear whether it works in your garden ..