I love the way Rudbeckia (also known as Black eyed Susan) buds unfurl as they prepare to bloom. They look like some kind of alien creature about to be born don’t they?

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Last year I bought a Hydrangea plant for my garden. I think I bought it in August or September so it didn’t do anything last year except settle itself into it’s new home. I believe it’s an Endless Summer Hydrangea and it was definitely labeled as a *pink* hydrangea.

It started to bloom about two weeks ago, and much to my surprise it’s flower clusters are not pink, nor are they blue … they are bi-colored!

My Hydrangea is severely confused!

I guess I’d better decide if I really want it to be pink or blue and then get out there and ammend the soil appropriately. I believe you need to add lime to the soil if you want pink Hydrangeas and Aluminum to the soil if you want blue Hydrangeas. I’ll do some research.

If you have hydrangeas, did yours ever do this? Isn’t it strange?

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

Autumn will arrive soon enough and some of us will have more planting to do and other garden maintenance to prepare for winter so here’s some tips for you to help you avoid injuring yourself when you’re just trying to get a little gardening done.

Protect your joints

If you will be kneeling while working in the garden use knee pads, a knee cushion or a kneeler seat to protect your knee joints. Also remember to use tools with padded handles or easy spring loaded grips in order to minimize stiffness in your hands.

Take care when lifting!

We just finished mulching our garden - yes we were a little behind as usual! bags of garden mulch, soil and other garden supplies are heavy and can be difficult to carry. Use a wheelbarrow to move items from your car and place them close to the area where you will be using them. Another great idea is to open the bag, dumping the contents in the wheelbarrow or close to where you’ll be using it and then use a shovel to move small portions of the material to the garden.

Plan your tasks and conserve your energy

Just like in nursing and many other jobs it’s best to prepare everything that you’ll need before you start a task. Gather up all the gardening equiptment that you’ll need in a basket or container and carry it to the yard. This will save you trips and perhaps some time searching for tools once your already working in the garden.

I tend to bend or squat while working in the garden and I almost always end up with a sore back. Sit or kneel in one area and complete your gardening task - weeding, planting, pruning before moving to another area of the garden. This will also help conserve your energy and kneeling or using a kneeler seat will help your back too.

Moving heavy plants and other heavy objects

When it comes to landscaping your yard with new trees, shrubs or plants - perhaps large plants or ones in containers always try to move them with a wheelbarrow.

Tip the wheelbarrow forward as close to the plant as possible. Then gently rotate the pot or ball of plant onto the wheelbarrow. Slowly bring the wheelbarrow into standing position (keep your knees bend while you do this to easy your back). Carefully move the plant to it’s destination and reverse the process to get the plant off the wheelbarrow.

If you were thinking ahead and already dug a hole for the plant you might be able to move it right off the wheelbarrow and into it’s new hole!

If you have to lift a heavy item squat down, get a good grip and use your legs to lift. Don’t use your back or you’ll risk injuring your back. If there is someone else around to help you move heavy plants don’t hesitate to ask for help.

Work on one project at a time

I’m guilty of starting several projects at once and then feeling compelled to finish all of them before I stop gardening for the day. Don’t be like me - start one project at a time and finish it before moving on to another project whether it’s planting your annuals or planting seeds or seedlings or digging holes for your new roses. One job at a time.

Take a moment to decide which task needs to be given priority. Perhaps one task will take a lot longer than an other or your plants are desperately in need of care. Decide which job needs to be done first and start it. This can keep you from overdoing it and you might feel more satisfied with yourself when you complete the task rather than having several unfinished jobs on the go.

Listen to your body!

Yet another rule that I’m guilty of not following. I push myself in the garden even when I’m not feeling well or when my back is in full on spasms. I just will not go inside until I’m finished whatever I started. (I am getting a little better at listening this year as I try to plan smaller tasks).

Your body will tell you when it’s had enough. Listen to it. Muscles aching? Feeling tired? Sit back and take a break or stop your work for the day.

If you drink water while working in the garden you’ll remain well hydrated and well hydrated muscles will cramp less.

Don’t forget to stretch once you are done working in the garden. Stretching will help reduce muscle soreness and keep your more flexible. Once inside take a shower or a long soak in the bath tub to ease those muscles. Your body will thank you for it!

I managed to capture a photo of a wasp collecting pollen from Butterfly Weed flowers the weekend before last when Chris and I visited the Brick Works.

I grow butterfly weed in my garden but it’s not blooming yet. Guess mine is behind!

What is Water Gardening Anyway?

You are met with confusion when you tell your family and friends about your plan to attempt water gardening. Your friends and relatives don’t understand that water gardening is using water and plants in such a way as to give a garden-like effect. One of the easiest forms of water gardening is creating a small pond in your backyard and adding plants to it.

The first step in creating a backyard pond is to decide how big a pond you would like to have. To begin with, it is best if you make a pond that is only slightly larger than a moderately-sized birdbath. The size of the pond can always be made larger later.

Once you’ve dug a hole in your backyard or within your garden you will need to find a liner for your pond. Simply filling up the new hole with water won’t work as the water will drain back into the ground. Visit your local garden center to find a liner. For small ponds you’ll probably be looking for a formed hard plastic pool. Purchase it and then take it out to the hole you already dug and make adjustments to the hole so that the liner will fit in snuggly.

Once you have the liner ready, make sure that it easily fits into the hole that you have made in your lawn. Place it in the hole, and fill it with water. Your small pond is now ready for water gardening! The next step is adding plants to your new pond, let’s consider using water lilies.

Water lilies are very lovely and make for beautiful water gardening. Perhaps you have seen water lilies on display at your garden center during the summer months. They have a unique root system which supports itself on the surface of the water, and they are available in a variety of different colors. It is, however, important to note that water lilies are delicate and only thrive in warm weather.

Water Lilies are just one example of the type of plants that can be used in a water garden. There are all kinds of water loving plants that would be suitable for a water garden. It just depends upon what type of climate you live in and what type of water you are using.

One other thing that you should keep in mind in regards to water gardening is mosquitoes. Standing water attracts mosquitoes as they usually lay their eggs in still waters. You’ll probably want to look into some ideas for keeping mosquitoes away from your pond. Skimming the water daily to remove larvae could work. Ask at your garden center as I’m sure they’ll have some great ideas for you.

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Last weekend we went to The Brick Works. It’s an old brick factory that’s been turned into an eco-preserve and I suppose tourist attraction. Likely the bricks that make up my 1927 Triple Brick house were made at this old now defunct factory.

The quarry where the company dug into the earth to get the clay to make the bricks has been turned into hiking paths, ponds and is surrounded by forest. All in the heart of the city (BTW Toronto is the 5th or 6th largest city in North America). It’s gorgeous!

Native plants grow at the Brickworks and you can find flora and fauna that are rarely seen elsewhere in the province thanks to the protective nature of this eco-preserve.

I took close to 200 photos during our few hours at the Brickworks last Saturday. It’s taken me two days to go over them, crop them and upload them to my Flickr account. That’s why my GTS posts are more than a little late today!

The first photo is a blue dragonfly (I don’t think that’s it’s main name, that’s just what I’m calling it). Apparently there are 11 species of dragonflies that make their home at the Brickworks. Dragonflies are losing their nesting grounds so this area is one of the few places in Ontario where you can see so many different types of dragonflies (and other creatures).

This is native Malva. I grow some of this in my front boulevard garden as well. It’s very pretty and under the right condition spreads moderately.

I used to know the name of this plant, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it’s called at this moment. It’s lovely, especially when it spreads throughout a field and mixes with other wild flowers.

I’m not sure what this lovely yellow flowered plant is either. It stands about two feet tall and is covered in tiny yellow flowers - at least at the beginning of July it is. Any ideas?

This is Sumac. It’s a small tree that can be seen all over Ontario. It’s leaves turn red in the fall and it’s fruit (the reddish spike) grows fuller and turns a bright red. It puts on quite a spectacular show.

I’ll have more flowers from The Brickworks on two of my other blogs - Tricia’s Musings and You are in My World Now in a few minutes if you’d like to see some more great nature photos. You can also see the whole series of “Brickwork” photos by visiting my Flickr account.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

Even the pigs are wearing rain boots!

Isn’t that adorable?

Many long term readers of this blog probably remember that we are completely renovating our home. We’ve been on a break from renovations for a while, but it will soon be time to start up again. We still have to finish our living room / dining room area, but after that we’ll move on to our Kitchen, the basement and the two bathrooms. After than the only things that will need to be done might be repainting, maintenance and perhaps changing decor.

If you are thinking about changing the look of a room you might start with a coat of paint and then perhaps move on to the windows. Adding shades or blinds to a window can help change the look and feel of a room, plus blinds and shades add function as well because you can control the amount of light in the room easily by simply adjusting the blind or shade.

If you’d like to look at a wide selection of custom window treatments for your home you might want to visit the DecoratingDepot as they have a fantastic selection of Wood Blinds, shades, horizontal and vertical blinds, Faux Wood Blinds and more.

They even have a selection of sliding panel blinds. I really like the look of their Woven Wood Sliding Panel. They’d look great in my enclosed back porch since it’s all windows.

Their blinds and shades come in a variety of materials and colors, for example you can get bamboo, wooden blinds, faux wood blinds, aluminum and vinyl blinds, and roman shades.

DecoratingDepot offers free shipping, no tax, guarantees their price and I believe you can even request free samples if you are having trouble deciding which type of blind or shade to choose. They even have a “virtual room decorator” that you can use to see how various types of blinds or shades might look in your room. Check it out for yourself.

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I’m nuts about roses. I certainly have enough of them growing in my garden to support that statement! I have 60+ rose bushes!

Other than caring for roses and looking at their lovely blooms the next best thing for me is taking pictures of them. Especially ones like the photo above. Isn’t that rose just delicious?

This is one of my new roses. Remember I lost several roses last winter (2006/2007)? It was a cold winter here, but we had very little snow cover that year so the roses and some of my other plants took a beating and some of them had far too much winter damage to survive.

So ….

I replaced the dead roses with five new ones. The rose above is called Climbing Westerland. I planted it around the end of June last year and to the best of my knowledge it didn’t bloom last year at all. Surely I couldn’t have missed huge tangerine blooms like that?

I’m certain I couldn’t have … so lets say these are it’s first blooms for me. What a show!

The blooms are quite large, semi double, fragrant and simply gorgeous.

I certainly like my new rose friend. Do you?

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

I’m not a very big fan of pigeons - I certainly had enough of them living on balcony when we had an apartment (that’s when i finally got to see a baby pigeon). There’s enough of them in this area too - swooping down eating the seed I put out for other birds … but this photo sure is cute!

I’ll try to remember this picture the next time I’m pulling out my water gun to scare the pigeons out of my garden.