Lily Season

Lily Season

Most lilies bloom here in July.

Our native lilies bloom in June.

Our Easter lily’s forced to die

post bloom indoors to then be strewn

upon our compost heaps in spring.

September’s lily: Lycoris,

an amaryllis that may bring

pink fragrant blooms of tender bliss

in fall, just might not bloom at all

for five long years once planted in

your fertile, well-drained soil in fall.

But, once these lilies do begin

perfuming air in autumn sun,

then lilies may accompany you

from Easter ‘til the autumn’s done.

So, do as lily lovers do –

plant different types of lilies in

your garden where there’s lots of sun.

Blooms finish, then new blooms begin,

so lily season’s never done.

If you watched some of the videos that I included with this post, you will have noticed that the Lily I wrote about was not a flower. I’ve mentioned having written Silas Stories (and many of these stories have been featured in previous blog posts). Lily and other women with flower names are featured in many of the Silas Stories that I’ve written.

These flower-named women will have their own book at some point, with “Lily season” being an important part of it. I still haven’t published any books (and won’t for some time). I am still revising.

For any of you Canadians who are interested in growing your own lily garden, I have included some names of great lilies below.

Many of you lily lovers have an Easter Lily in your home right now. It will fill your home with its amazing perfume, and then hit the compost heap.

If you are lucky, you live near a wild space in Canada where Lilium canadense will be blooming in June. Lilium regale also blooms in June.

Lilium lancifolium (Tiger Lily) blooms in July.

Lilium martagon (Turk’s cap); Lilium pumilum; Lilium henryi; Lilium pardalium; and Lilium superbum bloom in August.

Lycoris squamigera blooms in September (if you’re lucky).

James and I will be offering a free guided poetry hike in Waterton Lakes National Park in June (to see the Lilies and other flowers in bloom along Wishbone trail). Check out our Poetry in the Park schedule to find out about more of our free guided hikes.

James and I will be offering free Poetry in the Park hikes in Lethbridge. These will start in April. We will tour people through different poetry forms in different areas of Lethbridge every Sunday morning in April and much of May. See the Poetry in the Park schedule for more information.

If you enjoyed my Lily poems that were featured in this post, I plan on reading a few more at the Owl Acoustic Lounge tonight – March 27, 2024. Owl Poetry starts at 7 PM. I hope to see you there. If not, have a happy Easter!

Mid-October Sweet peas

I have included my poem, My Outdoor Kitchen, typed below (I’ve placed videos between the stanzas of my poem). I have just shut down my outdoor kitchen for the season (unless we are given some smelly fish to cook – that’s better done outdoors any time of year). I have also included my song, Mid-October Sweet peas, which I sung to a Sweet pea blossom in my garden. You will find it in an attached video. My Outdoor Kitchen James is eating fried potatoes now (that I had made upon my outdoor grill). Outdoors is all the cooking I’ll allow (because it’s hot) but James will get his fill. I cook outdoors when it gets hot outside so I’ve set up a kitchen on my deck. I won’t be heating up my house inside. I have an outdoor plug – so what the heck? My outdoor kitchen’s great (and quite complete). I stir fry; grill my veggies; and cook rice (but rarely barbeque – I don’t eat meat). Though summer salad days are pretty nice, I like my outdoor kitchen’s fare a lot and outdoor cooking means my home’s less hot. I wish more people would set up an outdoor kitchen (not just a barbecue, but everything – electric kettle, toaster, wok, etc.) outdoors for the summer months. I just cooked James shrimp outdoors yesterday. I don’t have an air conditioner. Even if you do, it just makes sense to not heat the house up just to have to cool it down again. I checked the forecast, and it looks like it’ll be the end for the sweet peas (and other garden plants) within the week. It sure has been a beautiful fall for flowers, though.

Here are some links to things I read recently that may be of interest:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/more-covid-cases-are-coming-here-s-what-you-need-to-know-1.6951092 https://www.alberta.ca/covid19-vaccine

I’m a child and Ditch Art

I sing my song, I’m a child, in an attached video on this blog post. I also talk about the art projects that I’ve been working on. I call it Ditch Art and encourage others to try it out. I explain some ditch art techniques in the video after my song performance. I have gone into more detail explaining techniques in a previous video that I made on the subject in the fall of 2020.

I have also included my poem, Two Nights of Rain, at the end of this post (with videos between the stanzas). I was sure we’d get a killing frost tonight but it looks like the garden may get to keep green and growing for a little while longer. It might not frost tonight, but it will be a gamble to not pull in the harvest, though. I wrote Two Nights of Rain on September 29, 2023.

Ditch Art makes weeding the garden a lot more fun. If you do not have a garden to weed, you can find ample art supplies in ditches that you drive past on your way to hiking spots. You can also make ditch art with freshly fallen leaves (that aren’t dried out yet). You can even make ditch art from garden leaves that will hit the compost pile eventually.

When we harvest the garden, tomato leaves and other plant matter just go to waste. Why not pull out the watercolor paints before you pitch the greens into the compost? NOTE: If you use spray paint for your “ditch art,” the greens will not be compostable after the art project.

I have a friend who regularly digs up and relocates weeds and native plants that she comes across in gas station parking lots or other lots that will end up controlling their weeds chemically. She later eats parts of these weeds. I have never thought that this was a wise thing that she does. Somehow she hasn’t died yet.

You don’t know what kind of chemicals you are exposing yourself to when foraging in this manner. When it comes to Ditch Art, your exposure is minimal. However, you may consider wearing dish washing gloves or latex gloves when painting in this fashion. I wear gloves. It saves being covered with acrylic paints (which can also be very toxic).

If you choose to use spray paint when creating Ditch Art, you will need to wear a ventilator mask. You likely have many masks kicking around your home these days. Spray paint is toxic, as is indicated on each can of paint with the skull and cross bones symbol. No one should have to suffer physically for their art. Art should be fun and safe.

I just used acrylics (on the leaves to stick them to the paper), and watercolor paint (poured from jars onto the leaves and paper), and a spray bottle full of water to make this art. It cost little (I used paint from the dollar store). The paper cost a bit, though – that came from Michael’s craft store.

Two Nights of Rain

It’s tough to let the flower garden go

and let the fall, then winter, settle in.

I’ve brought plants in to crowd my windows, so

I’ve kept reminders of how things have been

outside (where I’ve been dining every day

these past few months amongst the flowers there.

A couple nights of rain will come our way.

The rain is great – the garden needs the care.

The cloudy skies will keep the frost at bay,

but days will stay quite cool without the sun.

The sky will clear the way for frost some day

quite soon – once these two nights of rain are done.

A killing frost is three whole nights away

so, though there’s rain, I’ll cherish every day.

Gumweed Bees

If you are looking to find native bee species in southern Alberta, late summer is an excellent time to find them. There isn’t much in bloom in the coulees around Lethbridge and further south this time of year. Therefore, what is in bloom is loaded with pollinator species. There are a lot of beetles on the goldenrod blooms and a lot of bees on the gumweed.

I recently found a type of Agapostemon Sweat Bee on Gumweed blooms. I had never seen them before and then saw hundreds in one day. Nature is fun that way. I found a picture of the bee at the top of a 14 Types of Bees Found in Alberta! (2023) article on-line. I didn’t see the name of it in the article itself (I included the address at the bottom of this post).

I think the bee was Agapostemon virescens. Even though I was really sweating, the Sweat bees were not interesting in me in the least. They were all too busy loving the Gumweed.

I found another interesting insect on the gumweed blooms in Cottonwood Park (in Lethbridge, Alberta). I have seen these little “bees” around southern Alberta frequently. I see them in Waterton Lakes National Park often when I hike there. I have tried to figure out what bee type they are to no avail. Then, by chance I happened upon a picture of a large bee-fly. The cute little mystery bee turned out to not be a bee at all. I don’t know if the one that I saw was Bombylius major. It could be a different type of bee-fly species for all I know.

The Lethbridge coulees really dry up by late summer. At first glance, everything appears dead. There is still plenty of life in the coulees, though, so take a closer look. It’s worth it!

If you enjoy seeing native bee species, you can include native plant species (that they love) in your garden. It’s nice to have nature right outside your door.

I have updated this post to include more useful resources (for identifying bees) and to include a poem that I wrote after having seen the lovely bee and bee-fly the other day. You will find my poem, Bee Taxonomy, below. I didn’t have videos to put between the stanzas, so it is a bit more of a struggle to get through (and it is a long one).

Bee Taxonomy

At first I saw an emerald, then

I saw her wasp-striped abdomen.

But she was not a wasp, you see

for Agapostemon’s a bee! –

A Sweat Bee, to be more exact.

Sweat’s scent is something to attract

this lovely little emerald bee.

The Sweat Bees never bother me.

I’ve heard they rarely sting at all,

and if one does, I guess she’d fall

down dead, if what I’ve heard is true.

So, stinging’s something few bees do.

A wasp won’t answer for her crimes,

for she can sting a hundred times,

but if a bee stings once, she dies.

That might just be a pack of lies.

That difference, though, might be the key

for bee and wasp taxonomy.

Since bees and wasps look much the same

and bees don’t always act more tame,

there’s fuzzy lines between the two.

Some bees are fuzzy gals, that’s true,

but others aren’t so fuzzy, though.

So wasp or bee? It’s tough to know.

Regarding black and yellow lines,

is there a way to see the signs

that what you see’s a wasp or bee?

Well, if there is, that’s news to me.

Some wasps and bees don’t have the stripes.

It’s tough to even see those types

as insects that are wasps or bees

at first. Still, once a person sees

the truth about their family,

it’s tough to know which type you see.

Beside that Agapostemon,

I saw a fuzzy, smaller one –

a “teddy-bee” that seemed so shy:

Bombylius – a type of fly! –

a bee-fly, not a bee at all.

It seemed so harmless, cute, and small

but it’s a parasitic fly.

So wasp? Bee? Fly? It’s tough to try

to figure out just what you see

when you believe you’ve seen a bee.

Useful Resources

https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/bee

https://www.angi.com/articles/how-identify-different-types-bees.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombylius_major

https://fieldguide.mt.gov/displaySpecies.aspx?family=Halictidae

https://ecofriendlywest.ca/so-much-we-dont-know-albertas-native-bees/

The following resources are great, but I can’t connect a link to their sites (or pdf files). You’ll have to copy and paste each address into a search bar. The birdwatching one has fun quizzes on their site. If you enjoy watching birds, you’ll likely enjoy their material.

birdwatchinghq.com/bees-in-alberta

The following is a Beginner Bee Field Guide from https://extension.colostate.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/BeginnerBeeFieldGuide_LowRezWeb_28Feb2022.pdf (the link to their pdf below may work… or you might have to hit the colostate website and search for it).

Click to access BeginnerBeeFieldGuide_LowRezWeb_28Feb2022.pdf

The following is a bee identification guide from Kamloops. If you are trying to identify bees in southern Alberta (or in BC), this may be helpful. The link below may work, or you may have to copy and paste the following address to try to find it https://www.kamloops.ca/sites/default/files/docs/our-community/tsmg_bee_identification_guide_ff3.pdf

Click to access tsmg_bee_identification_guide_ff3.pdf

Nasturtiums

My beautiful Nasturtiums aren’t so beautiful anymore. I have a Flea Beetle problem. I tried to spray my shampoo and water mix on the plants. I didn’t expect it to work at all on the flea beetles but I was using the mixture to control whiteflies and aphids there anyhow and thought I’d give the beetles a few squirts.

To my surprise, it brought the numbers down a bit. Perhaps the couple days of cooler nights and rain helped, too. Diatomaceous Earth would work better, I’m sure. In any case, I only have a few beetles on my Nasturtiums now. Perhaps I’ll get a few more flowers to enjoy. Perhaps it was the prayer that did it. I am nearly out of this coconut shampoo and will certainly be seeking for more of this brand of shampoo (to use as insect control along with my garden prayers).

You can check out my video with the orange butterfly in my flower garden at the end of this post to see how effective the soap mixture was on the flea beetles. I was surprised to see so few beetles this morning. Before yo do that, you might enjoy reading my poem, Tip Top Alaska Nasturtiums, which I typed up and included in this post. I have placed videos between the stanzas of my poem.

I attract birds to my garden. Birds are wasteful eaters – littering as much seed in the garden as they eat. By doing that, they ensure a crop for the following year, when they hope to return to the same spot to raise their young and continue to grow their “garden”.

They really aren’t interested in controlling insects entirely (they help “garden” them, too). Birds usually keep the insect numbers controlled so that the host plants continue to do well (since the birds like to care for the garden that they either planted in the first place or adopted). Birds are excellent gardeners.

I planted many sunflowers this year for the Blue Jays. Right now the orange butterflies are busy pollinating the disc florets but soon there will be plenty of seeds for the Blue Jays. If you want to attract Blue Jays to your garden, plant sunflowers (and put out peanuts on the window ledge or in a feeder).

Tip Top Alaska Nasturtiums

Tip Top Alaska Nasturtiums are great.

They start blooming so early and bloom really late.

Though their blooms are all yellow, not orangey red,

I will never again grow another instead.

I tried other Nasturtiums this year, but they don’t

out-shine Tip Top Alaska plants. Therefore, I won’t

even bother with others in gardens I grow

since no other Nasturtiums can put on a show

like this type. Like its leaves, this type’s growth habit’s round

and its covered with blooms – more than any I’ve found.

Leaves are variegated, like many prefer

(though not I). Even so, this Nasturtium is sure

something sweet. Ten more open for each bloom that drops.

For an edge or container plant, Tip Top’s the tops!

I haven’t gotten down because of the insects that were attracted to my garden this year. Sometimes the garden attracts flea beetles, aphids, and whitefly instead of butterflies and Blue Jays. I look forward to seeing if the Whitefly and Aphids end up attracting some songbirds. Yellow Warblers are always nice to see enjoying their crop of aphids from the Honeysuckle that they planted in my garden two decades ago. Nature is beautiful, educational, and surprising.

Next year I will avoid planting an Asian Green that I’ve been growing which attracted the flea beetles (cabbage family plants attract flea beetles). I will also avoid planting my Nasturtiums in my peat bale row. Crop rotation can be an easy way to break a pest’s life cycle.

Useful Resources

https://www.almanac.com/pest/flea-beetles

How to Control and Eradicate Flea Beetles

https://www.caterpillaridentification.org/caterpillars-by-state-listing.php?reach=Alberta

Sweet Peas

I typed up my poem, East Wall Sweet Peas, and included it below. I put video between the stanzas. My back has been bad so I have mostly been at home. Making dinner is enough of an adventure these days. Waterton will still be there when I recover.

East Wall Sweet Peas

I caught a fragrance as I went

along beside my peat bale row.

And it’s a fragrance that I know –

my sun-kissed east wall Sweet Pea scent.

The east wall’s where my Sweet Peas grow.

That wall is sunny – perfect for

my Sweet Peas. Every day there’s more.

They’re fragrant and put on a show.

My Sweet Peas pull me out the door

in morning sun when weather’s nice.

Their type is tried and true: Old Spice.

They’re common but they’re not a bore.

Their high success rate should entice

new gardeners and the very old,

since once you grow them once, you’re sold.

Old Spice is always worth the price.

A good day for a new beginning

It is good to get out on hikes in the summer, but it’s nice to get a chance to appreciate one’s own neighborhood every once in a while, too. It’s especially nice to get a chance to enjoy home in the city when most people have escaped to the mountain parks for the long weekend.

As much as I feel bummed checking the weather report filled with perfect hiking conditions for the weekend, the city sure is quiet today. I am sitting at a computer in the public library typing this and it’s pretty much a ghost town here. I feel blessed.

Nasturtiums and other flowers in my garden

I’ve been having a bad back week. I haven’t gotten down about it. I know my back can’t handle it when I lift things (like a water jug to water plants by hand). I also know that when I do things (like supplemental watering in the heat of summer) and hurt my back, it’ll improve again.

These back set-backs really suck in the summer, though. The Canadian prairie summer is short. This really bites into my hiking plans. Still, my garden brings me more joy than pain, and I can find plenty of beauty to cheer me up on short walks around my neighborhood.

I performed my song, A good day for a new beginning, in a video attached below. It’s a sonnet song so it only takes a minute to get through. I also typed up and included my poem, Bottle Recycling, which I wrote on May 1, 2023.

I won’t be able to do any household chores (like bottle recycling) for a few days but I haven’t any bottles to recycle (I don’t buy bottled beverages). Still, every time my back lays me up, I am thankful to have a “new beginning” as I help my back recover. Every day I add a few more steps. I will be climbing mountains again soon enough.

Bottle Recycling

I haven’t recycled since Covid hit town.

Well, before but I don’t know how long it has been.

But this morning, I figured I’d better go down

and check out Green’s new hi-tech recycling scene.

It was awesome – my bottles were cash in a flash.

Folks were served so soon after each one would arrive.

I’d been saving for years but still made little cash.

I’m still happy I left with my six forty-five.

Mountain Blue Bird

James and I saw a Mountain Blue Bird while hiking on Wishbone trail on July 9, 2023. We hiked Wishbone on the way to the Vimy trailhead. We saw a lot of birds that morning.

We hiked “the great circle route” to Twin Lakes in Waterton Lakes National Park on Friday, July 15, 2023. It was a Poetry in the Park hike (a free guided hike we offered) but no one showed up to join us. James still managed to find many people to talk with at the beginning and latter part of our hike. It was just us and the flowers for most of the walk.

It will take me a while to upload the videos and put together my Highlights of Twin Lakes blog post. I will write it when I’m in better spirits. My spirits are brighter than they were first thing this morning.

When I woke this morning, I was worried about the escaped calf that I saw along HWY 5. Not being able to help the little guy made me feel helpless. I’m still worried about him.

Then going out to see my peat bale row flowers certainly didn’t cheer me up (watch the videos to find out why). Not everything works out perfectly. Yet, I was able to see that I really am very lucky after all. I do have people who care about me. I see many beautiful flowers every day. Some are in my garden; others are in God’s garden in Waterton Lakes National Park.

When I visited Waterton on July 15, 2023, I even got to see a flower that I had only ever admired in books. I saw a flower that I had never seen in the real world ever before and it looked even more beautiful in person. Once I get the Highlights post done, you’ll get to see what I found. I am truly blessed.

Puccoon

This flower looks better than its name sounds. You’ll find Puccoon blooming in the Lethbridge Nature Parks in mid-May. If you miss seeing it bloom, head up to Waterton Lakes National Park (it blooms a little later in the year there). The Puccoon was still blooming in Waterton when I was there on June 6, 2023.

I have typed up and included my poem, Eco Lawn, below. I don’t know how many people will see the term “eco lawn” as a joke (I’m not partial to wasting garden space with a lawn). James loves having a little lawn in the front. He’s out there watering it often.

He probably doesn’t think I mow it often enough (he can’t do it himself since his back is in bad shape – compression fractures from multiple myeloma). He really works hard caring for his lawn. He even weeds his dandelions by hand. I’d rather have a field of Puccoon out front of my house than a lawn. Whatever.

Since James and I have been hiking so often, long prairie grass seems natural and beautiful. Mowed lawn seems less attractive (and a waste of maintenance time I’d rather spend hiking). I guess the urban community likes lawns, though. Green, mown lawns keep the neighbors happier than a field of Puccoon.

Both James and I like hiking and seeing the native plants blooming. We’ll have fun looking for Puccoon in the Lethbridge Coulees and then near Red Rock Canyon (Waterton Lakes National Park) together and then he can have fun at home with his lawn.

Eco Lawn

Though Blue Grass music’s awfully fun,

a fescue’s a much better one

(than Blue Grass) in our droughty town,

so don’t buy sod, just cast seed down.

Then rake it in to cover it

and water, water, quite a bit

until it’s well established there.

Though early on it needs great care,

once it’s established, it’s a breeze

and you can care for it with ease.

Don’t bag the clippings from your lawn

or rake them up; just leave them on

so that they’ll decompose away

and feed the grass roots where they lay –

that’s where those nutrients belong.

Don’t mow grass short, let grass grow long –

it keeps soil moist (because it’s cool).

If you mow short, then you’re a fool

since long grass outcompetes the weeds

(as long as you have met its needs).

Most fescue’s soft for laying on –

to sunbathe on your eco lawn.

If you want to have a healthy eco lawn, it is important to remember that “eco” doesn’t mean “let the weeds grow wild”. There is nothing “green” about increasing the population of invasive species. You will get on top of the weeds if you nip them in the flower bud (weed them out before they set seed). You will not get on top of the weeds by letting them set seed.

NOTE: The scheduled Poetry in the Park hike to Bertha Lake on June 13th, 2023 is still a go. If you would like to join us on a free hike, just show up at the trailhead at 8 AM. We will be there whether you are or not. We don’t stay away from a Waterton hike unless there’s a 60% chance of rain (or over 60 km wind speeds).

Prickly Pear Cactus

I performed my song, Prickly Pear Cactus, at Cottonwood Park. This song was a part of a project that I’m working on the 2022 summer called “Sonnet Summer” (and it is a sonnet). Each song and poem that I created in the 2022 summer was a sonnet. Most of the sonnet forms that I’m using this summer are of my own creation so you may not recognize them as sonnets.

I am still singing songs to the nature that I love, but for the summer of 2023, I have taken to singing to birds as well as native plants. The Prickly Pear Cacti are not in bloom yet this year. They will be soon. In the meantime you can get out and enjoy many beautiful plants that are in bloom in the Lethbridge coulees right now.

This sonnet, like all of my sonnets, have a rhyme and rhythm pattern and are only fourteen lines long. The benefit of creating sonnet songs is that they are short. That is also a benefit to the listener, in many cases. I hope you’ll enjoy hearing my songs.

I am including a gardening poem, For The Love of Gardening, that I wrote in this post. It is a sonnet that I wrote on May 17, 2023. I’m not only writing sonnets this year. You’ll find it at the bottom of this post.

I just found out that the Lethbridge Public Library is hosting a home and garden show tomorrow, May 20, 2023. It seems funny to do a home and garden show on the May long weekend. That’s when gardeners are most busy. Perhaps some of Lethbridge’s gardeners will take a break from their gardens to come sit in the air-conditioning at the Library, though.

Update: I attended the Home and Garden Show at the Lethbridge Public Library and there were few people attending (besides the people working the booths). There were free garden seeds; a great door prize draw; and more.

More Free Stuff: I am putting out feelers to see if there is any interest in learning how to write plant poetry. I am a horticulturist who has been learning native plant identification for the past few years. I can identify hundreds of plants (which certainly helps me write flower poetry). I am interested in hiking with others to help them improve their poetry-writing skills and improve their plant identification skills. If you are interested, follow my blog for posts entitled Poetry in the Park (to find out the where and when).

I can never get close enough to the Meadow Larks to see them well (even by zooming in with my camera). I accidently wrote “morning lark” on the title of my picture below. I’m pretty sure that bird was a Meadow Lark. I hear a lot of them when hiking in Cottonwood Park.

For The Love of Gardening

I planted up my peat bale row.

I’m so exhausted and I ache.

I used to garden years ago

each day for hours, for goodness sake.

Now half a day just wipes me out.

But how I love to watch plants grow.

The joy I get, I have no doubt,

is very largely since I know

how hard I works to get them there.

Some others choose a different route –

they delegate their garden’s care

but I don’t know what that’s about.

The garden that I work to make

provides me love I’m glad to take.