A blast of colour for a December Day

 Suddenly, we're well into December and Christmas/Yule/Solstice and winter are rapidly approaching. There are deluges of posts and articles all about Christmas plants and winter interest and other seasonally appropriate topics. However, I'm not that keen on talking only about winter topics right now,   so instead, I thought I'd offer up some observations of favourite plants past and present. Starting with this 'Forest Pansy' redbud (Cercis canadensis), which will be one of the first purchases I make to plant in my new garden. I've already told Jill at Bunchberry Nurseries to put a good one aside for me next spring! This is its fall colour--in spring, its foliage is a rich wine-purple colour, and it doesn't even have to flower with foliage like this.

 Anyone who reads my sites and articles knows that I am besotted by blue flowers, be they annual, perennial, biennial--so long as they're really blue and not dyed or painted. Not a fan of those hideous dyed blue phalaenopsis, but I love this annual, Anagallis, also known by the common names blue pimpernel and poor-man's weatherglass, because it closes up in cloudy or wet weather.

Catching up with some great catches

Well, I'm baaaccckkk! Vast improvements in the weather coupled with a need for a bit of a break have kept me in the gardens and away from the blog, but today is cool and showery, a great day to do a little catching up. I've been roaming around the province, doing book events plus of course checking out nurseries; I haven't been to all my favourites yet this year, but have certainly visited those in the Valley and part of the south shore. With the book-travel winding up soon, there will be more time for just relaxing travel to gardens and nurseries.

Before I go on about some of the great plants blooming here, a couple of interesting housekeeping tidbits for those who visit Facebook and nursery websites:

Baldwin's Nurseries now has a Facebook page, and I hope people will visit and 'Like' it.
Glad Gardens has a new website as well as a Facebook page. I think these pages on Facebook are extremely useful for keeping people current quickly.
The Friends of the Harriet Irving Botanical Gardens are holding their Native Plant sale tomorrow from 9 am til noon at the gardens. The gardens are at Acadia University in Wolfville. Baldwin's Nurseries, Bunchberry Nurseries and I will all be there, and the Friends are selling a host of native species great for home gardening.

April Showers did bring May blooms for not-wordless-Wednesday

Although the weather in Nova Scotia continues somewhat cool, cloudy, wet, and definitely sluggish, our gardens and our plants will NOT be denied, will they? It's been a hectic week, and being away for a few days really brought home the changes when I got back Sunday after Saltscapes Expo. Then we had an election, and while that was good for my riding with the return of my excellent MP, Scott Brison...I worry about my country. That's all I'm going to say about that!

Rockin' out: Garden tour with the alpine gardening enthusiasts

No matter how many years we garden, or how old we get, there is always, always something more to learn about plants and gardening. That's one of the appeals for this hobby/ avocation/ vocation/obsession to me. I love learning about plants, being introduced to species I have never seen, developing a new appreciation for a particular genus or variety.

This is one of the reasons I cringe when someone tries to call me an expert gardener. I'm truly not. I'm experienced,sure, but to me experts know a huge amount about a particular subject. I'm a happy generalist, with an interest in most all plants, though definitely there are some I don't like. But I can see myself developing more of an interest in rock or alpine gardening.

Yesterday, I joined other members of the Nova Scotia Rock Gardening club on a tour of a couple of gardens here in the Valley. Each was very different in its own way, and equally stunning. Both gardens aren't exclusively composed of alpines; the owners have a number of plantings, and a few dedicated areas where their delicately lovely alpines are, and some beds that incorporate both standard garden plants and alpines.

This garden belongs to Frank and Jana, and I've never been here at this time of year before. It was extremely hot yesterday so we didn't spend quite as long there as I would have under normal conditions. Plus, with the book deadline looming nearer, I was intent on photographing some plants that are being included in my manuscript, and that I didn't have plenty of real good photos for. Otherwise, I'd probably still be there, asking questions and learning from these enthusiastic, generous gardeners.

With alpine gardening, one of the main components is "location, location, location," as the realtors say. You need to have excellent drainage, and preferably full sun. I remember an enthusiast telling me that part of the lure of rock gardening is that these tough plants will thrive in areas of the garden where most other plants will not.

This same individual told me that the plants thrive on neglect, to a certain extent. I got thinking about this and it makes sense. Thinking of the conditions in an alpine site--short growing season, cold temperatures, and lots of wind--it makes sense that such plants have to be tough, low growing and able to survive a lot of extremes of weather.

Plus, for the person with a small gardening area, you can sure cram a LOT of different species into one garden! This garden is actually fairly large, and I have absolutely NO idea how many species Jana and Frank have included, but it's dozens...probably hundreds. I must ask when I go out again soon--on a cooler day, mind you!

I saw many, many different species and varieties yesterday that generated "I want THAT" response in my gardener's soul. This one generated the biggest reaction, though (partly because gentians weren't blooming yesterday, mind you.) I think it's a sedum.

That sedum or whatever it is affected me so much, I'm going to do the "Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots Big Eyes" look at Jana and see if I can't cajole or buy a little cutting of this because it's gorgeous. Such colours. Such nice textures. Such....want want wantiness!

One of the characteristics that also appeals to me in a rock or alpine garden is that they cause you to slow down, to admire and think and crouch down to look at the various textures and wee blooms and foliage and shapes of the plants. Juxtapose something like the patch of wee ice plants below (Delosperma, I think.) with some of the towering, giant perennials that I wrote about in my Chronicle Herald column today (where they messed up my email by confusing it with my twitter address, sorry to anyone who tried to email me), and you'll see what I mean.

I love big plants, but little carpets of beautiful jewels like this make me equally happy, know what I mean?

Next post, I'll show some snippets from visiting Rosaleen's garden, on the South Mountain across the valley from me.

Rock-Garden Eye-Candy

Over the past couple of months I've had several opportunities to drop in to the Rock Garden at my alma mater, the Nova Scotia Agricultural College in Truro. While the weather hasn't always been ideal in this soggy spring/summer, I can't resist taking photos and sharing them with readers. If you're ever in Truro: GO to the AC and visit the Rock Garden. I'm serious. It's fabulous. These gentians bloomed in May.


There are other plants besides alpines in the Rock Garden. Some areas are more woodland like, a transition between one part of the garden and another. There are several fine plantings of one of my favourite of perennials, masterwort or Astrantia.


The Star of Persia Alliums were blooming in Truro several weeks back. Mine are just NOW reaching their peak. Even Truro is ahead of Scotts Bay!


I happen to love conifers, and there are some beautiful examples at the Rock Garden, with more to come. I know there are plans to put in more dwarf conifers, which I think is a fabulous idea. More people need to embrace conifers.


One of the cool features of the Rock Garden is the dry stream bed, and the marvelous collection of cacti (opuntia, or prickly pear) that are planted above it. I caught them in bloom last time I was there, to my huge delight.


I spent quite a bit of time enjoying the silken beauty of the prickly pear blooms, and still can't decide if I liked the yellow ones best...


...Or these fabulous hot pink ones. I think these carried the day, the more I look at them. They're sort of like portulaca blooms with their lush, jewellike colours.


The rock is called Salmon River pink granite, and comes from a local quarry. The Friends of the Garden and the NSAC grounds maintenance people used over 700 tons of rock to create the rock garden. Less than a decade ago, this was nothing but a grassy slope with some mature trees around the edges.


There's always something new being added/enhanced. Two summers ago, when I visited, this bed was being built. Now it's planted and getting well established.


Some purist-types prefer limestone as their ONLY rock of choice for alpine plantings. The limestone chunks in the terrace area were donated to NSAC by Landscape Nova Scotia.


I love the terrace area, with its limestone plantings and sandstone troughs. The troughs were made from stone from a building that was demolished in Truro a few years ago.


It's fun to visit the garden over a period of weeks or even months and see how things are changing, as some plants flower and go to seed, and others grow up and put on a new show. I probably won't get back there for a few more weeks, but time and weather permitting, I'll be happily wandering around the Rock Garden at AC. And I'm serious, folks: it's well worth a trip to Truro just to see this garden. It's becoming world-class, a beautiful star on the grounds of what is a beautiful campus.