The last one to bloom finished to days ago. Surprisingly, it was Ring Around Rosie this year. It is finally a good established clump. Rosalie Figge is a reliable rebloomer for us and will likely be putting up stalks at the end of next month. The best rebloomers for us are two IBs, Precious Little Pink and Champagne Encore. These repeat at least three times and can take 2-3 light frosts before calling it quits.

Hi It was another cool day here today but at least it was sunny and I wasn't wearing my winter coat like I was yesterday. Last night it went down to 6c and tonight it is only 7C. I was able to get out and get the new side garden covered in newspapers and landscaping fabric and anchored down. I will start planting it in the next few days depending on the weather. I cut down some of the roses as the leaves are such a mess, they are just awful and I don't know what is causing this. I don't know if it's white fly, black spot, the freezing temps we had after the leaves came out. Some of the roses don't have the papery leaves but most of them do. The new leaves on the roses seem to be ok, but when the first leaves came out on the roses they were ok too then went weird fast! This is what JP Connell looks like now Yuk! I put some white fly traps out around them tonight and I also sprayed them for disease and bugs so hopefully they will start looking better, of course they couldn't look much worse right now. It is the JP Connell, Winnipeg parks and Morden Blush that are the worse right now. I have a flower bud on my water lily so it will be so nice when it blooms. I only have the one now as I donated the other to the plant sale for the Horticultural Society. More of my lilies are also starting to bloom so that is nice. I don't have as many lilies as I did last year. I don't know if the chipmunk has found a new food sourse, or the winter was hard on them, or they still have not recovered from the contractor smashing and burying them. I love these Orange Pixies, they sure do make ya take notice. *S* Some of the lilies I thought I had sprayed with Round up last year are coming up in the new beds, even in the beds that are 20" tall. But they are only a couple of inches tall now by the time they get to the surface. LOL I have also been pulling out baby roses that I also sprayed with round up last year. I guess they are growing up from the roots. Here is a new pic of the beds that were built last year. The hostas still don't hide the wooden beds, but I figure in another year of two they will. Hi there Linda! So nice to hear from u again! Sounds like u are keeping yourself very busy! I have some evening primroses blooming in a pot! They overwintered there with a tulip. *L*I use to have a lot of them in the old rose bed, but since I redid it I pulled a lot of them up. None of my daylilies have started blooming yet, I keep waiting. I hope I will get more blooms from them this year. Marca, I'm sorry to hear your Dad is errr unable to do home repairs. Maybe your mom could help ya....*LOL* A dead snake under your front step? Maybe he was under it when the step cracked? It wasn't a poisonous one was it? Don't know if u have those up there. A wooden deck? LOL Well it would be nice if he did it this year. Seems like it would be a good size deck too. Some of my flowers didn't bloom long either. Like the regular lilacs and peonies. The lilacs hardly had any flowers on them and what they did have were little spindly things. Hi Dannie, 5 bucks is a very good price for a clematis. Hmm maybe I should go and check out our Canadian Tire. I have been wanting to go there and get some more patio chairs to spread around the yard so I'd have more places I can rest so that gives me more incentive to get over there. *S* I have a Nelly Moser that blooms in the backyard, but I never go back there, so I'm thinking I should dig it up and move it to the front yard where I can appreciate it more. That back wall is going to look so pretty with all those clematis growing up it. You will have to take a pic when they are blooming! Some people say that stomping on hostas is good for them. That they develop more eyes so they send out more shoots, the shoots will be smaller though. I haven't tried it yet for my hostas that are slow growers, but the way Tegan is getting around the yard now she might step on some. She almost got one tonight. *LOL* I have heard about cables being put on trees to hold the branches together, I bet u feel better knowing that it can't fall on your house now. How old is the sheltie? I bought one for my mom when I was about 17 and he was the smartest dog I ever owned, I should say mom owned, but he was still my dog. It was the only way I could get a dog,,was buy it for her as a gift, as she never returns presents. LOL What is a pleco? Hi Janet, thanks, my gardens only look good cause I don't take pics of the weeds. LOL I still have to get to the weeding this year. I did the front yard, but the back yard needs help,,,,,,big help.... LOL Thanks for reminding me, I haven't put out the epson salts yet. Yikes! Sorry to hear about your ant troubles, is your hubs killing the hills at night time? He has to kill them at night time as during the day the ants are out gathering food. I have a recipe that worked on my ant problems, but it takes a couple of weeks. it is one part borax laundry powder soap 3 parts white sugar mix it up well and put a few spoonfuls in a covered container with a couple of holes in it, so that no kids or other animals or birds can get at it as it is poisonous. Place the container where u know the ants are and it will kill them as they take the poison back to the queen ant and feed it to the others too. Well time to get to bed here. Take care everyone and happy gardening! Debbie :-)

Debbie, sorry i haven't posted, but i was thinking about you and Gary and hoping that he gets better soon. It's sad about Bijoux too - you get attached to these animals. Hope you post soon and let us know what's happening. Snow is falling here as of this morning. There's not much accumulating as it's still just above 0, but it's supposed to be like this all week, so it looks like this is it for us. Still, the mild temperatures and sunny skies have really gone towards shortening the coming winter - fingers crossed that it's like this at the other end and we don't get snow in May again! Last weekend was so nice! I was outside the whole weekend, and i think the weekend before too - can't remember for sure. Anyway, i did EVERYTHING! The plants i haven't been able to get back into gardens were planted in the vegetable bed, all the containers dumped (some i brought inside quite awhile ago), leaves applied as mulch to some of the gardens and some of the more tender plants (Miss Morden Sunrise now wears a cardboard box filled with leaves in the hopes that she won't die right back to the ground again this year), and all my containers are picked up, organized and stored! Whew! I even hung my Christmas lights out! Audric, glad to hear that your Craft Fair did so well. I haven't heard about ours, how much they made, probably because the parents organize it and not the teachers. If it was the teachers, they would have been making a big deal of it in the staff room! LOL Are you a teacher, Audric? What grade? I'm a library technician at our school here. Well, i must run as we're going to town this morning. We're going to have a sulking dog because dh asked his mother to come with us so now the dog has to stay home. He loves to come with us and knows all the fields where there might be cows or horses and gets all excited when he sees them! Last week when we went past the buffalo farm, he leaped into the back of the van and stuck his nose out one of the vent windows! It was quite funny! Anyway, Debbie, before i go, here's a picture of the little grandguy/dinosaur: Hoping again that Gary is better and home again. Take care, all! Marcia

Is that road a busy road? Probably that berm reduces some of the traffic noise coming from the road. I've seen soil berms constructed along very busy routes, and thought it was a pretty good idea for muffling sound. But often they are built into an already sloping grade. That berm looks like a big lump on an otherwise flat topography. Reminds me of the big mounds they construct with some septic systems, where drainage is poor. They look terrible on a flat lot. And that berm is going to look like crap when it becomes a weedy mess that is very difficult to mow or trim. A stone wall is a beautiful (albeit expensive) solution to the privacy/sound problem. The people building a stone wall on top of a sand berm should have just skipped the berm. Totally agree that those Leyland Cypresses are sited poorly. Not to mention the poor oak(s) will probably die from root suffocation, sandwiched between the road pavement and the big lump of sand. Is there any plant that would successfully grow on a big lump of sand anyway (besides beach vegetation)? I don't know if I'd say anything - maybe if you get more friendly with these neighbors. My weird next-door neighbor does ridiculous things to his lot and trees. I don't usually say anything, but did mention once to his wife that he might consider putting the pruning saw away.