Friday night windstorm!

My garden has been given my attention lately - with the cooler weather this week, it has been a pleasure to be out there. The greenhouse plants are growing like crazy - they loved the heat but I had to water them 2-3 times daily when we had the 30 deg. C. weather-I am rooting some plants for my Horti Club Sept. 10th Plant Sale. I brought in some geraniums that were struggling in pots outside-planted 2 ornamental cabbages in the pots and hope they do better than the geraniums. That is about the greenhouse news.
We had lots of rain last night - haven't had much in the past 2 wks. - but with the rain, came heavy wind and the wind hit my garden. The Love Lies Bleeding plants were whacked and sadly lay uprooted on top of the Lavetera, Mallows and Cosmos. I took some to Church for decorating and I spent a couple of hours chopping the broken stems and putting them in bags to take to our compost/recycling facility. I am so sad about losing these gorgeous flowers but was able to keep a few of the smaller plants. I have a lot of work to do in tidying things up now and I will put stakes in the ground and tie up the flowers that didn't get windstormed. Last week, my hubby and I took a car trunkful to the compost facility as I chopped up a lot of dead garden stuff and we thought we could stay away from there till October, but not so.
The rain was needed and it stayed cloudy most of today so the moisture didn't dry up - thank God for his holy water!
The garden is doing great - I have hundreds of Tiny Tim tomatoes - have been eating them morning, noon and night - giving them to friends - they are sweet and delicious. The red peppers are starting to turn red. I haven't pulled the carrots to date - will leave them for awhile. Swiss chard and herbs are delicious. I pulled all the rhubarb last week and made a Conserve with it. I have been spending a lot of time drying herbs-summer savory is the best it has been in years. I have also been saving lots of seeds - marigolds, calendula, lavetera & poppies. Sunflowers were wonderful till Mr. Squirrel discovered them - I had a Red Velvet sunflower that was fabulous. I don't mind the critters eating them as long as I can enjoy them for a few days after they bloom.
It is annoying when they break them in budding stage. I was lucky that the wind didn't break my dahliahs-I have been tying them to their posts. They are just starting to flower.
That is the garden/greenhouse news for now.
Enjoyment: Working in the garden without melting in the heat! Hooray for coolness!

Cullen Gardens in Whitby

We drove to Whitby near Oshawa, ON, today to visit Cullen Gardens. We picked up our friends, Joe & Ernestine at 7:30AM and arrived at 9:30AM, via the great 401. Our friends had never heard of the place and Joe is a great gardener and loves flowers. Cullen Gardens was in tip top shape as they are celebrating their 25th anniversay and Whitby is celebrating 150 years as a town. The Garden is famous for it's miniature village. Ernestine was amazed when she saw it - she pictured rows of flowers in various gardens. If you have never been there, please visit their web site at www.cullengardens.com. You can walk the gardens in approximately 2 hours - there are lots of shady paths and the Wildflower Park and Bird Sanctuary is cool and tranquil and the pathway is like walking on a carpet. There is stuff for kids to do, e.g, 2 splash pools. The miniature garden has 160 buildings with little people and cars - there is a train track with several trains chugging around. There is even a little campground and lake with motorized boats in the water. Summer flowers were everywhere and lots of topiary and a magnificient floral peacock ( they also have a cage with real peacocks and fuzzy little babies - so cute )- I could go on and on. Our friends were delighted. After leaving, we drove into Oshawa, had lunch as the shopping centre and drove by where we lived in 1966, and General Motors where my hubby worked and the hospital where our daughter was born. We headed for home on the 401, but traffic was so heavy, we got off at Port Hope and took the scenic route home through all the little towns and villages,to name a few, Cobourg, Brighton, Picton - where we took the ferry boat across - and home by 5:00PM.
It was a lovely warm day - and were totally surprised to turn on the TV news to discover a storm had brewed in Toronto around 3:30 PM causing an airplane from France to slip on the landing strip at Pearson airport and end up in a gulley a few feet from the 401, and catch fire. All 296 passengers and crew members escaped and one of the passengers thought the plane might have been struck by lightening. Luckily, we were on our way home and missed the storm.
Enjoyment: Looking at summer flowers!