Gardening Adventures from the North...

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Front Walk Changes...

So, I've been saving these pictures to post for awhile. I got new planters for the front of my house for my birthday, and we replaced the old ones. They were so rotten that they fell apart when my husband tried to pick them up. I love the new ones, although if it was a little bit warmer I think the plants would be doing better...

Front Walk when we Moved in:

Front Walk this Spring:

New Planters and Blooming Flowers:

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Taking a Bath...

Finally - I have been trying to catch a picture of this bird in our newly cleaned bird bath for several days - (ut I have little patience with the slowly sneaking up and not scaring the poor creature part of photography - I always move too fast and then trip) So my husband snapped this one for me... I'm not sure what kind of bird this is, but it's pretty, and it sure likes the bird bath!

Friday, May 30, 2008

Final Tulips of the Season

My tulips are finished - and it's about time, because I need their space to plant my morning glory seeds. Here are the pictures of the last tulips to finish blooming - I love their colour

Friday Picture: Lily of the Valley

I'm exhausted. I taught 2 days of Kindergarten, 2 days of grade 8, and one day of grade 6/7 - interpersed with parent meetings this week.

So, all I have energy for are some pictures...Here are some pictures of my (very aggressive) lilies of the valley...

Monday, May 26, 2008

New Garden Finished

Well, it's been finished for awhile, but I've been slacking on the posts since we started renovating our office and my computer is no longer hooked up. So, while my husband was at work, I secretly downloaded the camera software onto his computer and downloaded my most recent pictures...

The plan is for this garden to be a perennial garden. My mother-in-law is going to give me a chunk of her peony in the fall to put to the left of mystery plant, but for this year I planted sunflowers in that spot. She gave me the irises, which have started to flower since I transplanted them, and there are sweet pea seeds planted in behind the irises - the plan is to have them grow up the back wall and the railing of the back porch...

Before:

During:

After:

Mystery Plant has Flowers

So, my mystery plant that no one seems to have ever seen before has beautiful pink flowers. They kind of reminded me of peony buds before they opened, but now they remind me more of a ranunculus or buttercup flower. Anyone know what it is now?

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Going Green: The Global Warming Debate?

**warning: this post contains little about gardening, and some strong opinions on my part.**

Well, it was my understanding that the global warming debate was decided. Over. Finished. I thought, and correct me if I'm wrong, that climate change scientists have pretty solid and concrete proof that human activity causes climate change. What I don't understand then is why there are so many letters to the editors in my crazy little town about how "they don't believe in environmentalism" or how they think that this extremely long, cold winter we just experienced is proof that global warming doesn't exist, and it's simply over-zealous environmentalists trying to find a way to shut down industry. IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY - uneducated, ignorant people making blanket belief statements with no knowledge of the facts - and then the paper publishes their letters.

Case in Point #1: Environmentalism Just a fashionable fallacy

In case you don't want to read it, he basically blames the Pine Beetle epidemic on environmentalists refusing to let the government and industry turn a provincial park into a clear cut/slash and burn. I don't post my comments on the newspaper's website because it just invites insults from those who have a different point of view - but I can't keep quite about this. Anyways if you know very little of the Pine Beetle epidemic in Northern BC you can look up the history online, or check out the Manic Gardener's Blog (I didn't know Montana had a pine beetle problem), but basically every Pine tree in BC is dead or going to be dead within 5 years. It is really hard to imagine unless you have seen the pictures of landscapes that are red in every direction you look.

But Pine Beetle isn't new. It has been around for hundreds of years, and the population never got out of control. A cold winter would hit and kill them back to reasonable numbers. So in the 80's and early 90's when the Pine Beetle attacked Tweedsmuir Provincial Park everyone thought that the problem would manage itself like it always had. I don't think anyone envisioned the ending up where we are now. But, blaming the problem on environmentalists seems foolish. Of course people protested the idea of logging a park - it was a protected area. No one predicted this devastation, and it seems unfair now to start playing the blame game.

But getting back to what is so shocking about what I keep reading in the newspaper. So many people agree with these sentiments, and really think that "green" is just a buzzword, a fashion, or a bandwagon that the unwashed masses have jumped on because it makes them feel good about the choices they are making.

So, my question is, who really is the one being deceived? Those who refuse to acknowlege the green debate and environmental issues, or those of us who have and are now making changes and paying more money to live green because somehow we've been convinced of its importance. Or maybe to some extent, are we all being deceived?