May 2-4 Weekend

It was a lovely weekend, thank god, so we managed to get a lot of gardening done.  We went to our favourite Greenhouse, Belgian Nursery, on Saturday and bought our plants and seeds (we had bought some vegetable plants at the local farmer's market earlier in the day). It was busy with fellow enthusiastic gardeners, but the check-out wasn't too bad, all things considered.

So much to choose from

Ready to go!

A very special Primula

Of course, Belgian Nursery always has a great selection of cacti and succulents, so I can never resist getting a couple of new plants for the house!

Crassula muscosa

Rhipsalis cereuscula

A friend very kindly offered a small corner of her family vegetable plot, so that we could grow some food.  We have a backyard full of Walnut trees, so it's impossible to do it on our own property. They are an Italian family who have been growing their own for many years, so the soil was beautiful to work with.  On the Saturday, we planted tomato, basil, hot pepper and kale plants, and beet (two kinds), radish and daikon seeds. Fingers crossed with the crops.

The trunk is filled with our supplies

Watered in

Come Sunday, we were ready to tackle our own garden.  We only bought a few perennials, as our garden is quite packed out , as it is. We found a very interesting Primula (see above) and a Japanese painted fern plus a couple of succulents for the rockery and boulevard (Corsican Stonecrop or Sedum dasyphyllum 'Major' and Blue Spruce Stonecrop or Sedum rupestre).

Sedum dasyphyllum

Sedum rupestre

In addition, and most importantly in terms of summer colour, we did our planters. We didn't have to go as crazy as other years because we kept a lot of plants and cuttings in the greenhouse over the winter. We did buy a large hanging basket for the front deck, large and small Marigolds, Portulaca, Browalia, and Geraniums with very colourful leaves. It was a beautiful, sunny day to do it, but we were both wiped out by the end of it - it's been a while since we've had to do that much bending!

Morning planting

Afternoon planting (note the hat!)

Upper deck