After our long cold winters I sure look forward to spring each year and the tulips that pop out of our yard at this time of year.

This little tulip was the first to open in the front of our house and a day or two later a second one popped up to join it.

The petals have a pastel red border than follows along the inside of each petal make it very nice on the eyes.

What’s really cool about our tulips is that they open during the day and close back up at night so I can watch them open again the next day.

Yellow And White Tulips

That cool little tulip is on the north side of our front steps but the beautiful tulips showing on the right were opening on the south side of the front steps.

As these yellow and white tulips were showing off a red tulip was growing up behind them. I think it took about a week before it opened and tried to grab my attention.

I looked at the white and yellow tulips today and they are on their last legs. The wind and rains expected over the next three days will take all their petals I’m afraid but I will see them again next spring.

Bright Red Tulips And Even Tiger Tulips

Here is the red tulip that was creeping up behind the yellow/white tulips above. When he did get big enough to open he was spectacular. Love the brightly coloured tulips and some of my favourite tulips.

Still didn’t out shine the yellow and white group. A close second though.

It would be great to have them keep coming back all summer long but then we might not appreciate them as much as we do at our house.

On the north side of the steps we get this one tiger tulip, if that’s what its called but on the south side we a group of six or seven.

Love the way it goes from a redish orange to yellow edged petals. Beautiful and another of my favourite tulips.

Looking close up it looks like it has been beaten and wrinkled but that’s the way they grow. A close up shows they have a very raggedy edge to the petals that I think is very cool.

Love Bright Yellow Tulips

When the bright yellow tulips open they add another level of coolness to our front yard. As much as I like the tulips that have gradient coloured petals or the two tone petals I have to say the pure colours make me the happiest.

I have been enjoying our tulips and a few others around Moncton. They started near the end of April and have been going ever since. It’s now the end of May.

Sadly this may be their lasts weekend as we are about to get a lot of heavy rain and strong winds. The tulips don’t do well with the wind. I am already looking forward to seeing them all again next spring.

Some Of The Tulips in Our Front Yard

We have lots of tulips in our spring home garden but there are no tulips in our backyard. That will be remedied come next fall when I will plant a couple of dozen more in the back yard.

During the winter I do a whole lot more reading than I do any other time of the year. As a gardener and fishing nut I do my fun stuff during the spring, summer and fall and then learn new things in the winter.

This past winter I saw a picture on Pinterest with a short caption saying to soak your garden seeds for 24 hours before planting them to help them germinate faster. For some of the seeds I have they take a long time to germinate in soil.

Soaking Sweet Pea Seeds

I kind of forgot that tip only to think about it after I was almost done. Fortunately I still had a few seeds to start some sweet peas and lupins. They went in water for 24 hours. I kept checking them from time to time and after about 6 hours I could see that some seeds had already split open. Very cool.

Almost a week ago I planted some lupin seeds but nothing had happened yet. The seeds I soaked in water for a day sprouted at the same time, just two days later.

This morning between the rain I went out and planted the soaked seeds along the two fences in the north east corner of our yard. They should make a nice privacy fence for the summer. I also planted a few in the raised bed on the left and right of our three clematis.

That should fill up that empty space on the trellis until the clematis catch up.

I also filled two pots with soil and then added some of the soaked sweet pea seeds to one half of the pot. The other half is where I plan to stick a plastic pop bottle I can fill and use as a drip irrigation system so they don’t dry out as quickly as they usually do in the summer.

I have started an article on using containers for drip irrigation I will publish it shortly, I hope.

We have lived here for nearly eight years and still have flowers blooming that we have no idea their name. They are just beautiful and that was good enough for me.

However if I want to have more of them I guess I need to know their names so I can order some. Like these little blue and white stars growing in the front of our house.

Glory of The Snow

After searching for a while and looking at pictures I finally found them. They are commonly called Glory Of The Snow and then there is their scientific name which I can’t really pronounce, Chionodoxa Forbesii.

We have a few around the yard but the first to come up were those right up against the house where the soil warmed up first. As soon as the snow melted a bit up came the crocus and right behind them our Glory of the Snow.

These little guys are only four inches high with blue and white flowers that look like tiny stars. I love how the white starts in the center and changes to a dark blue as it reaches the ends of the petals. One of our best spring home garden flowers.

The Glory of the Snow is started from blubs but I wasn’t able to get any this year as everywhere I checked they were already sold out for this year. I will keep checking and order some as soon as I find them.

I moved to Moncton, New Brunswick back in 1980 but it wasn’t until about 25 years later that we finally had a place we were allowed to dig up the yard, because we bought our own property.

In the time that we have been living and home gardening here in Moncton I have only every seed just a few butterflies. I think they were pure white and pure yellow. Nothing else but I want that to change.

I grew up in the 60s seeing lots of butterflies but when I started gardening I expected to see a lot more butterflies than I am seeing so I have to do something to draw them to our backyard and vegetable garden.

Monarch butterflies are my favourite but I know there are other butterflies that would match their beauty, just haven’t seen them here. I’ve had to start learning more about butterflies and how they live in order to change our yard to plants and flowers that specific butterflies, like the monarch, likes.

We Are Planting A Butterfly Garden This Spring

Went out looking for some seeds to start a butterfly and hummingbird garden. I will be planting them in the backyard where I can watch them from my office window.

I found a few packs of seeds that should do the trick, now I just have to create a couple of new flower beds for those seeds.

Of course I won’t get as much work done in my office if I do this but hey I’m retired and can move as slow as I want.

Resources For Butterfly Gardening

Youtube is always a great resource for learning more about any subject butterfly gardening  included. I found The Ten Commandments of Butterfly Gardening to be quite informative and worth watching.

Another useful video is from Bird Man Mel’s Youtube video channel.

Maybe you would like to learn how to raise butterflies, then check out the article at Butterfly Gardening website.

Just watched a video that showed me how to attract butterflies with mud pies with P. Allen Smith as well as a second one called attracting butterflies.

Host Plants For Butterflies

I have been thinking about the plants that butterflies like to get nectar from but I didn’t put any thought at all into the plants these butterflies use to lay their eggs on which are called host plants. So glad I have been watching videos to help me learn what I need to get and keep butterflies in our yard.

Example: We have black swallowtail butterflies in New Brunswick so I need host plants for their eggs and for the caterpillars to feed on before they eventually become the adult butterfly. Just this morning I learned they love the carrot family so carrot tops, fennel and Queen Anne’s Lace.

However, to host Monarch butterflies which have been my favourite since childhood I will need members of the milkweed family as a host.

I’ve Learned Which Butterflies Live Here

I couldn’t tell you how many varieties of butterflies there are in North America or my own province of New Brunswick so I’ve very happy we have Internet to do some research to see how many we have here and which ones frequent the Moncton area.

Learning which butterflies we have will help me pick the right nectar and host plants for our yard and garden.

Butterflies In New Brunswick Canada

I used the Maritimes Butterfly Atlas to find the butterflies in New Brunswick and then those that frequent Moncton where we live.

I’m excited about this year’s gardening and hope to see many more butterflies than I’ve ever seen and if I can find their host plants locally I’ll be seeing more and more butterflies every year from now on.

Just watched another video that I found very informative and had to share it here.

It’s only been about 5 years that we have been gardening here in Moncton, New Brunswick but we never saw any hummingbirds. Then last year I got to see one up close for just a couple of seconds.

It was enough to make me want to see more of them so now I’m learning how to attract hummingbirds to our backyard garden.

Hummingbird have always been one of my favourite birds, just never saw one until now. That’s more than 50 years loving them without actually seeing one in person.

I was checking out some of our tomato plants when I thought I saw something fly past me. I turned and saw a hummingbird enjoying the blossoms on our pole beans. I had just enough time for my brain to recognize it and then it took off like a rocket into the next yard.

What Varieties Live in New Brunswick

The ruby-throated hummingbird is the only hummingbird I learned about way back in grade school but I was curious to know if there are other varieties here in New Brunswick and I found we have at least four varieties: Ruby-throated, Rufous Black-Chinned, Broad-Billed.

Here is a video that has helped me.

Recycling To Make Hummingbird Feeders

I bought a little hummingbird feeder a year ago to see if I could attract hummingbirds but never saw a single one using the feeder. I think the location was a poor choice and this year I will put them in a less sunny spot.

Items Required For My Hummingbird Feeder Project

For the hummingbird feeders I will make this year I am choosing to recycle products that would normally end up in the trash. Maybe a couple of water bottles and yogurt containers. Use a little bright red lipstick to draw some flower petals around the drinking holes and they should be good to go. Come on hummingbirds.

I won’t need many items to make my birdfeeders.

• Plastic water, soda or pop bottle with cap
• Small Shallow Tub, 3 to 5 inches across
• String or thin wire for hanging the feeder
• Drill and small drill bits or nail and hammer
• Bright red lipstick or permanent marker

I couldn’t find any bright red containers to use but I did find a couple of bright red plastic coffee containers that I will cut up. If I do it right I should be able to roll a strip up and put it inside the bottle. Then hopefully the rolled up plastic will unroll and cover the sides making the contents appear red.

Note: As I was reading things online I remember one article mentioning problems with ants. If you have problems with ants finding your feeders you can just put petroleum jelly on the string or wire you use to connect your feeder to whatever is holding it off the ground.

I also read that it’s not good to use food colouring as it can cause sores on the hummingbird’s mouth. It’s better to use simple syrup made from 3 or 4 parts water to one part sugar. This is why I will try to have a red container or red plastic I can put inside to make it appear red to attract them.

Related Hummingbird Info Sites

I found a site that shows a Google map with locations of hummingbirds in North America. It says it’s a global map but really it’s pretty much U.S. only.

It wouldn’t be a complete page on hummingbirds without including The World of Hummingbirds and Hummingbirds Around The World.

I love images of hummingbirds and found this hummingbird Flickr page. I wasn’t quick enough to get a picture of the hummingbird I saw last summer but hopefully I will this summer and I’ll add it to that Flickr page.

Well now it’s off to see how well I do at building my own hummingbird feeder.

Well Casey and I had planned a musky fishing trip for today but after Casey checked out the weather conditions for next week we decided it might be better to hold off until Monday.

Today was going to start at minus 10C and only go up to about 3C but Monday is looking like double digit temps on the plus side. I was actually happy he called to see if I wanted to change dates as I take heart meds that thins my blood and makes me feel the cold so much sooner than I used to.

When I took our pit bull Honey out at 5:30 this morning she didn’t take long doing her business and to start barking to come back in. I didn’t wait outside with her either. It was a chilly morning.

Trimming The Grass Back From Our Garden Beds

Rather than sitting here thinking about the fishing we didn’t do I decided it was better to turn my thoughts to my trusty garden spade and the grass that has grown from the edges of our gardens into them.

It’s great that the ground hasn’t frozen yet which makes this task a lot easier and faster. Hopefully this year I do a better job at keep those lines straight around our vegetable garden.

We have a couple of flower beds that have edges in need of trimming but we are still building and shaping these. Once we get them to the size and shape we have in mind I would like to put a nice border around them so they will be easier to maintain.

For the time being we will continue to use the garden spade to trim the edges and keep them clean looking but once we have the veggie garden dug up to about 10×20 feet I plan to put a fence with an arbour around it. Then we will have the idea spot to put the patio swing or garden bench Judy and Jean gave us, which are sitting in the garage waiting for that spot.

Last spring I started about a dozen Nasturtium seeds indoors so I could plant them in our backyard garden once the weather turned a bit warmer.

I had enough to put a row in front of our clematis vines which we have in a raised bed garden. The rest I kept until I was finished created a new flower garden for a shrub we bought.

When it was sitting there as just a pile of dirt Jenny started calling the burial plot so I had to go out and plant that shrub before the term ‘burial plot’ stuck. She’s so cute.

I have really been able to enjoy them right from my office window but now it’s October and they are looking a little raggedy, although they are still producing flowers.

This morning I went out to look at them and noticed a handful of seed pods lying on the soil so I got a container and started collecting them for next year.

I even brought in some of the green pods that were still on the plant but I only collect those that fell off as soon as I touched them. The others will be read in a few more days I think. I have three dozen at the moment. They are on a paper towel drying before I seal them up and put them away for next year.

I always like to watch video showing me how to do things so I looked around Youtube for a bit and located this short video that shows a guy collecting Nasturtium seeds like I just did. I hope you will like it.

I’ve seen more bumble bees this year than I have since we bought our home. Just the other day I was out taking pictures of our perennials, specifically our Autumn Joy.

I tried zooming in on just one bee but they were all over the Sedum or Autumn Joy on the left. They have been all over our gardens, including our vegetable garden this year. Maybe that’s why we had such a great gardening year.

I love the fall because it changes the summer beauty into the fall colours that makes it spectacular. Jenny’s Sedum turns into something special and gets better by the day. The Autumn Joy below is what it looks like for the entire summer.

Jenny’s Sedum Autumn Joy in Early Summer

However, once September rolls around things change, colour that is. The Sedum – Autumn Joy changes from the not so exciting green to gorgeous pinks and reds that make fall so interesting to me.

Jenny planted our Autumn Joy back in 2008. It was a small plant but each year it grew a bit bigger and has become a real beauty.

You can see in the image below our Autumn Joy wasn’t very big or very attractive. It didn’t stay that way for long and each year it’s just a bit bigger and needs to be started in another area of our backyard garden.

Wasn’t So Impressive The First Year

The second year it was a bit bigger and once fall arrived it started to get a bit of colour and every day it was a little brighter until it was the best looking spot in the garden.

Now I have to look out our kitchen window every time I walk past it so I can see how it’s looking today.

We get to see that beauty right through the winter, as long as the snow doesn’t get too deep. Right now it would have to be more than a foot and a half deep to cover up this beauty.

The shot below was taken this morning as soon as the sun was hitting.

The Iris and Peonies behind it are blocking it from getting much sunlight in the afternoon, so I am either going to have to thin out the other plants blocking it our perhaps do some propagating so that we have it in more than just one location in our yard.

Every time I look at my beautiful Clematis blossoms I’m reminded that I could have killed them last fall when I cut them back, just a little more than I had planned.

The Clematis we have in our raised bed started putting out new shoots and vines at least a week before the guy in the image on the left did.

Once I saw that first shoot appear I realized it was the fact we have the other in a raised bed that was heated up long before this guy who was planted directly in the ground next to our garden shed. It just keeps making me smile every day when I go out to our vegetable garden, just so many blossoms.

Here’s a picture of the entire Clematis plant growing on the trellis that’s attached to our garden shed. Sure looks skinny doesn’t it, but it’s really producing some beautiful blossoms.

I keep thinking about next year. If it has just a couple more vines started next spring it will be breath taking for sure.

It’s the Clematis we started two years ago and would likely have over taken the others in the raised bed if I hadn’t cut it back so much.

Cutting it back so much was a real beginner gardener’s mistake but I’m learning more each year so we’ll see what next year.

The Clematis in the picture below grows in one of our raised bed gardens and climbs a huge trellis. It was so big they couldn’t get a hold of it so I had to add some mesh netting so they could climb it.

This raised be has a huge rose bush which grows on our property fence and it blocks direct sunlight until at least 10am. The sunlight hits the back of the trellis first so the blossoming started behind the trellis.

I didn’t even see them at first and was wondering why they weren’t blossoming. Then I walked around to the back and saw dozens of blossom hiding back there. Now they have blossoms on both front and back and are looking great.

I work from home blogging about my hobbies and interest. There are times I just sit and stare out my office window. I can’t help it they are just so pretty.

Related articles

• Clematis Planning: Picking, Purchasing, Planting And Pruning (hbb2obm.com)
• Transplanted Columbines And Clematis To South Side of Our Garden Shed (hbb2obm.com)

Just after the snow was gone I started trimming the rose bushes on our property fence. It gets out of control so easily.  This particular rose bush is dangerous as the thorns are long, curved and have a life of their own. Just walking past them can be dangerous as they are like needles that slice and dice.

Here it is a couple of months later and they are looking beautiful as you can see by the picture below, however they are out of control.

Our neighbour Geoff’s was in between them and his shed trying to put up siding.

Once they started blossoming I just couldn’t cut them down until they were done. Just too much beauty so I waited until the blossoms began fading and dying.

I couldn’t have picked a worse time as it’s been so hot I can only work for a few minutes before I done in by the heat.

The section showing on the left took me about three days to clear, a half hour at a time.

I noticed a vine growing that I tried to save as it’s a vine I see on a lot of fences when I go for my walks. It covers the fence nicely and turns a pretty red colour in the fall. I saved most of it but must have snipped part of it because one of the longest branches was dying the next day. Still saved some and it grows fast.

You can see it hanging onto the fence and looks healthy, after I cut the dying section off.

All in all it took me more than a week to clear up that fence and it’s the shortest section of property fence we have, so I have my work cut out for me. I’m sure it won’t be done this year.

We also have some different colour roses, some white blossoms, some pink like the image to the right and then some red roses. I’d like to save some of each but keep them under control.

The pink rose bush that’s on this section of fence covers the northeast corner of our house, all the way up and past the eves. It also covers my office window that faces our neighbour’s back door, so I want to keep some of that across the window. It also helps to keep the breeze that comes in that window a lot cooler than my other office window that gets direct sunlight.

You can see the corner of the house with the rose bush still blooming and it extends up another 5 feet above that. I really don’t want to cut this back much as I love how it looks on our house.

Frau Dagmar Hastrup | Shrub Rose Plants

I was cutting out stuff I didn’t want, other than the rose bushes and before I even realized it I had cut off a mountain ash. I didn’t even see it I was so focused on the rose bushes. Hopefully it will come back up again.

I managed to save a couple of little maple trees, one of my favourite trees but also had to cut a few down that had grown right through the fence.

I did save a few other vines that I have tied to the fence. I’m hoping they do well and help cover the fence. As you can see in the image below that I didn’t leave much on the fence. But we will put some move plants there but this time they will be plants two seniors will be able to handle.

Well the lovely pink columbines we have, other than one in the front bed, have already been transplanted to the the south side of our garden shed and they have done really well.

The thing is I don’t like where I have them because it makes the rest of the garden shed look too bare so now I want to move the purple clematis to the center of the trellis there and then add two more.

I want to use the pink columbines to be transplanted in between the clematis to make that side of the shed more eye catching.

The columbines have almost finished for this year but you can see in the image about that it just doesn’t look right with all the columbines on one end and the single clematis at the opposite end. That’s going to be corrected so that we have at least three clematis that are centered with enough space between them for groupings of columbines.

The clematis we have blossom all summer long and into the fall so they will look great and will give that extra burst of colour when the columbines are done blooming.

I think the three colours of clematis above will look great spread across the trellis on our garden shed. We already have the purple and pale blue clematis which may do fine for this year.

Related articles

• Clematis Planning: Picking, Purchasing, Planting And Pruning (hbb2obm.com)
• Clematis – Ranunculaceae Botanical – “Head in the sun, feet in the shade” (melissakirst.wordpress.com)
• The Clematis (27thstreet.wordpress.com)

We are so happy we started a clematis at our new home. I has been spectacular and a big part of why we purchased three more clematis for our home garden and backyard.

The clematis was new to us so we really didn’t know what to expect or how to choose a good one from our local nursery so it was so nice to have Internet access so we could check Youtube for more information about Clematis.

Like I said we bought a few more clematis and without thinking I bought one that was the same as we already had but I put it along side the garage where the purple looks great against the white background of the garage trellis.

This purple clematis is in our backyard garden area, right next to our vegetable garden. It’s looking better every year. This year I am training my clematis up the trellis so that it will be more spread out across the trellis. I’m doing this for our other three clematis as well.

Properly Planting Your Clematis

I didn’t realize I should have planted my clematis a few centimeters deeper than the base of the plant. Mine still grew just fine and appear quite healthy. I mulched it a bit to help keep the roots cooler and that’s the reason your bury them a bit deeper than normal planting.

My clematis are just climbing their trellis now and have no blossoms or flowers but yesterday on my walk I passed a home that has the dark purple clematis already climbing and blooming.

Their clematis gets the early morning sunlight, where our clematis are all on the east side of our property facing west and don’t get sunlight until about 9 or 10 o’clock.

This clematis is on a pergola right where their sidewalk meets the sidewalk at the street inviting you in. So cool. Eventually Jenny and I will have a pergola at the end of our sidewalk, that’s how much we like them.

Crimson Rhododendron Blossoming

Purple Iris Blooming

Lilac Rhododendron Blooming

Maybe you weren’t born with the proverbial green thumb. Perhaps you have a tendency to kill plants faster than most people can water them. It’s possible that plants seem to wilt, just because you entered the room. Sorry Jenny, you’re busted.

If you’ve condemned yourself to a life devoid of gardening because you can’t seem to breathe some life into your perpetually black thumb, have no fear, there is hope for you yet. With these five tips even the blackest of thumbs can be transformed into a green thumb. You can learn to be a gardener, just like I did.

1. Research, Research And More Research

One mistake that many beginning gardeners make is that they buy plants based on what they want to thrive in their garden instead of based on what actually can survive.

You have to do the research ahead of time so that you know which types of plants are known for being successful in your particular climate, and which ones may look pretty in the store but are unlikely to take once planted, unless they have immaculate care and supervision.

You want to checkout a climate zone or hardiness zone chart to see what gardening zone you live in. To find the plant hardiness zones for my area I used Google along with the following search text:

new brunswick canada plant hardiness zones

Once you know your plant hardiness zone you can check plants and seeds you purchase for their planting zone which will help you to have plants that will do great where you live.

2. Start With a Window-Sill Garden

Instead of digging up half of your backyard to plant a large garden, start small. Pick up a few herbs to grow in a windowsill garden so that you can get comfortable with the responsibility of frequently watering and caring for plants.

As the care of those herbs becomes second nature you can move on to outdoor plants. Jenny and I started with herbs but soon moved on to starting tomatoes indoors and then moving them outside in a container garden around our building. We even bought a mini greenhouse to give our starter plants the best opportunity and it actually worked great.

3. Choose Plants Requiring Minimal Supervision

You can choose plants that need daily watering, minimal sunlight, and the perfect amount of shade… or you can choose plants that thrive in any conditions and require infrequent watering.

When you’re just starting out, the latter is the way to go. Gardening takes a lot of work, and you can end up wasting a lot of money if you aren’t yet fully comfortable with meticulously watching over plants that need constant care.

4. Write Down a Schedule For Your Plants

Different plants require different amounts of water and at different times during the day. It can be confusing trying to keep track of all of that, especially when you’re just getting your gardening feet wet.

You can make things easier for yourself by creating a written schedule of when your plants need to be watered. This can help you avoid any mishaps. You can also add in reminders to pull weeds, till soil, add fertilizer, and any other tasks that are necessary to maintaining a thriving garden.

5. Learn From Your Failure

All too often people kill one or two plants and then swear off gardening entirely, touting that they have a black thumb instead of a green thumb and that they just don’t have what it takes to be a gardener.

Don’t let failure kill your desire along with the plants! Instead let it propel you forward so that you learn from your mistakes and fix them, that way the next time around you are prepared for pruning the perfect plants.

Some people seem to have the magic touch with gardening, and others seem to be cursed with a fatal one. However when you’re strapped with knowledge, organization, and a desire to succeed you have a fair shot at turning that black thumb into one with a lovely shade of green.

About the Author:

This guest post is contributed by Debra Johnson, blogger and editor of full time nanny. Debra welcomes your comments at her email Id: – jdebra84 @ gmail.com.

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• 5 Home Garden Plants That Don’t Require a Green Thumb (backyardgardeningtips.com)
• Home Gardening Tips For Beginners: Start Small (backyardgardeningtips.com)
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