We had the entire patio to ourselves 🙂
At Brown's Social in downtown #VictoriaBC with my friend, Natalie. She's a horticulturalist, living in Deep Cove. We had some eats & drinks before going across street for PechaKucha Night VOL. 20.
They played #GenX tunes, the whole time we were there. We lucked out on getting street parking, one block away. Then lucked out on empty patio, on arrival. We had our own fire table 🥰
We had a fun time at #PechaKucha Night VOL. 20, at #TheVicTheatre in downtown #VictoriaBC this evening. Fabulous variety of speakers & slideshows. Emma Gilchrist, founder of @thenarwhal was one of the presenters tonight.
Rats dug up 5 of my snow pea plants. Peanut butter baited traps are going back out in specific spots - tonight.
I tied some remaining snow pea plants up. More snow peas will be transplanted in 2 weeks.
My other plant seedlings are slowly growing in one small DIY greenhouse.
Pink purple #DamesRockets are blooming, all around our gardens. Often mistaken with phlox. Phlox has 5 flower petals. Dames rockets have 4. It's an established invasive on Vancouver Island. I leave it as it's not choking out other plants & pollinators love them. I remove many other invasives.
Lacy #phacelia aka #purple#tansy is native to NW Mexico & SW USA - it's in the borage family. I've been using them as part of #pollinators#garden & as a natural aphids #PestControl for food plants. This pretty flowering #plant attracts hoverflies & those insects love eating aphids. When it's done flowering - you can cut it down & use cuttings as #GreenManure.
I'm far too tired to cook dinner today. I ordered delivery food from Ferris' downtown. Got their bouillabaisse - local fishes, shellfish, tomato fennel broth, parsley, saffron aioli & fingerling potatoes. They usually deliver a good sized serving - I usually have enough for a late night leftovers snack.
Indoors - one of my tiger #orchids bloomed last night.
Outdoors - 1st #IrisNigricans, #NationalFlower of #Jordan bloomed & more to open this week. One of my Syrian friends gave me a pot of rhizomes 3yrs ago.
More grape soda #irises bloomed too.
Just around the corner from the cafe patio, with the gorgeous white wisteria trees, I saw these pretty #pink rose #azalea flowers 😍 They were so lovely!
You can see how seating changes are done, while we are out on the waters. Everyone except the 2 people transferring, row by row, has to brace the dragonboat while these seat changes happen.
I love these #birds 😍 A whole bunch of them returned last week, to nest at the docks at paddling club. I enjoyed viewing them, before boarding dragonboat for our weekly team practice.
Some of my #nightshade#starterPlants - #eggplants & #tomatoes.
I was behind on seed sowing starts again this past Winter!
I don't transplant any nightshade plants out into beds/pots until at least 2-3 flowers appear on starters. That helps the transplants to do much better - they're stronger if you wait a bit longer to transplant out.
Our white #lilac tree is now over 8 feet tall.
I originally #propagated this from a small cutting, taken for free from a construction demolition site, 10 yrs ago.
It smells fabulous 🥰
Had my morning tea & cranberry scone, by the lake. I had to go drop off a few plants to regular customer in early morning. They live across the road from Elk Lake.
My #cantaloupe#seedlings.
Hopefully I'll get more than 2 cantaloupes this year. Last year was my first time trying to grow cantaloupes. Most of them failed due to neglect. I was too stressed/overwhelmed after my Dad died from long covid cardiac arrest early last June - many of my plants didn't make it.
Mom & I went for a lovely morning #NatureWalk at #ElkLake after my denturist appointment.
We only saw 2 other people on the trail. We had our morning tea, at the lake.
2nd blooming of our front garden #rhododendron bush tree. It has its first blooms in February & the colour is light pink. It changes to this deep #red colour, on 2nd bloom times 🥰