Collectively Green Sale and Celebration

The planting season is well underway.  We have received all of our plant, tuber and bulb orders and all are planted.  Everything is starting to peek out of the soil and reaching for the light.  We moved a few plants out to the greenhouse, but not quite comfortable in moving all the plants out to the greenhouses yet, for a few reasons.  The first one being is that there is still three feet of snow we have to walk through to get to the greenhouse, the night time temperatures are still very cold, and one of the greenhouse's is not accessible due to the snow accumulation surrounding it.  

I have decided to ignore the situation with the snow still being here.  Focusing on seeding and caring for the plants.  It is what it is and we will work through any issues that arise because of it.  The snow will melt and we will have Spring and the perennials will show up....I hope.

Asiatic Lily bulbs planted in crates.

We will have fresh cut lilies in June.

Shelves of Dahlia tubers planted a week ago.

As of today the shelves are 75% empty, which means they have germinated and are now under the grow lights.  All of our dahlia tuber stock looked fantastic this year.  Can't wait to see the new colours we are trialing this year.

Dianthus Amazon Neon Series, my favourite new flower.  Grew it for the first time last year.  Started by seed, germination rate is almost 100%, not bothered by pests, long stems, and the colours of the flowers are deep, rich pinks and purples.  Mid season bloomer.

2012 garden photo

We are gearing up for a busy Spring.  It all kicks off this weekend with a celebration of Earth Week.  We were invited to join a sale and celebration called Collectively Green.  It takes place April 27th from 10:00am to 5:00pm at the Grace-Westminister United Church 505 10th St Saskatoon.  It is being described as a market where all products are planet friendly, organic, natural, reclaimed, recycled, upcycled, fair trade or used; along with great food, fabulous musicians and free admisssion.  Children's entertainers take the stage at 11:00 am and the entertainment continues all afternoon.   Really looking forward to this celebration and we feel honored to be asked to participate in this event.  Stop by and check out all the unique items, listen to some local talent and enjoy some great snacks.  Check out the facebook page https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=238817839590936&set=a.226300750842645.1073741828.226277060845014&type=1 

Byproduct of my Floral Design class.

Pictures

Our first Passion Flower bloom.

Last fall I dug up all the Passion Flower vines I had growing throughout the gardens.  One of the plants I cut back and brought indoors and let it grow in a south facing window all winter.  It did great and rewarded us with it's first flower a couple of days ago.  They are pretty spectacular.  The other plants were placed in our insulated, unheated garage. Unfortunately they did not survive the winter.  I am rooting cuttings to increase my volume of plants as I plan to use a lot of vines in my floral arrangements this summer.  

The above are the floral arrangements I created at week 2 & 3 of the Floral Design Class.

The first photo is a Naturalistic Japanese Garden (modern twist on Ikebana).

The second photo we were to create a Crescent shaped arrangement.

The classes are proving to be very challenging, but I am loving working with fresh flowers again.

At this time we are busy seeding, transplanting and potting up tubers and bareroot plants we are receiving from our orders we placed in December of 2012.  The weather is still very cold for this time of year so we have not opened up the greenhouses yet.  All of the seedlings are under grow lights in the basement and garage.  Eventually we will run out of room and we will have to start using the greenhouse.  Should have enough room for another week or two, then the hardier plants will be moved out.

Few more photos taken by Memories by Mandy from the 2012 growing season....

Crocosmia Limpopo

Gomphrena  Fireworks

Zinnia Zahara Rose

Dahlia Fuschiana