mamajack, I will be growing Lupines for the first time this year - from seed, so maybe "trying" to grow lupins is a more accurate statement :-)
When we can sow outside and how long our season is varies dramatically around the country, just like in the U.S. Our country includes zone 2 (1?) to zone 9, I believe, and our climates vary similarly. We have temperate rain forest that can be found on Vancouver Island, BC, prairie meadows in - you guessed it - the prairie provinces, Carolinian forest that can be found in southern Ontario, etc., etc., etc.
For me on the northern edges of southwestern Ontario I can sow seed outdoors for cool season growers some time in April and for other things after May 24th when the risk of frost is past. A "normal" growing season would then continue through to about October to get late veggie crops off and some time in November before we will get a killing frost.
Of course, many of us in Canada love to push our zones just to see what we can get to survive.
Are you starting anything tropical/exotic/unusual this year?
Oltmans ~ well How gorgeous is that? That bank is very romantic looking in pinks and lavenders!
mamajack ~ I have had no luck tryiing to grow lupines in my garden. They reseed like crazy in a friend's grass just down the road, so like a good gardener I guess I should not admit defeat and try yet again. After all, it could be something to do with the position of the stars, sun and moon...! :^)
Sandy
i had no idea there was a zone 9 in canada. what's the hottest that place might get in the summer? prob. doesn't get so hot but just doesn't freeze, huh?
Mammajack you have to understand Canadians 'think' they have a zone 9. It is purely delusional. But don't tell them because they all buy banana trees and other exotics. They smuggle in all kinds of Hawaiian succulents just to grow. LOL
"The northern edges of Southwestern Ontario" is zone 9 mammajack.
LOL Now, now Sofer, don't be mean :-) Actually, the northern edge of southwestern Ontario is the north edge of Huron County - what we call Ontario's West Coast, just minutes from Lake Huron :-) We have some of the most beautiful shorelines here. Goderich is situated on a high bluff that overlooks the harbour, and we are renowned for the beauty of our sunsets. We have a lot of microclimate pockets up here and I can grow things here that I couldn't when I lived an hour further south. I even have Freesia growing (and yes it even blooms) in one of my gardens.
Depending on which zone map you look at we have either zone 8 or zone 9 on portions of BC around Vancouver and on Vancouver Island. Thinking back to when I lived on the island years and years ago it was quite temperate in the summer, and yes you're right mamajack - just not as cold in the winter and not for any length of time when it did get chilly.
i have to see this HOT spot in canada. tell me what to google so i can see it on a map. lol.
I'll go one better, here's the links :-)
My town - Blyth Ontario Canada. Just keep zooming out to see where it fits into the rest of the world :-) On the third zoom out you'll see Goderich to the left on the shore of Lake Huron. http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?country=CA&city=Blyth&state=ON&zipcode=N0M1H0&submit.x=64&submit.y=10
USDA zone hardiness maps - North America (shows the Vancouver/Vancouver Island area as zone 9) http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html
Canadian zone hardiness maps (shows the Vancouver/Vancouver Island area as zone 8) http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/environment/forest/forestcanada/planthardi
Look to the southern west coast of Canada, then a little further west for Vancouver Island.
i have to study these maps closer. i honestly feel so stupid. i really just never realized how CLOSE yall are to us up there. it's like you almost live in new york. so do yall buddy up with new yorkers or michiganders? or are you just entirely separate due to the different country thing? lol. is there a way to just come on down to the u.s. without going thru customs on any of those roads? do americans travel up there frequently? i mean like on a sunday drive or something?
i just got through reading a crime novel that involved americans traveling to canada to buy prescription drugs since they were cheaper. is that really possible? lol. no i don't need any drugs but i do like to know how these things work.
and i have to go back and find vancouver island on a big map so i can get where it is. i am completely flabbergasted, really.
LOL As close as it looks on a map, I have to drive about 2 1/2 hours to get to a border crossing at Sarnia. In southern Ontario the three border crossing points are at Windsor/Detroit, Niagara Falls, and Sarnia/Port Huron.
I think I remember hearing that the Canada/U.S.A. border has the world's longest undefended land crossing. There are many points on the prarie provinces (at least until recently - some of our prairie dwellers want to jump in here and clue me in?) where there is no defence on the border and it is easy enough, although not entirely legal I think, to just cross over it. Here in Ontario most of our border is bounded by water - not so easy to cross and patrolled by the Coast Gaurd of both countries.
I think you'll find that border crossing from the larger cities, especially these days, is enough of a hassle to keep many people from doing it any more often than they have to. I've been reading reports that same day trips are down on both sides of the border.
Unless you live in one country and work in the other you are not very likely to meet and form friendships with people from the other country because they (or you) are just there for the shopping, or to take in a show, or go to the zoo, or something like that. So you don't really meet them, you just happen to be at the same event. You often are not even aware that they are from the U.S. This is often true for Ontario anyway. I have made friends in the U.S., but almost always when I am away on vacation there rather than when I'm just there to shop. Of course DG is a wonderful place to make friends in many different places too :-)
The biggest problem with cross-border prescription shopping is, I think, through the internet. I don't really know if it is even possible to actually buy your prescriptions here at a pharmacy. I think, but am not sure, that our pharmacists are not allowed to fill "foreign" prescriptions.
To get a sense of how close Vancouver Island is to Washington state, we have ferry service that runs regularly between the two. I believe it is around 90 minutes from Victoria, B.C. to Port Angeles, Washington by ferry.
We have border crossings in Montana that take just a few minutes to go through. We criss cross often during the year. Mostly because we need to get back to Canada to see nice people. See Ginny I not serious about the statement above. I have been in North Central Washington where I hunt and you have to go through Canada to get up to the hunting area. By walking into Canada and up hill into US.
well i just found out last year that washington state was not a frozen tundra as well. i did see that vancouver island sits above wash. i have learned something today that is just amazing to me. a place in canada that is warmer than i? wow!!
so sofer, it's easy enough to get to canada? and that little walk you do is not guarded where you hunt? it would be impossible to guard the whole thing i know. and sofer, it is a frozen tundra in montana, RIGHT? if you are zone 9 too please don't tell me...at least not today. lol.
and sofer, do you ever get to see robert redford?
No Robert is over in Bozeman area. He is quite visible there. Not where I live. Though I have seen Brad Pitt around quite a bit about 8 years ago. No Montana is not the easy zones that the Pacific west coast has. They get their weather from Japan and Hawaii. The border is not able to be controlled anywhere up here either. It is impossible to do such a thing. Only in politics do borders get closed.
No worries Sofer - I knew it was all in fun :-)
Hi Ginny :)
How are your seeds coming? Did your tea seeds arive yet?
I've got a few things sprouting so far,
~Sophora tomentosa - the green sprout is slowly poking through the soil
~Pride of Barbados 'pink' - 3 out of 3 seeds sprouted thanks to you!
~Pride of Barbados 'orange' - seeds are just starting to poke above the soil
~Brugmansia suaveolens - soaked 4 seeds. potted 2 and put 2 in a damp coffee filter, this moring one of the ones in the coffee filter had sprouted a little white root! One of the ones in the pot is also slowly pushing itself up :)
Steven
pink Pride of Barbados :)
Hey there Steven!
Most of my seeds are coming along fine, except no germination yet on the lemon, orange, coffee, olive and palm seeds. Of course they have longer germination times to start with.
No tea seeds have shown up yet. I think I remember reading somewhere that these need to be fresh to germinate, so I probably won't get them until whenever they are harvested.
Congratulations on your Pride of Barbados success - I'm glad I could help :-) Did you get the brug seed from the Garden Store-n-More? The ones I got from there just popped out like they were eager to get growing!
Nice pic.
--Ginny
Edited 'cause I meant germinate and said viable - sheesh!
This message was edited Mar 7, 2008 3:56 PM
Good to hear everything is coming along well, I think I'll have to try the tea myself sometime! Could I ask where you ordered the seeds? I bet fresh homegrown tea tastes better then any of the store bought stuff!
Yup, I ordered my Brug seeds from the Garden Store-n-More last year. I tried starting them in my greenhouse last summer but I think it got too warm for them in there. I'm having much better success this time round! Which type of Brug did you order? I saw they got new white variety in.
Steven
I ordered the tea seeds from Richter's Herbs. Here's a link to the page on their web site: http://www.richters.com/Web_store/web_store.cgi?product=X6240&show=&prodclass=Herb_and_Vegetable_Seeds&cart_id=2517268.24406 I have read that you can begin harvesting the leaves when the plant is about three years old.
The brug seed I bought is Brugmansia sanguinea, Red Angel's Trumpet. I'm really looking forward to seeing them in bloom some day. Does anyone know if they will bloom the first year from seed started in February?
--Ginny
Thanks for the link, I put it on my favorites to make sure I don't forget about it :)
I just saw the photos in the plantfiles of B. sanguinea and it's beautiful! The previous pictures I'd seen of it elsewhere didn't do it justice at all! I seem to remember reading it can flower first year, but I couldn't say for sure. You could always ask over on the brug forum, they're great over there and always answer my many questions :)
Steven
Hey everyone - I'm so excited! Two of the types of palm seeds that I have been trying to start are beginning to germinate! The Sabal Palmetto (Cabbage Palm) Veitchia merillii (Christmas Palm) are both starting to show root radicles.
Now, as I was just saying to a member in a dmail, I'm scared to death that I'll do something wrong and kill the poor little things. I need to do some research fast to see what I need to do next. Any advice would be most gratefully appreciated :-)
I also gently dug up my Coffea arabica seeds that are in the peat/perlite mix to see if anything was happening and one of those has a nice strong root on it about an inch long. Whoo hoo! We're rockin' now!
--Ginny
OOOOHHHHHH!
I have five pots of the blue poppy showing the teeniest of seedlings!
now the challenge will be keeping them alive......
how's everyone else's doing?
Excellent - congratulations!
Here are the things I've had happen since my last update.
• Citrus mitis 'Calamondin' (Miniature Calamondin Orange) - nothing still :-(
• Citrus limon 'Ponderosa' (Ponderosa Lemon) - 4 (or is it 5) seedlings now
• Sabal Palmetto (Cabbage Palm) and Veitchia merillii (Christmas Palm) - 1 seedling of each about 1" tall now
• Coffea arabica (Arabica Coffee) - 1 that looks like a coffee bean on a stick, about 2" high
• Gossypium herbaceum (Levant Cotton) - 3 plants growing strongly, 1 is blooming which shouldn't happen until year 2 or 3 I thought
And a bunch of other things indoors, outside in pots, and wintersown. LOL Trying to cover all the bases this year.
LOL, the 'shotgun' approach..... fire 'em all out and see what happens....
the more the merrier!
Where did you get miniature calamondin orange seeds ? I'm a bit surprised they aren't up yet. I've sprouted the seeds from many regular C. mitis and they sprout very quickly, usually. Of course, they are fresh out of the fruit when I plant them, which may make a big difference. Do you know how 'miniature' this plant is, compared to the common C. mitis? Always have had a yen to grow one large enough to harvest sufficient oranges to make marmalade, but I don't have the room for a tree that big. Small apartment, lots of light, way too many plants in too little space :-).
I got the seeds from Garden Store-n-More. Here's a link to the page on their site that may answer your questions http://www.garden-hut.com/catalog.php/gardenhut/dt/pd1435846/Citrus_Mitis__Calamondin_Miniature_orange__10_seeds
I have had no success with these seeds but I think it's bad technique on my part and no fault of the vendor's. Every other seed I purchased from them germinated rapidly with a high percentage of success.