Waiting for Daisy

It's been a month since the landscapers came out and weeded the flower beds, then covered the earth in black cedar mulch. We had lots of rain for a couple of weeks, and for the last few days we've had what passes for hot weather in Calgary, days ranging from 23 - 31 C (73-88 F). The garden has grown like crazy.

Typically not everything has thrived. Several of the petunias I bought turned up their toes and died, as did every geranium. (Was it something I said?) I didn't know geraniums were so picky.You see them blooming like crazy all over town.

 The purple mints that were so lovely earlier have now finished but both the rose bushes I planted last spring survived the winter, as did the mini-rose with orange blooms down in the front of the bed.

The purple sage and the shasta daisies are dancing around nicely with the roses and pink verbena in the front bed. If you look closely you can the coarse foliage of the echinaceas and their fattening buds.

The bed beyond the bike rack has a native shrub called wolf willow, which has silver, granular textured leaves, and a large species rose which is red on the outside edges and white inside. This is a pretty spectacular combination, but between the bike rack and a moving van I couldn't get a good vantage point for a picture, maybe next time.

So at the moment the garden beds are a riot of colour. The poppies threw themselves into producing saucer-sized blossoms that were so vibrantly red they gave my cheap little camera lens a seizure. But they were a short lived delight.

To make up for the brevity of the poppies the Plaintain Lily Hosta has been blooming like mad for weeks. Though I failed to get a good photo you can see how many flowers it has on it.

My eyes are so bad I can't see if a picture is in focus. I take several and hope one will be good. This time I didn't get a good picture. This part of the garden sees only a bit of dappled morning sun, and is home to several hostas, a false spirea which is hanging on by its toenails and a lovely fern at the back, which you almost have to imagine in this photo. 

Two or three pale pink volunteer poppies bloomed right among the stand of purple veronicas, on the other side of the walk, but I was dealing with the flood at the time and had no chance to grab my camera and get a picture. Shame, the combination of frilled pink poppies and lavender spikes of veronica was lovely.

The lime green hosta is thriving next to the veronicas. It's shaded most of the day. Behind the veronica, though hard to see here, is the morning star ligularia. Its huge purple-green leaves wilt down every day, and come back up as the day cools. The flowers are just like big yellow daisies or sunflowers, but the foliage is so interesting.

Closer to the doors the purple-leaved coral bells are blooming, the tiny blossoms hover above the plants like pale pink fireflies, as in all but bright sunlight the stalks are so fine as to be nearly invisible.

And in my little un-raked Zen garden of gravel and three stones, the sedums I planted last year survived being completely covered in a mound of ice and have covered the base of the standing stone once more. They are even beginning to bloom, little splashes of yellow on the green. 

It's what I wait for all year long.