My Cottage Garden: 2014

Mosaic Monday

September 22, 2014

Linking with Judith again, at her beautiful gardening, tea (and much more blog) Lavender Cottage.
Check out the other lovely mosaics there.

Clockwise from the upper left is 'Bowl of Beauty' peony, rudbeckia, 'Pandora's Box' daylily, 'Bressingham' coral bells, and double shasta daisy with little friends.

September 15, 2014

I'm doing my first 'Mosaic Monday' post, joining Judith at her lovely Ontario garden blog,
Lavender Cottage.

My mosaic is photos of different colours of my cherished Perennial Phlox. The reasons I love growing them is that my dear friend, Rita, gave me most of them, they are very long blooming and bloom late in the season.

AND they provide the big drifts of colour that I so dearly love.

Have a great week everyone and happy gardening.

Wordless Wednesday

Late Season - Full Glory

August 29, 2014

Usually the 'full glory' time would be a little earlier than now, but maybe only a week or two. The most colourful time in my garden has always been the late summer. That's when the perennial phlox come out, the rudbeckia and coneflowers are still out and a few daylilies are hanging on.

Here are some pictures taken over the last few days.

taken from the border around the 'future firepit' with the back border in the background

part of the back border - perennial phlox, white coneflower, rudbeckia,

perennial lobelia with pink phlox in the background

purple coneflower 'Ruby Star'

perennial phlox 'Bright Eyes'

rudbeckia 'Goldstrum'

back of the hacienda

Have a wonderful long weekend, everyone!

Mid-August at the Cottage Garden

August 13, 2014

The grand entrances by my beloved perennials continue to be about two weeks behind schedule. Usually by this time of year the back border is a riot of colourful perennial phlox. This only means that we still have many things to look forward to here in Zone 4 of Ontario.

We've had two days of a really good rain here and so the photos in today's post are a bit drippy. I also can't guarantee that were are no water spots from the lens.

Lots of rudbeckia, which I love. Even though I've tried to read about them, I still don't know the difference between the ones with the smooth leaves and the ones with the hairy leaves. I know the ones with the smooth leaves are called 'Goldsturm' though. If anyone can enlighten me, I'd appreciate it!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful middle-of-August week!

Echinacea Purple Coneflower 'Ruby Star' and Rudbeckia (with hairy leaves)

Rudbeckia ''Goldsturm' in the foreground with some Hydrangea 'Annabelle' behind them

a closer look at 'Goldsturm'

a closer look at the 'hairy leaf' kind

happy mish-mash of colour in the side border

pretty two-toned perrenial phlox, also in the side border

Daylily Daze

July 31, 2014

I love this time of year, when all the dayliles are in bloom. I look forward to the early mornings, when I can tour my flower beds and snip off the spent flowers from the day before. It's so lovely knowing more will be blooming as soon as the sun is on them for a bit.

I have two new varieties this year, which I've been looking forward to posting shots of.

Both came to my garden from dear friends. The first is one that I bought at a garden centre a few years ago and gave to my mentor, Rita. Last fall, she gave me a division of it for my own garden. It's my only double daylily and it's a lovely peach colour.

Rita's double peach daylily, with coral bells, Heuchera 'Bressingham Hybrids' behind

The second new one is a two toned orange and yellow one, given to me by my great friend, Paula. This is a really different one, because there are actually two different colours, but every second petal is actually the different colour!

beautiful bi-coloured daylily, from Paula's Garden

The rest of the daylilies are also all blooming now, with the exception of 'Stella d'oro' which is my early bloomer and is finished now. (Hopefully some more blooms will appear later in the season though.)

'Missouri Beauty'

good old-fashioned orange daylily, with delphiuniums behind
(this one is actually growing in a pot)

ivory daylily, from my aunt's garden

'Pandora's Box'

'Catherine Woodbury'

lovely red colour, with 'Annabelle' hydrangia behind

Hope everyone is enjoying their gardens. We're having a little bit of cool weather here. Hopefully that will mean that the flowers will last a little longer!

Gardening Tote

July 22, 2014

I don't know about the rest of you, but I've long pondered over and searched for some kind of tote/bag/thing that I could use for gardening. Something that I could carry around with me on my sojourns into the garden, something that I could carry a few necessities in, something that would save me leaving scissors, pruners, and weeding tools all over the place and not being able to find them when I want them!

I purchased one such 'tote bag' a few years ago that was specifically designed for this, but the pockets weren't nearly deep enough and the whole bag was very light and collapsed onto itself much too easily. I looked at anther one this spring that is like a little apron that you put over the sides of a standard sized bucket (and especially made for gardening), but it seemed kind of cheap and shabby when I looked at in the store.

When I mentioned what I was looking for to my husband he said they sell a thing like that in the automotive section, something that's meant for tools but goes on a bucket. So I checked it out. I always carry my little bucket around with me - I'm sure you all do - to put weeds and deadheaded flowers in.

I bought it and it works absolutely perfectly for me! This is what I bought and how I use it:

"bucket organizer" purchased in the automotive section at
Canadian Tire (probably there are many makes of this type of thing sold at automotive stores
all over)

organizer placed over top of a standard five-gallon plastic pail

plant markers, permanent marker and pruners fit nicely

organizer just slips over the pail

my smaller deadheading pail...

...slips easily inside, and can be removed for dumping in the composter

This thing is just the cat's pajamas!

I'm wondering if any of you might find this useful as well or if you have something that works really well for you, what is it?

Happy gardening!

Little Tour of the Gardens

June 15, 2014

I thought I'd make a post to give a little photographic tour of the gardens here at our home - just to give a little idea of what I'm taking about when I mention the 'back border' or the 'side border' and so on.

The last couple of photos are of a little project my husband, Dave, has on the go right now. I'll post more on it later, but we are turning the area that had an above-ground pool on it into something else. Kind of 're-purposing' the area after we took out the pool last spring. Dave put nice brick around it (or what we call 'Man Size Lego). We filled in with gravel, leveled it off, and tamped it down. Next we are going to put limestone on it, similar to what's in the limestone walkway, and have a firepit in the middle of it! Dave is also going to put in an arbour with a little path down to what he calls the 'Serenity Deck' (I love the name) which is a little deck partway down the bank of the creek that runs behind us. It's going to be a lovely place to sit and listen to the birds.

I hope you enjoy the tour!

front of the house, with my attempt at growing shrubs

limestone walkway from front door to the garage

little garden in front yard
(my younger brother just suggested I try to paint something
awesome on that well cover!)

side border looking towards the back yard

side border looking towards the front yard

hosta garden in backyard

back border, at the very back of the yard
(soon to be filled with colour)

back border from the other end

little back-steps garden

soon to be firepit area

steps down to the 'Serenity Deck'
(still under construction)

Serenity Deck

Have a wonderful day everyone! Enjoy your gardens.

Early July at My Cottage Garden

July 7, 2014

My camera was out of commission for a short while so here's a quick catch up of what's been going on.

The peonies are almost finished, but they were glorious! The delphiniums are starting to come out. It's very exciting because I transplanted some from my friend, Rita's, garden in the fall and I'm not sure what colours they are going to be. Rita has a rainbow of delphinium colours. The daylilies are also coming along.