The Colour Purple...

You know how so many plants at this time of year are in shades of russet, gold, orange, carmine, and so on? These are all splendid colours, but sometimes a gardener craves something to contrast and yet compliment the colours of fall. I think that’s why I’m drawn to plants like flowering cabbage and kale, butterfly bush, purple-foliaged shrubs, and any late flowering plants that come in magenta, purple, mauve…any shade of purple.

There are so many shades of purple—some of which horticulturists like to pass off as being blue when describing supposedly blue-flowered perennials—from pale mauve to deep royal purple and every shade in between. One of the stars at this time of year is an annual, Verbena bonariensis. It’s popping up in many fall issues of garden magazines these days, but I first learned about it from the late, much-loved and lamented Christopher Lloyd, the great British gardener whose motto was, “learn the rules of colour so you can break them.” (works for me). This verbena grows very tall—easily to five feet and has lacy clusters of small magenta purple flowers which besot butterflies. It is an enthusiastic selfseeder in many parts so I’m hoping that the few plants I have this year will selfseed into many more, the way the poppies, sunflowers and nigella do.

I’ve also succumbed to the urge to try Caryopteris ‘Dark Knight’ with its dazzling blue flowers; it will probably die down to the roots in our garden, but I’ve got a good sheltered spot for it too, where I can stare at its blue colour and be happy.

The other purple performer that threw itself at me today is ‘Purple Dome’ New England aster; I’ll have to tag it and plant it somewhere where I’ll KNOW I planted an aster, so as not to pull it out thinking it’s a wild one…a mistake I’ve made before. Tee hee.

Also wonderful in the line of purple are some of the heathers that are flowering now. I am fairly new to being infatuated with heathers and heaths, and I blame it primarily on Jill Covill and Jamie Ellison, who founded Bunchberry Nurseries in Upper Clements, NS. Jamie has moved on to teaching young horticulturists at the Kingstec Campus, but Jill has continued to grow the business, for years wholesaling fantastic plants to nurseries around the region. This year she opened a retail business as well, and she was one of the exhibitors at the Saltscapes Expo as well as at Agrifest. Anyway, Jamie and Jill smartly developed display gardens around their nursery, which are an excellent way of showing potential customers what plants will look like after they’ve been planted out for a few years. I challenge anyone to remain unexcited about shrubs, conifers, grasses or heaths and heathers after seeing some of the exciting and unique cultivars of plants available and hardy to our area.

So last year, I bought half a dozen heaths and heathers, some from Bunchberry and several from Dick Steele at Bayport Plant Farm (another individual who has seriously influenced my plant tastes in recent years). I made a dedicated bed for them in the upper end of the yard where the drainage is not too bad, added lots of compost and peat to the soil, and planted them out. They survived, so I added another half a dozen this spring, all of which have settled in and grown nicely. They’re starting to flower now, AND to get their fall/winter colour, which is what really besots me about them. The fall colour of some of them, such as Spitfire, Wickware Flame, Cuprea and Con Brio is enough to send me into ecstacy—without ever even having a flower on the plants. But they’re ALL starting to blossom too, so I’m a happy—and hooked—heather addict now.

One thing I really noticed was how good the garden centre at Bunchberry looked—all the shelves and tables of plants were filled with healthy, well groomed and attractive species of perennials, shrubs and trees.

There was none of the tired, picked-over look that I’ve noticed lately at some garden centres. Here I and my colleagues in the garden-writing world are crowing about how we can still be planting all kinds of things, and then people go out to many local nurseries and can’t find anything worth planting? That’s not a good thing. It’s also, of course, not the case at every garden centre--things are looking great at some nurseries I've visited lately-- and I do know that our local operators are up against the wall having to compete with the loss-leader bigbox bullies…But this is a time of year when nurseries can be making some decent money and gaining new, loyal customers, by having great quality stock and a good variety, because there IS still plenty of time to be planting.

Another nursery that is looking mighty fine, as I remarked in my regular email newsletter, is Cosby’s Garden Centre in Liverpool. Ivan Higgins is another smart nursery operator who is big on planting display gardens, but he also has a secret weapon in his arsenal; he is a concrete sculptor who does amazing, whimsical and unique pieces, both for himself and for commissions. Each year he creates a new sculpture for the garden centre, and here is this year’s:

Ivan’s garden centre is so good, and his selection of unique and exciting plants so delightful, it almost tempts me to pull up stakes and move to the balmy south shore of the province, where I could exercise a lot more zonal denial and plant things I can only dream about now. But I can’t see digging up several thousand plants from here and trucking them all down there…plus my heart really is here. I’ll just have to live vicariously on the south shore through Ivan, Dick Steele, and other great gardeners who live in the banana belt.

Suddenly September, and Mum’s the Word

Whether I like it or not, we’re being dragged kicking and screaming into the autumn. No matter that technically, there are about three weeks left of summer. This is Labour Day weekend, and that’s the unofficial winding down of summer for many people. Next week, kids will be back to school, students back into universities, those who have such things as vacations will be looking forward to NEXT year’s vacations, and some idiotic merchant will start clamouring about how there are only X more shopping days til Christmas.

NOOOOOOOOO!

Well, yes, the Halloween junk IS already out in the stores, as is the Thanksgiving detritus. But we’ll ignore all that in favour of what’s popping up in the garden centres. Fall foliage favourites, fall blooming annuals, and in just a couple of weeks, bulbs. For now, let’s consider the plants that are available for our enjoyment as we do wind down the summer.

There IS still plenty of time to be planting perennials, shrubs and trees—most plants need 6-8 weeks to establish themselves before a hard freeze comes along, and we’re not apt to have one of those before mid-November. That being said, however, it does seem like the weather has been hopelessly out of joint this past year, and who really knows what we’ll have for a fall, let alone a winter? Be that as it may, I’m gonna keep right on working away in the gardens.

Last week my longsuffering spouse and I went on a bit of a road trip, and ended up on the south shore of the province. We dropped into an interesting garden centre I’ve only visited a couple of times, The Village Nursery, just outside of Bridgewater. The nursery’s famous Dazee Dome, the greenhouse where they display and sell their huge selection of annuals, is closed, of course, but the areas where the perennials normally are housed were home to row on row of fall mums. These aren’t hardy chrysanthemums—in this neck of the woods, I don’t know how well even the so-called hardy mums are about overwintering, because I just don’t bother with them.

In fact, I’ve never dealt with chrysanthemums since 1980, when I was a new graduate of the Nova Scotia Agricultural College and worked for a few months at a greenhouse that grew hothouse tomatoes and chrysanthemums—poms, they called them—for the cut flower trade. We spent hours working among those poms, planting the transplants, pinching them out, disbudding them, cutting them…and before I quit the greenhouse to go farming, I used to see the damn things in my sleep. I can still smell the hideous chemical that we had to use to fumigate the soil, which sent me home feeling sick more than once. Small wonder I started leaning towards organic gardening in earnest back then!

Despite that long-ago misadventure with chrysanthemums, I do enjoy them outdoors for autumn colour. Every year, I buy a couple of richly coloured varieties in large, 8 inch pots, and these will do yeoman’s service out in the front yard for weeks to come. This year, the offerings seem to be better than ever—some nice, rich colours are on offer, much more interesting than the dandelion yellows, insipid whites, muddy purples of years ago. There are rich burgundies, lovely russets and coppers, and dazzling oranges, all of which complement the autumn foliage palette.

However, permit me a little bit of bragging rights…our container plantings are mostly still looking really great, and I give the credit for that to Seaboost, the liquid seaweed fertilizer I use indoors and out. When I planted the containers I threw a handful of seaweed meal into the potting mix, and every other week I’ve been watering really well with Seaboost in the water, and the results are obvious/ The calibrachoas are still flowering their heads off, the nemesia, heliotrope, portulaca and helichrysum are all looking fine, and even the annual lobelia, which usually is spent and gone by now, is still sending cascades of rich blue out of several large containers. The only annuals that are looking bedraggled are the plantings of cerinthe, or honeywort, which I neglected to cut back after they flowered, so they’ve gone to seed and are starting to die back. That’s okay, though, because I’ve got a nice stock of seed for next year.

Though many perennials are winding down their bloom, there’s still plenty of colour in the yard. The tall phlox David, Bright Eyes and another unnamed magenta variety have been intoxicating us with their fragrant clusters of blossoms, and the last of the bee balm and daylilies are wrapping up their display. The perennial blue lobelia (which also has a white form) has been doing very nicely, AND a red perennial type, which I thought had died, burst into splendid flower a few weeks ago, delighting me and the hummingbirds alike. The coneflowers and seaholly are still doing their thing, though most of the globe thistles are beginning to decline. And there are still things yet to flower—the tall perennial silvergrasses, Miscanthus Silberfeder, Graciella and purpurea, are forming flowerheads, and likewise our lovely clumps of Helenium, an underused and marvelous perennial. All in all, there’s still plenty of summer colour left, although the segue to autumn flamboyance has certainly begun.

We had a nice surprise last week—the swallows that nest in our barn hadn’t gone—they had hatched a second set of nestlings, which they were proudly teaching to fly last week. We sat all one afternoon watching the junior zoomers darting and swooping and fluttering, pausing to rest on the ridge of the house roof, while their parents exhorted them to ‘come on! You can do it! FLY!” Now, however, they have left, and yesterday was the first day I didn’t see a hummingbird, so I think they too have departed. There are mourning cloak and fritillary butterflies around, among others, but the monarchs too seem to have left. Fly safely, all of you, and see you in the spring.

Half Past August, fifteen minutes to autumn

One of the writing projects I’ve been doing for almost ten years is a tiny monthly community newspaper called The Canning Gazette. It was started as a project by the Canning Village Commission back in 1987 as a way to support local businesses, and was operated for its first 100+ issues by the highly talented Ron MacInnis. He passed the torch to me in late 1996, and I’ve been putting the Gazette together ever since.

I describe the Gazette as one part history, one part humour, one part hard news information and all parts heart. What I really like is when readers send me tidbits, essays, stories, that they’ve written or collected and kept for years. One of our reader families sent me a story clipped from a very old and yellowed New York newspaper, date unknown; the piece was called Half-past August, and talks about how suddenly the natural world around us has shifted from spring, early and midsummer to late summer, heading for autumn.

Yikes: it’s true. Just over two weeks until September; another three weeks to equinox, and the beginning of fall. A look around our yard confirms this. The perennial asters are about to bloom, and the wild ones have just started. Goldenrod is flush with colour, and the allergy-sufferers are lamenting the flowering of ragweed—for it’s ragweed that is the maker of sneezes, watery eyes, itchy skin and other downright miserable symptoms, not goldenrod with its heavy pollen that doesn’t float through the air! Dijya know that?

Onwards. The garden and the native meadows and woodlands are each telling their own stories of where we’re heading, weather wise. The milkweeds are starting to form seedpods, where they haven’t been chewed by enthusiastic Monarch butterfly caterpillars. This will be the generation that heads for Mexico for the winter, living 5-7 months instead of mere weeks. The highbush cranberry (Viburnum trilobum) and doublefile viburnum (V. plicatum ‘Mariesii’ are both starting to ripen fruit, though my doublefile still has a few flowers clinging to its branches. The perennial phlox is in full, fragrant flower. The later-flowering grasses are getting ready to put up their remarkable plumes of silken flowers; the big Miscanthus cultivars, primarily, ‘Silberfeder’ and ‘Graziella’ as the Calamagrostis have already flowered nicely. The hostas have about finished their floral display, but some of the clematis have yet to begin flowering. The echinaceas are in their peak, and the rudbeckias closing on them fast with their bronzed and golden blooms. Bursts of globe thistle and sea holly provide cooler colours of blue and lavender to all the hotcolour flowers that herald autumn’s approach.

The woodlands tell similar tales. There are beginning to be hints of colour in some of the hardwoods—those that haven’t been chewed to ribbons by tussock moth caterpillars and other rapacious critters, of course. Thistles are going to seed, and the centres of the pearly everlasting have turned from soft gold to deeper bronze. The wild orchids have finished their blossoming, although at the shore the beach peas and sea lungwort are still providing exotic and wonderful bursts of colour. (I wish I could grow these in my yard, but we’re just a little too far from the shore—a mile or so, too high to be considered really coastal.) In the woods, the ghost plants, Indian pipe and Pinesap, chlorophyll-lacking species that are parasitic or saprophytic, put their pale, nodding stems and flowers up under trees, alongside the outrageous outbursts of colour from marvelous mushrooms—but have a care with the shrooms! Here’s a field mushroom, an innocent and edible Agaricus campestris, nestled next to a deadly Destroying Angel, Amanita virosa.

The light is changing, too. Not only is sunrise later and sunset earlier every day, there’s a peculiar golden light in the late afternoons. William Faulkner wrote about the Light In August, and it is distinctive, a harbinger of rapidly shortening days and cooler nights and what is to come in a few more weeks.

And the birds are changing. The swallows have fledged their young, and I think they’ve left our barn now. The young mallard ducklings from the pond up the road came down in a flock to visit our pond, and have now moved on. The goldfinches are starting to look tarnished, losing their brilliant colour of earlier in the year, and someone told me the male hummingbirds have already left for warmer climates. The females are definitely still here, madly flitting from flower to feeder to flower to the window to scold me if the feeders are empty, but soon they too will be gone. I’ll miss them, because we’ve had so many this year and they’ve charmed us daily. But they’ll be back, and I’ll be here to greet them, with any luck at all.

Half-past August, and fifteen minutes to autumn.

My soul longs for the sea...

This is a non-gardening blog entry, so if you’re not into the sea, come back next time…

Went to a press conference yesterday at Bedford Institute of Oceanography, to hear the report on the most recent science cruise using the Queen of the science fleet, the Canadian Coast Guard Ship Hudson. The Hudson and her officers, crew and scientific staff just got back from two weeks off Nova Scotia’s southeastern coast, where they were using a unique piece of gear called ROPOS , a remote operated submersible vessel,to help them study, sample and photograph creatures thousands of metres beneath the ocean depths.

In a perfect world, I would have been out there with them. In another life, I must have been a sailor, a pirate, or maybe only a seagull, but I love the sea wholeheartedly, and love being out on the wide open ocean on an ocean going vessel, be it a Cape Island lobster boat, a Coast Guard fisheries patrol cutter, or my favourite, the good ship Hudson.



My first trip on the Hudson was three years ago in September, out to Sable’s oil fields, then to the depths of the Laurentian channel, the Stone Fence, and the Gully, where we peered into depths looking for deepwater coral. We also danced a slight dance with a little hurricane named Juan, but we were well out beyond the worst of it, and the Hudson is, in the words of her officers and crew, ‘the best damn sea boat in the Fleet, and likely in the country.” Yup.

Last year, I got to sail with the Coast Guard not once, but twice. First time was on the Hudson again, this time looking at undersea habitat for juvenile haddock. Might sound pretty routine, even dull, but it was anything but. I have held, in my hand, a sea cucumber scooped from off the sea bottom near Sable Island. I have two sand dollars collected from a nearby site, not as deep as some areas of the ocean, but with the brooding, restless shores and shoals of Sable only a few kilometres away. I’ve peered down into depths via computer monitor and unique, marvelous pieces of underwater surveying equipment created by the technical and engineering geniuses at BIO, and seen a universe unlike anything you and I normally can see.

It’s a different world out there, people. We look at the ocean’s gleaming, dancing water with sunlight flashing off the sapphire surface, and we have NO IDEA just how splendid, dramatic, puzzling and wonderful the undersea life and geography is. There are wonders, and there are terrors, and the sea is restless, wild, beautiful...and can kill you just as quick as look at you if you’re not smart. There are dolphins that race along the bows of a steaming ship…

There are flat calm mornings when there’s an oil platform, in this case the Sable Offshore Energy Project’s Thebaud platform, sitting a quarter kilometre away when you wake up and look out your cabin's porthole in the morning...


And there are waves that will scare the blessed heart and soul out of even a hardened, hardy, professional sailor.

This isn't one of those waves, but it was enough to take the dust off the deck...

This was on my second trip last fall, on the coast guard patrol ship Cygnus, doing conservation and protection work and also getting tasked on a Search and Rescue call. This was a totally different, but still fabulous experience…I got to operate the ‘sticks’ that control the good ship’s throttle, went from the Cygnus to a fishing vessel in the ship’s Zodiac or FRC, where I got to climb from the FRC up the side of the fishing boat with the fisheries officers on a routine inspection, and oh yeah, discovered I could actually get seasick, if the sea was rough enough and the ship jumped around enough while running INTO the storm on a SAR call…

There oughta be a tee shirt for those who sail on CCGS Cygnus that say, “I got sick on the Cygnus.” Yup, I think it’s a badge of honour—it happens to durn near everyone, except for hardy fish cops who eat beans for breakfast, chili for lunch, and sausages and sauerkraut for supper.

Never mind that. I’d go again in a flash, on either vessel. Or on the Needler, the Cornwallis, the Alexander, the Matthew, even the Earl Grey…or the Terry Fox, or Big Louis, the two great icebreakers that work out of Halifax up north.

These mighty ships come and go from our major harbours all the time, here on the east coast. There are sister ships on the west coast, in the Great Lakes too, and there are men and women who sail these vessels, doing navigational work, running fisheries patrol, doing science work in hydrography, habitat science, and much, much more…and dropping everything at the sound of mayday, mayday, mayday on the radio, to hie off full away to the aid of someone in peril on the sea.

It’s not all glory, adrenaline and excitement, sailing on a Coast Guard vessel. Sometimes it’s deadly dull routine for the officers, crew and staff. Sometimes it’s damn nauseating out there, and sometimes it’s pretty nerve-wrackingly terrifying too. But the work being done out there on the oceans—those same ocean waters that lap at our shores—is critically important, and so many of us know so little about what is done by the Canadian Coast Guard. We ought to feel the same immense swelling of pride when we see one of these big red and white ships that we do when we see the dress reds of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Or the Bluenose. The Coast Guard is emblematic of all that is Canada, from sea to shining sea.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. And if I get a chance to sail later this year, I’m outa here, like a shot.

Even to the Flemish Cap in November. Provided I’m on the Hudson for that one, however.

Beauty for a day--the daylily

Well, there’s no such thing as moderation in our weather anymore. We’ve gone from muggy and humid and foggy to just plain hot hot hot! Hot enough to cause little cats to just lay around in puddles of tiredness, too bushed to do anything more than sleep. That includes laying on my desk leaning against the laptop keyboard, when they’re just too tired to move, right Spunky Boomerang?

The hummingbirds and honeybees are still going strong outside, and it’s fun to watch the hummers roaring back and forth between flowers and feeders. Earlier this morning, before it was quite so sweltering, my darling husband pointed out the numbers of honeybees feasting on three sea holly blossoms…(the big blue Eryngium, I forget the species at the moment but it looks like Miss Wilmott’s Ghost except for being blue, not silver.) Not to be confused with E. planum, the smaller flowered seaholly which we have in various spots in the yard.

The heat and sun has helped to dry up plants that were feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the wet, including the roses that were balling their blossoms into soggy tissue wads…right now there are fireworks in the garden, as all the yellow evening primroses are in bloom, as are the brilliant orange Asiatic lilies; a real pretty type, not the common ones but a vibrant orange without speckles or spots of contrasting colour. The red bergamot Jacob Kline is also in bloom, as is the Maltese Cross, a host of annual poppies, the giant Macrocephala knapweed, and there are cooling touches in the hot colour scheme being contributed by monkshood, veronica, and some of the darker foliage like Diablo ninebark and Rosy Glow barberry.

And the daylilies have started to bloom. Of course, the oldfashioned ditch lily, Hemercallis fulva, is the first with its bright orange flowers. It’s common as crabgrass but I still love them because they are tall and elegant and will flower anyway.
But the REAL obsessions with daylilies are all the thousands of gorgeous colour combinations, flower sizes and shapes that can be found in the named hybrids—of which there are over 50,000, and perhaps even over 60,000 by now. There’s a daylily for everyone—or five or six dozen, or five or six hundred—and for every spot in your garden. Take for example, this exquisite Minstrel's Fire...I don't have it--yet. But I will.
I’ve loved daylilies for a long time, but I REALLY got into them after I first visited Wayne Ward and Wayne Storrie’s labour of love, Canning Daylily Gardens right here in our own community. The two Waynes have been into gardening for years, but a few years back they decided to try operating a daylily nursery—and it’s a wild success. They have over 800 cultivars growing in the display gardens, and somewhere between 350-450 cultivars for sale. It’s pretty hard to pick out just a few that you like, which is why I have some five dozen or so now. Some are fragrant, some aren’t. Some flower all season long, others only for a few weeks; they come in every colour but true blue and true black, but daylily breeders are a persistant bunch, and one of these days….

I have bought a number of daylilies from Wayne and Wayne so far this season, including the gorgeous Smuggler’s Gold, the deeply purple Strutter’s Ball, a wonderfully contrasting Edge Ahead, the cute as a bug Bug’s Hug, and the exquisite Malaysian Monarch. Today, the Waynes were cleaning up the display gardens prior to the official opening of their Open House days, from July 20-31, and they were moving a couple of clumps of deep red daylilies, name and breeding unknown. Would I like to have them? Well…it wasn’t long before these two big clumps were in my car, ready to go home and be planted…they may be of unknown name and breeding, but they’re going to be named; the taller of the two will be Big Wayne Storrie, and the shorter one will be Little Wayne Ward, and they’re going in my memory garden for Marilyn; just as the two azaleas I brought home from Bill Wilgenhof and Sharon Bryson’s gorgeous place in Antigonish got named Bill and Sharon. After all, Bill bred the azaleas himself, and what better way to pay tribute to the generosity of fellow plant enthusiasts than to call their plants (at least in my garden) by the name of the breeder?

Speaking of breeders, the daylily world was saddened on Friday at the death of daylily breeder Steve Moldovan at age 68. Wayne and Wayne had the privilege of meeting this giant of the hemerocallis world at the national daylily meetings in Niagara back in the spring, and were charmed by his warmth as well as his vast knowledge of daylilies. The world is a little poorer for his passing—but heaven should be well and truly laden with daylilies.

In the meantime, if you're in the Canning area, drop out to Canning Daylily Gardens, 165 Pereaux Rd, and visit the gardens, which are nearly in full bloom. The two Waynes have daylilies and hostas for sale, but you don't have to buy anything to come and visit--they're always happy to meet new people, and to talk about their passion for daylilies. But I defy anyone to come away without purchasing a daylily...or three...or three dozen....

Keep on planting!

I was talking yesterday with Tim Amos, a landscape designer, instructor and plantsman par excellence, about the mindset some people have about planting their gardens. They think that if they don't get everything planted by the middle of July, it's too late to do anything and they should just stop and enjoy whatever they got done.

Well, if you want to stop and smell the roses rather than plant them, that's fine, but it isn't the law, that's for sure. I don't know where people get that notion, but gang, just keep right on planting whatever you want to plant! Especially in Nova Scotia, where we so often have crappy springs but lovely autumns. I still have a bunch of plants lined up against the walkway, waiting for me to decide where the perfect spot is for them. They're all perennials and a couple of shrubs too, but I threw some annual flower seeds out into the garden earlier this week, mostly poppies and a few sunflowers, because they will have lots of time yet to do their thing. In fact, they'll come on later than their already planted and blooming kin, and provide some nice bursts of different colours to go with the usual colours of September.

On reflection, I suspect that the rush to plant comes from the cycle of the farming and veggie garden seasons. Farmers plant their crops and then wait to harvest them; a lot of vegetable gardeners get their cool season veggies planted, then after the risk of frost is past plant their warmer crops, and then that's it, they're done, unless they are the keen types that reseed things like salad fixings and beans every couple of weeks rather than have them all come on at once. And in the past, we bought our flats of annuals, planted them out into beds or containers, and had done with them, because they had been all grown from seed and had to be planted on time or the nurseries would miss the market.

But hey, this is the 21st century, and we can do things differently now. I am forever bringing home plants from nurseries until mid September, (when I switch to bulbs). That means I still have two full months to haunt garden centres and nurseries, looking for unique plants or irresistable bargains I can nurse back to health or the perfect plant to fill in a spot in a bed where I moved something else.

And our locally owned and operated garden centres and nurseries ought to be working harder to educate customers that they don't have to do it all at once. They need to capitalize on the fact that by mid July, the bigbox bullies have pretty well killed off or sold all the plants in their socalled garden centres and are getting ready to close up. NOW is the time for the local nurseries to put the push on to attract more customers. Some of them are doing that by making themselves very much into destination type nurseries and garden centres, offering plants but also other things, such as a cafe, garden art and accessories, books, workshops. They can bring in more interesting plants later in the season, (they could have been seeding some annuals themselves to use in containers for late summer and fall, or brigning in plant plugs from the big growers, etc). They could be encouraging the use of shrubs more, and offering really good choices; some of them do, of course, and some of them make excellent display gardens so that customers can see the plants in situ and be inspired to try them for themselves. Some of them have excellent, knowledgeable staff, which is critical to success in today's market.

I want to see all the locally owned and operated centres and nurseries around the province--and around the region--not just survive, but thrive, which is tough when you have the bigbox bullies trying to suck up every spare dollar around.

There are some local nurseries that ARE seasonally operated, of course, and that's fine. But we can all be working to encourage our fellow gardeners to keep on planting all season long, and to support our local nurseries all season long too. I walk around the garden here at home now, and some would say that it's 'finished' being planted for the year. But it's not. I have two new sections built, neither of which I'll get 'finished' this year, but which I am putting interesting new plants into as I find what I want and decide on the right space. In fact, I'm going out shortly to visit Blomidon Nurseries, Gerry's, and of course Wayne and Wayne's, because the daylilies are coming on to peak bloom very shortly and I want to get some more new daylilies--as soon as I see what they look like in flower.

So I'll keep on planting, and hope you will too.

Good things come to those who wait--and don't spray!

About ten days ago, just before I left for a few days in St. John’s, the rock of my birth, I was driving out to Springvale Nurseries when I spied a big clump of milkweed growing by the side of the road. I’d seen it before; the first time was two years ago when it was in bloom and its sweet fragrance enticed me to pick a few stems to bring home and put in a vase. Last spring, I went to dig some up to have in my garden, but was too early; later in the spring I figured I was too late.
Not this day. I had bags and a shovel in the car with me. I’m sure the people driving by in their cars thought I was nuts; down in the ditch, swatting at blackflies and digging clumps of ‘weeds’ out, stuffing them into bags, and lugging them back to my car.

I proudly brought my treasures home, after stopping at Springvale’s garden centre to water the bags. Once home, I put the plants in the shade to slow their wilting (they WERE, after all, about to bloom and somewhat traumatized by being dug up on a warm summer’s day…studied the garden, looking for the perfect place to tuck these new acquisitions in, and planted them carefully.

“Hold everything!” I can hear some people hollering. “MILKWEED? Milk WEED? That’s a weed, dummy! In some places, it’s classified as a noxious weed! What WERE you doing digging up weeds???”

The answer is real, real simple, dear friends. Milkweed is the host plant of choice for monarch butterflies. Their caterpillars eat the leaves, and grow to impressive size before pupating into those perfect specimens of flying flowers, monarch butterflies. Milkweed is also stunningly beautiful, fragrant as all get out, and I happen to love it. We have rosy milkweed and regular butterflyweed here in our gardens, but I wanted the regular milkweed too. And now, we have it. And behold, look what else we have:



Yup. This is the cherished caterpillar of the monarch, munching his way through the plant’s big lush leaves and flower buds. Eat hearty, amigo.

Because of this fellow—and there are a few of them—I won’t even put down diatomaceous earth around the hostas or heucheras, where slugs have been playing havoc. What’s a few holes in leaves when soon, very soon, there will be monarchs in our garden, to join the other butterflies that have been providing us with great pleasure?

And as for those who think milkweed is a weed—a weed is any plant growing where it is not wanted. Meaning that my magnificent Alchemyst rose would be a weed, were it growing in Bruce Rand’s broccoli fields, or the fabulous orange echinaceas if they were festooning Darryl Steele’s grain fields. In our yard, in our garden, milkweed is welcome.

We’ve had some sunlight and warmth in recent days—mostly, while I was away, naturally—but now we’re back to humidity and fog. Actually, the rain was welcome as the soil is getting a bit dry despite the humidity, but alas, this humidity causes balling in some of the roses; Thomas Lipton, Alchemyst, Polareis, even my perfectly divine Snow Pavement, all are experiencing some balling of flowers, resulting in soggy brown clumps that refuse to open. Not all flowers are going this way, however, and those that do open are so perfectly glorious that we simply cherish each one and ignore the brown Kleenex clumps hanging on some branches.

And this summer, victory has finally come to us. Four years ago, I got a rose called Veilchanblau, the so-called blue rose, from somewhere—I forget what nursery or gardener. For three summers prior to this one, I have waited patiently for flowers. I don’t know whether this is a slow maturing plant, or whether we’ve just had too much cold the past few winters, but til this year, not a flower, not a bud; just lots of green shoots.

This spring, I went out and frowned at the rosebush. I trimmed it a bit, tidied up around it, gave it a dose of Seameal, and threatened it.

“If you don’t flower this year, I’ll replace you with something that will,” I told it.

Well. Whether it took me seriously, or whether it was just a slow bloomer, I don’t know. But voila: we have flowers. Lots and lots of them. They aren’t huge, and they aren’t real blue, but they’re certainly more blue than anything else I’ve seen…and they’re lovely.

I wouldn’t have really replaced the plant, not while it is alive, of course. But we won’t tell it that.

Mugginess, Mungus, and Atwood's warmth

Oh, me nerves, as my fellow Newfoundlanders would say. We are into day I-don’t-know-what of high humidity, mega-fog, abrupt tropical showers, and other irritations. One friend is beginning to think he should wear a disguise when he goes outside, because every time he shows his face, it rains. My darling husband feels it’s all HIS fault it is so excessively wet, because whenever he plans to start mowing the lawn, putting a line of clothes out to dry, or even thinks about having a nap, the heavens open. It’s ridiculous. There’s mould on the horse’s bridle. The concrete floors in the barn are weeping moisture. Annuals are rotting off in containers; containers that we mixed with a little bit of moisture retaining product so as not to have to water so often. As if…No one can sleep.

Everyone is as touchy as a bear with a sore paw, including the cats…here’s Tigger and Mungus saying “this here window ain’t big enough for both of us…” Tigger, the senior cat, may not have double paws like Mungus does, but he’s the fastest paw in the house, and Mungus finally decided that maybe it would be a good plan to back down.



Mungus is a smart cat in all kinds of ways. Because he’s the apple of my darling husband’s eyes, he’s not allowed outside without adult supervision, which in his case means going on a leash, which he learned to do in about five minutes. He likes to be wherever we are, and he whines gently if he’s left alone outdoors, staked out on the lawn like a horse. He enjoys helping me in the garden, mostly by rolling around in the grass and purring a lot, which works fine for me, and with those polydactyl paddypaws he can really dig well, too. Indoors, he generally likes to burrow under the bedcovers and then start his LOUD, diesel engine purr…but he’s too hot to do that in these dogdays of June—why are they dog days, not cat days?—so he’s mostly laying in other windows (those not chosen by Tigger as his favourite window of the moment) and waiting, like the rest of us, for better weather.

The garden is wildly out of control, with weeds exploding into growth every time we have another rainshower. But the perennials are also growing exuberantly, although several of the peonies have blackened buds from all the wet weather and the fog. The perennial Oriental poppies have been doing beautifully when NOT becoming bedraggled tissue paper in the rain, and there are nice bursts of colour from the spiderworts, irises, soapwort and wood anemone. Most exquisite colour in the garden right now? The exultant true blue of the blue corydalis in the front bed by the door. And as a bonus, it’s fragrant too. I am going to plant one of the Sundown Echinaceas near it, I think. That blue and the orange-melon of the echinacea, coupled with both their sweet fragrances, will be divine.

I had a really, really exciting experience yesterday—I had the great good honour of interviewing Margaret Atwood, she of Alias Grace, The Handmaid’s Tale, Moving Targets, and Oryx and Crake fame—among many others. I stayed up wayyyyyyy too late the night before, preparing my questions for Ms. Atwood, worrying about what she would be like to interview. Would she answer my questions? Would she clam up? Would she be irritable, bored, distant? Would she cut me to shreds.

She was an interviewing dream. It’s funny, she is this tremendous literary giant who you expect to be somehow larger than life, but in person she’s small, delicate of structure but wirey too, and with a firm handshake, a genuinely warm personality and a wonderful smile. We had 50 minutes scheduled, but we went to over an hour—I kept worrying but she seemed totally unconcerned. Maybe she enjoyed herself too. We had some commonalities—her parents are both Nova Scotians, one from the south shore and one from the Valley; she’s a gardener of great enthusiasm who told me about her challenges, and we chuckled over how plants sometimes just plain die. We share similar concerns over global warming, the Harperites dissing the Kyoto protocol, the absolute disdain of Harper for ‘alarmists.’ She put it so well; (I’m going to paraphrase here, as I haven’t yet transcribed the whole interview). “an alarmist is sounding an alarm—which is something that is warning of danger.Why is Harper dismissing people who are warning of danger to our world?” She thinks Al Gore is a marvelous person, and she met him at Hay-on-Wye during the festival there, where she said that after his talk on climate change, if he’d called people up to the front to be saved, in the manner of evangelical preachers reaching out to the sinner, everyone would have gone forward—to take up the cause of doing something about global warming.

Maybe all this muggy, wet, almost-tropical weather is an alarm that we should take seriously.

Still in High Flight

June 11, 2005. It’s been a year, already, since my father slipped the surly bonds of earth for the last time, not to take off in a Boeing 737 jet, but to leave all the trials of this world behind. We still miss him, as we always will. Whether or not it was Alzheimers or some other nightmarish dementia that took our vital, funny, talented father, husband, brother, friend and erased his personality, his memory, and much of his self, the end result was the same. And we who were left behind to mourn, to love, to remember and to celebrate Ivan I. DeLong were forever changed—yet forever keep him in our hearts.

In other postings I’ve written about memory gardening and how it can help in some small way to heal a wounded soul. In some ways, my whole garden is a memory garden; the big butterfly planting for Marilyn is taking good shape, despite the monsoons, while specific plants are designated for specific people and others throughout the garden.

Earlier in the week I saw a clinical herbal therapist, who is helping me deal with some ailments without always having to resort to painkillers and other conventional medications. She asked me if I meditated, and I said, no, because my brain won’t let me—it’s always flitting from one thought to another, like those oh-so-active hummingbirds in our garden.

Then the other day, while I was weeding some of the beds, trying to get ahead of the couchgrass that could be mowed and baled into hay, I realized that yes, O do somrt of meditate at times. Weeding, or even planting, is so relaxing to me that passages of time flee without me having actually ‘thought’ about a single thing; I’m just one with the dirt and the plants, scrabbling along doing what needs doing, and not thinking about deadlines or new stories or housework or worries or happy things…just being. That’s my meditating time, apparently.

And it’s not always so. Sometimes, I’m planning a story just because something is going on in the garden that really interests me and makes me think others will be interested. Sometimes I’m thinking about the people, human and feline, who are remembered in our garden by specific plantings. A lot of time, my thoughts turn to Dad.

I am closest to my father when in the garden; I see the carefully potted mint, and I chuckle to myself, thinking of the mint plantation that developed in Dad’s garden after I errantly planted ‘just a few sprigs’ one spring day back in 1979. Oooops. He would feel definitely superior when comparing his tomato growing abilities to mine—he grew tomatoes that were the talk of the town, while I am hardpressed to get even transplants into the ground at the right time. This year, with the ongoing and seemingly neverending monsoons, I expect tomato soup…from the plants. A story for another day.

Today was far too wet to do any actual work in the garden, but I did walk around it this evening with a couple of visitors, showing them interesting plants and casually ignoring the weeds in some spots. Everything is profoundly, amazingly lush, but some things are being beaten down by the rains and winds we’ve had lately. I was really annoyed to find two broken shoots on my dearly beloved’s red buckeye; but it’s a young tree, only three years old, and it will recover.

Earlier today, however, I sat in my office watching the garden from the window, watching the hummingbirds and thinking about Dad. Yesterday I took Mum plant shopping in Truro, a sort of retail therapy for both of us, and I brought her hostas from gardeners who have plants for sale in nearby Port Williams. We talked some about Dad, and we both wondered how we would get through this day. We did, of course.

The year has done one good thing for me; it has pushed the images of my father, dying in that hospital bed for thirteen days, away from the forefront of memory. Stronger now than those images, stronger than even the one of my mother, asleep leaning over the side of his bed with her head on his chest, her hands holding his—that one will haunt me forever—are the good images. Dad in his garden, pretending to do damage to his scarecrow with a maul being swung at a strategic spot on the scarecrow’s anatomy. Dad and his dogs. Dad and his tomatoes. Making faces at us whenever one of us pointed a camera at him. Dad in his captain’s uniform, walking around his 737 before leaving on a flight, checking it outside and in. Dad holding his only grandchild as a small baby, or holding Mum’s hand when they went for a walk. These come to the forefront, along with his gleeful, naughty-little-boy laugh when he played a trick on one of us.

I do not profess to know where people go when they die. My father’s heaven, if there is such a place, will consist of a place where he can garden, fish, walk with good dogs, be with his parents and other family and friends who have already gone…but mostly, a place where he can fly jets forever on laughter silvered wings. We still love and miss you, Dad, but hey, go into High Flight for us.

The Year of the Hummingbird

It’s June! And I forget what year it is in the Chinese calendar, but at our house it’s the year of the hummingbird. We’ve never had so many; and they’re voracious, dining on both the feeders and the flowers for nectar sources. And they’re saucy to each other, zipping back and forth, swearing at each other “back off! Get your own feeder!” and zooming all around. They even hover a few inches from me when I’m working in the garden, especially if the feeders are getting low or I’m wearing something bright. They don’t regard me as any threat…and they’re mightily amusing to the cats, who line up in the windows to watch bird television….
Mangotango Babycat and Toby Soprano squish into one window to observe the festivities...

In another life, I’ll be able to just sit happily reading blogs of friends, longtime and new. I’ve mentioned Ami McKay’s blog a number of times, and thanks to so many of you who have helped to keep Ami’s book on the bestseller lists for many weeks! I heard from a friend that the book has been nearly impossible to actually pick up in Toronto; it keeps selling out and having to be ordered in again by bookstores. Go, Ami, you’re a star in all our books. (and a dear friend besides being a stellar writer.)

Then Mary Ann Archibald emailed me about her weblog, and wondered could she link to mine. The answer of course was sure—gardeners gotta stick together, always.

And last night, a welcome note came from a longtime acquaintance, newly met in Ottawa during the PWAC national conference; Charmian, fellow writer and gardener and ranter. She’s located in Guelph, and her blog is a hoot; at once funny and tender, as the most recent posting about her uncle Lindsay demonstrates.

Charmian gave me grief, in a good hearted fellow gardener’s way, for my ability to grow blue poppies—not just to get them to survive, but also to flower. I’ve been trying to locate a local to her source of these little finicky darlings, but so far no success. So for now, I’ll just link to her weblog, which for those of us who enjoy food is a delightful thing, and also tease her by saying, guess whose blue poppy is putting up flower stalks?

Yup. It’s going to flower shortly. The first stalk shot up out of that plant like there was no tomorrow—it wasn’t there, and then it was. Tonight it was showing colour in the bud; this is nearly three weeks earlier than last year. Mind you, this particular plant is in the sun where the others are in more shade…

Had a little plant-buying frenzy yesterday at Springvale Nurseries production site, when I was there for meetings. Somehow, a Katsura tree, a dawn redwood, a Middendorf weigela, a golden plumose false cypress, and a serviceberry climbed onto the back of my truck…and of course my dear longsuffering spouse wondered where all these new trees and shrubs are going to go…but already he’s decided that they’ll do just fine. He’s a quick study, my sweetie, and also a great builder of birdhouses and windowboxes and trellises too.

From the fog zone

Why do you suppose that every time I plan a day of working in the yard, the fog rolls in thicker than oatmeal porridge?

Obviously, the weather is related to my horse, the same intelligent equine who can read my mind, and who rolls in the mud immediately after I have a thought about riding him.

Well, while I wait patiently for the fog to lift, I’ll catch up on my blog postings and tell you about yesterday’s road trip. And I’ll resist the urge to look out the window and watch the gardens grow.

Talk about growing…I’d estimate that the garden here is about three weeks ahead of where it was last year this time. One of the nice things about using a digital camera is that each photo is datestamped, at least as long as I leave it unmodified in iPhoto, and so it’s easy to figure out when I took that shot of the front garden or the closeup of the red trillium or the latest picture of helpercats in the beds. And we won’t even discuss the quality of the weeds—sometimes referred to as ‘native plants’ just to confuse other gardeners who think maybe I PLANNED all that couchgrass. Actually, aside from the big bed in the back, where 73 thousand teasel seedlings are waking up and stretching their little leaves sunward, the beds aren’t in THAT bad a shape. Mostly, I’m a bit piqued that I didn’t get everything divided that I wanted to share with others, and now we have gargantuan clumps of centaurea, and cranesbills, and daylilies, and other things. All in good time, however.

So, what does a gardener who is way behind in her weeding, pruning, dividing and planting do? Go out and buy more plants, of course!

Well, I needed a road trip away…so I jumped in the car on Friday and headed to the south shore, drove down to the furthest point I wanted to visit, and worked my way back from there. I only made it to four places all day, but they were all well worth the visit, of course. And I was really happy to hear from the staff at each place that they’ve been having a really good spring so far. Let’s hope that trend continues.

First stop was to see my friend Alice at Ouestville Perennials in West Pubnico. Alice is one of those independent nursery operators who not only grows and sells marvelous plants, she plants them all around her property in display beds. Her rock garden alone is worth the trip, and it’s inspiring me greatly…for about three years from now, when I get the bed built that I want! She also has turned her front lawn into a wonderful shade bed, featuring shrubs, hostas, and other beauties, with lovely pathways (including a thyme walkway, sigh…..) and she has several theme gardens including a formally designed rose bed that I hope to see in full summer.

I’m besotted with echinaceas, especially the new colours that have been developed by crossing E. purpurea with E. paradoxa, resulting in shades of yellow, orange, melon, gold…and adding fragrance to the mix.
Alice is carrying most of these new coneflowers, so of course they beseeched me to take them home and plant them…Off I went with Sunrise, Sunset, and Sundown, plus the shining coneflower Rudbeckia Herbstonne. They’ll look great with the Orange Meadowbright echinacea I got last year…

Next stop along my travels was Spencer’s garden centre in Shelburne. (1-877-870-3055) I’ve been going to Spencer’s since back in the days when we were building Lowell’s last lobster boat in Lower East Pubnico, and I always look forward to my trips to Spencer’s. Jim Spencer and his staff know their stuff and they also love plants; they have a lovely rockery out front which changes with the seasons, using some nice foundation shrubs and then complimenting with unique perennials, flowering bulbs, ground covers;
Spencer’s carries a really nice selection of perennials, though because it’s in the Banana belt I generally check to make sure something is hardy to my area. A really splendid red ornamental rhubarb caught my eye, as did an epimedium I’d never seen before, with orange flowers rather than red or yellow. A couple of small heucheras also wanted to come with me, and since I prefer to buy my perennials small and let them establish in our beds, I agreed that they could come along; Mocha Mint and Crème Brule are waiting to be planted after the fog lifts.

I often say that independent garden centres and nurseries are all in this together, and they need to work together to survive the attack of the bigbox bullies. Well, a lot of them do just that (and probably far more than I know about.) I asked at Spencer’s where the heck Lavender Hill was, because I didn’t want to miss it, and hadn’t been able to get information to post here earlier in the spring. The staff were happy to explain just how to find it—it’s not hard once you pay attention to turnoffs on the highway, of course—and off I went to see Madeline. (Exit 24 off the 103, Lake John Road; phone 902.875.4600. ) She and her husband Allison do a terrific job with annuals, shrubs, some perennials, including many that Madeline seeds herself. I resisted the urge to buy the Black Lace Elder, but what a gorgeous thing it was. Interestingly, Lavender Hill had this shrub last year…while Canadian Gardening magazine said it wasn’t yet available in Canada. Just goes to show that magazine needs to remember there is more to gardening in this country than the central provinces…

What really got to me at Lavender Hill, however, was a purple foliaged clematis, Clematis recta ‘Purpurea’. I didn’t even ask how much it was, I just WANTED it. It gets the small, starry white flowers later in the summer, and they’re supposed to be fragrant; while I know the purple foliage will fade somewhat to green as the season progresses, I love interesting clematis and this one is a beauty! Also had to have the Raspberry Wine monarda for Marilyn’s butterfly garden, and a white flowered thunbergia for my annual containers, and…well, you know how it goes!

The last stop for the day was a place I’ve heard about for ages but never gotten to visit; the Village Nursery in Pleasantville, outside of Bridgewater. Well. It’s one of those destination type places, a tiny bit out of the way to find the first time but then you’ve got it. I could have spent much more time, (and many more dollars) there, especially in the so-called Dazee Dome, where the owners keep all their annuals. Talk about a burst of colour!
And I was especially pleased to see that they sell 4-packs of young perennials, and a good selection of them; some of those I brought home will flower this year, others won’t til next year, but that’s fine; there’s always enough going on in my garden to let young plants take their time establishing. There’s some really smart marketing going on at Village too; along with a print catalogue, which they’re cutting back on in size and turning more to email because of print/mailing costs, they have coupons giving customers a discount on a return trip; guaranteed to mean you’ll be back!

I’m really pleased to see how many nurseries are developing really good websites, and newsletters too. One of my favourites is Springvale Nurseries, which has three retail outlets around the province, in Hammonds Plains, Bible Hill, and Berwick (next door to Wheaton’s Store, truly a destination). Along with their website, they have launched their new newsletter; you can find out more about that and sign up for it at their website also. I’ll be doing talks at the Springvale outlets over the summer, so stay tuned for details there!

Wow...the fog is lifting...time to go get dirt under my fingernails!

Home is the gardener, home from the Hill…

You know the old saying about how visitors or fresh fish are only good for three days? Well, I sort of feel that way about traveling. By the end of day 3, I’m ready to come home, because at heart, I AM a homebody. The sweetest feelings in the world are #1 Seeing my longsuffering spouse’s smiling face as he waits for me at the airport. #2. Seeing Scotts Bay and the pasture and roof of our home appear in view as we come over the hill about a mile up the road from home. #3 The welcoming purrs and snuggles of the furball brigade—even Nibs, the three legged wondercat who normally scolds me for a day after I come home, allowed me to pick him up and listen to his purr. And of course #4, walking around the yard seeing what has grown while I was away.

Ottawa was marvelous, it truly was; we members of the Professional Writers Association of Canada were treated like royalty at the Delta Ottawa
where we stayed as well as at the venues where we had functions; the National Press Club, the War Museum, and on assorted tours.

Visiting the gardens at Rideau Hall with Ottawa’s chief Landscape Architect, and with Lucie Caron of the National Capital Commission, as well as seeing the tulip displays along the Rideau Canal, was one of the highlights of my trip. The Byward market, with its vast selection of plant vendors and fruit and veggie stands, as well as great crafters, made me very glad I couldn’t take plants home in my suitcase.


Hearing Ken Alexander, publisher of The Walrus Magazine speak at our gala banquet on Saturday night at the War Museum was another complete delight. And of course we all hope that he, Heritage and Culture Minister Bev Oda, and other MPs and guests at that dinner enjoyed our a capella version of Barrett’s Privateers, sung by a gang of us especially for their listening pleasure!

So I left with many fond memories of Ottawa and of our PWAC conference, and came home to fling myself into work. But one of the first things we did was last evening, when we headed down into the woodlands behind our property to go counting red trillium.

Yes, counting red trillium. If you’ve never seen a red trillium (Trillium erectum) in bloom….you’ve missed a rare and lovely treasure.

Counting trillium isn’t like doing a census. (whoops, must get that finished, too)…it’s just a spring ritual that hubby and I conduct because it makes us ecstatically happy. Wandering through the woods, seeking out the plants in their favourite spots, and capturing them on film—well, digitally on film—is one of the highlights of May. Last year, we missed doing this because the spring was cold and late, and I spent two weeks right after our annual conference dealing with the death of my father, so this year we were determined to get out as soon as possible.

In half an hour, covering maybe an acre of woodland, we counted 165 trilliums in bloom. That doesn’t include the younger plants that aren’t flowering this year, of which there are also plenty.



Trilliums can’t take full sun, so those that were growing in the area that is now clearcut are gone. However, we have two dozen plants at home, about half of which are in flower, with younger stems coming up regularly, the result of rescuing half a dozen plants from the clearcut a few years ago. While these plants are a survival story and make my heart glad, it’s the wild ones that really excite both of us.

And therein lies a secret to true love. My big fisherman, my piece of North Mountain granite, my solid and strong but gentle husband, not only loves cats and me…(not necessarily in that order)…he is so excited every spring to greet the flowering of the red trillium, and to count the number of blooms we can find. And if a man can be joyful over the blooming of a wildflower…well, it’s small wonder that I found my soul mate in him, when we first met, and still feel that way years later.

Now, it’s time to deal with the profusion of growth in our gardens, so there may not be any postings for a bit…I’ll be in the garden if you’re looking for me!

From Ottawa, Live and in Colour

Remember how I said I wouldn’t be talking about politics in my blog entries? Well, this is a bit of an exception, although it mentions cats and plants too. So just be warned.

After many mutterings and complainings to my darling long-suffering spouse about having to go to Ottawa for five days in mid May….I’m actually quite enjoying myself.

One of my hats, other than my fabulous Lee Valley hat (and now my dear sister has one too!) is to sit on the board of directors of the Professional Writers Association of Canada.

Our National conference and AGM is going on, and since this year is our 30th anniversary, we decided to go to where the lawmakers of our country hang out—in Ottawa. Some of us have been to the Hill today to lobby members and make them aware of our concerns regarding copyright, low rates for writers, rights-gobbling contracts by the press equivalent of the bigbox bullies, and other issues.

I went out gollywalking instead. Wandered down Sparks Street to the pedestrian mall, went in and out of shops, visited the War memorial and paid my respects to the Unknown Soldier at the monument. Walked around all the tulips, deep wine in colour, solemn and yet hopeful, around that monument, and said a prayer for our soldiers in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Some pocket impressions of Ottawa:
1. Wayyyyyy too many people smoke, and they all come outside to do it, standing outside office towers and shops and restaurants puffing their cancer sticks. I often wonder if people who smoke know either how dumb they look or how bad they smell. Apparently not, or they don’t care. But that’s their choice, not mine. I choose to avoid them whenever possible.

2. the traffic lights in this city are designed to intimidate pedestrians, especially the WALK/DON’T WALK signals. I defy anyone to get across ANY street in downtown Ottawa within the few seconds allotted to the blue WALK signal.

3. Everyone in Ottawa jaywalks or walks against the signals. See number 2 for explanation of same. I even watched people walk out across roads right in front of police officers.

4. There’s a lot of brick in the downtown area; not just on edifices, (also lots of stone) but on homes too. Lowell would roll his eyes and shake his head, but some of the homes I saw were really lovely, some old, some more modern.

5. There are lots of green spaces in this city. Besides the waves of tulips in beds and planters, there are parks, plantings, gardens, wild spaces…tomorrow I’ll get to see more of those but it’s nice to look out my window at the Delta Ottawa and see the river, lots of trees (in full leaf, of course) beds of flowers (yup, mostly tulips) and profusions of lilacs, dizzyingly fragrant and perfect.

6. You can always tell Maritimers. I entered the elevator this morning and there was a pleasant man who commented on the weather. I asked if this was a normal spring, and he didn’t know…as he was from PEI. Of course—no central Canadian would talk to a stranger in an elevator!

7. Food here is good and reasonably priced, especially in the ethnic restaurants. So far I’ve had Lebanese, Thai and East Indian food, including some dishes I can’t pronounce but found just dandy. People are polite and service prompt and pleasant. The water is drinkable, much better than in some places (including New Minas!)

8. I want a hot tub. The hot tub here at the Delta is a dandy one.

I went to the Hill, but not to see politicians, though I have the greatest regard for my MP, Liberal Scott Brison, who is also running for the leadership of that party. Go, Scott, Go! He probably won’t win, because the centre of Canada couldn’t cope with a Maritime leader of the Liberal Party (and ultimately Prime Minister) but he’ll make a good run for it.

No, I went to the Hill to see the Cat Man of Parliament Hill

His name is Rene Chartrand, and he’s 85 years old. He’s been looking after the stray cats that hang out on the Hill since 1987, when he took over for another catlover who had been doing the labour of love for more than a decade previously. Rene built a set of ‘cat condominiums’ for the cats, who are all neutered, needled and mostly named, although there are a number who apparently come and go as they please. When I was there, the cats were all catnapping or off doing Parliamentary feline business somewhere else, but Rene was there, eating his lunch and then clearing up branches of shrubs that were broken off. The cat condos are behind the wrought iron fence that edges the Hill, and people can’t go in and visit, which is just as well for the cats…but I was talking briefly to Rene and to one large, elegant orange tom, who was very tired, yawned and stretched and went back to sleep, weary from his labours….

Now, here’s something that is very interesting to me. While I was out walking, I walked INTO a huge protest march, of Right to Lifers, or anti-abortionists, whatever you want to call them. It was somewhat surreal at first, because I met them as I walked up the Sparks Street promenade, and though there were hundreds, probably thousands walking, they weren’t chanting or singing, just quietly walking. And it WAS quiet, as if the downtown core was holding its breath. They were heading for the Hill, of course. I cut across them and went around, up the Hill to take photos and observe. Standing in the shadow of the Peace tower, watching these people and halflistening to them, observing a handful of RCMP and Ottawa police officers observing in a laidback way, I was struck by the contrast between this gathering and the concrete pylons near the American Embassy I had seen earlier.



I also was struck by the floods of people all around the Hill, and the seeming lack of a security presense; a far cry from how it would be in other countries. I might not agree with the protesters who were on the Hill today, but I’d argue til the end of time for their right to protest. And it fascinated me that, despite my irritation with the Harperites, how fiercely proud I was to stand in our nation’s capitol, outside the buildings of our government, and watch all the goings on, Cat Man, Catholics, lilacs and all.



One sour note did pop into my head. While I was at the cat condos, a group from the anti abortion crusade came along, including one wearing the Roman collar. They stopped and read the sign about caring for the cats, about making donations, and the priest snorted. “what a waste of money,” he said as they moved away.

Oh really? Maybe he should have sung the hymn about all creatures great and small, or read the New Testement. The part about “whatsoever you do to the least of these my brethren, you do also onto me.” That God they worship made cats too, after all. If he/she/it does exist.

No wonder I’m an agnostic.

In the spring the gardener's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of....

...New Plants, of course! What were you thinking?

Yet another reason to support our locally owned and operated nurseries…without them, how would we gardening addicts get our fixes of unique, unusual, and rare plants? Can you see WallyWorld or Crappy Tire carrying Trillium luteum or Meconopsis grandis or Lysimachia ‘Beaujolais’? Or really special heaths and heathers? Or grasses that are so unusual it’s hard to even find out about them through Google? I didn’t think so.

Yes, I’ve been making the rounds, in between preparing to go to Ottawa for the 30th anniversary Professional Writers Association of Canada conference and AGM. Normally, five days away with a collection of my fellow colleagues is something I look forward to, and when we set the date for the conference two weeks earlier than usual this year, I thought to myself, “great, there won’t be anything much going on in the gardens, I’ll go to Ottawa and have fun and then come back to a fairly sedate set of weeds.”

Well, who’da thunk that this would be the year that spring actually came when it was supposed to?

I don’t remember when we last had a May as lovely as this one is being. Granted, the month is still only a few days old, but the weather has been mostly very wonderful…and the gardens have responded by leaping ahead at an amazing, even an alarming rate. I did manage to get a pile of things divided to donate to a plant sale for the United church in Canning, but there are still several beds that I’ve not even touched yet, either to weed or to divide and move things…and there are new plants lined up by the front garden fence, just waiting to be planted.

While I’ve yet to make my way to the south shore to visit Captain Steele and Alice and Ivan and all the splendid nurseries along that balmy route, I did make it as far as Upper Clements on Saturday, to see Jill’s new retail area at Bunchberry Nurseries. She and her staff have done a marvelous job of turning their former main work area into a retail shop, with all sorts of shrubs, heaths and heathers, alpines, and even some local artwork and crafts that are garden themed. While they haven't moved all their plants up to the outside sale area, there's plenty there to choose from...



The display gardens are enough to inspire ANYONE to try their hand at conifers and ericaceous plants, with the subtle rainbow of foliage colours that don’t even require flowers to make a perfect planting.

Naturally, a few plants insisted that they needed to come home with me, including some small heathers; Con Brio, Boskoop and Cuprea, all of which tend to be russet to red coloured in the fall and winter. The other real delight was getting my hands on Lonicera ‘Mandarin’, a climbing honeysuckle developed by Dr. Wilf Nichols when he was at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Nichols is now at MUN Botanical Gardens in St. John’s Nfld, and I don’t know how many other plants he commercially developed, but ‘Mandarin’ is a beauty. It was flowering at Bunchberry last summer when I was there, and I was instantly besotted with it, and with ‘Graham Thomas’, a yellow honeysuckle with awesome fragrance, that was blooming beside it. Graham came home with me that day, and I’ve thought about Mandarin since then. Now it is here in our yard.


At Rob Baldwin’s a few days ago, I picked up a blue lacecap hydrangea (I think it was Blue Billows, but it and its tag are outside) to coldtest up here on our wild mountain. The ‘Endless Summer’ mophead hydrangea I got last year is awake and doing mighty fine already, so I’m thinking the lacecap can likely go in the same protected bed. Rob carries a wonderful variety of trees and shrubs, including many natives, and so three young Canada holly (Ilex verticillata) and one black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) climbed onto the truck, together with a cutleaf elder (Sambucus) and a red flowering quince. Of course my darling longsuffering spouse just wonders where I’m going to put these things.

Today I had to go to Berwick on errands and stopped in at The Briar Patch Farm and Nursery. This is a great nursery too; always lots of interesting perennials, healthy shrubs, including a big selection of hardy roses, and great annuals. It was here I first found Anagallis ‘Skylover’ being grown, and they also always have heliotrope. Today there were just a couple of perennials that needed me; the red-flowered gooseneck loosestrife ‘Beaujolais’, and two trilliums; T. luteum, the yellow flowered species, and T. grandiflora, the big white one. I bought these mostly for my darling husband, who loves trillium, and was just going to tuck them into the shade bed and see if he noticed, but the yellow one is going to open shortly so I figured it was best to let him know. I tucked it in near a couple of bloodroot that are already flowering, and not far from the big clump of red trillium.

While planting I peeked around a bit, and could see the Mayapples were sprouting, as well as the oakleafed fern and a young hellebore; the hepatica is in full bloom as is Redstart Pulmonaria and several other varieties. Hepatica, or 'that liver plant' as my longsuffering spouse calls it, is a pretty thing, and usually the first perennial to bloom, but this year it's about fourth in the lineup. Here it is, being dainty and lovely in the shade garden



I’m not sure where the Jack in the pulpit is, but I bought that from Jane at Woodlands and Meadows last summer, I think, so if I need to get another one she’s the person to see. But it’s still early yet for many things, of course.

Good thing I can't bring plants home in my suitcase from Ottawa. But I'll take photos whenever possible.

Home for a rest...and to garden

For those of you who didn’t get a chance to attend the second annual Saltscapes East Coast Expo….well, you really missed out on a great event. Last year was great, but this year was outstanding, with terrific booths of vendors, demonstrators, tourism activities, crafts and artisans, amazing food…now, to be honest I was so busy as part of the show team, that I didn’t truly get to visit all the booths and meet all the exhibitors, but that’s okay, there’s always next year. I had a great time giving my talks even though my voice was still not completely healed, and I learned some wonderful new ideas from other gardeners too. Of course, there were times I needed to be in three places at once, a trick I haven't yet mastered, and I didn't get to meet all the people who wanted to talk with me, either. So although we’re just recuperating now, I’m already looking forward to next year.

The show planners put all the garden-related exhibitors fairly close together, near the Yamaha Do-It-Yourself stage where presentations were happening. Along with four of my favourite places to leave grocery money—whoops, that was supposed to read disposable income—Baldwin Nurseries, Blomidon Nurseries, Bunchberry Nurseries and Springvale Nurseries, Lee Valley was there with a great selection of their gardening items, Cora Mae Morse was there with her ‘Flora by Cora’ outdoor furniture and accessories, the Langilles were there with their Yardbirds, and I was delighted to see Eric and Dianne Schurman made it over from PEI with their Malpeque Fine iron. I first met the Schurmans last summer at their shop, and went down to their house to see Dianne’s gardens, which are delightful and won a rural beautification award several years ago. Eric does beautiful ironwork, both for inside the home and for the garden, with my favourites being his folk art pieces. Last summer, a dandy metal spider came home with me; at the show, one of their new pieces, a folk art cat I’ve nicknamed “Spike”, had to come and live with me, as did a terrific trellis. I would have bought more but I was in theory working the show to earn money, not to totally boost the region’s economy. Here’s Spike hanging out with the hellebores til I decide where everything is going to go.



I DO so love good garden art in my garden. I tend towards a mixture of whimsy and beauty, fun and functionality in our beds. We have a blue gazing ball that is actually placed in such a way as to be useful as it was designed; so that workers in the garden could see other people approaching, particularly handy if you were staff goofing off or saw someone approaching you didn’t want to talk to. Here we don’t worry about such things but merely let the bright blue catch sunlight and reflect the colours of the plants around the ball. We have some wonderful stained glass and cement pieces done by a local garden artist, including a large welcome stone, a birdbath, and a memorial stone for my late beloved cat Nermal, whose ashes are in the garden under some rosebushes. We have handmade wind chimes, an assortment of trellises and arbours, and one of the most recent items is a fabulous birdhouse on a post from Nacho Average Crafts. I don’t have it mounted yet but did take it to the Saltscapes Expo to display at the window box competition, and gave away all the cards that I had from the artisans who made it.

Because it had been raining recently and was too wet for my darling other half to work in the woods, he was lurking around home when I needed to work. So I asked him to make me some birdhouses, mostly for decorative purposes, but they may serve as nesting boxes too. Who knows? I had been smitten with a copper roofed birdhouse donated to the competition as a prize, so I got some copper and some weathered lumber and turned my sweetie loose to be creative. He did just fine, although now I suppose the county will be along wanting to charge more property taxes because of new edifices on our homestead…



Now is the time of year that my darling and I most enjoy. Weather permitting, we usually take a walk around the garden twice a day, to see what’s coming up, what’s in bloom, how many weeds are sticking up through the ground, where I can add more plants…this is most definitely an early spring, however. I’m estimating we’re about three weeks ahead of where we’ve been other years in terms of perennial growth and shrub leafing. This weekend while I was away, things really took off everywhere in the Valley. Forsythias are looking like explosions of yellow fireworks, there are daffodils and some early tulips, scilla and squill, adding bursts of colour all around, shrubs and trees are leafing out like crazy…it’s a very happy-making time of year. Normally, the first perennial to flower in our garden is the liverwort, Hepatica nobilis, but it’s just opening now: we’ve had lungwort or Bethlehem sage, Pulmonaria of various species, in flower for two weeks in some spots.

And oh goodie! There are two strong looking clumps of blue poppies up and putting on growth, and the other two are slowly emerging as well. Depending on how many crowns are on those clumps, I hope to let them flower again this year, and maybe there will be seedlings since there are no ducks—other than the wild ones in the pond, who won’t be parading through the garden beds any time soon.

The most happy-making sight in the gardens, other than the Meconopsis? The clump of red trillium that we rescued from a clear-cut a few years back has REALLY taken hold. Where there were only three stems for a few years, this year there are eighteen. Granted, not all of them will be flowering this year, but since we get jubilant every time we see a red trillium, whether in the garden or in the wild, we’re really happy to see they’ve settled in so well. Another new clump transplanted last year has started popping up, and there are two other clumps in shadier spots that we expect to see shortly as well.

I spent a good bit of time this weekend encouraging people to support their local garden centres, including the four that were at the Expo from the Valley. Of these four, only one currently has its website up and going, but all three of the others are working on theirs and expect to have them up soon. I’m especially excited that Bunchberry Nurseries is opening to the public this season, every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 9-5. Bunchberry has been growing amazing plants for wholesale purposes for over ten years, and now is entering the retail world too. Jill and her team are kicking off their foray into the retail market this weekend, May 5th, 6th and 7th at the nursery in Upper Clements (2779 Hwy 1, not far from Upper Clements Park). If you’re in the area, drop in and visit; they’ll have opening specials, rare plants, door prizes and of course their display gardens, featuring conifers, ericaceous plants, grasses, alpines and more, are an inspiration to any gardener. It’s because of Jill and Bunchberry Nurseries that I have ventured into grasses and into trying out heaths and heathers in my garden. I plan to visit on Saturday, weather permitting, and who knows how many plants will fling themselves into my car for the trip back home?

And then there were peepers...

I feel genuinely sorry for those who live in a place where they can’t hear peepers at night—whether because they live in a highrise in a downtown metropolis, or merely in an area where these little darlings don’t sing their alluring nightsongs. Because once you’ve heard the call of the spring peepers, you know that spring IS here, and that all is right with the world. More or less.

What’s a spring peeper? Pseudacris crucifer, a tiny frog with a delightful voice…I think of them as vocal fireflies, peep peep peeping their bellike voices as soon as spring weather warms up a bit. They’re nocturnal, usually less than an inch to an inch and a half in length, and they have these delightful pads on their toes that look like suction cups, and are actually used to grip and hold onto plants as they are climbing. Peepers range in colour from grey through beige to brown, but they can be easily recognized by a marking shaped like an X on their backs.

Last night was the first night we’ve heard the peepers call; the green frogs have been singing their hearts out for over a week now, but earlier this evening, I went out to take down a windchime that was trying to blow away in the current Bay breeze. And despite the gale—of warm air, to be sure—I caught that distinctive sound out by the pond. Just a few tonight. Tonight, there are many, many more, and the songs will go on until late June or early July, when all the mating is finished (because it’s the males who are sending out this siren song, not the females!). This is the most perfect sound of spring that we know of.

Another sign that spring has arrived in Scotts Bay is the arrival of ‘da fog’. We get fog occasionally during the winter but spring heralds the start of the foggy season in earnest. I happen to like fog, most of the time; it keeps our gardens and grass green when people only a mile or two above the fogline are having to water; it swathes us in cool, soothing moisture when the Valley floor shimmers with heat. It’a actually amusing to watch people drive over from the Valley, in their tee shirts and halter tops and convertible tops down, drive into the fog about at our property line, and suddenly decide they’d better put on more clothes or put the top up. It can be ten degrees cooler here, and while there are times when the fog is irritating, for the most part I wouldn’t trade it for the sweltering heat of the Valley, thank you very much.

The gardens are starting to leap forward in earnest, as there have been several rainshowers as well as unseasonably warm weather the past few days. If I were feeling better, I’d be outside dividing perennials now, potting them up to share with friends or donate to plant sales locally, but alas, the flu I eluded all winter caught up with me and knocked me flatter than a snow-covered juniper, so all I can do for a few days is look outside and watch things grow. And this really IS a time to watch things grow; even from the office window I can see the perennials pushing up out of the ground, the fuzz of shoots starting on some of the earlier shrubs; there are a few tiny flowers of forsythia on the big shrub on the south side of the house, and there’s a rose in the greenhouse that has sprouted up with new shoots. I’m hoping it’s one of the old fashioned yellow roses I rescued from an old farmhouse in Canning, either Harison’s Yellow or Persian Yellow. (There’s certainly something to be said for labeling plants when I collect them…that’s going to happen this year, thanks to the great copper plant tags I got from Lee Valley!)

We have crocus, iris reticulata, puschkinia, scilla, glory-of-the-snow, snowdrops and snowflakes (Leucojum) in bloom in various patches, while the first few daffodils on the hillside coming up the mountain to the Lookoff have also begun to bloom. I’m still a little bit leery of this weather; after all, three Easters ago we had a vicious cold snap that killed off a lot of things, with temperatures in the minus double digits with chillfactor…but that would be highly erratic given the winter and spring we’ve had so far.

Despite being seriously under the weather, I sneaked out this afternoon for about half an hour, with my dearly beloved making me wrap up like it was 40 below, and we walked around and looked at the gardens, then sat on the little deck way out back and listened to the symphony. The green frogs were playing their banjos and a few early starting peepers were tuning up, plus we had a lovely counterpointing melody from assorted songbirds; robins, redwinged blackbirds, chickadees, juncos, goldfinches, and one mournful sounding dove, wondering “who who who who” ate all the birdseed? Two of the cats were chasing flies in the pasture, then parading over to us to collapse in exhaustion and recount their hunting battles to us. And we sat and marveled yet again at this place of ours, and were grateful to be stewards of the land around us.

Supporting Our Local Nurseries, Continued!

As promised, contact information for some great locally owned and operated nurseries: Not exhaustive by a long shot, but a start! Thanks to those helpful gardeners who have provided me with some of these sites, because I’ve not visited them all—yet.

HRM and South Shore of Nova Scotia (Area code for NS 902)

Lakeland Plant World Dartmouth, 435.5429
Seabright Greenhouses, Seabright 483-7076
Bayport Plant Farm, Bayport, Lunenburg County 766.4319
Pine View Farm, Bridgewater, 543.4228
Village Nursery, Pleasantville, Lunenburg County: 543.5649
Wiles Lake Farm Market543-6082
Cosby’s Garden Centre, Liverpool: 354.2133
Spencer’s Garden Centre, Shelburne: 875.3055
Ouestville Perennials, West Pubnico 762.3198

Western Nova Scotia
Baldwin’s Nursery, Upper Falmouth 798.9468
Canning Daylily Gardens, Canning: 582.7966
Glad Gardens, Waterville 538.8688
The Briar Patch Farm and Nursery, Berwick 538.9164
Maple Hill Farm and Nursery, Aylesford 538.8658
Den Haan’s, Middleton: 825.4722
Bunchberry Nurseries, Upper Clements 532.7777

Northern and Eastern NS

Hillendale Perennials, Truro 897.6791
Woodlands and Meadows Perennial Nursery and Gardens Truro895.8727
West River Greenhouses, West River Pictou County: 925.2088
Gray’s Greenhouses, West River, Antigonish County 863.8111.
Pleasant Valley Nursery, Antigonish 863.1072
Duyker’s Greenhouses, Afton 232-3092


New Brunswick (AREA Code is 506)

Cornhill Nursery
Kingsbrae Garden Plant Centre, Kingsbrae Garden, St. Andrews: 1.866.566.8687
Mayfield Greenhouses, St. Stephen 466-5926
Canada Green, St George 755-2929
The Potting Shed, Quispamsis: 849.6206
H.Erb’s Herbs: Cambridge Narrows, NB phone 488.3344

A Little Night Music

When writing, I don’t like to be disturbed. This is a common trait of many writers, especially those of us without doors on our offices. Well, the truth of the matter is I have half a door; one of those louvered closet doors. Why only half? Well, there used to be two—my office has a wide doorway and needs two closet doors to make the room private. One day some years ago, the writer of this house had a writerly snit at her long suffering spouse and slammed the doors shut…which promptly fell off their tracks, hit the banister with a tremendous crash, scaring all the cats and breaking the top of one door. The long suffering spouse burst into laughter, but also took the doors away…which was fine for a while. But this writer needs privacy and can’t stand to be disturbed when working, so new doors are going to happen soon.

So today was one of those days when distractions got to me, as I mulled over a story that is due shortly. I wanted to be outside grubbing in the gardens this afternoon, but having overdone it a bit on Saturday, I’m still very sore…and after the big rain yesterday, it’s too wet to play out there. But my dearly beloved has also been home today and has been a bit…distracting, asking me questions, talking to me, hollering up from downstairs…and I have been getting a bit irritable.

A little while ago, he called to me to come into HIS office (where he mostly plays computer games and surfs the web.) I was a bit peeved, as the story was almost finished and I was editing, and my feeble train of thought was derailed yet again. Muttering to myself, I stomped along the hallway to his office.

And saw his grin. And the wide-open window. And was glad he had disturbed me.

The glunkers are glunking.

We have a wild pond, full of cattails and edged by alders and reeds and assorted other wild plants, populated by various insects and reptiles and ampibians and other creatures. Redwinged blackbirds perch on the cattails and sing their alluring songs. Swallows dive for insects and water. Ducks come to feed and nest. Dragonflies and damselflies do elaborate ballets among the plants. And then there are the frogs.

And we have lots of frogs, mostly the common green frogs, as well as spring peepers, a few big bullfrogs too. Because we don’t believe in poisoning our gardens or the wild parts of our property with poisons, be they chemical fertilizers or pesticides, this is a haven for assorted types of wildlife, especially frogs. The first to start their chorus are the green frogs, who we call the glunkers. They sound like they’re plucking banjo strings, or chuckling underwater…and tonight, they have started chuckling and glunking and gurgling their hallelujah chorus of spring for the first time. According to my journal, they’re about two weeks earlier than they’ve been the past few years, but we’ve had no snow or ice in the pond for several weeks.

The spring peepers can’t be far behind.

I hope I never get too old, too tired or too busy to rejoice in the sound of the frogs. Perfect night music.