Garden and watering news

We have two lupin (or lupine) plants in our garden: one at the top of the waterfall and one in one of the bottom beds under the silly-looking birch tree. Yesterday we looked at the top plant and noticed that it looked strange, like it was covered in drops of sap with fuzzy things in it. The fuzzy white things look like dead little white insects with long legs.

It turns out that every stem on that lupine are almost completely covered by green aphids - like on this page - and so the flower petals are dropping and the stems are falling over. From what I'm reading on the interwebs, ladybugs don't like them and so these lupine aphids are very hard to get rid of, especially when the infestation is this bad. Apparently once over-crowding occurs, they fly away to find other lupines.... which means that they might find out other healthy lupine. Waaah!

In other garden news, we knew that our region implements water-conservation measures but we didn't know what those were or when they started. We figured that they probably started in July or so, and we were wrong. Stage one of the water-conservation bylaw went into effect May 31and there are two more conservation stages that go into effect in drought or low-water conditions.

According to the bylaw, because our house number is odd, we're only allowed to water our garden and top-up the waterfall from the hose on odd-numbered days and we can only water the lawn on Mondays (although exemptions can be granted for nematode application). And all that watering gets done between 5:30 and 10am or 7 and 11pm. Water is not allowed to be wasted by using it to wash decks or driveways. We are allowed to water with a watering can or from a rainbarrel; these restrictions apply to watering from a hose.

We don't water the lawn - and it shows - but I've been watering the vegetable garden every day. From the hose. I've been topping up the waterfall every day, too. From the hose. And I've been washing the bird poo off of the patio and the rocks by the waterfall. From the hose. I'm a (by)law-breaker! We're lucky that no one called bylaw enforcement on us. Now that we know the rules, we'll stay within them.