How is your garden looking today?

another picture of our garden from wednesday . it started raining around noon today and we are expecting up to one cm of rain - it'll be a mess tomorrow . city has crews out today clearing the drains of snow and ice .
more snow expected next week .

btw. the city of toronto has started an emergancy snow clearing operation that will likely go on for the next two weeks .
ESTIMATED COST : 20 (TWENTY) MILLION DOLLARS !
hbg

Gosh hamburg, your weather sounds worse than mine right now! That's a lot of snow sitting on that ground to be hammered by rain on top of it.

I feel for ya, bud!

and that's what it looked like on the shore of lake ontario yesterday around noon - hard to tell where the shoreline stops and the lake starts .
at least we diddn' get any freezing rain .... yet !
just spoke to ehbeth in toronto : freezing rain - that's the worst imo .
take care hbg !
hbg

I haven't taken any photos since two storms back - I think I lost my enthusiasm for white white and more white.

These were taken on my way to work about 2 weeks (and 20 centimetres of snow) ago.

The first pic is in front of my house - you can see where we were starting to shovel straight up the side of the tree



across the street



and down the block



at Kay and Buddy's place (Kay is over 90 and has lived on this street her entire life, Buddy is her Sheltie)



this tree has lost one big branch in each of the last 4 or 5 big storms
I wouldn't want to park my car near it



these folks couldn't seem to decide
move the car? try to move the car? forget it?



the front two haven't moved since that snow dump
neither has my car



the recycling bins came in handy for a while



then they got run over and snowed in
there are plastic shards in the snow under the ice now

~~~

this neighbour usually suspends her garbage cans from the top of the fence by bungee cords to avert raccoon action

no fear for the last couple of weeks
no raccoon paw prints spotted



another dog friend's house
his owner's lawn is even smaller than mine
he got p!*%(d off and shovelled some snow into his truck bed - drove it to work and emptied it there



~~~
~~~

the freezing rain has stopped for a while

phew

the crashing of ice off the side of the roofs and nearby houses was getting annoying

Man, what a mess you guys have had up there! Enough already, eh? Hold onto your sense of humor......spring's around the corner!

Good pics!

i wish they'd stop moving the corner :wink:
hbg

I swear that dang corner's gonna sit still for you soon!

seems need to clean...

Hopefully I won't be tempting fate by saying that all our fluff is gone. We have spring-like marshy lawns and can smell fresh earth. It won't last I know, but I do believe there'll be a trend towards spring from here on out.

And today is a gorgeous day - 44 degrees and partly cloudy.

littlek wrote :



hope springs eternal :wink:

what will we do if some day soon we'll be told that we'll be going into another "mini ice-age"
hbg

Move south!

Ahhhh.
It's gorgeous out today.
I did a little cleanup in the garden areas. Looked around mostly, poking and raking. I'll probably start dumping the dirt from containers next week and cleaning out and redressing the hosta beds before they burst through.
I lovelovelove the spring. Just the anticipation of it makes me happy.

I trimmed back my bushes yesterday, and finished sweeping up this morning. Sprayed some grass and weed killer before they take over the yard. The first bloom came out today from one of my hanging planter. It smells like spring.

this is what our garden looked like on february 13 - and we had another 20 cm of fresh snow overnight !!!

it was brutishly cold last week - well below MINUS 20 C (about minus 5 F) overnight and a pretty stiff breeze out of the north-west ; the results of an "alberta clipper' - and another one is expected later this week .

since it was a little milder today - it went up to about "freezing" -
i'm not sure if "march is coming like a lion or a lamb" .
hbg

I've got a plan for the magnolia bed...... I sketched the existing plants and found the gaps in the plantage. There seems to be a divide between one side of the bed and the other. I'll buy 9 grass-like plants to mix up and blend the two parts of the garden together. The 9 plants will be a mix of liriope, carex and mondo grass. The three varieties, which are all grassy in appearance, will be of different heights and leaf color. I already have one mondo grass and love it.

I'm thinking of a mix like this.....

Mondo Grass - short and bunched with lavender bell-flowers and purple berries


Liriope - a yellow-leaf variety with purple spike flowers


Carex - a gold edged variety perhaps - grassy blooms
edit: they didn't want me posting that photo!

There are so many different mondo, carex and liriope varieties that many combos could work. I'm looking for differing heights and a good blend of color.

The budded-up daffodils and chionodoxa popped today in our near-70º temperature!

plenty of crocus and little "bluebells" are coming up along the hedge .
since temperatures have dropped to near freezing again - there was plenty of snow 200 km north of here - , it'll be another ten days before the daffies will pop i guess - they have been up for about two weeks ... ... waiting for warmer weather .
hbg

Pretty, littlek!

Woke up this morning to a temp of 29. Everything *looks* fine as of now. Forecast for tonight/ tomorrow morning, though: "Widespread frost." ARGH!!!! We had a late frost last year and it really did a number on many plants/ shrubs/ trees. Everything's blooming out there, which is lovely but I really worry about the effect of two years in a row of a late frost.

Dang.

http://www.thegardenhelper.com/frost.html

This is good news, I didn't know that. My whole backyard slopes pretty much, and the lowest point is just grass.

Still worried about the front yard, though. Will put a tarp over the Japanese maple I think, plus do the "watering thoroughly before nighttime" thing that is recommended by the above link.

Cleaned out the hosta beds and began digging out the old dirt from the veggie barrels yesterday. One down, two to go. I want to get the tomatoes and peppers in by next weekend but I'm working slowly and not pushing myself like I used to. Trying to work smart and be sensible.

I felt sorry for the fellow gardners i spoke with at Home Depot yesterday. They've already put out their vegetables and then the temp dropped last night to 35°. brrrr....