Tricia — Page 110 — You are in My World Now

New plants for the garden

April 13, 2008 by Tricia

This past Sunday we spent some time cleaning up our back and front garden beds as well as our boulevard and it was nice to see how many plants had already started to grow beneath the leaves and yes, even under the snow.

We even discovered that some of the ground that had been covered in leaves and dead foliage was still quite frozen. Forget about planting some of the new spring plants I’d purchased that day! Hopefully I’ll get out and plant them today as I’m sure the ground is thawed now.

When we went shopping for some new garden plants I saw a lovely pink hydrangea that I wanted to buy. I’m not sure how hardy it is so I’ve been keeping it inside our front porch, but I’ll plant it out in the garden at some point and see how it does:

Isn’t that gorgeous?

We have a hardy pink hydrangea in the back garden and it looks like it survived the winter just fine. It has new sprouts coming up. Hopefully it will bloom for me this year as it didn’t last year.

What’s happening in your garden this week?

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

Twisted flag

April 12, 2008 by Tricia

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This weeks theme is Twisted

We have a flag at the front of our house. It’s attached to a flag pole that juts out from the bricks.

Unfortunately it’s fairly windy here in Toronto – all year round – so the flag is whipped around quite a bit. This is a photo of our Canadian flag twisting in the wind.

This past winter we left our flag up. I’d asked my husband to take it down in the fall since it was already getting a little raggy from being whipped around in the wind, but he didn’t remove it. I guess the flag spent the winter hitting the bricks as the free end seems to have a piece missing and it looks worse than ever.

It’s actually quite disgraceful.

Perhaps later today or sometime tomorrow we’ll go out and look for a new flag to replace our worn one with.

Do you have a flag at your house? Do you take it down in the winter? How often do you have to replace your flag?

Loving the great weather

April 10, 2008 by Tricia

As I was saying in my last post I’m really enjoying the fact that spring has truly arrived in Toronto. We’ve had some amazing weather here in Toronto this week. Yesterday it reached 19 Celsius (66.2 F), but it was kind of windy so it didn’t feel quite that warm.

Our puppy’s really been enjoying Spring as well. We got her at the end of November and she only had a very short period of time to enjoy the great outdoors before snow started to fall. She didn’t mind the snow at all, but the cool temperatures and poor walking conditions did lessen her time outdoors for most of her time with us so far.

Now that the weather is so nice though we’re taking her out all the time. We’ve been to a few of Toronto’s fantastic beach areas three times in the last week and a half, The brickworks, the local park and have been taking longer walks.

On the really nice days such as yesterday we’ve even been sitting outside on the front porch. She loves watching the cars, squirrels, birds, people and school kids going by. I’d say the kids are loving the nice weather too. I’d swear I heard a couple of them talking about soccer trophies yesterday which of course means they’re out playing a lot of sports now too.

Midnights only gone through a heavy shedding period with us twice. Shortly after she arrived and the month of March. I guess she’s still shedding but I think she’s on the tale end of it now. I took advantage of the nice weather today and brought her outside and groomed her as she watched everything that was going on in the neighborhood. We both got some fresh air and time to enjoy the lovely day and she has a few less hairs to lose in the house now too. Bonus.

Have you taken advantage of the great spring weather? What have you been doing?

Spring is really here

April 10, 2008 by Tricia

It’s hard to believe that less than a month ago I was outside shoveling for approximately 6 hours one day! There was so much snow that weekend it was nuts! My back is still sore from that experience.

That weekend I was seriously considering booking a holiday! I even went so far as to visit some travel sites. Believe me, St. John villa rentals were looking pretty good!

It’s amazing how much things have changed in just a couple short weeks. We still had some snow last weekend, but this weeks been fairly warm so it’s all gone now. In fact, only a few neighbors have a tiny bit of snow left in shady areas of their yard.

The tulip leaves are coming up, my chives are growing and I’ve even collected some chives to add to some salads that I made. Oh I even added them to a halibut steak marinade earlier in the week. Yum. See what I mean – all that snow a few weeks ago and here I am already eating fresh produce from the garden.

I love it!

Spring gardens change day by day

April 6, 2008 by Tricia

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I can’t wait until my front yard garden bed starts to look like this again!

The front of our yard faces north and as a result there’s still more snow there than anywhere else on our property. Oh, the snow’s pretty much melted off the garden beds, but there’s still a fair amount on the lawn. Luckily it’s warmed up quite a bit here in Toronto this week/ weekend and it will be above freezing all week (I think and hope). So that last bit of snow will be gone soon.

There’s enough garden exposed now that I can see plants starting to push their way through the earth and it’s definitely time that I got out there and cleaned up the garden beds a bit.

The front boulevard still has some sunflower stalks! They were cut down a bit in the fall but there are still a few stalks that are three feet tall or so and lots of other dead foliage, garbage that has blown into the tangle of dead plants and so on. Of all my garden beds I’d say the front boulevard needs the most tidying.

I only have a few tulips planted in the boulevard, but my front garden beds are just full of spring flowers. It will be a few weeks before tulips like the ones above and the one below begin to bloom, but now that I can see that there’s life in the garden I’m more than happy to wait.

I love spring. As a gardener it’s truly an exciting time. You can look out at your garden in the morning and notice the tips of a plant beginning to poke through the earth and by late afternoon the plant might have emerged a few more inches. The garden can change daily or even more often. It’s quite amazing.

Have you noticed how quickly things grow in your garden in the spring? Isn’t it a wonder?