just about perfect

Look what I found in the front garden when I got home today!




Yes, they are just about perfect.

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According to my notes, the one with the bloom is "Giuseppe Verdi," and it's the first of the tulips to bloom. There are others — on the cusp of flowering and otherwise — but these were the most photogenic (and, of the "Giuseppe Verdi," the farthest along). I love how the leaves twist to reveal the bud in the middle. I planted three varieties last fall, with staggered early, mid- and late spring flowering times, so this is really only the beginning. I think the first picture might be of another variety altogether, actually, now that I look at it — probably "Banja Luka,"or a naturalized one — as "Giuseppe Verdi" has distinctively stripey leaves (as you can see), and the ones in the first photograph don't. We shall know for sure when it flowers.

I did some other gardening this weekend — dug little graves for bulbs, really — but this trumps all that. I know it's early days, but after the last disheartening summer, when everything I touched outdoors turned into a disaster (or died, let's be honest), I feel like something's gone right at last.

the "before"

Last year, our backyard lawn ended up being a bit of a disaster. It was a group effort of ignorance and laziness: we were too lazy to mow, and then when we did mow I did not rake the clippings off the grass — which is fine in theory, if you mow every other week or so (and is, in fact, recommended as a good organic amendment), but is not fine if you don't because then the clippings are too long and suffocate the grass. (I didn't know this at the time; that's where the ignorance comes in.) So then we had a lawn of dead grass and opportunistic weeds ... which, when we finally got around to weeding, turned into a lawn of dead grass and, uh, dirt.

Mostly dirt.

After we resolved that the grass was probably never coming back (Pd pointed out that there were specks of green; I pointed out, with due fatalism, that those are not grass), we decided to start over. So we went to Lee Valley this weekend and bought a garden weasel, which is this sharp, rotary thingy that is sort of like an aerator and tiller, but less frightening and not a power tool. I'm not sure how else to describe it. And then we bought a bunch of top soil for grass, and grass seeds — which we carefully and fastidiously chose after 10 minutes of reading the backs of bags at Canadian Tire¹ — and Pd spent an hour or so of Easter Sunday re-doing the lawn.


This is the "before." (The right third of the lawn had already been experimentally Weaselled; the rest of the lawn looks like that now, but with 100% more grass seeds.)

Anyway — here's hoping that the "after" will be suitably, drastically different.

¹Okay, to be fair, I had also read a book on organic lawn care and several articles and sections-of-gardening books on how to re-seed a lawn first. The problem was that, while we did not want to go the chemical-dependent route, we also did not have the patience for the wholly organic, seed-only-native-grasses route — mostly because I have no clue where to research and decide upon the proper combination of Canadian turf grasses, nor where to buy each subspecies of hardy non-Kentucky blue. (The books say that each bag of grass seed — even conventional grass seed — should come with a list of grasses included in the mixture. They lie.) So we've decided to split the difference: conventional grass mixture and top soil (but no chemical fertilizers), and then organic care thereafter (including, probably, Dutch clover infill).

Photoblog: cabane a sucre

So I am sick — yes, again. I abdicate responsibility this time, though. First, we caught it from our lovely, charming, adorable, leaky, germy nephews (aged four-ish and two-ish). We visited them in Ottawa last weekend, and I didn't know they were sick until after I had been there for ten hours (we arrived close to midnight, well after they had gone to bed) — by which point it was, obviously, TOO LATE.

Second, Pd is sick too, which means that this must be some kind of superbug. His immune system is usually better than mine, especially right now.

Third, it could be worse. The younger nephew also had pinkeye.

In retrospect, though, it was probably a bit of a mistake to let them squirm and frolic their germy selves on our futon/bed. (We were occupying what is usually their playroom/tv room. It was hard to say no.) Still — not pinkeye. I insist that that must count for something.

Anyway, as you might (or might not) be able to tell from the photograph above, we went to Ottawa for our annual trek to the local cabane à sucre. (Er, by "annual," I mean we haven't done this in something like five or six years, and by "local," it's just over an hour away — creative license.) It's pretty much as I remember it — things don't really change there.


The pretty farmhouse at the front of the property that has nothing to do with the cabane itself — I think it's where the owners live. At any rate, guests are not welcome to go into it.














The last time I was there — five or six years ago — we got there very late, and had to rush in order to get the tire before they closed. We went in the early afternoon this time, so for some reason I thought it would be more like a school trip: you know, a syrup tap demonstration, maybe a visit to a shed or something where they do whatever mysterious thing they do to maple syrup; maybe even a hike in the woods? But no. Apparently one really does go just for the food. It was a bit of an eat-and-dash sort of thing — especially as the nephews were sick, and very antsy. But still — very good. None of us could eat for a good day or so afterwards, though.
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Extraneous gardening note: I found more tulips! In the front yard this time! More victory points! Now, if only I could remember which type I planted has stripey leaves ...

gardening notes

Victory! I counted at least six more tulips buds this morning — four of which are in a tight clump, so those are probably the naturalized ones. And the one that I had discovered earlier, pre-freak blizzard, has continued to grow, so probably it wasn't hurt by the frost. So far, though, all of the buds have been in that very narrow (maybe a foot wide) space between our front walkway and the stone retaining wall/hedge next door (we live on the steepish part of a hill, so there are retaining walls everywhere). I haven't seen anything in our front yard yet — which, granted, is still full of thatch that we haven't displaced, but surely something should have come up by now? So it is slightly worrying. Nonetheless, this means that I will definitely have (more than one) tulips, barring fire, high water, or acts of God. Whee!

I have also confirmed that the half-budding bulbs that I found (also in that narrow strip of dirt) are not tulips. I think they might be irises, actually — there are similar leaves now poking out of the soil, very light green and slightly pointy, almost succulent-looking — in fact, I would have thought that they were indeed succulents, if I hadn't seen the same type of leaves growing out of one or two bulbs that some helpfully destructive squirrel had dug up.

Normally I would have said daylilies, except there are no daylilies in that strip of dirt. The only other tall flower that I can remember our garden having are poppies, and those bloom somewhat later (and don't have leaves that look anything like tulips, irises, or succulents.)

If they are indeed irises, I am thinking of allowing them and the tulips to completely take over. It's not a big patch, it's against that retaining wall so that the stone will be nice, and they seem to like the dirt — besides the garlic in the backyard, they're the only things blooming right now. It might take another two or three years to fill it in, but it will be so nice. And anyway, I'm too lazy to dig up and transplant bulbs, and it's always a bit of a shame to kill a tulip just because it's growing where you don't want it to be.

(I have a soft spot for tulips. They're my mother's favourite flower.)

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Yesterday — or the day before — I discovered that tarragon requires a dormant period. So I guess it wasn't dead after all, just dormant — which means I probably shouldn't have ripped it out of the herb pot during my cleanup. Oops. I was kind of wondering why it had suddenly died off like that, when it had been doing so well.

At least it wasn't one of the herbs I've ever actually used.

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None of the seedlings I planted last weekend have sprouted yet. I'm not unduly concerned — it usually takes a week or two — but I am a bit worried that they are getting enough sun. It's been a bit overcast for the last few days, and that window is not the warmest window it could be.