Second round for day Lilly's and rose of Sharon's

My inside gardening reno of a different type!

End of season, some new blooms and the end of veggies.

Peppers changing to a nice yellow hue, can't wait to try them.

Trimmed my rose of Sharon 5 wks ago...shooting up new blooms!

Last of the tomatoes!

So surprised my lilies are  shooting up a second wave of blooms!

These peppers put a good show on this summer, so pleased.

Lawn and garden tips – gardening with vinegar - by Debra Anchors

    

by Debra Anchors
 http://gardensinspired.blogspot.ca/

 

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Vinegar has been used as an organic method of weed control, cleanser and as plant nutrition in the landscape for generations. Although these tips are not new, I am passing the information along for readers who may not yet be aware of how useful (and inexpensive) vinegar can be in the garden. I find that 10% vinegar (sometimes sold as pickling vinegar) works best but white distilled vinegar or apple cider vinegar works also.

Kill grass: To kill grass on sidewalks and driveways, pour full strength white distilled vinegar on it.

Kill weeds: Spray white distilled vinegar full strength on top of weeds. Reapply on any new growth until plants have starved.

Increase soil acidity: In hard water areas, add a cup of vinegar to a gallon of tap water for watering acid loving plants like rhododendrons, gardenias or azaleas. The vinegar will release iron in the soil for the plants to use.

Neutralize garden lime: Rinse your hands liberally with white distilled vinegar after working with garden lime to avoid rough and flaking skin. Clean pots before re-potting, rinse with vinegar to remove excess lime.

Keep Flowers Longer: Add 2 tablespoons sugar and 2 tablespoons white vinegar in a 1-quart vase of water.  Trim stems and change water every five days.

Fertilize potted plants: To create an inexpensive and mild fertilizer, which also purifies the water, mix 1 ounce of apple cider vinegar and1 gallon of water (an easy way to measure an ounce is to use a shot glass).

Add nutrients to your plants: Mix vinegar and water using a ratio of 1:8.  Mix a separate solution of sugar and water in a mixture of 1:8. Combine the vinegar and sugar mixtures. Add to your plants as long as needed.

Grow fruit trees from seed?

Three Reasons Why you should not try to grow fruit trees from seeds!

It seems like a great idea. You buy an incredibly delectable apple, peach, or bag of cherries and think you yourself, "I’d love to eat fruit like this all the time!" You look down at your plate and you see the left over pit or seeds and decide to save them and grow your own fruit tree.
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but don’t do it! You’ll almost certainly be disappointed with the results.

First and foremost, fruit trees reproduce sexually. Yep, you read that right. Your beloved apple had two parents, and is carrying genetic material from both the tree it grew on, and from a nearby apple tree. Just as human offspring often resemble their parents and siblings, but are not exactly the same, so too are trees that grow from seed. If you were to plant the seeds from fruit you enjoyed eating, the resulting plants will not produce fruit that is identical to what you ate. It may be similar, or more likely, it will bear only a little resemblance. This is because apples are often pollinated with crabapple trees, thus apples grown from seed are often small and very tart.

Second, when a plant breeder is trying to create a tree that produces tasty fruit, they don’t breed for healthy, vigorous roots because they know that they’ll be grafting their creation onto a different rootstock. For example, oranges are almost always grafted onto sour orange root stock, which gives the tree great disease resistance. Grafting also allows breeders to mix and match trees to rootstocks to create attributes they want, like dwarfism, cold/heat hardiness, etc. If you were somehow lucky enough to sprout a tree extremely similar to the parent you tasted, you still wouldn’t be able to overcome the fact that the roots that produced the fruit you tasted are not the roots your seedling will have.

Finally, let’s imagine that you hit the fruit tree jackpot and grew from seed a tree that is similar to the parent and has its own strong roots. It’s still not a good idea. Most fruit trees grown from seed take more than a decade to mature to the point where they can produce fruit. Oranges can take up to 15 years to become fruit-bearing trees. Who wants to wait that long? Even nurseries don’t wait that long. When you take a cutting from a mature tree and graft it onto rootstock, it is ready to bear fruit in a few years, not 15! Trees at the nursery are usually a year or two old. You’ll probably begin seeing fruit on it within a season or two after planting.

I know I was the bearer of bad news here, but don’t let this information stop you from starting a backyard (or balcony!) orchard. Just buy your tree from the nursery, don’t waste your time and energy on saving and growing fruit seeds.

Recycling to make a new window box shelf!

A couple of old brackets and wood can be transformed into a great window box shelf!

Refreshing Peach Lemonade

Welcome back Summer. I don't know how weather has been for you guys, but the past week or so the temperature has been a little on the chilly side. Except today. Today it's over 90 degrees. So while I sat in my apartment in front of my fan - I had a little craving for lemonade. The perfect Summer drink. So I ran to my kitchen and started mixing my concoction when I had another thought. You want to know what would make it even more perfect? Peaches. They're on sale right now at one of my local grocery stores - so I stocked up. I'm totally putting peaches in this lemonade.

I absolutely love peaches. They've been one of my favorite foods ever since I was a little kid. I remember going over to my Grandma's house about this time of year when I was younger and we would can peaches for the rest of the season. Then she would make these amazing peach pies, crisps, and cobblers. I gotta give her a call. We really need to do that again - and I really need to make some peach pie this Fall. So enjoy the recipe - I'm sipping on some right now. Oh yeah - and it's refined sugar free! Can't beat that!

Ingredients: 

• 4 cups of water
• 2 cups of chopped fresh or frozen peaches
• 1/2 cup agave nectar
• 1 cup of fresh lemon juice (about 3 large lemons or 6 smaller lemons)
• 4 cups of ice
• 1 peach cut into wedges for the pitcher
• 1 lemon cut into slices for the pitcher

Mix the water, peaches, and agave nectar together in a big sauce pot. Bring to a boil, stir, and allow to simmer for three minutes. Once it's done simmering, remove the pot from the heat and allow to cool for twenty minutes. Once it's done cooling - pour it into a blender or use an immersion blender to create a puree. 

Juice your lemons until you've got 1 cup of fresh lemon juice. Pour the ice into a large pitcher followed by the lemon juice. Pour your cooled, pureed peach mixture into the pitcher and stir until well combined. Add in the sliced peach and lemon for decoration. Serve chilled.

Japanese knotweed poses public safety threat: ‘False bamboo’ can crack concrete, including bridge foundations and roads

It’s an invasive bamboo-like plant that splits concrete, grows through retaining walls, resists almost any attempt to kill it and can regenerate itself from just a tiny chunk of root.
Japanese knotweed is found throughout Metro Vancouver and was recently spotted at the base of the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge, leading an invasive plant specialist to recommend all bridges and overpasses in the region be assessed before the plant puts lives at risk by growing through — and weakening — concrete foundations.
“There’s not a full understanding of the damage the plant can do in this region,” said Jennifer Grenz, program manager at the Invasive Species Council of Metro Vancouver. “This is a plant that can grow through three metres of concrete.
“It outcompetes blackberry ... and anything that can outgrow blackberry — that’s a feat in itself.”
The plant has been found along the Burnaby portion of Highway 1 from Boundary Road to Canada Way. The area is undergoing construction as part of the $3.3-billion highway and Port Mann Bridge expansion, but project spokesman Greg Johnson said the weed has not delayed progress.
Each plant was injected with herbicide — the only proven eradication method — and once confirmed dead, the plants were either taken away and incinerated or buried three metres deep in the ground, Johnson said.
If left untreated the weed could seriously damage bridges and roads and even pipelines, Grenz warned.
“It’s finally come to a head where it is having an impact on infrastructure,” she said.
The plant has been known to choke off the banks of waterways from native plant species and grow through the foundations of houses, causing headaches for homeowners.
Residents who find the plant on their property should hire a landscaping company capable of destroying it with a herbicidal injection said Grenz, who owns an organic blueberry farm in Richmond and has seen the weed around her property.
Under the B.C. Weed Control Act, herbicides can be legally used on knotweed. However, Metro Vancouver lacks a coordinated strategy, like that of the Fraser Valley region, to deal with invasive plant species, Grenz said.
Vancouver Coun. Heather Deal, chairwoman of Metro Vancouver’s environment and parks committee, agreed the region needs a plan.
“You need to make sure people on both sides of the imaginary line between cities are doing the same work, because, as we know, invasives don’t recognize municipal boundaries,” Deal said.
Grenz asked Deal’s committee Wednesday for a $40,000 grant to coordinate a regional invasive plant strategy. Grenz said her council, which manages invasive species along local highways, could develop the strategy with another $35,000 grant from other levels of government.
Metro Vancouver staff will review the request and a decision will be made during the next committee meeting in September, Deal said.
Japanese knotweed, also called false bamboo, can grow more than two metres a year and was first exported from Japan as an ornamental plant that could provide fence-like cover and flourish with little care. The weed has also become a problem in the United Kingdom, where authorities faced massive cost overruns when they began construction of London’s Olympic Park velodrome in 2007 and found four hectares of the weed at the derelict site.

If removed from its soil, the weed can regenerate from a chunk of root weighing less than a gram, Grenz said. The plant composts very slowly and when mowed over, Japanese knotweed can produce a “million new plants,” she added.
“Plants aren’t as scary as the fish or insects that grab attention more quickly,” said Grenz of the weed’s inconspicuous infestation of the region. “It’s sad we’re at the point now where there’s so much damage that you can’t ignore it.”

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Japanese+knotweed+poses+public+safety+threat+expert/6890969/story.html#ixzz25vOQ6tat

Make Your Own Weed-Killer With Vinegar & Soap

I hate weeds.

Don’t you?

If you walk down the gardening aisle at your local nursery or big box store, you will see all sorts of weed-killers to choose from.

But, what if you could kill weeds using natural ingredients without having to run to buy one of one of those expensive weed-killers.

Did you know that you probably have a perfectly good weed-killer in your cupboard?

It’s VINEGAR!

Yes, it’s true…vinegar does kill weeds, especially when used along with dish soap.

(Dish soap, vinegar and a spray bottle – all you need for making your own weed killer.)

The acetic acid in vinegar “sucks out the water” from the weed, which dries it up.  The dish soap helps to break down the outer coat of the plant (cuticle), which helps that vinegar to work best.

Below, are two examples from my own landscape of how it worked:

Just 24 hours later….

Here is another example:

24 hours later….

I must admit, that I am really impressed with the results.

Here is the formula for making your own vinegar/soap weed-killer:

1-gallon vinegar (with 5% acetic acid)

1 oz. dish soap

Plastic spray bottle.

Directions: Mix the vinegar and soap together and pour into a spray bottle and spray onto weeds.

**Before you apply this weed-killer in your garden, here are some guidelines:

- Vinegar/soap weed-killer is non-selective, which means that it will also damage/kill your desirable plants. So be careful when applying to weeds.

- Apply on a sunny day with NO wind.  The sun helps the vinegar to dry out the weed.  You also want to wait for a windless day so that your spray won’t inadvertently spray onto other plants.

- Your vinegar weed-killer may or may not kill the root of the weed.  You may need to reapply it if green growth shows up afterward or pour a little of the weed-killer over the root zone to thoroughly kill large weeds

- Vinegar/soap weed-killer will not kill all types of weeds.  Experiment in your own garden to see which types of weeds it works on.

So, next time you need to kill weeds, simply open your cupboard and make your own with vinegar and soap.  It’s natural, effective and cheap!

Rose of Sharon

Two of my rose of sharon had grown so much and were so big I trimmed them a fair bit, even though they were still in bloom. That was 4 weeks ago. So surprised that they sent more shoots up and are full of buds again.

Todays pics

Green peppers, tomatoes and my Cassie!!!

Boston ferns

Hanging flower baskets can be messy and are not long lived here in zone 5. I found that Boston Ferns are much cleaner, drought tolerant and last till the first frost! The way to go!