Kriss Gandier from Ontario, Canada is looking forward to the garden joys of spring.
My name is Kriss Gandier from Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. I have submitted a few times in the past. I am looking forward to my spring garden as I have many bulbs and early flowering perennials that are my favorites, such as various primulas, columbines and hellebores. I love the richness of colors on the young heuchera leaves and the lush new growth of hostas as they emerge. Spring is my favorite time of year for enjoying my garden. Every year I dig up and split or move some of these colorful perennials to fill in areas that need more color. I am looking forward to early April to start scouting my garden beds and hope everything has survived the winter. I will share some of my last year’s Spring garden pictures with you."
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Comments
Hey Kriss - Lovely to see your photos of your magnificent garden during spring last year. Wonderful bright colour combinations. Nice paths and great gates. Bet you cannot wait until spring arrives in earnest this year! Good luck trying to find an area without colour in your 'chock-a-block' garden. Thanks for sharing. Cheers from Oz
Hi Frank. Thanks for your nice comments. I am enjoying the spring and flowering bulbs already. It's still early and there are many more bulbs yet to bloom. Most of my tulips have not opened yet, and the daffodils, narcissus and hyacinths are just freshly bloomed. Crocuses, snowdrops and chionodoxas are just finishing. Soon the majority of the primroses will be beginning as well. Hope you are enjoying your gardens currently as well.
Your spring garden is definitely a celebration of all that makes us treasure that season so much. I see many of my favorites favorites ...I'm forever charmed by a pop of creeping phlox positively smothered in blooms tumbling a bit over a wall. I love the vibrancy of the primary colors of your primulas. And, of course, your tulip displays are a delight. Do they all come back strong for you each year or do you buy new ones to plant each fall? Thanks for feeding my spring anticipation fever, Kriss.
Thanks for your comment. I too love the creeping plants such as phlox and aubretia (rock cress) especially when the tulips and other flowering bulbs come up through it, to add even more colour. My tulips do come back every year, hopefully better than the previous year. Some years have more blooms. I have been adding fresh manure mulch over the past few years to help feed and hopefully increase the number of blooms.
Kriss that moss is to die for! Beautiful!
Thanks Beth. Hope you get some moss to enjoy for yourself and have success with it.
Thanks for the visual reminder that yes, Spring does eventually arrive in Ontario, and yes, the snow will eventually disappear. Your photos are a great reminder why Spring in our gardens is so uplifting.
Thanks, and yes we can hopefully finally say goodbye to any more snow here in Ontario, but you never know! I heard that Thunder Bay just got some snow a few days ago. I am being uplifted already with what's been happening in my garden so far.
Beautiful garden! I love all your color. I can't wait till spring. Thanks for posting!
Thanks for the nice comment. Spring has sprung and I am soooo happy to see the garden emerging once again.
All pics are great but that first one is gorgeous!
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed them.
Kriss, tell us about the pile of rocks next to the wall. Your garden is just beautiful! Did you plant the moss? If so, what kind, and where from? Can you feel me salivating? I just can't wait till spring!!! Had a good time yesterday at the Philadelphia flower show with Kevin Kelly. On the last day, some of it looked a little tired, but overall, worth seeing. We discovered one exhibit with one plant that totally didn't belong! It's like the where's Waldo of gardening. Next year, we want Dee, GrannieAnnie, and other east coasters to join us!
Glad you made it to the Show, Rhonda. How is the hand?
It's doing fine, but my back went out on me Thursday evening! Taking lots of Advil for the back! I hope Kevin has time to post "our" photos from the show. I didn't get to stay as long as I wanted, because of my ride. It was just as well, because my back was very sore when I got back to the car... still glad I went!
Oh, I so hate to hear that you are having a back glitch, Rhonda. I have been immobilized at times in the far past and have not enjoyed the experience. However, once upon a time, I was a huge cynic about chiropractic treatment but I have to admit that when it comes to my and my husband's backs, we have become believers! Soon as we feel that hint of weakness and vulnerability , we go off to our "guy" and get slammed bammed back into alignment.
I need to call my chiropractor, but I'm not allowed to drive yet. I'll find a way!
I'm reading this a month late! But I'd enjoy so much meeting the rest of you at the Philadelphia Flower Show if you plan to attend again.
HI Rhonda. Sorry for the late reply. I was away in Florida for March and have been busy with starting up a brand new Garden Club here in Cambridge, then Easter preparations came and then I got the flu and am still trying to get better. The pile of rocks you mentioned are at the bottom of a pondless waterfall, and cover up the water reservoir that gets the water pumped back up to the top of the falls. The moss is Irish moss, and I started by putting in very small plugs, and they have done well spreading into those large clumps.
Love your Irish moss Kriss. I will try to find some myself. I missed this post and glad found it today.
Beautiful, fresh and uplifting, Kriss! It is a great reminder that in climates with a real winter, there are no color-combination rules in spring for our color-starved eyes. Your scotch moss growing between your flagstones is stunning and fresh hosta foliage is stupendous. Such a nice collection of plants.
I can't help but comment on the black chain-link fence. I covered mine with rolled bamboo because I hate it, but I love yours. It is the combination of the height and the black that makes it look nice as well as fade into the landscape. Is it coated? Painted?
Thanks Tim. That's right. Spring is a colorful kaleidoscope of blooms. The chain-link fence is coated black, and the only reason it's at the back is because our neighbours have all these tall trees and evergrowing shrubs growing right tight to the fence. I'm glad it does fade into the greenery.
I love the tulips Kriss and the stepable green pathway. So nice to see this on a sunshiny spring morning in New Hampshire. We still have snow on the ground from our blizzard last week, but this makes me hopeful and reminds me that spring will be here soon also! I bought several new hellebores last year and planted them in various places in the yard. I am hopeful that they will be as beautiful as yours !
Thanks Lily. Our Spring has finally sprung and I am enjoying many of the early bulbs, and am patiently waiting for most of the tulips to begin. I am getting to really like hellebores. I have seen many exotic ones posted online and wish I could find a place that specializes in the ones with the double, and triple rows of petals and ones with the corona like centres. They are so beautiful.
This is one of the Newly planted hellebores from last year. It just started blooming!
Kriss, your spring garden is so pretty with all the lovely blooming bulbs, perennials, and the moss combinations. What a delight it must be for you to stroll there in during the spring. If it were mine, I doubt I would ever go inside. No wonder you can't wait for spring to come. I'm envious of your red and yellow primroses. Whether due to summer heat or swings of temperature in winter, primroses
don’t seem to last outdoors here more than a year or two.
Thanks Sonya. Primroses are one of my most favorite perennials. I'm sad it's rainy out today and I'll miss my daily viewing to enjoy the flowering bulbs. Oh well, I'll get out the next day for sure!
Your pathway is dream worthy, Kriss! What glorious photos to experience for the first day of spring!
Thanks Annek. I'm enjoying taking new photos this spring and hoping that the number of blooms from my bulbs have increased.
Good morning, Kriss. What a treat this morning seeing all of those lush greens and brilliant spring colors. Your moss is admirable that you've been able to grow it where you want it, whereas in my garden it seems to appear everywhere but where I want it.
That hellebore is a winner. Thanks for sharing and getting us all excited for what's about to happen.
Thanks Linda. My moss does so well that it also spreads into my garden areas. I just dig it out and try to find a bare spot in the paths where I want it to grow.
What a wonderful start to the first day of Spring. Your garden is beautiful and I am sure you are waiting with bated breath for it all to come up. As are we all!!
Thanks Catherine. I have started enjoying taking loads of new pictures for the early spring bulbs this year.
Kriss, I love all of the rock work throughout your gardens, lovely job. Your perennials are all just beautiful and I can see why you can barely wait to get out and divide them amongst your gardens. Thanks for sharing your bursts of color.
Thanks Meelianthus. This year I'll have fun dividing my plants and helping my daughter start a lovely garden of her own.
Loving your colorful post Kriss! Thank you. It's that time of the year when we north-easterners start finishing up the inside projects so we can tear out the door when spring 'really' arrives!
Peter cottontail hopped across our deck yesterday and then down the bunny trail... apparently looking for the gardens too. ?
Thanks Terie. I love your little Spring bunny poster. I think he visited my gardens too and left me lots of little brown M&M's all over. I'm enjoying the early spring colour and already inspecting the ground to find my hosta tips emerging.
Beautiful, Kriss. Sure stokes the anticipation of Spring. Love your wide assortment of plants/bulbs. Love all the color. Emphasizes a very happy place. Thanks for sharing!!
So classically spring! Love it! I too am curious about the moss...
Positively GORGEOUS!!! Thank you so much for posting and I love your beautiful and imaginative garden!
Kriss, your garden is so chock-full of blazing color blanketing every nook and cranny! Absolutely lovely. Great job and hope you post more pictures later in the year.
Sorry for the late post, but then...I'm old! : )
I must be getting even older, because I am so late to reply. Please see above, my reply to Rhonda why I have had a delay replying. Thanks for the nice comment. Things are starting to colour up with the early bulbs and I have been taking more pictures. A few early tulips have been blooming, and the daffodils and narcissus and hyacinths are beautiful right now.
Stunning beautiful Canadian garden! Love all but especially the last three photos. Love the moss and what is the low growing white flowering plants in the last photos? Thanks for sharing Kriss.
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