My Foggy Fundy Garden

We're into yet another session of fog here in beautiful upper Scotts Bay. Honestly, this has been the summer of much fog, and while it doesn't bother me at one level, it does get tiresome not seeing the moon at night. Rumour has it that tonight or last night is the full moon, but I haven't seen the moon since last weekend. It's stinkin' hot in the Valley, and not exactly cool up here.


But the fog, even when not real cooling, does bring moisture to things and makes a nice artistic look for many plants, like the pink clustered bellflower at the top of this post.


"The fog comes in on little cat feet" wrote the poet Carl Sandburg. Well, here it's more the size of cougar feet, the way it slams in off the bay.


The hot temperatures that we're having when the fog is gone and the sun is out? They make things bloom and go past quickly. It's been fun to see what is new in bloom each day, but also amazing at how quickly some things are fading. The poppies started bursting in the past couple of days, while the lupines are fading.


I think I've mentioned in the past that things grow really large up here, sometimes. This year everything is of brobdingangian proportions. Submitted for your approval, this tiny white clematis bloom. That's a luncheon plate I put beside it for some sense of scale. I've never seen a clematis flower this big. We usually have lots and lots of blooms but not monsters!


Our honeysuckles are coming on nicely, too. This is Graham Thomas, one I bought from Bunchberry nurseries several years ago. Lovely plant, and makes the hummingbirds quite happy too.


And this is Mandarin, which was bred by Dr. Wilf Nichols, formerly of the University of British Columbia, but now at Memorial University of Newfoundland, where he tends to the awesome botanical garden.


This is Clematis recta purpurea, which has really purple foliage up til it blooms. I love the clouds of tiny white flowers, somewhat like Sweet Autumn. And the cranesbill is 'Red Admiral'. I'm liking it a lot, because it's quite tall and has that great colour, whereas most of the brilliant coloured ones are much lower to the ground.


Flowering alliums make me happy. This blue jewel is Allium caeruleum, and it's been making babies so I have more of them this year. I notice 'Hair' is starting to flower too, but I didn't take its photo just yet.



I wish I could remember the name of this lily! It doesn't get tall, and it doesn't multiply very fast, but the colours are just great, especially when festooned with fog.


And my favourite of the annual poppies, the deep wine ones. They're just totally awesome.


And this is a gratuitous shoutout to my alma mater, the Nova Scotia Agricultural College, where the school colours are blue and gold. I didn't PLAN this planting to work out, but it's definitely blue and gold: Yellow loosestrife, blue monkshood, yellow foxgloves and blue clustered bellflower. Aggies for the win!

Maybe the sun will come out tomorrow properly and we'll see the garden by a different light. Today it's dreamy and water coloured.