Two months till spring, provided spring is as freakishly early as it was last year.

Siiiiiiigh. C'mon plant catalogues, where are you when I need you??

Well, the Experimental Farm's plant sale is on May 8 this year, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., in the parking lot of the Tropical Greenhouses on Maple Dr. In addition to the wagon, this year I must bring a screwdriver and/or a wrench to secure the loose bolts on the wagon, and also an actual shopping list, although I would never dream of restricting myself to such a thing.

I should sign up for some of the tours of the Experimental Farm too, come to think of it. They have a guided historical tour and also tours of the rose and peony beds. Bet I could drag my mom with me on those.

I also want to check out the Fletcher Wildlife Garden's native plant sale on June 4, since I missed it last year.

Toying with the idea of putting my planned John Davis rose climbing up something like this, but not sure whether I really have a spot for something like that. Could put it over the start of the path next to the driveway, but then it would block the view of what's behind it from the road, which at the moment I kind of like. Could use it as a focal point in the upper part of the yard, but don't know if that would work and/or if I'm design-savvy enough to coordinate things around it. Time to break out the mad paint skillz!



That's...not half bad, actually. And I'd forgotten about the metal railing around the stairs, which isn't exactly conspicuous but would still provide some sort of repeated element/context for the thing. Let's see if I can fill in some of my plant schemes for the spring and see how it jives. Something liiiiiike...



Well, it will be a hodge-podge, but we knew that already. Hmmm.

Option #2:



Huh. That doesn't actually work at all. As a focal point it would be fighting with the magnolia, and it looks weird with the window anyway. Good to know.

Another event I will have to attend: Seedy Saturday at the Ron Kolbus Lakeside Centre on March 6, 10AM to 3PM. By the time March rolls around I will no doubt have already gone totally overboard buying more seeds than I could possibly plant, but STILL. Plus it's being held practically in my backyard.

Two Experimental Farm events that are totally going on my calendar:

Rare & Unusual Plant Sale - May 9, 9AM to 1PM, at the KW Neatby building on Carling. Best Mother's Day outing conceivable, really. I will be repeating last year's strategy of showing up 10 minutes early with a wagon.

Native Plant Sale - June 5, 9:30AM to 12:30PM. I'm guessing this is probably hosted at the Fletcher Wildlife Garden, since it's their event. The Fletcher garden sounds worth checking out in and of itself, actually; their website is full of interesting tidbits.

Spriiiiiiiinnnnnnggggg how I pine for you!