New Blog Created

Today I created a new blog which I hope to fill with some information and stories about Stanley Zubrowski. Stanley is a friend I have made through my love of Clematis. He is a breeder of Clematis and other plants as well and has made selections which I hope to hilight here.
Several of the Clematis which have come from Stanley are Clematis Joe Zary and Doctor FL Skinner.
If anyone has a short story they would share that would be great as well. Leave a comment!

More to come.

And on to the mundane though necessary

Life is interesting without a doubt. One day we are mourning the loss of a loved one or acquaintance and then it's on with life. We come and we go and it is the impact on our neighbour that matters most. Some do well and others fail and only God is really keeping score. Which is likely to our benefit. His scales are justice and mercy!

Today was chop and cut day on my Streptocarpella "Concord Blue". Here is a good resource page to read about these and other Gesneriads. Some cuttings are being started in water and a couple others in coir pellets from Lee Valley. This is not an endorsement of coir pellets as I have very poor success with them in trying to start seeds. I just want to use them up.

Something unusual is happening in my plant room as I have an invasion of small spiders who are beginning to keep the aphids under control and maybe even the fungus gnats. I made the mistake of bringing plants into the plant room from outdoors and so now there is a source of problem for seed starting in January. Major clean up due.
More later.

Sad news received today

Our church, the Brethren in Christ, has a good number of small churches in Cuba and we have had the privilege of going to help with the building of a new church and training center the last 2 Novembers. Today we received word that one of the key leaders, Felix Curbello, passed away while on a meeting trip to France. He had gone to stay with some folks in Germany and passed away there. We are very sorry to hear this news as he has been so instrumental in getting the documents need for our work teams into Cuba to help with this project. They will miss him very much. He was well known on the world stage of BIC and Mennonite communities of faith as he served in several capacities with the Mennonite World Conference and the International Brethren in Christ Association.
He was our tour guide in a walking tour of Old Havana and very proud of the heritage this city has left to the world. We saw several schools set up almost souly to teach young people to be craftsman for restoring the city!
He will be missed!

Here is an unusaual group of stations to listen to for Christmas

Found this List of live radio stations with Christmas music. Hope you find something you enjoy! We have been listening in German tonight.


Here is a little Christmas tidbit in the Palacio de Valle in Cienfuegos, Cuba. Very beautiful. The paintings are in the stairwell going up to the second floor. To the right once you are through the front door. The building is nearly 100 years old being from 1913-1917 and built in neo-gothic style. Easy to find information on the internet.

Why Christmas works for me!

My goodness Christmas came early!

For me one of the best gifts for Christmas is seeds or plants - seeds preferred,. Then at least I can limit the volume somewhat. So today 2 envelopes of seed came in the mail. One from a contact in Poland .This one contained lily seeds from varieties and crosses. Very nice 10 envelopes.
The other came from a garden friend in Calgary who sent me 9 envelopes of Clematis seeds! This makes a huge planting after Christmas. Wow!
Besides this I have about 10 or so selections of seeds from Blue Honeysuckles to plant as well.

GOOD, GOOD, GOOD!
Some links Clematis albina plena
Clematis occidentalis var. grosseserrata
Clematis Purple Spider
The rest are from seedlings of C. koreana Blue eclipse and Clematis Constance selected by the sender.
I do not do well with koreana seeds but I will try my best to get at least 1 plant from each.
I was able to find a greenhouse to winter my Clematis cirrhosa in so 10 of them are there for the winter and I do have visiting privileges!Ha! I also took 5 orange seedlings there but I don't have a lot of hope for them at this point but you never can tell.

Good things!

Looking after plants has it's ups and downs!

Well today started with a crash. I was checking some Clematis on the top shelf in my plant room and went to step down and wham the chair I was standing on went out from under me.What a crash. Blood flowing, knees and shoulder aching. What a mess. And stuff, not plants, spread on the floor. And I am supposed to work at Lee Valley Tools today. So wash up, put on a band-aid and spent the day working.


Tonite my cheek bone is sore and there is some blood but otherwise it's aches and pains only. So close and yet so far. Thank God. What's that about "into every life a little rain must fall".






Oh Well. On the brighter side. Yesterday I received an envelope from a contact in Russia with fresh Blue Honeysuckle seed. So after Christmas it is grow, grow, grow. They arrived in quite good shape although several were squashed flat. There will be plenty for me to get some test plants. The seeds were collected in  the Kitoy River area of Siberia which is a place I would really like to visit in early July. Wonderful scenery and a chance to hunt for Blue Honeysuckle in the wild. Ah Ha! The envelope was a piece of art in itself. Great picture.

Back home from Cuba - "NO" Snow!!!

Well after 2 weeks less a day away I am finally getting to blog again! My wife and I were in the country of Cuba helping with some 11 others from Ontario to continue construction of a church/training center. While there we were very fortunate to have a couple of tour days for breaks - working there is hot and heavy. Of course we did not work as hard as we could have as the materials needed did not get there on time. This allowed much time to renew relationships and make new ones. Still in all, what was accomplished helped move the project along and the group came away satisfied. In the end relationships outweigh buildings and things anyway!
The building is in the city of Palmira in Cienfuegos province so it is not hard to find on a map and the province/capital have a very rich history. You can read about the capital city here. I even found a listing for several very nice looking Bed & Breakfast places last night. Palmira does not seem to have much going on in the way of restoration but the capital city is definitely doing many projects to restore historic buildings. The last time I looked the population for Palmira was in the 30,000 + range. It is a busy place and even though the economy is not real good, there are many folks fixing or adding on or building houses (on about $12 Canadian a month it is a slow process). The church was able to rent many construction items from local individuals and we saw bread, fruit, and vegetables being peddled on the street, so people supplement their low government income with other ways. We were told by one of the church friends that they have been able to get more variety of vegetables since the government has created partnership with farmers to allow farmers to get something out of their production so production has increased. We were very impressed with how there seemed to be much more land being cleared, worked and planted. The country has huge potential as a producer of fruit and vegetables with the unused land base I took some vine seeds(squash, melons) and gave them to friend there so hope he can get them to grow and produce.
Of course being a plant lover, I have an eye out for plants and flowers but did not have a Flora guide with me so did not get much done in the way of identifying what I saw. There were many varieties of Hibiscus growing in personal lots as well as used by the government in road plantings. The other plants which intrigued me were the variety of vines. Of course many of the plants like crotons, rubber plants, Ficus and others were growing in their natural element and as normal trees and shrubs. Very nice to see. One of the things which I have on my future visit list is the Botanical gardens in Cienfuegos.
Well what about photos? You will find photos on www.picasaweb.com/cmmwiebe today or later in the week. I will also feature a look at a private garden which I did not see (bathroom rush/rumble) but my wife Marg did.
Where did we visit? Well we did Sunday morning/afternoon in Ciudad Cienfuegos and to Rancho Luna beach area. The sites in Cienfuegos were not new to us but still good to see again. Lunch at the Rancho Luna was interesting as they had to feed 15 of us at once. But it was a nice place and they did a good job on the food. Those who swim, swam and the rest of us got our feet wet. I am not a salt water person!
On the Thursday (12th) we did an all day trip (3.5hours one way) to Havana. One of the church leaders works in the Economics Deptartment of the Government and was our tour guide on a walk through Old Havana. What a place! It was a great architectural area in it's day but is crumbling faster than they can restore it. We saw 2 schools (there are likely more) where young adults are being taught the trades needed to do restoration as they attempt to save some of the buildings. Some have already been redone and are quite beautiful but others - well they may not be in time. One beautiful wall mural is only a wall as the building had crumbled and has demolished. There is so much history here so one hopes they can save some of it. But it comes at the cost of higher basic wages to the people I would speculate. They are refurbishing the dock area in anticipation of tour boats from the US and other places!
Our final trip on Sunday morning (15th) was to the historic city of Trinidad which is about and hours drive south west of Cienfuegos. Another great historical spot! Very different since it is in a very hilly (low mountains) area along the coast. Cobble stone streets everywhere! The city has several squares and each has different focal points. You will see pictures of the main square with the very phootgraphed Catholic church and other buildings. Too much to tell in this sitting.
Check some of these paces out on Wikipedia.
Glad to be home. This will go unedited for now so there could be spelling or other errors.

H1N1 not swine flu but.........

H1N1...Tensions Rise

Alas even the CBC can't seem to get it straight. We are long past swine flu per say! And it is dangerous no doubt to some folks.

Fall Production and some not!

We have had a very active fall season harvesting berries and apples and converting them to edible products. The apples are September Ruby and a seedling we are calling Fehr Green (he gave us the tree but forgot if it had a name). So the apples have been made into many pies, apple butter, and even apple juice with pulp included. Very good juice and the pies are pretty good too. There were also a number of pies from Saskatoons (Heavenly Hills Orchards), pumpkin, and our own Blue Honeysuckles. (About 70 in total) Jam variety from saskatoon, chokecherry, blue honeysuckle, pin cherry, English Marrow marmalade, Nanking cherry, peaches(not grown here), apricot(also not grown here although we did have some last year), rhubarb, and ????? A good season. From the pies and the jams we were able to raise about $1000 clear for our Cuba church building trip in November. Amazing! Each of us will take about $400 as our contribution to the building so that is right on!

There has been a lot of last minute planting as well as I had many plants sitting around in pots. So there are Clematis, mountain ash, blue honeysuckles(not yet planted and there are about 75-80 pots), daylilies, and Hepaticas as well as a few other things which were still in pots. The leftovers will be set behind a building and surrounded with peat moss for the winter.

I have also been building decks to replace the deteriorating concrete steps at our doors. This has gone well for someone who has not built a deck before. Stuff happens though and yesterday when I was trying to move the last step out, the tractor did a no-no! The clutch has somehow seized and I cannot get it out of gear so that I can move it. What a pain! Looks like this.

Not sure how I will get it loose and away so I can get someone else in to finish - maybe they can pull it back and then the clutch will release.

Anyway this project needs to get done this week. Winter is on the way so things need to get put away.







I forgot to put up a picture of the apple juice. This is just the apples boiled in a bit of water and then pressed through a colander. So there is pulp and we have stored the canned jars in the fridge so they can be taken at any time and opened. Very good!

Here is one of the finished decks. Not fancy but functional. Needs a coat of something on the railing to make it smoother and prevent slivers so we will wait till spring and sand down and varnish/stain or whatever then. NO. 2 deck platform is built and ready to move into place when we can get the tractor away and some gravel moved in to make a base.

Until next time.

October days

We were privileged to have Craig and Carol Larson stop for the night last Friday. They were on their way to visit family in Edmonton and it was very nice to get better acquainted. Craig is the author of a number of good blogs, not the least of which is his Haskap Wine Blog for which you can find the link on my Blue Honeysuckle Blog. We had a very good visit and a short walk about in the plant areas on Saturday morning. We both have a lot of respect for this little berry which is making its way into the fruit markets of the prairies. My plants include several of the Haskap which are licensed varieties from the University of Saskatchewan but the larger part of my plantation are seedlings from various sources and are simply Edible Blue Honeysuckle. I am looking forward to more conversations on this and other topics in the future.

Saturday I was fortunate to pick up a couple of suckers from Carmine Jewel Cherry as well as seeds from Clematis hirsutissima and Clematis Pamiat Serdtsa. The Clematis seeds are from Sara Williams who is well known for her books on prairie horticultural topics.

And speaking of Clematis, I still have a number to try and get into the ground! But I got a new book so that will be interesting for winter reading. The book is on the right margin and links you to the Indigo Books web sight with information about the book. I saw one of Raymond Evison's hybrids at some friends in Ontario and really liked it but it is not hardy here unless you grow it in a pot and bring it in for the winter. I am very pleased to have a little Clematis blooming in my terrarium. It is a Clematis crispa and this is it's third blossom in captivity. So cute and very nice form. It is very pale though and I am not sure if this is the soil or lack of light or natural as the ones I see on the internet tend to be more pink.

Well these days it is deck building, flower pot dumping and general cleanup. Lets hope it stays reasonably nice.

October snow.................

Well we were away for a few days to Ontario and were glad to get home. On the other hand we could do without the snow and frost. So many tasks to be completed yet before we really settle in for winter. Ontario was really no better as it rained every day and some days all day! It was still green and flowers were blooming though.

Left outside to plant are many things in pots; they really would have had time to get rooted in a normal year when snow does not come till after Halloween. I wanted to plant blue honeysuckles, mountain ash, Evans Cherry (3 - 5ft. tall),  and clematis. Probably some others I have forgotten. I also wanted to collect cuttings from my fuschias but they are quite burned off by frost.

There are 10 Clematis cirrhosa moved to the basement under lights (aphids and fungus gnats included) along with 2 Clematis montana. While in Ontario I bought a Clematis Vancouver "Morning Mist". It looks like a beauty from the information and picture. Might have to keep it indoors for the winter though as planting is looking a little sketchy. We stayed with some friends and they had bought a pot or patio Clematis which I did not write the name down for but it looked like a very good compact plant. I think it was Picardy which is a Ray Evison introduction. They also have a very nice fish pond in their back yard.

Outside of the Picard's Peanuts Store on Dundas Street was this very nice John Deere tractor with a single bottom plow. We picked up a few nut treats here.  The Picard's Peanut stores are  a common site around the south at least in Ontario.

Finally my rant for the day!
Sadly so many people are filling their blogs with commercials that you can't find the posts. I have quit visiting some blogs because I really don't have time to try and fish out the information or the posting that they have made. Too bad commerce always steals the natural things we do for fun.

Fruit and Flowers

Biltmore not Baltimore Tomato













Tommy Tomato - Tiny Tim on top and a Tamina













Tammy Tomato - Tamina (Thompson & Morgan)












September Ruby Apple - very nice not a big yield this year.












Unknown apple-crab type - good yield.













Tiny Tim tomato in an upside down hanger.













Clematis stans seedling in full bloom.













Kadana Rose - pink, very pretty color combo. Walmart pot, $4.95 and there were 7 cuttings but only 6 lived. 3 red and 3 pinks.











Clematis ? a shrub type seedling.













Seedling Clematis Radar Love.













Garden huckleberry - Solanum melanocerasum













Daylily seed pod covered with a pantyhose foot.

















Clematis Polish Spirit seedling.













Clematis viorna seedling - first blooms.

Haskap Central Sales

Went to visit this place which is the new home of Haskap Central Sales.

Great summer weather produces flowers

Well there are so many plants blooming this year and it is just amazing. It is very thrilling to find the first Daylily seedlings begin to bloom and many seedling Clematis are starting to bloom as well. Still have about 30 to plant out somewhere! There are also about 100 Edible blue Honeysuckles in pots to be planted this late summer as well. Lots of work ahead along with house repairs and so on. Some of the new flowers are Echinacea "Pink Parasol", Echinacea purpurea "Magnus", Clematis fremontii seedling #1, Clematis crispa seedling (in a terrarium), Clematis recta seedlings, Clematis "ASAO" seedlings(? not sure they were labelled right), many different Morning Glories, and many different roses. Also out there are Salpiglossis, California poppies, cosmos, Gypsophila repens, daylilies, lavatera, hollyhocks, and others. It makes for a great summer display. Clematis blooming through this season are Margret Hunt, alba Luxurians, Sally Cadge, Polish Spirit, Madame Julia Correvon, General Sikorski, Hermits Gold, Joe Zary, alpina Ruby, Etoile Rose, Alionushka, John Paul II, and seedlings of Lagoon, Harlow Carr, Radar Love, My Angel, Purple Spider and ........

We also have harvested Garrington and Maxi chokecherry as well as from a seedling. Apples are abundant on Prairie Sun, September Ruby (less) and an unknown apple-crab. What more could you ask except for a little rain from time to time. We are at about 5.5 inches for the spring summer season so far. Enough in some soil but not here!

I already have seeds for new Edible blue honeysuckle from about 7 different parent sources so there will be lots of planting this winter. Just need to negotiate some more worked ground to plant into this fall and next spring. The city is getting closer all the time so really question planting here on the acreage now.

Seed collecting has begun and will continue on into fall. So far there are several Columbines and Lemon Lily gathered. A number of the Asiatic lilies and daylilies have seed pods so I gather those even though I may never plant them.

Summer is great.........more later.

Flowers of August

Well it has been a great day to take pictures. You can see them in this Picasaweb Album. I also finished the Edible Blue Honeysuckle harvest. There are pictures over on that blog.

Clematis seedling displays first flower in captivity

I transplanted several Clematis seedlings to a terrarium last winter to let them grow larger while being able to observe them. One of those bloomed this week. The seed is from the British Clematis Society - a herbaceous mix. I am told on the Gardenbuddies Clematis forum that it is likely a Clematis crispa.



I am amazed at how small it is and so perfect. Less than an inch either way.

The remaining plant is a Clematis cirrhosa and it is growing like mad but no sign of buds so far.

Beautiful summer days

Every day is an exciting day when a new flower opens or a new plant begins to bloom. Lilies are just starting and they are so good and bright for how little rain we have had. Others blooming brightly are Morning Glories, poppies, and Clematis.
You can see some in this Picasa Album. I hope to get all the titles up before the week is over. And sometimes wild is OK too! This thistle just was peeking out of a plant in the flowerbed and I thought it looked pretty nice. We will get it when we weed and before the seeds get spread.

A day or 2 away

Well we traveled to Anglin Lake to stay at the Land of the Loon Resort and spend some time watching wildlife and canoeing on the lake. The wildlife watching went very well on Monday as we saw at least 5 white tail deer does with 2 fawns each. A number of these were inside Prince Albert National Park. We also saw a small herd of elk and a black bear crossed the road. Since I was driving there are not many pictures to show. I will have to grab some of my wife's in the next few days. This doe was just outside the village of Waskesiu. We were pleased to find many Saskatchewan lilies blooming on roadways around Anglin Lake and on the
way to Waskesiu. This 3 flower plant was the
best we saw. The flowers in the ditch looked like the second plant here. I was able to gather a few seeds from the 3 flower plant and am very interested to see if they will grow. Our trip ended abruptly on Tuesday morning as the rain had set in and we decided to drive home. On the way home we heard that the village of Denholm on the Yellowhead Highway had been flooded out by a torrential rain of about 5 inches plus! So we were glad to get home to find we had about 10 mm. Ah well it was good anyway.

A good rain is a good thing!

Well this week we have had 16 mm of rainfall which was very much needed. Everything looks so fresh and clean and invigorated with the moisture. Even the crops which are heading look like they will do better.

So many things are blooming here that I am uploading to Picasaweb so that I can put pictures up without reducing them in size. Blogger just cannot handle large files!

I repotted blue honeysuckles and mountain ash seedlings this week as well as several Clematis seedlings. Today I spent cutting grass most of the afternoon and will need to finish tomorrow. My back was just wrecked this morning and I went for a massage/chiro treatment which I had booked earlier. Not a lot of help so into the Ibuprofen. Better tonight.

What's blooming here:
Clematis seedlings: Harlow Carr, mandschurica.

Clematis: Etoile Rose, Doctor FL Skinner, Joe Zary, alpina Ruby.

Peaonia: Sarah Bernhardt, Karl Rosenfeld.

Several Morning Glories are also blooming as are several Daylilies and German Irises.

I am so pleased that I have some Catalpa speciosa (Gardens North seed) seedlings which made it through the winter which is quite nice. I hope they will root deep and be hardy. See the picture.
Hopefully I can get some more pictures up this week.

Canada Walk in pictures

Please visit this Picasa album to see some of what I saw this morning as I toured our yard.

Canada Day Album JUL09

HAPPY CANADA DAY to all Canadians everywhere!

Mid June and the drought is coming

A 1 year old Russian honeysuckle setting fruit.

Well here it is mid June and growth in the garden is slow as well as being dry. Several days of frost near the beginning of June have not helped annuals for sure. I found a few dead plants on our return from a trip to Kansas, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. Places we visited were Hillsboro and Marion, Kansas, then Mannheim and Lancaster (and many other small towns) in Penn. and then Wheaton and Chicago in Illinois. I hope to put up some pictures in the next couple of weeks but I might do an album on Picasa and put a link here as there are many neat things to see.

The honeysuckle are finishing blooming and the columbines are beginning. I have about 70 new seedlings plus a number of second year plants coming into bloom. The hneysuckle seem to have set good fruit and what is there is growing but we need rain badly. I pumped one well dry alreay and I don't really want to use all the water from the second so let the rain come down!