April 2005, part 2

The rhododendron under the birch in the front always makes a nice showing this time of year. It provides a nice contrast, first with the daffodils and later, as you see here, the tulips. In front of it is a thick carpet of Oregano.

A new addition for us this year: tucked away underneath the Fatsia on the north side are a few Trillium ovatum.

They were added April 9th and thank goodness we had a wet week, it meant that the Trillium and Dicentra formosa, which were planted nearby, got watered in well this past week and they all seem to have transplanted just fine.

The April 16th weekend didn't have the best of forecasts, but, certainly where we are in Richmond we had just a great weekend of weather for outdoor activities. A good part of the weekend was taken up transplanting, predominantly lilies. It was high time they went from their temporary 1 gallon containers into something a little more permanent.

The two white plastic planters both have lilies and both are mono displays, the one on the little table has a variety of sizes of 'Lollypop' and the one on the cap of the large gardenbox has a nice stand of 'Red Bull'. The planter on the far left on the low table has an assortment of lilies: 'Red Bull', 'Polyanna' and 'Suncrest'.

Though you cannot see them in this shot, we also planted 3 containers with assorted Orientals and OT's: 'Muscadet', Casablanca', 'Arena', 'Kyoto', 'Mona Lisa', just to mention a few.

For all the growth we get out of our normal Bleeding Heart, the white version, Dicentra spectabilis 'Alba', surely does not grow anywhere near as vigorously. If it doesn't show any decent improvement over what we saw out of it last year, I'll find another spot for it.

This is the box/planter we now use for growing out Hostas. Along the front edge of it you'll see a number of 'Golden Tiara', the rest hasn't started to unfurl leaves as yet so they're kinda hard to see, but in addition we have 'Sum and Substance', 'Minute Man', 'Revolution', 'Morning Light' and a goodly number of the blue one.

On the cap of this planter, virtually dead center in this picture, we have a carrier with 7 'Golden Tiara' in 1 gallon square pots waiting for the plant sale this coming weekend. In front of it is a tray with Geranium seedlings that will find their way into various baskets soon, and on the back ledge are a couple of trays with 'Cuban Oregano' which were transplanted this weekend from the 2 inch pots Waita started them in over the winter.

Just for the heck of it, here's a shot of a very rare situation: a garden box top without any pots on it! This is the same box shown in the previous shot. Waita removed all the pots, cleaned up the cap and gave it a fresh coat of stain, the first re-staining these caps have seen since they were put up.

We had bought these 2 chairs at Canadian Tire a couple of years ago and after their first year in the elements the wood finish had taken a real beating. We took one of them apart, with the intent of sanding off the all the old finish and re-stain and seal them with something a little more durable. The bloody thing set disassembled all of last year and Pieter decided at long last to take the bull by the horn Sunday the 17th and started to sand the rest of the chair that Waita had started on a number of months ago.

One thing led to another however and before you knew it the whole chair had been sanded, Waita had opened up this new Sikkens stain we'd bought, Pieter disassembled the second chair, sanded it also, Waita stained it as well and by the end of the day we had 2 mighty fine lookin' chairs for the patio that sure looked much better than they ever did new. The new finish made them look like chairs made from well oiled teak. It's nice to have these back in service again, they look 'just mahvellous dahling' and they're very comfy to boot.

Saturday the 23rd we had a plant sale in the carport to coincide with the yard/garage sale that was happening everywhere else in the cul-de-sac.

We had a nice variety of perennials up on the table and did reasonably well. We were somewhat surprised by what did sell well - Dicentra Spectabilis for instance - and what didn't do as well as hoped, like our assortment of Hostas for example. Herbs like Cuban Oregano, Chocolate Mint, Lavender Mint and English Mint also did quite well.

If the weather looks promising for the coming weekend we'll probably do another one and continue to do one day each weekend until Victoria day weekend in May.

A few times during the day on Sunday the 24th, which we spent around the yard, different plants were caught in fascinating light that resulted in some wonderful pictures. Like this one here of one of our new Hostas: 'Revolution' which in backlight shows the contrasting veins and variegation particularly well.

This Camellia bloom and the spray of Dicentra spectabilis 'Alba' really pop off the background here, don't they?

And how about this small stand of Scilla?

These 3 shots above were all just a matter of being in the right place at the right time, and having your camera at the ready.

April is coming to a close and from the damp and cool start we had -which was good for transplanting- we're sure ending up in stark contrast: sunshine and temperatures in the high teens C, or mid to high 60's Fahrenheit if you prefer.