alpines and other flowers - 1970s

I found some photos I had taken a long time ago (1970s) early on when I first started gardening. The top image shows the Bell Flowers (Campanula latifolia) in the spring before the flower stalks were sent up in a growth spurt. There are more of them shown in the photo below along with a white-flowering plant (name escapes me at the moment). The Bell Flowers had to be transplanted early after the seed sprouted before the taproots developed. The transplant would not survive easily after that point.
The last photo gives a good view of what the section with the flowers looked like at the time. The rest of the planting area contained vegetables and some fruit. At one point there were a couple of red currant bushes planted at the back of this vegetable garden. When I decided to move them, the bushes were far too back, so I took cuttings and rooted those in the area where I wanted those new bushes next to the cedar hedge on the west side of the property. As for the flowers, I planted a new flower bed in the front yard near the porch and incorporated those flowers there. Amazing what happens when you plant a few packets of alpine seed. Its a surprise what comes out! If you would like to see more photos in this series, I plan to post more on my photo blog, so check that source out! - V

alpines

These photos were taken of some of the alpine and other flowers I was growing in the 1970s in the backyard. Most of the alpines were later moved to a flower bed in the front yard. My other passion was growing vegetables, something rather practical. The garden itself involved considerable effort in the springtime with turning the soil, sometimes even double spading. I grew some of the plants, like tomatoes and peppers, indoors to give them a head start. I was living at my parents' home at the time. - V

alpines and other flowers

Back in the spring of 1969 I started up a vegetable garden but I did grow some flowers too. I was 16 years of age at that time. Alpines were some of my favourites as you can see in the two photos here taken in the late 1970s. The one at the top is a Bell Flower (Campanula latifolia) and the one below is called Speedwell (Veronica longifolia). I started my collection from seed packets ordered from a Canadian seedhouse and progressed from there. Both grew easily from seed and eventually were found in various places around the garden (backyard). I even grew Edelweiss (Leontipodium alpinum) both from plants purchased from a local nursery and also from seed. At one point I had jars of seed that had been collected for sowing later. The alpines were later moved to a bed ahead of the front porch. In the late 1990s when that was overgrown, I replaced that planting with heathers. - V

new season

This is one of my early attempts at gardening, vegetable gardening in particular. The photo was taken in London, Ontario in 1973. That's a cold frame in the foreground on the right. That's where I started some plants early. Others, such as tomato and pepper plants, were started indoors and planted out after the danger of frost was more or less gone. The latter part of May or early June was usual for that.

I got the weeds pulled early to give the plants unhindered growth potential. In July 1972 I had left the garden to be tended by my father. When I returned home in early September, I couldn't see the vegetable plants for all the weeds. I tried to pull the weeds but when I was finished, I realized it was a lost cause that year. My father was working full-time and then tending to his own garden (flowers), so with everything else time was an issue. Such is life!

Usually I was able to get a good number of carrots, green beans and onions out of the garden along with tomatoes and some peppers. Later in the 1970s I added some alpine flowers in the one corner of the plot on the same side as the cold frame but the opposite corner to attract more bees for pollination purposes.

By the 1980s I also added some grapevines. Earlier I had also added a Northern Spy apple tree in the one corner plus had started several currant bushes from cuttings since I couldn't move the mature bushes to another location. The apple tree bore some excellent fruit until the next door neighbour cut down his pear tree with which the tree had cross-pollinated. I tried a number of options as you can see.

Now living in an apartment I'm restricted to a balcony where I have some potted plants and plan to add more. I'll let you know more about my efforts soon! Currently its raining and earlier we had a bit of thunder and lightning. Have a good night guys! - V