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

Spring.......

This is Spring right now at the farm.  The last storm we had was basically high winds, and it created these wonderful snow sculptures in the open fields and bluffs.  I tried to capture the beauty but the pictures really don't do it justice.

My snow shoe tracks.  

Not many animal tracks anywhere.

Snow accumulated in our shelterbelt.

Snow sculpture.

Won't be accessing this greenhouse anytime soon.

I started a Floral Design class last week, Floral Design II at the Saskatoon Horticulture School.

This is my creation from the class.

Pussy Willow we harvested for sales at the Saskatoon Farmers Market Easter Saturday.

We are in full Spring mode, planting seeds, bulbs, tubers and transplanting perennials into larger containers, we started in January and February.  We will continually seed till a couple of weeks prior to June 1st.  We usually wait till the first week in June before we transplant any frost tender annuals and perennials.

We received our first shipment of dahila tubers yesterday.  They came from Ferncliff Gardens in Mission, BC and they all look great.  I ordered from a couple of new suppliers this year.  The other supplier is Sid's Dahlias from Nova Scotia.  Really looking forward to trying new colours that I am not able to access through the wholesalers.  Will try propagating the dahlias to increase my volume.

We have been fielding a lot of Wedding Flower inquiries and have several weekends completely booked this Summer.  If you or anyone you know is looking for local, sustainable wedding flowers please contact us.  We may grow just what you are looking for.

We have a lot of new and exciting things we are growing, raising and participating in this year.  Stay tuned for future updates.

Happy Spring and enjoy the sunshine.

Snow

Posting a few pictures of the snow accumulation out here.  We have had one other year with this amount of snow since we have been living here, but then again it is only mid February so we are expecting to see a record amount this year.

 The driveway has been cleared every couple of days in the last two weeks.

Will keep you posted if the old boys will be buried this winter.  They are half way there.

A winter wonderland, especially when the snow sparkles.

Feathered Friends

Took a couple of photos today of the Grosbeaks and Bluejays that are staying with us this winter.

Tried to capture the snow accumulation this year.  We have lots of snow in our yard and in the pasture.

The growing season begins!

The 2013 growing season has begun.  We have several trays of seedlings growing under artificial light and we will be seeding every week now until May.  We have several varieties of perennials growing right now.  Seeded a few annuals, Purple Majesty Millet, Lithsanthus and Craspedia - Drumstick flower.  The Drumstick flower is great for corsages and button holes.  The daylight hours are growing once again and have noticed the longer days in the evening, but I am still driving to work in darkness in the mornings.  February should be the start of the increased morning daylight.

Lots and lots of snow all around this year.  We had another several centimeters drop this morning and there are drifts everywhere.  Will be lots of water around in the Spring, but the soil was pretty dry in the Fall so it should absorb a lot of water.  What will the Spring bring us this year?

We have a lot of birds living at our farm this winter.  Lots and lots of Grosbeaks, a few Bluejays, Woodpeckers of all sizes, Redpoles and Chickadees.  They clean out the feeders every couple of days and the Woodpeckers enjoy the suet Pat makes for them.

Sharing a few photos of the 2012 gardens taken by Mandy, our daughter, in late August.

Prairie Sun Rudbeckia

Fuchsiana Dahlia

Fireworks Gomphrena

Orange Dahlias

Dahlia patch

Happy New Year!

The first post of 2013 is a collection of photos, of a few of the wedding flowers we created in 2012.

The weddings consisted of the client buying flowers in bulk and creating their own centrepieces and bouquets, to having us put together all the bouquets, buttonholes and centrepieces.  We are booking weddings again this year, so give us a call, as we are limited to what we can take on throughout the summer.  Keep in mind all of our flowers are grown naturally without any sort of chemicals.  We are totally flexible to your needs and no wedding is too small. 

All of our seed orders are complete and we have received some of the 2013 crop of seeds.  I have seeded several varieties of perennials and about 8 varieties have sprouted.  I will be seeding throughout the next few months and growing lots of new varieties of perennials and annuals.  The dahlia orders are complete and we will start receiving those in March.  We are trying lots of new colours in the oranges, purples, and creams.  The varieties that perform well will be dug in the fall and stored and propagated for the 2014 season. 

Winter slumber

It has a been a while since we last posted and I think we just needed to take some time off from the daily rigors of the summer/fall months.  The snow is on the ground now, and our attention turns to relaxing, making decisions of what we will plant next year and sourcing suppliers.  I found a couple of new suppliers for dahlia tubers in Canada.  Ferncliff Gardens is based out on the west coast and they have a very large selection of dahlias along with peonies, irises and a few other perennials.  I put an order in yesterday and am looking forward to new bloom colours next summer.  Focusing on a couple of colours that I can't get from my wholesaler, purple and orange and variations of them.  The seed catalogues will start arriving this month and our orders will be placed with them by January.

We have been doing a lot of walking the last couple of weeks enjoying the warm weather, checking out the various animal tracks in the snow.  We seem to be playing host to a couple of vegetarian coyotes.  They tend to visit our compost bins almost daily checking out the array of vegetable scraps that we are composting and enjoying something or other.  Maybe there are mice living in the piles.  We have a group of Pine Grosbeaks in the yard eating the lilac seeds, crabapple fruit and the sunflower seeds.  

The Tomato Jam we made this summer, is being eaten as a condiment in place of ketchup and I know we will not go back to plain old ketchup again.  Another item we don't have to depend on buying from the grocery store, which is made with wholesome ingredients we grow.  I had the opportunity this fall to pick the Sea Buckthorn berries before we received a hard frost and made a batch of Sea Buckthorn Jelly, which turned out very well.  They are such a beautiful orange colour and very healthy.

Including a few photos of the gardens taken by our daughter Mandy.

Love Grass