Saturday, June 17, 2006

Snappy crossing


I was out one evening recently taking flower photos, when I noticed something on our laneway. When I went to investigate, I saw that it was a huge snapping turtle headed towards our farm pond.

It took me a few minutes to realize that this was a "photo opportunity." It's odd how once your head is in one mode (flower photography) that it takes a few minutes to realize that a turtle in the laneway would be interesting to photograph too.

Anyway, I ran to get my telephoto lens, so I wouldn't have to scare the turtle by getting too close, and here are the results. Is this a face only a mother could love?



Poor turtle. She froze while I took pictures of her. After I stopped taking pictures and returned to the flowers, she finally felt safe enough to continue to the pond.

We have a south-facing hill around our house that would be perfect for turtle-egg laying. Perhaps she laid her eggs there.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Mulch by the dump truck


This week we got another dump truck load of wood chip mulch. We seem to go through one dump truck load each year. We top our planting beds with a three-inch layer of mulch, generally straw or wood chips. We do it to control weeds and keep moisture in the soil.

We also like to mulch our trees with leaf mould and wood chips to keep the grass mowable around them. (Otherwise, it's easy to get too close to a tree and injure the bark.)

We buy the composted wood chips cheaply from a tree service, and we get straw for the vegetable garden from a local farmer.

We find that mulch is a godsend for country gardening for these reasons:

• It keeps weeds down, mainly by blocking out the light they need to germinate – and if a weed manages to poke through, it's easier to pull it out when rooted in a layer of mulch than in the soil.
• Preserves soil moisture by reducing evaporation, and helps prevent erosion caused by rain and wind. Bare soil often gets a crust on it that prevents rain from penetrating easily.
• Keeps soil temperatures cool in summer and helps to reduce the risk of damage to plant roots in winter.
• Helps keep soil from splashing onto leaves, which keeps plants looking neater and helps prevent soil-borne fungal diseases.
• As mulch decomposes, it adds all-important organic matter to the soil and keeps the top layer of soil loose and airy.

You may have heard that mulches high in carbon — anything brown — can steal nitrogen from plants. Instead of being there for the plants, soil nitrogen gets used up by the soil micro-organisms in the process of breaking the stuff down.

But this isn't a problem if you layer wood chip or bark mulch mulches on top of your soil. Just avoid mixing them into the soil.

Some people add fertilizer to make up for any nitrogen used to break down mulches. I rarely bother with added fertilizer. I garden in rich clay loam, which seems to grow plants just fine without it.

Friday, June 02, 2006

Peony plant combo



June is peony month, and the first peony that comes out in my garden is this luscious Japanese peoney. Unfortunately, I have lost the tag and so I have no idea what the cultivar name is.

Japanese peonies are actually a double form made up of five or more petals around a centre of stamens with non-pollen bearing anthers that look like a soft mound of small petals. They are sometimes called anemone-flowered because the stamens in the centre look like narrow petals.

Anyway, all that technical stuff aside (which I learned when I wrote an article on peonies for Canadian Gardening magazine), this is a sensational peony. Its bloom time is perfectly co-ordinated with 'Purple Sensation' alliums and I love the two together. What a great garden duet!