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.

Sweet merciful crap. After a week of hard frosts and even a couple centimeters of snow, this is what the Fairy rose looks like:

I have been googling around for roses for the front yard. Originally I had planned on just planting one, but I don't know how I could possibly narrow down my list that far. My criteria: hardy, unfinicky, and as long a blooming season as possible, because I cannot tell you how charmed I am by the blooms on the Fairy rose that are STILL GOING at the end of October. And fragrant is a plus, too.

The finalists:

JOHN DAVIS - Explorer rose



A large shrub or small climber that tops out at 8-10'. Galetta Nurseries tells me that it has a "light fragrance" and that it "blooms profusely from June until frost". Eeeeexcellent.


ALCHYMIST - hardy rose



Also largeish at 5-6' tall and wide. Only blooms the once, but it's apparently deliciously smelly. I've also read about this brilliant idea of sending a clematis to grow up the canes of a climbing rose, so that as the rose is finishing the clematis is just starting up.


SEAFOAM - groundcover rose



As posted about before - similar to the Fairy, I gather, only white instead; Canadian Gardening had all kinds of good things to say about it.


MORDEN BLUSH - Canadian Parkland rose



More compact than most of the others, 2-3' tall and wide; but Galetta says it's another profuse and continuous bloomer, and that it tolerates heat and drought very well, which would definitely be a plus in the spots I have in mind for it.


CHAMPLAIN - Explorer rose



Also in the 3' range and a continuous bloomer. I am a sucker for a really red rose.

I ventured out into the garden this afternoon after a long stretch of disgust and discouragement with it. Lo and behold, it weathered my neglect pretty well, so I did a bunch of weeding and came in much more optimistic than I went out.

Japanese beetles have come and gone. At least they have a short season. Apparently the weather conditions have made this a doozy of a year for them all over Ontario. I was not as vigilant about picking them off the beans as maybe I should have been; hopefully this will not mean I am stuck with a horrible grub problem in the "lawn" next year. They also got at the corkscrew hazel - not a big deal, since that plant is all about winter appeal anyway. Otherwise, though, the damage was encouragingly minimal. Even the beans are recovering, having put out piles of new leaves and blooms.

In other encouraging news: I have rose-explody! The blaze rose re-bloomed with a spray of about 10 flowers that lasted for weeks. Now that it's out of the shadow of the bee balm, the prairie joy rose has at least doubled in size...guess that answers the question of how I make it bush out. And the fairy rose, whose straggliness was worrying me, has put out half again its previous size in new shoots, and is covered in buds. Pictures to follow!

Between the asters, the fairy rose, the assorted sedums, the rudbeckia, and the turtlehead - and possibly also the lemon lights azalea; wtf is it doing putting out flowers now?? - it should be a nicely colourful month out there.