Christina's Garden

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

hollyhock

I have not noticed before how the centers of some hollyhocks have a perfect star embedded inside them!

It has been a very busy summer here in the garden. Stop and smell the flowers.....or at least look at them!!...really look at them!

Hollyhocks are an edible flower and there are so many different types and colours. Don't these look nice with the grapevines on this wedding cake?! From a wedding I worked on last summer.

There have been loads of blueberries on the bushes this summer! This is the first time that they've produced in a meaningful way since I planted them a few years ago (ie: lots to eat now and more to freeze)....and they're so delicious.

The caterpillar plague of spring/summer 2012 brought many of the creepy crawlies to the blueberry bushes and they ate up so many of the leaves and left some of them half-chomped so the bushes looked terrible earlier in the season but just like the alder trees, they grew some new leaves and for some miraculous reason the flowers were pollinated and the fruit didn't drop. The bushes still look a bit ragged tho'....but next year!....I declare they will be productive AND beautiful!

Blueberries like acidic soil so they grow well here with all the fir and cedar trees surrounding them. I grow mine in two spots in the garden that have some standing water in the winter and these spots stay quite moist in the summer too. The bushes don't like to get too dry and I don't want to have to water them. A mix of bark mulch and straw helps to keep the soil moist. I planted three different varieties to help with pollination and also to prolong the harvest. I have 12 bushes growing in 2 circles about 8-9 feet across....5 around the outside of the circle and 1 in the middle. I don't grow these for market, just for us. In the fall, the leaves turn a beautiful red colour....one of the few leafy things that I can get to turn red around here in the fall!

I like to use sprigs of the green and ripening blueberries in flower arrangements too, especially for wedding reception table centerpieces...they look lovely with flowers and garden greenery.

One of the best simple pleasures of my early summer mornings is to pick some berries first thing for my breakfast cereal.
....or just eat 'em up while I pick, mixed with other berries that I can forage from the garden....so sweet in so many ways!

Me and my shadow self enjoying a handful of just-picked berries in the warm morning sunshine : ) joy!

Monday, June 18, 2012

late spring flowers

So much has happened in the garden and I haven't been posting here on the blog for such a long time...and I just don't know where to start. So maybe I'll just stop and smell the flowers.

This little white clematis has been blooming for a while now and it smells amaaaazing.

I love how it's getting old enough and big enough to ramble up onto and over the shed roof.

It's growing with a rambling rose vine.

I like how it helps connect the cob wall that we built a few years ago with the shed that was here when we got here....(sort of ugly but very practical and useful shed)....and I also like how it connects the wilder forest that surrounds us here with the cleared and cultivated garden area. Everything's starting to blend together and look like it's meant to be there.

The orange honeysuckle at the front gate is beautiful right now, especially when the sun shines on it in the early evening.

so fragrant!

I like using the little white clematis as an accent flower in bouquets. It doesn't last very long as a cut flower...about 2 days before it starts looking a bit sad but that's fine for wedding flowers.

Especially bridal bouquets that I make the morning of....this one's in progress. All things that bloom now: purple smoke bush foliage, pink peonies, viburnum, lady's mantle, new fern frond growth, and the little white clematis flowers and vine. It smells divine.