Category Archives: Garden

Putting the Garden to bed

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I’ve finished putting my garden to bed. It involved digging out all the tomato plants, the cucumbers and squash plants and throwing them in the compost bin. Next was the pruning, all the shrubs and bushes, the pear tree which refuses to give us any fruit.

Then we started to dig–the Dahlias will rot in our soil if I don’t dig them out.

I dig them up, use the hose to wash the dirt off, and stack them on the patio out of the rain to dry before packing them into tote boxes covered in shredded newspaper. This picture shows about 75 clumps of bulbs. They certainly expand in numbers and I usually cut the bigger bunches into pieces when replanting in the spring. I’m no expert. I know many people take them all apart, pick the best bulbs and dump the rest, but this works for me.

When I first planted dahlias, it was because roses don’t survive here. I refused to dig the dahlias up, way too much work. But as the crop failed due to rot through the winter, I decided it was worthwhile. The dahlias bloom from July to October, certainly worth my while to plan each year. 🙂

What do you do with your garden in the fall?

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Flower garden

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This is called Jerusalem sage. Not sure if it is actually a sage plant, have never used it that way as have tons of sage, but it makes a very interesting dried flower.

A bouquet from my garden, phlox, lupine, foxglove, some peonies. This time of year my windowsills are heavy with vases and the falling petals litter the area. Still, it’s nice to bring some of the flowers in and their subtle perfume carries throughout the house.

Sylvie’s Garden

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Here are a couple of other wildflowers that thrive in my garden. This is foxglove. We had a lot of fun with them as kids, stripping the flowers to put one on the tip of each finger. Then there are the lupines.

Funny that nature has a similar colour palette for all three of phlox, lupine and foxglove.  This vine is a honeysuckle. It was my mother’s plant, and years ago I took pieces off it to plant in my own garden. I’ve moved it a few times now, but it is one sturdy plant. The hummingbirds love it, it covers the arbour into the garden nicely, keeping it shady in the heat of summer.

 Let me know what flourishes in your flower bed.

More from my Garden

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Things are still popping in my garden. This flower is known as phlox, also called Sweet William. It grows wild where I live, but is a wonderful contribution to my garden. I let a lot of the stalks stay until they dry, then I shake them out over the ground to ensure a nice crop of volunteers the next year. The thing is, it blooms after the rhodos and azaleas, and before the dahlias, so is a great contribution.

Here is a beautiful swallowtail butterfly feeding on the phlox flowers.

I will announce the winners of the book Dead Wrong very soon.

Blackberries, thick and ripe

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I’ve been picking blackberries the last few weeks. They are the most aggressive plant imaginable. There is a local blackberry on Vancouver Island with small leaves and a thin vine that creeps along the ground in undisturbed forest areas. The berries are small and their season is short.

Then there are the Himalayan blackberries, with thick tough vines and huge thorns. We were picking the Himalayans. They have a long season, stretching into early October depending on the weather, and the berries are huge. The bushes were on the other side of a ditch, so we backed the truck across the ditch and stood on the flatbed to pick. I still got clawed and scratched but they are so plentiful we filled three buckets.

I learned how to pick these berries from the mother of a friend. She always went out prepared. She wore heavy jeans, tucked into socks, with heavy boots and thick soles. That way she could use her foot to flatten the vines and move forward into the jungle. She wore a cotton shirt, with a long sleeved shirt over so the thorns could grab the top shirt and she wouldn’t get clawed. She had a belt around her waist that was threaded through the handle of her berry bucket. Then she wore one leather glove to grab the vine and left her other hand free for picking. She also carried a wire coat hanger to hook the vines and pull them forward if needed.

I lived on Vancouver Island until my eleventh birthday. Then my family moved to the North Peace area. Time passed, we moved on again to the Kootenays, and it was years later that I decided to return to Victoria to attend university. It was early September, and I was waiting at a bus stop to take me up to the university campus for the first time. There was a blackberry bush behind the bench, and I leaned over and picked a few berries. They tasted like home. I had forgotten how good they were, but those few berries reminded me. I’ve lived on the island ever since.

What wild fruit do you pick near your home?