Today's glorious spring moment

This is how one part of the garden looked this afternoon. We had three nights of serious frosts over the holiday weekend, and the Sugar Tyme crab apple tree above was hit, but thankfully the flowers appear to have weathered the cold better than it appeared at first.

The leaves of some hostas were also damaged, as were new leaves on oak and ash trees and the leaves and flowers of the French lilacs. My favorite Korean lilacs are fine because they were still in bud. What can you do? Mother Nature delivers good and bad.

I'm happy to report that my program of setting garden bootcamp days for early in the week and keeping Thursdays and Fridays for other things is going well so far.

© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener

Signs of Spring Part 2: flooding

Here's what it looked like as the creek at the front corner of our property over-ran its banks today. We always get flooding after heavy spring rains. The reason: the golf course ponds are high to save water for the summer, so there's bottleneck. And before the water even gets to the golf course, there is a too-small culvert at the tree farm road where the creek runs. Fortunately, the worst flooding is on their property, not ours.

Between tree farm and golf course, we're caught in the middle, but we haven't had any really serious problems. The flooding usually resolves in a day or two. But you never know what would happen if we had days and days of rain.

© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener

Cool weather = long spring bloom

Our magnificent 'Donald Wyman' crab apple trees
There is good news and there is bad news. The good news is that the spring flowers, especially the bulbs and flowering trees and shrubs, which are usually over and done with too quickly, are lasting and lasting.

We have a cool period to thank for that, although, to tell the truth, over the past week it was so cold that I huddled in front of the computer most days and could barely coax myself out into the garden, except to mow the lawn, and I had to bundle up to do that.

It's going to warm up a bit now, but temperatures are expected to stay below normal for the next two weeks. What has me concerned is the lack of rain. Already, we have experienced weeks of dryness beginning in mid-April. The first two weeks of May brought welcome rain, but since then we have not had any significant precipitation.

South of the border readers: tempertures are in Celcius
White line shows normal average temperatures
And as you can see, from this 14-day extended forecast from the Weather Network, we might have to wait until June for a decent rain. When there are showers forecast, as they are in the coming week - we tend to get just a few dribbles.

I certainly don't want a rerun of last season. Nothing takes the joy out of gardening like drought. However, I'll have an easier time of it this season, and fewer hoses to drag around. Last fall we added an irrigation system for our shade garden, (the link takes you to a page about my shade garden on my web site), which is under evergreen trees and therefore gets very dry, and the four-square garden.

Let's keep our fingers crossed for rain, and that frost stays away on Wednesday night. And you know what? If it's going to be dry, it will be a blessing if temperatures stay on the cool side.

© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener

Spring's fleeting beauty, continued

Star magnolia still in bloom - shrugged off the frost
Serviceberry shrubs
Weeping Higan cherry tree
Chanticleer pear tree

Spring's fleeting beauty

Naturalized daffodils
A star magnolia blossom before the frost

Cushion spurge (Euphorbia polychoma)

Myrtle euphorbia or donkeytail spurge (Euphorbia myrsinites)
© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener

Rainy Saturday and I couldn't be happier

Finally, we are getting a much-needed gentle, all-day spring rain. It's mild again, the rain gauge is measuring an inch, and it's still raining lightly. You can just see and feel the landscape come alive. I'm thrilled and relieved: it was high time for a rainy day!

© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener

It was a pussy-cat winter: says forsythia

This spring's forsythia in bloom
After the winter my forsythia looks usually looks like the picture below, that is, with only a bit of bloom at the bottom where there was snow cover.

Well, it must have been an easy, or at least a milder, winter: this spring the entire shrub is blooming for the first time in about five years.

So far it's been unseasonally warm for April - too warm for those of us who like to see the spring bulb flowers linger. And already, dare I say it, it's very dry. I sure hope this summer isn't as depressingly dry as it was last year.

Drought years get me so down that I want to quit gardening. I wonder if other gardeners feel that way. If I was on city water, and could water my garden more easily, would I feel the same way? Perhaps not.

© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener

Mud season here. On deck: Spring

Our creek floods its banks again
Winter's retreat is long and ugly: we have officially entered mud season.

This is my least favorite time of the year, but it's the last hurtle to get over so we can at last enjoy some spring weather.

Most of the snow melted as temperatures are finally went up a bit yesterday and today. Overnight we had rain, which together with the melt run-off brought the inevitable day of flooding. Fortunately, it was very windy, which should help things dry up.

What we really need is some sunshine. Maybe tomorrow...

High water under the crumbling bridge at the road
© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener

Lilac stamps - rare kudos for Canada Post

Complaining about Canada Post is almost as ubiquitous as grumbling about the weather up here in the Great White North.

Ask anyone, especially Canucks trying to compete with US sellers on Ebay, and you’ll hear no end of complaints about exorbitant rates and poor service. (That's what we get for turning a government service into a monopolistic corporation that is expected to make a profit. And don't get anybody started on the postal unions and their many crippling strikes over the years.)

But today, I have to say something nice about Canada Post: the new lilac stamps they have issued this spring are the prettiest stamps I've ever seen.

These stamps have spring-fresh colours and curved lines to them, and are sold in a little folder of 10 with round lilac seals to put on the back of your letters. In fact, the stamps are so sweet I'm tempted (almost) to get out the good note paper and actually write a snail mail letter or two.

According to Canada Post, the lilacs on the stamps are Syringa vulgaris "Princess Alexandra", an early lilac with single white florets that originated in 1874 in Windsor, Ontario, and is the oldest Canadian hybrid lilac still found at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa.

The mauve-purple lilac is Syringa x prestoniae "Isabella" named for Isabella Preston (1881-1965), a prolific plant breeder at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa. She hybridized the late-blooming lilac hybrids that are named after her.

The lilac stamps are the work of Montreal graphic designer Isabelle Toussaint, who is to be congratulated for using photography with soft out-of-focus backgrounds to give the humble domestic postage stamp a real lush feeling of spring. Lovely work!

Read more about this stamp issue or buy the stamps at the Canada Post site.

Related information: An article on growing lilacs at my website.

It's spring

It's mid-May, and my house is a mess, the piles on my desk are frightful and the laundry needs doing. But the garden looks heavenly, especially when I look beyond the dandelions. Rain finally came after three weeks and all looks lush and right with the world again.

Spring is a bit of a race between the gardener and the weeds, between chaos and control, from one flower to the next. I have to remind myself to stop every day to simply appreciate the succession of flowers - from snowdrops and crocuses to daffodils, tulips, magnolias, serviceberries and (almost here) the crabapples.

The barn swallows are back, swooping and chattering, ordering us to open those barn doors every morning. My dog, Toby, once again is outnumbered and gets dive-bombed as he walks across the yard.