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Our Hibiscus is blooming indoors

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In early November I finally got around to bringing our small Hibiscus shrub indoors for the winter. I usually bring it, and my other tropical plants and vines indoors sometime in October but I was a little late this year.

Being late didn’t seem to do my plants any harm. In fact, my hibiscus is very happy if it’s abundant blooms mean anything at all!

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I have the small hibiscus in my kitchen and I almost think it’s blooming more indoors than it did when it was outside during the summer.

One bonus to growing hibiscus is that we can use the flowers as food for our box turtles. Yes, the turtles occasionally get to snack on a coral colored hibiscus blooms that’s almost as large as they are. They love them!

Even my Labrador Retriever puppy seems to like the flowers. One dead flower fell to the floor a few days ago and as I was picking it up to put it in the trash I noticed Midnight looking at it with interest and I thought, well the turtles eat the flowers and they are perfectly safe to eat so why not see if she’ll eat it? She promptly took off with the flower to her doggy bed – her special place to eat treats and stolen treasures (dads socks, tissue boxes and so on) and munched on the flower.

If the hibiscus keeps blooming through the winter I guess I have three pets that can enjoy the occasional flower treat. Well … after we’ve enjoyed the visual treat of seeing such lovely flowers indoors, I mean.





A hardy rose – William Baffin

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You may or may not believe this, but this is a rose. It’s a rose called William Baffin and it’s shape and the style of it’s petals is more that of a wild rose.

It’s a very hardy Canadian Explorer rose. Hardy to zone 2 I believe. I live in a USDA 5b gardening zone, so needless to say this rose does very well here and in fact it is one of my largest roses! Talk about thriving!

Naturally being in Toronto, on the coldest day of the year so far, this rose is dormant and no longer producing blooms or even leaves … but when it was blooming it was lovely! I believe I took this picture last June when William Baffin was in full bloom. I don’t even mind when it’s flowers begin to shed their petals as the grass is covered in pink to dusty rose petals and it looks lovely.

Do you have a rose or a plant in your garden that you admire?

Canna Tropicana Bloom

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I just realized that I never posted a photo of any of my cannas in bloom on any of the blogs that I do Green Thumb Sunday on.

Perhaps I never posted a photo because I have so few from this past summer.

My canna’s didn’t overwinter inside the house very well last year and as a result they took quite a while to recover once it was warm enough to put them outdoors. They didn’t begin to bloom until late August and the blooms didn’t last all that long.

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The canna’s are once again indoors for the winter. I keep them in my basement. I let their stalks dry out and I cut them down and then I only water them about once a month or so. Just enough to keep them alive, but dormant in the cool dark basement.

I have several tropical plants that I place in my garden each summer, but then bring back indoors by October. Passion flower vines, a Trumpet flower vine, a Jasmine bush, a hibiscus and … I’m sure there are a couple more, but I can’t think of what they are right now. I keep the vines, jasmine and hibscus upstairs in a bedroom with a south facing window. They get a fair amount of light through the winter and are well watered. Others like the canna’s go to the basement for a winter rest.

Do you have tropical plants that you place in your garden or yard during the summer and try to keep alive indoors through the winter? I’m getting better at overwintering my plants, but it’s not uncommon to lose at least one each year … although, crossing fingers!, I didn’t lose any last winter so hopefully I’ll have the same luck this winter.

A park in the city

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I guess you could say I’m doing a series of posts across a few of my blogs about a recent trip to Taylor Creek Park in Toronto for all of my GTS posts today.

So instead of the usual garden related post I’ve chosen to go with a nature post instead.

It was the beginning of November and some of the trees were beginning to change color, flowers were developing seedheads, milkweed seeds were blowing in the wind and my dog was having a ball running through the forest trails and taking a dip in any water she managed to find.

The Sumacs had lost all of their leaves which turn a bright red in Autumn, but their lovely seedheads or fruit were still on the branches.

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Actually, there were still some red leaves on the Sumacs, but they looked to be fading fast. These ones look like they are just about ready to drop, don’t they?

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A tree that I’d found on an earlier trip still had most of it’s blue colored berries, but it had lost most of it’s leaves.

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Isn’t it hard to believe that this park is deep within the city when you see a picture like the one below? I mean, it really does look like a country scene does it not?

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A couple hundred feet to the left of this scene is a busy highway (the 404 or Don Valley), but you’d never know it by just looking at this photo!

That’s what I love about Toronto, there are so many great parks that you can easily get away from the hustle and bustle of the city … even though you are still in it!

Beautiful Autumn Asters and Roses

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My garden is still having trouble recognizing that winter is on it’s way.

There are still a few roses and Asters happily blooming away, but most of my plants are finally starting to go dormant for the winter. A few other late bloomers like the Monkshood and Toadlilies only stopped blooming sometime last week.

I guess, after looking out my kitchen window, I could say that the New York Asters are mostly gone now too, but there are still a few blooms on the plant. Maybe a quarter of the plant is covered in flowers now (which means there are still about 100 blooms!).

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The picture above was taken during the last week of October when the Asters were just starting to die down a little bit. They still looked gorgeous and vibrant from a distance, but as you got closer you could see a few dead or dying blooms beginning to show here and there.

I grow some roses near the New York Asters (correction- I grow roses near all my plants! I have 60+ rose plants!). Here’s a photo of a fading Scent-Sation Hybrid Tea rose blooming near the Asters.

Scent-Sation rose and New York Asters

Scent-Sations pink, rose and creamy white petals look lovely beside the pale mauve asters, don’t they?

Has your garden finally become dormant in preparation for winter or do you still have a few plants blooming away?

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