Annuals......

The other night I attended a meeting with speakers who were speaking about their garden. They announced quite proudly that they grow 'only perennials, no annuals'. The way they spoke it was like they were dissing annuals. Well, I beg to differ. I love annuals with perennials and think that they have a lot to offer the perennial garden. In fact, many people who I respect, who are great gardeners, designers and just the expert woman who likes to get down and dirty in the garden would agree with me.
I think if you restrict yourself to growing 'just perennials' you are limiting yourself, closing the door on opportunities of visual delight and a bounty of fragrance. Also annuals bring a host of pollinators to your garden which is a benefit for any farmer or crop grower.

Moonflower Blooms

I was finally able to post my moonflower blooming, I had to revert to an older posting style!

What will they think of next? C00L...... BiRdCaM & PlaNtCaMS!!

I was at Landscape Ontario's Congress show last month, this show is not like the fall show in that there is a lot of machinery there along with horticultural 'product'. I have to admit I like machines that work caus' they save me or others a lot of back breaking work!! It is fun to seek 'what will they think of next!', some things you wonder 'what were they thinking?'. There are other ideas that are fun and I think they do have a place in our lives. The Audubon BirdCam is one of those products and so is the PlantCam. The BirdCam is a weather proof, motion activated, easy to use digital camera that will capture photo's and movies of birds on your property. Just think, if you know that there is an animal path on your property and you want to know just 'who' is uses this path you can set up one of these camera's and actually see who does use this path. Or you could set up by your bird feeder to see what is happening while you are at work....?
The PlantCam is a weather proof, time lapse digital camera you can compress a month into 30 seconds!! Just think, National Geographic in your back yard!!
See wingscapes.com for more information on these products.

When I got my first Canon digital camera it had a movie mode on it that lasted for 20 seconds. I had fun making 20 second movies of life around me. Some not so interesting but some are great. Every year I grow Ipomoea alba, 'moonflower', it blooms large trumpet shaped blooms up to 6" across, late in the afternoon.These blooms can open fast and have a fragrance that attracts moths to pollinate them, hence why they bloom for night. Here in Ontario, it's dicey growing these vines. If we have a summer like last year, it was cool, wet and not much sun the moonflower will not bloom, just grow. One year I had a bumper crop of blooms and it's those years that make growing this vine worth while. With my new little camera I filmed one bloom opening in less than 20 seconds. These are photo's of that year, I have to dig further into my external hard drive to find the movie. You can see how large the moonflowers blooms are compared to the end of the day regular morning glory's in the last photo. Unfortunately, I am unable to load a movie so here are some pic's of moonflowers opening.