Forget Me Not

When my younger daughter's cat, Harley, suddenly died of massive kidney failure, the veterinary hospital that had tried to save Harley sent us a card of condolence and a packet of Forget Me Not seeds.  These are from those seeds.

Golden

This flower was planted by one of our neighbours in the raised beds we built last year.  I love how the petals are sparkling ever so slightly in the bright sunlight.

Growing

One of the purple cabbages I've got growing in our balcony garden.  Our garden is doing really well this year, as is everyone else's.  It's been a good year for growing things!

Pink Hood

After our accessible garden beds were built, several of our members claimed plots and planted everything from tomatoes and potatoes to flowers of all kinds.  This one makes me think of a woman wearing a pink hood.

I need to get our more with the macro lens.  I really enjoy it.

In bloom

I must admit, I am rather impressed with the quality of photos my phone takes! At least in full light.

Out for a walk.

Philippe and our older daughter went out for a walk this morning, and she got some photos she said I could post here.

We've had a lot of rain in the last few days - with more rain while they were walking. Edmonton is split by the fast-flowing North Saskatchewan River. The last few years have been quite dry and, other than spring run off, the river is typically rather low.

Not at the moment!



Here you can see some of the taller bushes barely visible above the water's surface. The river valley is enjoying the moisture, though, looking like a lush, green jungle.

While crossing the bridge the above photo was taken from, my daughter also found this.




A pigeon nest with two chicks. The mother was nearby, keeping an eye on things. They were quite surprised by the next being in such a relatively exposed area.

Gosh, baby pigeons look... alarming! *L*

Spring!

We are finally seeing leaf buds. :-D  It was a beautiful day for a walk, so I dug out the Canon S3 (smaller, lighter) and took a few shots.  Click on the photo to go to my flickr page and see a few more.

How does your garden grow?

Anna:  A few days ago, a group of us met up at a local nursery and picked up plants for our container gardens.  It was a gorgeous day for it, too.



I got to say hello to the resident cat, who was obviously used to large numbers of people, and quite adept at ignoring them.

My fellow gardeners picked up some lovely flowers.  Here are a few of them.









Me, I didn't pick up any flowers at all.  Instead, I picked up edibles.



'cause I'm like that. 

 I'd already planted some seeds in my old containers, but the ones in the rail planters didn't survive the snowfall.  The container with lettuce seeds was showing leaflets too small to be seen in this photo.  One of my new bin planters has something new for me - Strawberry Spinach, which is neither strawberry, nor spinach, but looked neat, so I wanted to give it a try.  I hope my bin is deep enough for them.  I'm not sure how the planting will turn out.  As I was trying to open the seed packet, it slipped out of my hands and landed upside down in a corner of the bin.  I have no idea how many seeds were in there, but they were incredibly tiny and black.  Aside from what was stuck to the sides of the packet, for all I know, I dumbed dozens of seeds in that one spot.  I tried scooping up the soil from the area and adding them to where I intended to plant them, so we'll see how it turns out.

The other new bin was supposed to be just seeded with Purple Haze carrots, but when I saw them available as transplants, I decided to pick up a few.  This gives me a head start with the successive sowing I was planning on.  They even look to have survived having one of my extra bags of soil fall over onto them on the ride home!

My rail planters now have some Sweet Basil - just one plant this year, as I found them too delicate for our windy balcony last year.  Hopefully, it will be well sheltered by the Joi Choi and Silver Posie Thyme it's with.  I also tried some Grand Chives this year - we found the Garlic Chives we had last year too bitter, and they too didn't survive the snows (they had been showing green shoots shortly after things warmed up, but alas, they didn't make it).  I figured it was a good opportunity to try a different variety, together with the Crinkle Leaf Oregano and Sage I picked up.

In other pots, I've still got my tarragon (I managed to wrest control of them and have just one plant of tarragon to supply us) and rosemary, plus some spinach.  I even seeded some lettuce with our avocado indoors some time ago, and they're ready for eating now. 

Since these were transplanted, it's been on the cool side and raining fairly steadily.  The rain is supposed to continue for a couple more days before it creeps up to the hot side again.  I think the plants should be okay.  If not, I can take the more delicate ones indoors.  I'm hoping our rainfall means the end of the 10 + year dought we've been having in our area.

Still Alive

Anna: Our first spring in our current home, a year ago, one of the things we discovered that we loved about our new home was the apple tree almost directly under our balcony.  Once it started blooming, we got to enjoy the wonderful scents that the breeze blew onto our balcony.  It was absolutely beautiful! As the apples started to form, I looked forward to seeing what kind they were.



Unfortunately, that was not to be.  Looking down one day, I discovered the main branch of the tree lying on the ground.  How long it had been that way, I didn't know, but it could have been several days.  All I could say for sure was that it wasn't done that day.  My guess was that some of the kids in our complex may have tried to climb it to get at the apples.

I knew it might be possible to save the tree, if it was done quickly enough.  I mentioned it at the office of our co-op, but nothing came of it.  The most that was done was a few months later, when someone had pushed the fallen portion off to one side so that it was no longer lying on the garden bed that no one was using.

There was still a portion of the tree unharmed and I thought it, at least, would have a few blossoms this year.  Imagine my surprise when I looked down and saw this!



Almost the entire fallen section is now blooming!  Only a couple of branches are without leaf or blossom and, if I remember correctly, they were already dead before the section had fallen.

A remarkably resilient tree!

A bit more

As I headed out today, I took some photos of the front of our home.



The poor Maple tree by our front door!  That and the Mountain Ash, though I think it's hardier.  I know none of the Maples' leaves around our home fully recovered after last year's May snowfall.  Looks like we'll have another year of brown-leaved Maples.



We've got a beautiful old Willow next to the highrise.  It handled last year rather well, too.  That lane under it is how the Handi Transit buses make it to our street.  It doesn't take much to make it quite difficult for them to get up that lane and around the corner.  If they're going to get stuck, that's the spot it happens.



This poor little bush in front of the high rise was just starting to bloom, too!  Just a few branches, though.  Last spring, it was a mass of flowers, and I'd been wondering why so few were showing this year.  I hope this means that, once things warm up again, the rest of the bush will still be blooming.

Frosty spikes

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Originally uploaded by amkb

Anna: Last night, a deep fog rolled into our city. This morning, we woke to a sparkling wonderland of frost. What struck me, however, was the wild spikes the frost formed into.

This photo is taken directly in front of our townhouse steps. It's getting to be that time of year when the birds are discoving the frozen berries. The chickadees have been the first to show up. It shouldn't be much longer before the waxwings return to finish off the rest of last year's berries.

It's looking at me...

Anna: It's been a while since I've posted, so I went back to some of the photos we took at the Muttart Conservatory.


These fish-like orchids are in the tropical pyramid. I loved how they seem to have these geat big eyes, watching passers-by.

Muttart Visit

Philippe: Playing with Aperture again :)

Frost thyme

Anna: It's been a long time since we've posted photos. We have them... we just haven't got around to posting them. :-P

We've had huge amounts of fog in the last couple of nights. That left for some lovely frost on the remains of my herbs on the balcony. More than enough incentive to break out the macro lens.

The frost-kissed remains of thyme blossums.

And a few remaining leaves of parsley.

Quenched

basil-drop3685
Originally uploaded by amkb

Anna: The current heat has been very rough on my lettuces, and the herbs aren't doing much better. I've been turning planters, chasing the shade and watering diligently. Even then, I have to be careful, as the watering can I keep full outside ends up with water too hot to comfortably touch!

Here, my blooming basil is perking up with a bit of moisture. My thyme is blooming now, too.

Philippe: Anna mentioned she watered things again... :)

Just hangin'

bee4588
Originally uploaded by amkb

Anna: The girls and I went back to Taste of Edmonton to use up the last of our tickets before heading to the library. The square is looking beautiful this time of year, with the gardens at their peek, much to the delight of the bees. I didn't have the macro lens, but still managed a couple of ok photos using the 18-55mm lens. Bees are solar powered - with the heat and sun we're having right now, they were doing double time! I was lucky to get the few shots I did. :-D

Just a little battered

garden
Originally uploaded by amkb

Anna: We've had some pretty wicked weather lately. First, high winds yesterday, then pouring rain today. The rain was badly needed, though too late for some of the farmers surrounding the city.

Strangely, our balcony has absolutely no shelter from the wind. There are walls on two sides, plus the building itself in the back. Instead of blocking wind, they seem to instead act as a funnel, forcing the wind to blow in circles inside the balcony. Near the floor was only slightly better, so I moved the rail planters down. A couple of my basil were bent over at the stem bases. I don't think they were broken through and should survive, but we'll see. The driving rains battered my second sowing of spinach almost flat. Again, I'm pretty sure they'll survive. I hope they do. The first sowing is starting to bolt, so I'll have to harvest them tomorrow.

Things seem to have calmed down, so I tucked all the planters close together for a picture before putting things back in their various places. This is my entire balcony garden, all in one place.

For a first year, I'm quite happy with it. :-)

Celebrations

partrioticplanters
Originally uploaded by amkb

Anna: Yesterday we had a full day of celebrations. I've uploaded photos in a Canada Day flickr set, some of which are also in my updated The Works Festival set - that festival ended on Canada Day.

the Muttart Reborn :)

Pass holder day today; general opening tomorrow. I'm thinking I might be going a little more in the next bit :)
(EDIT)
- Blogspot is refusing to actually line up these pics, so they're messed up.. I, of course, won't be using the type of language I'd like to describe my appreciation for this software...

An afternoon at Devonian.

Anna: We made our first trip of the year to the Devonian Botanical Gardens. I've got a flickr set of photos here, and I'm sure Philippe will have more to add later on. Things are just getting growing right now, so we'll be sure to make several more trips out throughout the summer and fall. We've yet to explore the entire gardens, which will take a couple more trips, at least.

I had brought both my Nikon D70 and my old Canon S3, in case I wanted to take some video. This turned out to be a good thing, as part way through, the D70 suddenly stopped working. I tried a bunch of things, then waited until Philippe and the girls caught up with me to see if he could think of something else I didn't know about. While I was waiting, I got this photo with the S3.



There are called Shooting Stars and are part of the Plants of Alberta garden.




This is also from the Plants of Alberta garden, and is the shot I was trying to get when the camera stopped working. It basically got busy, as if it were writing something to the card, but wouldn't stop. Even shutting it off or removing the memory card didn't work. Philippe finally took the battery out and put it back in, and that did the trick. I got this photo when we were on the way out. I love the shapes in this one.




This was taken in the Patrick Seymour Alpine Garden. Because of how the garden is laid out (narrow stone paths through gravel, with requests to stay off the gravel), I couldn't get down to flower level to use the viewfinder. Instead, I just held the camera out and hopefully aimed the lens at things. I think that worked out rather well. ;-)