The galloping spring garden: Letters Across the Pond

Dear Sylvia:

We had an unusually warm spell of weather for a few days this week, and the gardens went from trotting along to a full exuberant gallop. Everything, from the bulbs to the weeds, shot up in growth and maturity. Not everything is awake yet; a few later things like various asclepias are still slumbering, and a couple of later-blooming gentians that are in shade are just starting to yawn and stretch. Likewise with the later-blooming perennial grasses; they're stirring and starting, but for the most part the garden is bustling.


While others around the continent are having their rhododendrons and azaleas wind down (or are long-finished), my first blooming one is 'PJM', a hardy rhodo with small, scented leaves. Like you, I'm a great believer in shrubs and we have a good many of them, incorporated around the garden.

As you can see, there are quite a few things in bloom now. Of course, we have scads of Myosotis, or forget-me-nots; they're the official flower of the Alzheimers Society and my father died of that horrid disease almost four years ago. They look lovely among the primulas and daffodils that are still doing nicely. 

This is an interesting primula I got the other day from Lloyd Mapplebeck, a nursery owner and horticulture professor in Truro, where I went to Agriculture College years ago. Lloyd always has a huge variety of interesting perennials, and more often than not there's a story behind them. This particular primula came to him through another plant enthusiast, and if I have my stories straight, it originated in an elderly woman's garden, growing alongside the common cowslip. I don't know that it has a name, but it's certainly lovely. 

I really do let the forget me nots seed and flower where-they-will. Here they make a nice sea of lacey blue near a Concorde barberry and my Stellata magnolia. And yes, there are a few dandelions in the mix, too. I haven't gotten them gentled down, but I justify them as being good for bees. 

One of my favourite natives is the amelanchier, variously called shadbush, serviceberry, chuckly pear, Indian pear, chuckleberry...I just call it gorgeous. It's one of the first showy flowers of the native woods, along with pin cherries, and its fabulous new foliage is always this glorious bronze colour. Mine is about 10 days to two weeks behind those in much of the province, but that's the mitigating coolness of the Minas basin at work. 

I didn't plant a lot of new tulips last year because I was heading into surgery, but these fringed tulips all came back quite nicely. I like the counterbalance of the blood red tulips with the pure white daffodils. In the background is Orange Emperor tulip, I think. 


Another plant from Lloyd, this one 'Vestal' anemone. What a unique and lovely plant this is, with its gorgeous double centre, so different from most anemones. Lloyd had a story about this plant and how he came to have it, but I didn't write it down, and I want to get it right. So I'll email him for the details again.



These yellow violets are native to many places, including parts of Nova Scotia up around Truro, but I have never seen them in the woods here. So when Lloyd told me he had collected seed and grown these, of course i had to have them. They'll do wonderfully in my woodland garden under the spruce trees.


When we first moved here, I began planting a garden under the big white spruce on the south-east side of the house; this garden is home to a host of natives as well as other plants. Another anemone (this one the enthusiastic A. nemerosa or wood anemone) is taking up a good deal of space in that garden, but there are also some lovely primula, the different trillium, ostrich ferns, astilbe, shooting stars, hosta, and the charmingly bizarre Mayapple, which look so odd when emerging from the ground. 

Around the front of the house is a small triangular bed I call my bright garden. It catches a lot of sun in the morning, and is right by the front door, so I put in lots of colour. Currently there are still bulbs blooming, but also springflowering perennials such as bellis and Arabis. Then there are the black- and gold-foliaged plants, but they're a story for another day. 



Finally, a treat for you; the hummingbirds arrived around May 11 with the scout-males, who bawled my hubby out til he found the feeders and got them filled and out. Now both sexes are here in full numbers, and we'll be filling feeders once or twice a day for most of the summer. We get a LOT of hummers because we do feed faithfully, both nectar and with plants they love. The feeders are in a sheltered  location so that's where the congregations appear and argue, squeak, chitter and whirl. They're quite fearless of me, who I guess they see as their bringer of foods. The other day, however, one got caught in the barn and was frantically trying to get out through the window, to no avail. I caught him and held him in my hands for a few seconds til I could get him outdoors and free. It was like holding a breath of living wind, his tiny heart beating so fast, yet he was quiescent in my hands til I opened them and set him loose in the wide world again. He zoomed to the birch tree for a bit and then joined the others in feasting. And my heart was happy. 

There's much more going on, but that's enough for today's epistle! I hope you're enjoying the warmth of a late spring garden and getting lots of work done. I'm falling behind here, but whatever gets done gets done. The rest, well, I'll hide the sins with mulch, no doubt!

cheers, jodi

Jodi's Gotta-Have Plants, Part 3.5: The Coneflower Update

It's no secret that I am completely and utterly besotted with coneflowers of all colours, and that I've been collecting and growing them for the past few years. Pollinators love them, which is a main reason for my collecting so many, but also, they're just glorious plants. Now that spring is well underway, the coneflowers are up, (but aren't yet blooming; these are photos from previous years or, in the case of Tiki Torch and Katie Saul, nursery information) and I've been able to match them to their tags (which I anchored well into the ground in the case of some new ones) and I have some thoughts on a few of them. Plus, oh surprise surprise, a few of them have followed me home already.

To begin with, the pride of my collection, 'Green Envy', has sailed through its second winter and is up and looking decidedly vigourous. Last year, it really took hold and bloomed like gangbusters, and that just made me love it all the more. Not everyone is a fan of green flowers, but I certainly am.


So it's not surprising that I eagerly glommed onto Coconut Lime last year, even though it's a double (which isn't to everyone's tastes) and not AS green as 'Green Envy'. It's come through nicely too; it was a great performer last year, its first year in our garden.


I wrote earlier that I had this already, but on going out to inspect the garden and finding the list of coneflowers I did get, I realized that I didn't have 'Twilight.' Well, I do now. A trip to Rob Baldwin's nursery yesterday fixed that. Rob carries a lot of coneflowers, and planted his own dedicated bed of them last year, and we compared notes on growth and vigour. The plants in gallon pots that he wintered over have come back very vigourously, whereas when they came in last spring as tissue cultured babies, some of them were rather spleeny. But Rob is very good at nurturing plants, whether seedlings or cuttings or plugs brought in, and those he still has are doing fine.

However, we found (to his surprise but not mine) that we had the same mortalities. I was full of hope last year when I got 'Mango Meadowbrite' and 'Orange Meadowbrite' from Rob; by the time I got them they were good sized plants and I figured this time, THIS time, they'd come through the winter.

Nope. Neither one of them. But I took a bit of comfort that Rob's didn't either in his display bed, except for one. Unless they're pining for the fjords and just aren't awake yet. Mine, however, are definitely EX-Meadowbrites. And I shan't try them again. No slight on Chicago, where they were bred, but I think they don't have a taste for my cranky climate. Seems strange doesn't it, but that's the third time at least that I've lost both of them. So I surrender, and add the Meadowbrites to the list of plants that just don't love me.


On the other hand, Big Sky 'Sunrise' seems to love it in our garden. And it looks to me like 'Sunset' also sailed through, and 'Harvest Moon' as well. Others have had issues with the Big Sky series, but I think the fact that they're in my 'best drainage bed' has carried them through for me. I love them, so I was glad to see them, and more justified in adding 'Twilight' to the mix.


Heh! I'm not saying where I bought 'Tiki Torch', because there were only two at that particular nursery and the owner was keeping the other one. I know others in the province are carrying this as well, and I hope it's going to be a vigourous one; it comes via Terra Nova, who also were the first to give us (through one of their breeders) 'Coconut Lime', and so I'm optimistic.


Ahem. I did buy this last year, and I can't remember where the heck I planted it. Nor can I find its label. But 'Hope' is a breast cancer plant, so I decided it would be good to get another one just in case. Now, if there was just one to honour brain cancer patients...but I'm putting in a rose called 'My Hero' to honour those who have fought--and lost--to that terrible disease, too.


To round out the new arrivals--so far this year, anyway--here is Big Sky's 'Summer Sky', also known as Katie Saul. This is a two-toned coneflower, fragrant, and has been out for several years, but I finally got around to finding it and bringing it home. Somewhere, I read that partial shade will give it the best colour, which is not a problem because everywhere in my yard has a bit of shade at one point in the day or another. Some more than others.

That's it for now. I've not been out to a lot of nurseries yet, but have made it to some of my favourites: Ouestville Perennials, Bunchberry Nurseries, Baldwin's, Cosby's in Liverpool (no website yet), and Glad Gardens in Waterville (also no website). Hopefully soon we'll have a chance to head towards Truro to see some other favourites, as well as make a trip to those between Liverpool and West Pubnico that I didn't get to yet. And to Bayport. And and and...and NOT to places that sell goutweed! But that's a tantrum for another day.

Aliens in the gardens

No, this isn't a diatribe against non-native plants. I was just out prowling around the garden last night and was struck by the marvels of plants in our gardens, especially when they're waking up, but also just...because they do what they do. Take the forget-me-nots above. They're mostly all blue...except when they're pink. Or white. 

A year or so back a friend gave me an Ohio Buckeye sapling, and it's leafing out, a few days behind its relatives the horse chestnut and red buckeye. I am totally enamoured with its new leaves which are as pretty as a Japanese maple. 

This is one of the stranger denizens of my garden, and I may need my LongSuffering Spouse's Stihl chainsaw to divide it up. This is Darmera, sometimes called umbrella plant; it flowers first with these stalks of tiny flowers, and then the huge leaves arrive later. The rhizomes are huge, fleshy and would probably NEED the chainsaw. I've never tried to divide it, but instead let it grow where it grows, and it handles the wet there nicely and just behaves itself. 

All ferns (as far as I know) start out life with a fiddlehead, but these are the Ostrich ferns (Matteucia struthiopteris) which produce the delectable, delicious and divine edible fiddleheads. I grow them just because I love the plants, and buy my fiddleheads from a farm market in town. And eat them with lemon and butter and great joy. 

This mottle beauty is my yellow trillium, Trillium luteum, not yet flowering but with such handsome foliage. 

Okay, this little charmer seduced me last year and I had to buy it. This is the delightfully named Birdseye primula, P. frondosa. You can see how big the plant is; that's the lens off my digital SLR main lens. 

And here's the plant a few day s later, with its tiny flowers. I'm lucky that A. This plant survived and B. that it survived in a place where I noticed it. Because I had totally forgotten that I bought and planted it. Oooops. Its label was still there, happily, so it must have gone dormant last year or been caught up in the wave of wild wood anemones, which I'm beating back this year. Sort of. 

I'm liking this corydalis more and more, and yes, it IS fragrant, so we're pretty sure it's Blackberry Wine. With a little turtlehead sprouting in front of it, which I'll move tomorrow, weather permitting. The flowers of all the corydalis are charmers, but this one especially amuses me. 

Sylvia likes that we go trillium counting, which we haven't done yet. Maybe this weekend, though the main accomplishment so far has been getting two more beds cleaned out AND going to see the new Star Trek movie. (which was totally made of win and you should go see it too!) I have the hosta Captain Kirk in this bed, but it's not up much yet. Meanwhile, these trilliums are in the same bed, along with a dozen or so of their siblings. They're native here, and we're glad we rescued them from the clearcut everytime we see them multiply a bit more. Just ignore the burdock growing beside them. He's leaving tomorrow. 

While I love the wine-coloured checkered fritillaries, I find these white ones wonderfully soothing even though their checks are very hard to see. 

Moving into my first love song to annuals now, aliens all; I was delighted to find a variety of Lantanas already this year, and of course I had to get all of them. This is Landmark Citrus, and I can see it's going to be a favourite. Bright coloured flowers are my usual passion...

Although occasionally I kick over the traces and opt for something a little more pastel, like these Opal Innocence Nemesia. This particular form is also fragrant, and is just a lovely plant. 

A lot less pastel, but equally charming, this is a fancy geranium called Graffiti Violet. The digital camera doesn't do it justice, because it doesn't show just HOW hot pink and HOW red-tipped the flowers really all. They're exotic like a bird of paradise, and I may have to go get some more. 

While I love the brilliant flowers of annuals, I also like to include foliage in my container plantings. This is a new to me plant this year, called Sky Flower or Tala Blanco 'Gold Edge'. I know nothing more about it than it's an awesome colour. We'll see how it performs in my containers soon. 

It's well known that I'm not a particular fan of impatiens. Except this one I love though I probably won't let it flower. The leaves are simply glorious sort of like a leucathoe, which I don't grow because they hate the wind. 

It's a well known fact that I'm also not a fan of petunias, though I love them in other people's gardens. But I think that may be about to change. The plant gods are not without a sense of humour. You'll have to wait til next post, but suffice it to say...Picasso would be pleased. And so will Anna Flowergardengirl. 

The balm of gardening...

Isn't it amazing how our stress levels drop when we're in the garden? It's really hard to be upset while grounding ourselves in plants and soil and fresh air. At least, that's my experience. Even when there's goutweed to do battle with, or other annoyances, it's still a soothing, safe place to be.


That's especially true on those perfect spring days when the sun is warm, the fog and wind have gone on temporary sabbatical, and all nature is awake and singing a paean of joy to being. Sights like the slowly opening leaves of this Katsura make me instantly happy.


Likewise, the flower buds and gently bronze foliage of this Amelanchier give me great joy. In much of the province, the amelanchier are already in bloom, but we in Scotts Bay are of the 'better late than never' school of spring growth.


We don't mind getting wet knees or a crick in our backs if it's to bend down and enjoy the sweet fragrance of a corydalis such as this, which I believe is 'Blackberry Wine'; although that could be incorrect. I've been wrong before. And I'm okay with that, if someone knows the true species/cultivar.

The pulmonaria are putting on a terrific show, festooning the yard with their blossoms in shades of blue, rose, 'red' and white. Once the flowers are spent, the foliage is just as attractive, especially in shady spots. 

Our daffodils are about at the peak of bloom, except for the late ones such as the Poeticus narcissus, while the species tulips are coming on nicely. Species tulips might not be as big and showy as the hybrid divisions, but they last longer and tend to multiply nicely. 

Many people have Pulsatilla long gone to seed, but in our garden it's just really getting going. This plant has been here for about 8 years now, and I keep planning to add other colours to the area where it's growing, but somehow never seem to get to it. There's a Euphorbia coming up in the midst of this clump, in case you're wondering what else is growing. Oh, and some couchgrass. The bed isn't weeded yet! 

Ah, Led Zeppelin fans should enjoy this plant: Polemonium 'Stairway to Heaven'. I've planned to make a Music-themed garden bed for several years but haven't gotten to it yet, mostly because I was busy with the chocolate and wine garden, and now have to prepare an area for a dedicated perennial grass garden too. Oh, the responsibilities! 


My bloodroot are just opening their graceful flowers now. This is a spring flowering perennial I wish would last for a longer time, because it's so lovely and yet so fleeting. The winds that do whip themselves up will probably take the flowers apart before I have a chance to photograph them completely open. 

Several of you asked which hepatica I have, and where I got it. It's the native one, Hepatica nobilis var. obtusa, the roundleafed variety; I bought it nearly a decade ago from a now-defunct mailorder nursery out west, and it continues to delight me every spring with its lavender-blue flowers. Some years the colour seems better than others, but maybe that's because the yellow primula growing beside it highlights its colours. 


Speaking of blue, here's the lovely Lithodora, which I now treat as an annual because it refuses to overwinter for me. I blame that on the wet clay soil and the coldness we experience sometimes when there's no snow cover; things that are out of my control and so that I simply relax and sigh about a little bit. Nothing can be done except to enjoy, so we do!

I hope the balm of gardening is making your soul light and your heart sing on these fine spring days.

Letters Across the Pond: Spring and Work Simplification

Note from jodi: Things are more than a little hectic with me right now, from talks to deadlines to a garden exploding in glee. Happily, Sylvia has come to my rescue and written a new letter, which I'm sharing with you. Please take the time to comment as we're enjoying doing this and hope our readers are enjoying it as well. It's fun to have a dialogue between a gardener in England and one in Nova Scotia.

Dear Jodi,

No not everyone writes at 4 in the morning! I do hope you enjoyed the show, even if it was work, I read a comment somewhere that you were reading blogs while having a quiet moment at the show. I can imagine that the show is really tiring so I'm not surprised that you were taking a break but it still made me chuckle. I also saw your comment on Melanie's Old Country Gardens blog that you write "to do lists", I am always writing lists. I have several on the go at the moment, the "must do now" and the "to do when I have time" lists. I am sure that you can guess that both are long. Spring is my favourite time of the year but the garden seems to need more work than I have time for and I only have a small garden. On my last letter Karen (An Artist's Garden) commented that "small gardens take a lot more work than bigger ones" I wonder if that is true, what do you think? I hope so because with your time constraints and your large garden, I can't imagine how you keep it looking so lovely. I am pleased your husband is helping out, if he helps with the weeding will he know which are weeds, I would worry!

One way of reducing the work is shrubs, though most of them still need pruning, though I see that you have been getting the snow to help you! I am sorry that your viburnums got damaged in the snow, I do wonder how you can protect them next year. I have a few shrubs and trees though not as many as I would like, I would also like to be able to plant several of one or two plants to cover an area but that wouldn't satisfy my plant lust. One plant I hope to get this year is a trillium, I have this perception that they are difficult to grow, possibly because they are expensive. It will be an easy job for me to count them, I wonder what your count will be, I hope it is more than last year. Counting flowers is not something I have ever done but I remember that your husband counted your snowdrops as well. It must be interesting to keep a record each year to compare.


Spring is moving on in my garden, I have lots of plants out in flower including, poppies and iris. My first poppy to flower is Patty's Plum, I love the colour of this poppy though it doesn't show up as well as some of the other colours. How I yearn for your blue poppy, our winters are not normally cold enough to grow it, I saw my first ones in flower while on holiday last June. This year I will have to make do with your pictures and any others I can see on blogs. Blogs are a lovely way to enjoy flowers we can't grow and to prolong the seasons. Your spring may be later but I am enjoying seeing all my favourite flowers again.


I have finished digging the last border in my back garden, by the willow circle. Most of this bed is in full sun - as an aside, I find planting in sun much harder than shade, most of the plants I like are shade lovers - I have put a tree peoania in. I do like tree peonies but they are expensive so this is my very first one, I love them as plants so the flowers will be an interest but not the main reason to grow them. The other plants I have put in are all plants that I have in pots, I seem to accumulate pots of plants with nowhere to put them. I have put in some very tall lilies that have been advertised a lot this year and I couldn't resist, they were not very expensive but I have had to spray them because we get a horrible red lily beetle that eats lilies and other related plants. The local cats have found this bed and making use of it!

The other pest I am having problems with this year is mice or a mouse! I lost a lot of my spring bulbs, that were in containers and now it has taken a fancy to some dahlia tubers I have just planted in pots. Hopefully the mouse trap will work, so far he/she has eaten the peanut butter butter and got away. I am not sure where these dahlia's will go yet but will keep them snug against the house walls until all chance of frost has gone and the nights are warmer, hopefully mid May.


Talking of May my next letter will mainly be about my holiday, we will be visiting lots of gardens but I will only be able to tell you a little about one or two. I enjoy visiting gardens and my husband enjoys the walk, but neither of us can resist bringing some plants back with us. Luckily (or unluckily) car room will restrict how many!

Must finish now, hope you have managed to get into your garden at some point in your busy life.

Best wishes Sylvia

Travels and Adventures and Seedlings

Got anything on this weekend coming? Maybe you'd like to pop down to the Harrison Lewis Centre in East Port L'Hebert for the 'Tree-dy Saturday' seedling exchange/sale. You can find out more about the Centre at their website, and I will tell you more about it in the not-too-distant future. I haven't been there yet, and won't get there this weekend because of a previous commitment, namely a talk at Bunchberry Nurseries in Upper Clements for the Magnolia festival, as mentioned before. 

I haven't updated for a few days and haven't been visiting many blogs this past week or so but with rather good reasons. First, this past weekend, I was away in beautiful St. Andrews, New Brunswick, for Charlotte County Blooms, an annual event that takes in gardeners from the local area. I'd been invited to speak here several years in a row, but it's always been the same weekend as Saltscapes Expo. This year, they changed the date, and I was sooooo happy to come to one of my favourite Maritime communities. 

The morning speaker was the inspiring and affable Betty Kennett of Hampton, NB, and she entertained and educated the crowd of 200+ gardening enthusiasts. In the afternoon, it was my turn to (hopefully) be entertaining and educational too. What a LOT of hard work put in by everyone who organized this fabulous event, and by all the exhibitors at the trade shore part of the day. My garden hat is off to them all. 

This young artist creates fabulous sculptures from wood: from Celtic designs to pea pods! His work is gorgeous, although I don't think I'd put it outdoors in my garden. I'd have it in my office where I could always look at it while I was working, regardless of the season. 

Longsuffering spouse went with me to St. Andrews, which was awesome because he got to drive on this rather long trip, while the weary gardener, garden writer and editor slept. And we were put up by wonderfully gracious and friendly hosts at their home, Tatterscot, right on the main street in St. Andrews...

Where their back yard is actually their front yard because it looks out on the sea. And I mean RIGHT. On. The. Sea. Well, the lower Bay of Fundy, and to be exact Passamaquoddy Bay, the lower end of my own Bay of Fundy. So they know all about gardening by the sea, and they do it very well. 

This photo was taken at mostly low tide, and I don't have a good photo with me of what the scene would look like at high tide...because most of my photos are back home in Scotts Bay with my external hard drive. I'm in Liverpool again. 

Well, I'm in Liverpool a lot these days. Because I took on a new challenge a while back, and now am editing three magazines for DvL Publishing; Rural Delivery, Atlantic Beef, and Atlantic Forestry. It's a lot of work, but a lot of fun too. I've been privileged to write for Dirk van Loon a good deal over the past number of years-and in fact, he published the first thing I ever had published, a story that was in Atlantic Horse & Pony (where I'm now contributing editor) back in 1990. It's pretty cool. Car's getting quite a bit of mileage, and Spunky is cranky when I'm away, but I'm loving the new challenge.

The goutweed is the only downside, as it's getting out of hand in my garden on the days I'm away. Anyone got a cure for that? We won't be giving away any at the Tree-dy Saturday, however!