Glorious Tulips Last Only a Short Time

Sara's tulips grew extra large and tall this year, largely due to the tender loving care afforded them by my wife. She has nurtured the soil in her favorite garden beds for years, using kitchen-scraps compost, composted horse manure, rich topsoil, and most important of all, Humic Acid and Iguana Juice, great 100% organic products from Advanced Nutrients.

You can tell the difference, when you look at the same kind of tulips growing in the gardens of our neighbors. They're much shorter and their bowls aren't as full and robust as Sara's. I cherish this time of year, because I am well aware that just like those magnificent pink cherry blossoms a block away, blooms like tulips only last a relatively short time.

Tulips were prized possessions at one time in Europe. A single tulip of the right coloring was worth much more than its weight in gold. A man had to work for months to pay the prices they were asking. Then some blight or other took hold and tulips fell out of favor. Well, they're still very much in favor in our homestead.

As the attached photos clearly attest, the glorious tulips in Sara's garden are extra special this year. I can hardly wait for Spring a year from now to have them pop out of the soil once more and grace us with their presence.

Sara helped me construct a box for a new vegetable garden in a sunnier spot than before, and she planted seeds with the help of the kids. We have peas, carrots, arugula, leaf lettuce, spinach, and some herbs growing, as well as some well developed tomato plants which we haven't put outside yet, since the radio said something about the chance of frost tonight. We hope this doesn't happen for the sake of our seedlings!

But temperatures are due to rise over the weekend and then we'll be yearning for the cool days of early Spring! "You don't know what you've got, 'til it's gone!"

Coral Sunset Peonies and William Shakespeare Roses

Sara has been doing quite a bit of landscaping and gardening at another property here on the Gulf Islands. She prepared the soil with fertilizer and mulch and built stone walls to contain her flower beds. She planted all her favorite plants and worked very hard conceptualizing, as well as carrying out her plans. Many a wheelbarrow full of new soil, compost, and broken rocks was pushed up the inclines in order to replenish some already existing beds and some new ones.

Her peonies were magnificent and many other blooms graced the sizable property throughout the spring and summer. The different kinds of peonies she favors are Coral Sunset, Bowl of Beauty, and Do Tell, as well as one called Madame Emile Debatene. There is a Gertrude Jekyll rose, and a brilliant red camellia, that looks somewhat like a rose. She also took some William Shakespeare roses from her Gabriola garden to her landscaping project.

Her future projects include the installation of a waterfalls and fully utilizing an irrigation pond to save on water usage. There is a fully automated underground irrigation system and many a flagstone pathway was created by Sara in order to save the wear and tear on the lawn.

Please enjoy the pictures of her "other" garden, and know that many hours of hard work have gone into creating this little paradise away from the urban rush. As is the case with our home garden, Sara used Advanced Nutrients Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom, as well as Bud Factor X and Rhino Skin to ensure vigorous, healthy plants, resistant to pests and diseases.

Back to the Garden!



Time to stop and smell the roses--literally. Time to slow-down. Hockey is a fast and furious and let's face it, violent game, and violence begat violence. It's a biblical truth and we cannot get away from it. Rather, let's look at how we raise our children. Are we teaching them enough of the difference between right and wrong?

The young people in the photographs of the riot on Facebook have somehow missed those parental lessons. Some of them seemed to relish the violence, posing in front of burning police cars and one guy even urinated at the riot squad. Sure, the rioters were fuelled by a lot of alcohol consumed, but a lack of ethics also played a role in the events.

It was only a hockey game folks. Someone's FB status said it well--if you're going to riot, at least do it for a worthy cause. Syria, Iran, Libya--the people in those places have some justification for being angry. The Stanley Cup is only an ornament.

Crocuses Herald Arrival of Spring!

These magnificent flowers emerge from the soil, even if the temperatures hadn't warmed up as much as the arrival of Spring would indicate. Sara and I were out in the garden on Sunday, administering nourishment to the soil (and the perennials that are just coming to life). The crocuses will be followed shortly by the much taller daffodils and then in April it's time for the tulips to bloom! Spring is my favorite time of year, because even the rose leaves have started budding and some of the blossom trees have exploded with white and pink petals!

How does one replenish the soil at this time of year? We mix the correct amount of Iguana Juice Grow or Iguana Juice Bloom into large containers of water and manually pour the mixture into the different sections of the garden. The plants already in bloom will require Iguana Bloom, and the plants that still have to go through their vegetative cycle will be given Iguana Grow. Iguana Juice is the 100% organic fertilizer from Advanced Nutrients that Sara and I have been using in both our flower garden and our vegetable garden for years!

We also give Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid to our plants. These supplements replenish the soil and provide extra nutrients to the plants in a synergistic fashion. Each product helps the other to perform better. Both of these are derived from Leonardite, a rich dark brown or black organic layer found on top of coal beds. Humic acid takes its name from humus, the rich, black soil that our grandparents grew their food in many years ago. Modern agricultural technology is helping to recreate the fertile soils of yesteryear, before the overuse of chemical fertilizers have depleted the natural nutrition content of good growing soil.

We also use Bud Factor X to immunize our plants against pests and pathogens. The roses really need this treatment, because black spot has attacked them in the past. Hopefully, by using Bud Factor X and Rhino Skin, both from Advanced Nutrients, we'll be able to prevent such infestations from happening.

It's just the beginning of another exciting gardening season and Sara is already down on her knees pulling weeds and fixing up the flagstone paths that protect the lawn areas of our garden. She needed to put flagstone down in order to allow the wheelbarrow to deliver bark mulch and manure, without damaging the lawn.

We get a good workout just taking care of our garden and save a lot of money in fitness club membership fees! :-)