Coming attractions...

I don't remember there being this many hyacinths last year, but I don't know what else they could be. I'm 99% sure these are Siberian squill; the landlords' kids and I rescued a number of bulbs, most identity unknown, from a neighbour's garden which was being replaced by lawn by the new owner.

Dianthus chinensis 'Double Gaiety Mix' seedling

Here's one of my pink seedlings at two weeks from sowing. They all have a set of true leaves and look quite healthy.

Echinacea purpurea seedlings looking good!

It's hard to believe that so many of the bedraggled Echinacea sprouts that languished in my fridge for a year have survived, and even look healthy! You can see that some of the seedlings have a slightly fuzzy true leaf growing now. Click on the photo to see it enlarged.

Reseda odorata 'Mignon Finest Mix' seedling

Here's one of my mignonette seedlings. They're looking quite healthy.

Euphorbia marginata var. variegata seedlings

A couple of my Euphorbia marginata have finally come up, after 2 weeks. They look like they'd like more light than they're getting from the fluorescent light fixture I'm using, and I'm still waiting for the other 10 seeds I sowed to show signs of life.

More beautiful crocuses

It's a beautiful sunny day today (8°!) and the neighbours' crocuses are out in all their glory. These mauve crocuses are my favourites, closely followed by the pale yellow.

Iris reticulata 'Cantab': blooms

I wasn't expecting to see these reticulated irises in bloom (the buds showed only a few days ago), but here they are!

Eranthis hyemalis: blooms!

Finally, after over a week of watching the half-open buds, here is my winter aconite in all its glory!

Tagetes tenuifolia 'Lulu': sprouts

Tagetes tenuifolia, known in English as "signet marigold" and in French as tagète tachée, is an annual native to Mexico and Central America. The low-growing plants have feathery foliage and flowers in various shades of orange, dark red, and yellow. This cultivar has single lemon-yellow flowers.

Here are my marigold sprouts a week after sowing. (I know, all the sprouts I posted today look almost exactly the same...)

Solenostemon scutellaroides 'Wizard Mix': sprouts

Solenostemon scutellaroides, known in English as "coleus" and in French as coléus or coliole, is a tender perennial native to southeast Asia widely grown for its colourful foliage. Cultivars are available with various patterns of white, pink, red, yellow, brown, black, and green leaves.

Here are my coleuses (colei?) a week after sowing. They're too small to be showing their colours yet.

Reseda odorata: sprouts

Reseda odorata, known in English as "sweet mignonette" and in French as réséda odorant, is an annual native to the Mediterranean. It is grown for its very fragrant but not especially showy greenish flower spikes.

Last week I sowed a few mignonette seeds indoors under lights. Now most of them have sprouted (not sure if the others are laggards or duds). I am very curious to see what they smell like once they reach the flowering stage.

Echinacea purpurea: sprouts

Echinacea purpurea, known in English as eastern purple coneflower and in French as echinacée pourpre or rudbeckie pourpre, is a perennial native to eastern North America. It is used as a herbal medicine and is becoming popular as an ornamental plant. The flowers are like big purplish-pink daisies with conical brown centres.

Last week, I posted about the poor bedraggled echinacea sprouts that had been languishing in my fridge since last year. I planted them and put them under fluorescent lights, and a surprising number (8 or 9) of them seem to have survived! As you can imagine I am thrilled!

Dianthus chinensis 'Double Gaiety Mix': sprouts

Dianthus chinensis, known in English as "Chinese pink" or "rainbow pink" and in French as œillet de Chine, is native to east Asia. The flowers are in various shades of pink or white, often bicoloured, with zigzag edges as if cut by pinking shears.

Here are my dianthus seedlings, only a week after sowing!

A visit to the beach

Last Wednesday the weather was so nice that my son and I decided to visit the Beaches. A couple of ducks were out enjoying the spring weather as well.

We heard red-winged blackbirds calling, but couldn't get a good look at them (or photo) unfortunately.

At the beach at Ashbridges Bay Park, Nicky raced over to the huge rocks on the right and gave me heart attacks frolicking gaily on them like a mountain goat. Okay, so I'm a worrywart. He was disappointed that I wasn't jumping around on them myself.

On our way home, we stopped to admire the marsh-themed splash pad at Woodbine Park. I think they did a wonderful job designing this splash pad; it at least remains decorative, if not functional, all year round. So many of Toronto's splashpads just look forlorn in the cold months.

Nicky and I were really taken by this beautiful frog, painted by Leanne Wildermuth (be sure to check out all of the beautiful artwork at her site).

Tagetes tenuifolia 'Lulu': seeds

Tagetes tenuifolia, known in English as "signet marigold" and in French as tagète tachée, is an annual native to Mexico and Central America. The low-growing plants have feathery foliage and flowers in various shades of orange, dark red, and yellow. This cultivar has single lemon-yellow flowers.

This is my first year growing signet marigolds from seed. I was surprised by the seeds, which are long and thin with a tuft of blond hair on one end.

The very day after I sowed the seeds, I was thrilled to see what I thought was a sprout! Then I realized it was just the blond tuft of the seed sticking out. Oh well, by next week I'm sure I'll have lots of real sprouts to admire.

Reseda odorata 'Mignon Finest Mix'

Reseda odorata, known in English as "sweet mignonette" and in French as réséda odorant, is an annual native to the Mediterranean. It is grown for its very fragrant but not especially showy greenish flower spikes.

This is my first year growing mignonette. I am a sucker for fragrant plants, but since I've never actually smelled this one, and the flowers are nothing to look at, I'm only growing a half dozen from seed to see if I like it. The seeds are a bit small and fiddly, though not nearly as bad as the nicotiana seeds.

Nicotiana hybrid 'Perfume Mix': seeds

Nicotiana, known in English as "tobacco" and in French as tabac, is a genus of herbaceous plants and shrubs native to to North and South America, Australia, south west Africa and the south Pacific. This hybrid (flowering tobacco, tabac d'ornement) is grown for its fragrant flowers in red, pink, purple, white, and chartreuse, rather than its nicotine-rich leaves.

This is my first year growing nicotiana. The seeds were so small and annoying to handle that unless it is really lovely I don't think I'll get them again.

Euphorbia marginata: seeds

Euphorbia marginata, known in English as "snow-on-the-mountain" and in French as euphorbe panachée, is an annual native to much of the continental United States. The small white flowers are surrounded by whorls of showy green leaves edged with white.

This is my first year growing Euphorbia marginata. I was pleased to see that the seeds are fairly large and easy to handle. Ironically, although this is a North American native and I ordered seeds from a North American company (Stokes), these seeds are from the Netherlands!

Dianthus chinensis 'Double Gaiety Mix': seeds

Dianthus chinensis, known in English as "Chinese pink" or "rainbow pink" and in French as œillet de Chine, is native to east Asia. The flowers are in various shades of pink or white, often bicoloured, with zigzag edges as if cut by pinking shears.

This is my first year growing pinks. I started them from seed on March 17 (inside, under lights) and yesterday I saw a pink had already sprouted!

Aquilegia: first growth

Aquilegia, known in English as "columbine" and in French as ancolie, is a genus of perennials native to the northern hemisphere. They have very pretty delicate three-part scalloped leaves, and unique flowers, usually with long spurs.

I'm not sure what type of columbine this is, as it just volunteered last year and hasn't bloomed yet. (Even without flowering, it contributes to the garden as a foliage plant, in my opinion.) This is the first year I've paid attention to the very early spring growth of columbine; what a pleasure to see these very pretty purple rosettes coming up!

Yet another crocus

I debated whether I really needed to post a third crocus in one week, but this one was thoughtfully growing near the sidewalk so I could get a proper close-up. Click the photo to see full size! I love the way digital photography lets me see details of plants that I couldn't see with the naked eye.

Eranthis hyemalis: first growth

As I mentioned earlier, I was worried that my winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) wasn't coming back this year, since the neighbours' snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) and crocuses are already up, and my aconite hadn't shown up at all. So you can imagine how thrilled I was to see this tiny, not-yet-opened winter aconite emerging in front of the house this morning.

I rooted around under the leaves and found two more baby Eranthis. (And then I tucked them in under their blanket of leaves once again.) Maybe tomorrow I will have a photo of a fully-opened bloom to post!

(I'm not sure what those long thin leaves are, but they are definitely not the aconite, which has leaves like a clown's ruffle under the flower.)

A bit of the true north strong and free in downtown Toronto

Monday was a beautiful sunny day, and it gladdened my heart to see young white pine trees (Pinus strobus) glowing in the spring sunshine. (At least, I think these are white pines.) If you stand in the right place, you can almost imagine you're in a forest.

You can never have too many photos of white pine, the provincial tree of Ontario. I have a special attachment to white pine because the house where I grew up in eastern Ontario had a massive white pine in front of it.

Here you can see that in fact this pretty little grove is surrounded by highrises. This is in the courtyard behind College Park at College and Bay.

What a difference a few trees make, especially in an urban environment.

That's my handsome son Nicky posing with the sculptures behind College Park.

I always wondered how trees could survive in these little planters, which look far too shallow to accomodate a tree's roots.

Here's the secret—they're not a shallow as they look! Still, only a small tree could live in a planter like this. Maybe an eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis), a very pretty native tree that I think is woefully underused here in Toronto.

Eranthis hyemalis: seed pods

The seeds on my winter aconite are finally ripe.

Solenostemon scutellaroides 'Wizard Mix': seeds

Solenostemon scutellaroides, known in English as "coleus" and in French as coléus or coliole, is a tender perennial native to southeast Asia widely grown for its colourful foliage. Cultivars are available with various patterns of white, pink, red, yellow, brown, black, and green leaves.

I last grew coleus back when I was in high school, from seed. It was a lot of fun since the seedlings show their colours from an early stage. (Of course, back then I actually had big windows with lots of sunlight streaming in, and this time around I'm in a dingy basement apartment with fluorescent light...) I'm hoping these babies will liven up the drab shady front yard this summer.

Can these Echinacea sprouts be saved?

On March 18, 2008, I put a bunch of Echinacea purpurea seeds in a plastic bag of damp potting mix to cold moist stratify in the fridge. They were supposed to be there for 6 to 8 weeks, but my fridge being what it is I didn't find them until August or September. By then they had sprouted, and they say that if they sprout while being stratified they should be planted immediately, but I didn't think I could put them outside so soon before winter so I just left them in the fridge.

Today, about 6 months later, the sprouts look much like they did back then. At least some of them look like they might still be alive! Here they are, sown at last. I just set up some fluorescent lights for starting seeds, so they will get a chance to grow a bit inside while we wait for the weather to warm up. If even one of these sprouts survives, it will still be a bargain price for Echinacea, since the whole packet of seeds (Gardener's Choice from Canadian Tire) was less than a buck!

More crocuses!

Today I saw more crocuses had come up down the street! I love the contrast of the purple and the vivid orange stamens and stigma.

Tulips coming up all over!

Tulipa, known in English as "tulips" and in French as tulipes is a genus of flowering bulbs native to Eurasia and north Africa. The city of my birth, Ottawa, has an annual Tulip Festival in May, which I've never been to because they started doing it after I moved away. But I do have fond memories of the beautiful tulip beds which abound in Ottawa, thanks to Netherland's Princess Juliana, who donated 100,000 tulips to Ottawa in gratitude for the safe home Ottawa provided for the Dutch royal family during the second world war.

Today it seems all of a sudden the little bed in front of the house is full of tulip shoots! At least some of these should be the 'Angelique' tulips I put in last fall (less than $2 including tax, shipping, and handling thanks to a generous offer from Brecks: $25 off, no minimum order.) Here's a close look at an especially beautiful plant. I can't wait until the tulips start blooming!

Symphyotrichum novi-belgii: signs of life!

Symphyotrichum novi-belgii, known in English as New York aster, is a flowering perennial native to eastern North America (though not the Toronto area apparently). The flowers are usually mauve, though there are cultivars in purple, dark pink, and white.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a few green leaves showing on this aster; it looks like they remained from last year. (I put my hand behind the plant because otherwise it blended in with the background into an incomprehensible photo. The green leaves are near the bottoms of the stems.)

Verbascum thapsus: leaves

Don't plant this—it's invasive!

Verbascum thapsus, known in English as great mullein or common mullein, and in French as molène thapsus, molène Bouillon-blanc, Bouillon-blanc or Bouillon jaune is a biennial native to Eurasia and north Africa. In Canada it is generally considered a weed, and a number of sources call it invasive.

Here you can see some of the old foliage from last year, and a rosette of new leaves opening in the middle. The soft velvety leaves are rather nice, but do we really need more of this plant spreading itself around and invading wild spaces, where it displaces native plants?

Crocus flower!

Crocus is a genus of flowering corms native to Eurasia and north Africa. Most of them bloom in the early spring, in yellow, white, mauve, or purple.

Yesterday, after posting that nothing was in bloom in my area except for those snowdrops I've posted about three times already, I discovered this lovely little crocus blooming just down the street from me! (Sorry the picture is so small; I didn't want to trespass on someone else's garden so I had to photograph from a distance and use the zoom lens.)

Although I am very happy to see the crocuses are coming up, I'm also a bit sad because last year I'm sure my winter aconite was blooming before the crocuses, and I don't see it coming up. I'm afraid I may have killed it. Drat.

Hosta: first signs of life

Hosta is a genus of herbaceous perennials native to northeast Asia. The genus name is generally used as the common name in English and French, although sometimes the name "plantain lily" is used (hostas are no longer considered part of the lily family). These shade tolerant plants with showy broad leaves, often variegated, are common in Toronto gardens. Here the first new shoots emerge from the remains of last years foliage. The purple colour disappears as the weather warms up.

Garden bloggers' "Bloom" Day

I just found out yesterday about the Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day tradition. Unfortunately, the only outdoor blooms I have seen in Toronto this year are those snowdrops on Woodbine that I've already posted about twice. So here are the closest approximations to blooms in my (landlords') garden today:

Left: rosehips.
Centre, top: Hibiscus syriacus seed pods.
Centre, bottom: New York aster puffs (Symphyotrichum novi-belgii 'Believer').
Right: creepy bellflower seeds (Campanula rapunculoides).