Home today from a short visit to see my travelling daughter, just home from Zanzibar, and full of her adventures there, plus Venice and Florence which she managed to squeeze in on her way back to Canada. She arrived home one day before my son and his wife left for Mexico. Because I’m not a keen flier, I worry about all this air travel, which doesn’t in any way deter them, but it leaves me with a furrowed brow (which quite soon becomes wrinkles).

While away I spent a lot of time peering into other folks’ gardens, and reading garden columns in their newspapers to try to keep abreast of recent developments in the world of gardens. One fascinating sight was a largish shrub bearing a lot of apricot coloured fruit, smaller than an apricot, which I don’t think is edible (no signs of bird pecks, and the fruit was left on the tree). I’ve only seen one identical shrub, years ago, and I think it was called a “strawberry tree.” Help! In my large collection of garden books, no mention at all of “strawberry bush” or “strawberry tree”. Even my trusty old Pacific Gardener let me down. Maybe someone out there could come up with the name? I love it when someone calls to tell me something interesting about their garden, or even when they call to tell me I am “full of prunes”(my Father’s expression for something he regarded as a silly comment).

Actually, when I got home there were two calls on the answering machine giving me a name I hadn’t been able to come up with for the lovely schizostylus coccinea and it is “Kafir lily”. Many thanks to June M. and Erin M. for their helpful information.

There is a young fellow “blowing” the leaves right now. What a terrible noise the leaf-blower makes, and he doesn’t have ear plugs. Being the motherly type I warned him about loud noises, and the possibility of deafness by the age of 40 if he didn’t wear protective gear. His comment was “Oh, it’s not THAT loud.” So I shut up, knowing he was thinking, “Another old wive’s tale.”

The carrots I planted late are coming along slowly. They are still small, but oh, so sweet. The chard isn’t going to amount to much, but I’ve had several meals from the small patch, so it was worth the effort. The tires which contained the greenhouse tomatoes are going to be planted with onion seed shortly (when I get around to it!) I was going to put in New Zealand spinach, but unfortunately couldn’t find any seed, so onions it is!

On the back deck are 10 polyanthus plants waiting to be put into the pots along the front path. They sit there looking at me accusingly, but I ignore them. I must spend a day outside before it gets really cold.

I have a friend in Vancouver who has spent the past several weeks pruning, weeding, sweeping leaves and boasting to me about how much she has got done. It makes me feel guilty, but with some effort I manage to overcome those feelings, in favour of a cup of tea in front of the TV so I’m getting lazy, and hard to impress, no matter how hard she tries. However, I really must get busy and do all the things I urge YOU to do, and soon, before it turns really cool and miserably wet!

Do you have a gardening question or comment? Call Helen at 250-656-5918 or email editor@peninsulanewsreview.com