Well, all the pics and descriptions of harvests and plantings here lately sure are impressive. Thanks for the encouragement
It's raining finally. Snow flurries forecast for tonight but after the week of cool nights ahead, the plants should be able to stay out - not to be planted for a while yet, but only brought in if temps drop unexpectedly. Along with the hillsides filled with trilliums (Ontario's provincial flower) came the blackflies. Daffodils, trilliums, blackflies ... aaah spring
Red trillium
Entry garden is ready for the 'anchor' plants which I picked up last week. When these two begonias are planted end of month, they will need some shelter from the sun just until the blackberry bowers are leafed enough to provide shade. Solid colour in shady location all summer right to frost. Second anchor plant, new guinea impatiens - 3 big ones will fill the front area with huge, red blooms until frost. Overnight these beauties are staying in the van until it's safe. Cosmos are seeded but not showing through yet.
Yeah! We get outside almost every day now ...
Some poor, hand held pics of special inhabitants. Both very noisy birds. Pileated woodpecker ... this is a big guy, wary ... and his call sounds to me like he's laughing. Like the flicker call but louder..
Belted kingfishers. The annual yak attack. A pair chattering up and down the river, overhead ... loud, constant. I saw that they were, as they do every spring, perching in the tree tops just off my old, dilapidated deck overlooking the river below. They are so noticeable because of the noise that the dogs will often try to chase them. I took the camera and sat at the edge of the deck. I didn't turn the camera on because I could hear one far away along the river. I find that when you sit still, you fade into the scenery and can catch some good shots.
After about a minute the bank just below me seemed to explode. Kingfisher blasting off. It startled me. Then I looked over and noticed a lot of excavated sand trailing down the ravine. Without the foliage on the raspberry canes hiding the nest I could see by the look of the bank that they have likely been nesting here for years, undetected. Well I couldn't get my guide out fast enough to confirm that the kingfisher excavates a hole in a bank, placing regurgitated fish bones under its eggs by the time they hatch. For all their visibility and noise, they are very watchful birds and get very quiet once they have a nest to protect.
Excavation
Hand held zoom through living room window ... sorry for poor quality pics but these birds are wary
Geraniums are starting to bloom. Most will go to a friend's home.
Veg garden set to go. Lettuce and swiss chard are seeded. My tomato seedlings are pitiful and scrawny. Like 22, I'll be staging tomato plants but only 4 or 5 and mostly cherry size when I can start planting out later this month. Scarlet runner pole bean seeds are planted to shade the shop window - but no sign of sprouting yet (that's good with the cold temps)
A few white trilliums in the lower garden. Mom robin was splashing away in the lower pool earlier ... one day I will get a pic of that. The birds like the sparkle and ripple as water drips from the salamander and then from the upper to the lower pool. The water tower source is a big rubbermade garbage container at a higher level that gets filled every 4 days or so, depending upon the drip rate. These are rustic bird baths, shallow and with good natural traction. They are made simply ... mounded sand overlaid with huge ferns for texture, then thin plastic and the concrete roughly shaped over that.
First humming bird arrived on the tenth.
Happy gardening all [emoji106]
