A remarkable garden

As promised, a few photos from my trip to my friend Marnie's place near Greenwood. But first...today I was at Springvale Nurseries' Berwick location, and spied Lychnis arkwrightii. So of course I bought it--oh, and did I mention that they were having a sale--buy three, get one free? Yup....Anyway; on the left in the pot is today's lychnis purchase--slightly adjusted for colour, but the flower is redder and the purplish leaves are definitely there, where in the orange one on the right (the largest flowered of the three Lychnis I wrote about the other day), the leaves are purely green. So the mystery definitely continues.


Now: on to Marnie's garden. She and her partner Lee have been there at Whispering Echo, their home, for less than five years, after moving up here from the south shore of the province and this was essentially a blank slate when they arrived. They have 84 acres in total, with about three of it planted in gardens--including raised veggie and herb beds, fruit and berry plantings, and scads of perennials, shrubs and trees. And it's all organically done, too. There are piles of compost, rainbarrels and buckets of compost tea, wild spaces of wild native plants for pollinators to enjoy...and it's a peaceful, joyous garden that filled my heart with great delight.


There's a lot of whimsy in this garden, from wooden carved birds in an iron tree...


...to a crocodile near the sauna.


Although a lot of the area around Greenwood (where 14 Wing of the air force resides) is quite flat, Marnie's garden has a long hillside on one part, leading down to the pond outside the sauna.


This garden is awash in roses, including a lot of David Austin English roses, and also in lilies.


While there are some pastel perennials and roses here and there, mostly there are lots of hot-colour plantings. This one features tritoma or redhot pokers, a fine healthy rose, lilies and rudbeckia, with blue cornflowers cooling off the planting a bit.


The view from the back deck, looking uphil towards the sauna building.


A perfect drift of various gallardia.


This is the red flowered sage that stopped me in my tracks and elicited instant plant lust out of me. Want. Want. Want. Also Want to know which sage it is! Marnie says it self seeds, and she's going to bring me one.


Like me, Marnie adores poppies. These three annual poppies stopped me dead. We're going to trade seeds, as I have black ones (actually deep wine) brilliant red, sweet pink...and she has these and many more!


There are plantings and flowers every; a lineup of planters along the side veranda includes this colourful collection.


An Asiatic lily, though which one neither of us knew...all I know is that I was teased a fair bit during this tour because I had pollen on my nose. I don't stick my nose into Asiatics because I know they have no scent, but there are also heaps of Orientals there, and daylilies too...and many other things with great fragrance, but this


These stately iris (Japanese? I don't grow many irises so I don't know. They are pretty though!) caught many visitors eyes during this tour. Marnie has a wide variety of irises and they were spectacular. Well, everything was spectacular! I'm so glad I got there finally--and will come visit again before the summer is out.