Weed and Wine and Megan's Garden

Fun Times at the Weed and Wine garden meeting! A productive time cleaning the Highlands club house garden, followed by a visit to Megan’s garden.

Dionne's Herb Garden

The night started out warm, but cooled down quickly as the sun went down.  Dionne was prepared: herbal mosquito repellent!  Thus protected we toured her garden of herbalist delights.

Amongst the towers of sunflowers (they help take the metals out of the soil) there was milk thistle, Campanula (can cut down and it just spreads and spreads), Skullcap, and California poppies. 

Members seemed most interested in the ones that had calming and sleeping benefits.

Once dark, we headed inside for the meeting and enjoyed lilac cordial with pretty floating ice cubes of calendula and violas (all homemade from flowers in her garden).


We talked about:

- Building bee hotels in the future
- the plant exchanges happening on the weekend

- The Open Farm Days at Northlands - Margaret continues to recommend the tours.  Hopefully it'll still be around next year for others in the club to partake.

July Meeting at Margaret's: Business in the Front, Blooms in the Back

Slightly overcast skies hinted at storm, but we were lucky -- the meeting wasn't rained out and we had plenty of time outside again to explore Margaret's garden.

This time (a month earlier than last year), the kale was a little less monstrous and a different set of flowers were in bloom. 

Happy bees buzzed around as we checked out some native beauties in the far far back -- no space wasted, flowers and plants right into the alley! 

We later convened back to the front yard to enjoy tea and treats.


We discussed upcoming events: The tour of Wilf Maul's acreage is on!  Also of interest is Alberta Open Farm Days at Northlands on Aug.21st.  There will be farm tours, demonstrations of honey harvesting, and talks on beekeeping, keeping chickens, and backyard farming. 

 

 

 

 

August: Meeting at Margaret's

August's laid back meeting was the perfect chance for members to explore Margaret's garden. 

She created focal points with recovered wooden stumps.  And little springs of wild grasses with usual seed heads nodded between larger plants. 


















The front yard's main motif was aquatic - a fish! 

To the one side was a collection of different coral bells.

There were many plants in flower, including (right) a gentian that Ollie declared was an amazing true blue! 

The side of house was Margaret's prairie garden with saskatoons, currants, milkweed, and a native grass (below) that Erica remembers calling "mascara grass" as a kid. 

The backyard was a combination of a flowers and edibles and a haven for insects and natural life. 




(Below) Bees happily foraged, a yellow spider hid among golden blooms, and wasps were welcomed - as carnivores to eat any hand-squished cabbage worms. 

When the sun started to go low, we headed inside for our meeting.  Over plates of treats, we reviewed articles on monarch butterfly migration, bee hotels, and the "pretty pain" also known as Himalayan balsam.

Margaret also shared her garden bounty - cucumbers yum! 

Spring Blooms!

Tulips and daffodils are only barely poking out of the ground, but there are other flowers already in bloom!  I visited Margaret's garden to see some of them in full colour. 

Little bulbs with big impact

Iris riticulata 'Harmony', a bulb iris, is a familiar (if scaled down) bloom on 10 cm stems.

Galanthus (Snowdrops), (with Stardust fame) come in various sizes.  This one is only 10 cm tall.

Iris riticulatus 'Harmony'

Galanthus (snowdrops)

Scilla siberica or Squill are dainty, delightful, and a true blue!  

Scilla siberica (Siberian Squill) in bud.

Scilla siberica (Siberian Squill) in bloom.

Margaret had two different colours of Glory of the Snow Chionodoxa. 

 Chinodoxa luciliae (Glory of the Snow)

Chionodoxa (Glory of the Snow)

Crocus

Crocus also makes an early appearance (though unlike the rarer fall-flowering one, also has leaves).

Perennials and Native Bee-uties

Pulmonaria (Lungwort) and Hepatica (Liverleaf) are both perennials.  But only the later is native to North America. 

Pulmonaria (Lungwort)

Hepatica (Liverleaf)

The "Hungarian violet" and Viola Tricolor (Johnny-Jump-Up) are prolific seeders (and likely to survive our winters), so even though they're pretty, they're also weeds!

"Hungarian Violet"

Viola Tricolor (Johnny Jump Up)

My favourite of the day (and perhaps also for the bees -- look closely, there's one there!), is the Native Prairie Crocus (Pulsatilla).

Pulsatilla (Native Prairie Crocus)

What's blooming in your spring garden?