"Rainbows, Pots of Gold and Moonbeams..."

Isn't it funny what a word or two will trigger in our heads? When I read Rebecca's post offering a Rainbow Invitation to fellow bloggers, I knew I would have to participate, because rainbows are one of those things that make me instantly happy. I surround myself with them, with faceted crystals that send rainbow light dancing through my office at just the hint of sunlight, (and sometimes even without), with rainbow coloured fun things...and with plants of course.

Thinking about a title for this post, the first thing that came into my head was the old song by Studebaker Hawk, 'Rainbows, Pots of Gold and Moonbeams.' Usually it's Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" that pops into my head, or possibly David Cook's Time of my Life, which we snarky Cook fans refer to as the Magic Frakkin' Rainbow song. Or possibly something from Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' album.

Okay, it's entirely I'm possibly procrastinating today because I should be writing plant profiles for a work project, not poking through my iTunes collection. Onwards with the floral rainbow.


Poppies are freerange around our place, which I should have called Poppy Hill instead of Sunflower Hill, I suppose. They are instant happy-making, whether they're red, purple, orange, yellow, white...or blue.


I've finally mastered the art of growing geums: not too much winter wet, and they'll come through and flourish nicely. And cutting the spent blossoms means they'll flower for a lot longer. This is 'Cooky'.

Yellow roses just do it for me, providing they are hardy to my garden's foibles. Of the three that I grow, this is the most fragrant, (and the thorniest), the lovely rugosa hybrid 'Topaz Jewel'.


Oh, well it can be no surprise to anyone who knows my tastes that for green, I'd have to trot out Echinacea 'Green Envy', which still continues to delight me. I have 'Coconut Lime' double echinacea as well, which also does splendidly, but of all the funky coloured cones, 'Green Envy' is still my first love.
Bet you thought I was going to torment y'all with Meconopsis (the naughty blue poppy) here, didn't you? I did an ode-to-blue flowers a few weeks back because I do adore them, and while Meconopsis is important to me, it's the china blue forget-me-nots that touch my heart most deeply, because of my Dad, who died of Alzheimer's disease almost five years ago.

For my indigo offering, I couldn't resist presenting the Perennial Plant Association's 2010 Perennial of the Year, Blue False Indigo (Baptisia australis). It is an awesome perennial, but don't be in a hurry for it to bloom after you plant it, and don't move it because it will pout and sulk even longer.

We do clematis really, really well here, because of the cool dampness that keeps the roots happy, and because we work our way out of the fog in time to bathe most of the species and hybrids we have in warm sunlight. I think this is 'Jackmanii', though I can't be sure because we rescued it years ago from a house that was going to be torn down.

A note to regular readers: this next few weeks are going to be particularly hectic for me, so I may slow down in both posting and in visiting, commenting on, and 'picking' posts from other blogs. Rest assured, please, that all is well, and I will have some good news to share a little ways down the road. Maybe not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but happy news none-the-less.

Meet Minerva...

Yesterday was one of those days where the mercury dropped from well above freezing to considerably below in a matter of hours, and the wind that had gone on brief hiatus came back with a vengeance. Naturally, it brought along some of those 'flurries where winds blow onshore...' which as we know have been known to create a LOT of inches of accumulation.

Didn't matter to me. The first of the amaryllis had decided it was time.

"Is that Sydney?" My longsuffering spouse asked me.

"Mmm...nope. That's Minerva." I replied, scrutinizing the box tops that I had saved in my office after forgetting to match containers to bulb names when I planted these all.

As you can see, that curious vase I bought nearly five years ago is doing its job, holding Minerva's two stems of blooms and buds upright quite nicely. I've grown this one a number of times and never tire of her festive colours. Part of the reason I grow her is that I have an aunt by the same name, who sadly is lost in the fog of Alzheimer's disease, just like her brother--my father--was. So when I look at this magnificent, exquisite flower, I think of my vigourous, capable aunt as she was in happier days.

Since I've yet to bring home any poinsettias and two of my Christmas cacti are actually planning to bloom AT Christmas, judging on their bud sizes, I thought we should move Minerva into the living room for several reasons. One, it's much cooler in there, away from the heat of the woodstove in the kitchen, so her lovely flowers will last longer. Two, she adds a definite presence to the living room's Christmas decor, which is still a work in progress. And three, I moved the slowest-growing bulb into the kitchen to give it a boost.

There are still two more bulbs upstairs in the reading room that need to come downstairs, as one is probably going to blossom next week. We won't know who is who (other than Minerva) until they have all put in a floral appearance, of course. But it's fun to watch them slowly, glamourously reveal their beauty. I think next to orchids, amaryllis are some of the best show-stopping flowers there are. Don't you agree?

Inside Memory: Timothy Findley, My Father, and the Memory Garden

"People can only be found in what they do."  Timothy Findley, October 30, 1930-June 21, 2002.

As we roam toward solstice/midsummer, I'm flashed with a bit of elegaic, bittersweet memory. Last week, June 11, was the 4th anniversary of my father's death from Alzheimer's, one of the most hideous of diseases. Tomorrow, June 21, is the 7th anniversary of my favourite author's death: Canadian novelist and playwright Timothy Findley. 

I was very sad when Findley died. I'd written my masters' thesis on his fiction, and had correspondence and several meetings with him over the years. It says a great deal about his work that I continue to love it even after having studied it somewhat exhaustively for several years at Acadia University. In fact...I think it might be time for a Findley read-a-thon here. 

What's this got to do with gardening? A lot, actually. For Timothy Findley, I planted the first shrub in honour of someone who had passed: at the time, a rosebush, and then one for his partner to keep his company. However, I don't trust rosebushes to be longlived (except for rugosas), so I decided to plant a tree instead. So for Findley and Bill Whitehead, his partner of nearly 50 years, I put in a Japanese Katsura (Cercidiphyllum japonicum). 

Findley wrote a great deal about memory in his various works of fiction and nonfiction. The first of two memoirs is called Inside Memory, and remains one of my favourite of his writings. We all use memory daily for a thousand myriad things, of course. Until we can't. Like an Alzheimer patient. So for them, we plant forget-me-nots. Not surprisingly, there are literally thousands of Myosotis around our place, and they're still festooning the yard with a sea of blue lace reminders as we head towards summer. 

It's funny how some plants instantly remind us of other people. In my case, they remind me and I plant their plants in their memory and honour. For my mother's twin sister, I have lots of portulaca every summer. She loved their brilliant colours, their silky petals and fleshy leaves. I just have to see the word portulaca and I see my aunt. 

People can influence us in subtle ways we don't realize until years later. Both my grandmothers were gardeners; my father's mother a pragmatic kitchen-gardener, with beans and strawberries, sugar maple and apple trees all to help feed her family of five children. My mother's mother was more of an ornamental gardener, and there are plants from her garden that carry forth into mine (indirectly, because she died when I was a teenager and not yet a compulsive gardener). Nannie would have been fascinated by the new colours of Johnny-Jump-Ups that are available today, and she might have had some. But for me it's the traditional colours that freely seed around my garden that remind me most of her.  

Perhaps my huge love for poppies comes also from her, because I remember silky-petalled poppies, nestled in among exuberant plantings of lupins, in her Berwick, NS, garden. So it's small wonder that all kinds of poppies find their homes here in our garden. 

I began planting shrubs in memory of people, of cats we'd loved and lost, of people I never met but who were dear to people who are dear to me. Then my former mother-in-law, a woman I loved and admired, died, her body riddled with cancers. Marilyn loved butterflies, yellow roses, sunflowers, all kinds of flowers. So I drew these loves together and amalgamated them into an entire memory garden, well populated by butterflies and bees and birds and other living things. 

One of the plants in that garden is a pink-flowered potentilla shrub, for those who have been claimed by breast cancer. 


For my friend Ladny, who had befriended and rescued many cats and humans alike, a linden tree is growing in the back yard.


Brain cancer has become a noticeable blip on my radar in recent months. A colleague's best friend succumbed to it. A friend's young nephew is fighting it. A former professor and friend died of the disease in February. My favourite musician, David Cook, lost his brother on May 2; and ran a 5 km race to raise funds for ABC2, Accellerate Brain Cancer Cure, the very next day.

I can't run marathons, but can donate to them. And can plant trees in honour of heroes of all kinds. So for Hilary, and Janet, and Adam, and all the others...a flowering apple tree.


The June my dad passed away was a harrowing one, and I turned time and again to the garden for comfort and peace and a kind of support. I always feel like Dad is right there when I'm puttering, cracking jokes about me and the mint plantation I inadvertently created years ago; commenting on my lack of talent in growing tomatoes, where he excelled. And the June he died, my blue poppy bloomed for the first time: on Father's Day.


This year, the weather or fates or something conspired to have it bloom on the anniversary of Dad's death. And I was home, fighting that virus I had last week, so I got to see it both preparing to open and in its pure jubilant glory. It's still flowering, as the secondary buds are opening, and it makes my heart lighter to watch it.

The whole yard is now a memory garden, I realize in walking around it. And I'm all right with that. It brings me solace. I hope it brings solace to those who visit, by blog or in person.

Forget-Me-Nots and Alzheimer's Disease

We interrupt our normal musings about plants to talk a little bit about something that affects a huge number of people around the world. It’s January, and in Canada, it’s Alzheimer Awareness Month. (I know the official month is in November in the US, and probably is other months in other countries. If you don’t know anything (or much) about this terrible disease, here are a few sobering facts and statistics.

Alzheimer's disease is not a normal part of aging. It is a progressive, degenerative disease that destroys vital brain cells. While researchers haven’t definitely nailed causes and cures, there are many things that are known. The disease appears to be caused when the combined effects of many risk factors, including age, genetics, lifestyle and environmental factors, overwhelm the natural self-repair and self-healing mechanisms in the brain.
The symptoms of Alzheimer's disease include a gradual onset and continuing decline of memory, changes in judgment or reasoning, and an inability to perform familiar tasks. It is the second most feared disease for Canadians as they age.
Alzheimer's disease eventually affects all aspects of a person's life, including how they think, feel, act and react to their environment.
Presently there is no known cure for this disease.
An estimated 300,000 Canadians over 65 have Alzheimer's disease.
36 per cent of Canadians know someone with
 Alzheimer's disease.
17 per cent of Canadians have someone with
 Alzheimer's disease in their family.

Count me in those 36 percent and 17 percent groups. I have several friends with the disease, as well as several older relatives. My grandmother had some sort of dementia for the last five or six years of her life before she died. And in 2000, (bitterly, during Alzheimer’s awareness month), my father was diagnosed with this disease, in earlier-than-usual onset. He went into long-term care 13 months later and died in June of 2005. It was a harrowing experience for our family, and now two of his siblings have the disease as well.

That doesn’t worry me personally. I don’t feel like there is a sword of Damocles hanging over my head. We don’t know that it’s the familiar form in our family, or simply a case of people getting older and falling victim through whatever reasons. I’m only HALF DeLong, after all, and there is no trace of it in my mother’s family. But having gone through what we endured with my father, I have all the compassion and sympathy in the world for those with the disease, or with someone important to them who has the disease.

A lot of advances have been made in the past 10-15 years, including several drugs that lessen or slow the effects of Alzheimer’s. They don’t work in all cases; nothing slowed my father’s rapid decline, but I know of others who have done and continue to do well.

What can we do? Support our local Alzheimer’s Society, of course, financially or in other ways. Learn what we can do to help those who have the disease, or those who are caretakers to those with the disease. It’s incredibly difficult for the caregivers, who in many cases are the spouse, sibling or offspring of the person with the disease. Even if caregivers aren’t family members, it’s a hugely difficult task to look after a person with Alzheimer’s, especially as the disease accelerates, as it will do.

In the spring, the gardens of Sunflower Hill are completely awash in a sea of blue, as the forget-me-nots bloom in huge profusion. They’re the official flower of the Alzheimer’s Society, and they gently remind us to never forget those who have been lost to the disease. Even without that context they are one of my favourite flowers, and I’ve been spreading them around the property for nearly a decade now, even before we learned my father’s diagnosis, because I had known several others with AD.

A friend across the miles, fellow gardener and freelance writer, Doug Green, has recently created a website with a LOT of information about Alzheimer’s disease, which you can find here. And the National Society website also holds a huge amount of information.

If you have anyone near and dear to you with the disease, or even if you simply care and want to be informed, have a look at these sites. And maybe, come spring, plant a forget-me-not or two.