A week ago who might have imagined the Victoria Day week-end would result in a heat wave?  We've been enjoying staggering under incredibly hot weather for this time of year.  Quite unexpected. But then, living in the Ottawa Valley unexpected weather conditions are the norm, if anything.

So, after all, it's just as well that we boldly took the initiative (nothing like in previous years, when in the fever to plant annuals well before the danger of night-time frost had passed, we would have to cover tender plants which we'd installed far too early when night after night of below-freezing conditions occurred) and did our planting a week ahead of 'schedule'.

'Schedule' being characterized by the 'home-free' signal of the traditional date of the late, great Queen Victoria's birthday, now celebrated as the universal birthday of Britain's monarchs, which we in the greater colonialist-past community acknowledge as a festive national occasion.

 

So a flurry of planting took place, with our assumption that all would be well, so close to the week-end n question, and unquestionably, danger of frost had passed, although that assumption is rather a reckless one in this northern climate.

No regrets, however, glad to say.  Eventually all the annuals planted in our many urns and pots placed at the front and the back of our home will fill in and present a glory of texture, form and colour, and our eagerness to pre-empt the occasion will have been justified.

And the fact is, as it happens, had we waited for the week-end to assume the planting ritual, another problem would have presented itself.  It is, unfortunately, too hot by half to plant without risking heat exhaustion both for the tender young flowering plants and those gardeners anxious to fulfill their covenant with nature.