A Flower Fix

Days like today—cold, wet, dreary, with a hint of snow mixed in to the rain—are the days that separate the true gardeners from the newbies, according to one nursery operator I frequent. She grinned when I strolled out of one of her greenhouses today, clutching a variety of annuals that I NEEDED.

Yes, needed. Other hardcore gardeners are smiling and nodding, because we know what that need is like, don’t we? We’re transfixed by the blue of a Loddon Loyalist Anchusa. We see that the yellow tree peony is well developed and has two flower buds forming nicely. We learn that the daylilies are fieldgrown from root divisions, not tissue culture, and that Destined to See is not expensive. We see annuals that we’ve never tried before. Our friendly neighbourhood nursery operator has overwintered the Silver Sand plant that we killed by forgetting to water it for three weeks. And so it goes…we come home with a trunkload of plants. Again.

Well. I was feeling a bit behind the eightball because some of my blogging friends have been putting up glorious photos of their gardens in bloom. Ours has lots of growth happening, (including the appearance of the yellow trillium, YIPPEE!) and some bulbs and early perennial blossoms, but by and large, we’re like the late-blooming cousin—we’re late blooming. So I’m presenting a modest show of flowers that I like, mostly annuals, that are waiting patiently in my living room to be put into container plantings and set out in the greenhouse to harden off. And as a bonus, I’ll explain why this plant attracts me so much.




Gerbera daisies: these are going outdoors as soon as it warms up, but meanwhile, they’ll entertain me here in my office. Their colours are so hard to describe sometimes, and so delicious…it’s hard to pick just one.



Lantana. It smells unpleasant. It’s toxic. And yet its flowers besot butterflies and hummingbirds alike. I love it because it comes in a range of colours, most of which start one colour and fade to another. That’s hard to tell with this yellow one, but I have a gorgeous red that is orange and yellow in the centre. Excellent in containers.



Salvia ‘Black and Blue’. This is a stunner. It really IS this blue—maybe even a little darker, as I had to use the flash indoors to take these photos—and the stems are black. The foliage is glossy, and it’s just a way cool annual.



Calocephaplus ‘Silver Sand’. I first saw this last spring and immediately had to have one. It’s a native of Tasmania and Australia, apparently, and also goes by Button Bush, and has small yellow flowers. I don’t care if it ever flowers—I just love its silver-green foliage. Last year it lived in a terracotta planter with Black Mondo Grass and a white flowered thunbergia, and more people asked if it was real. I’m going to look after it very, very carefully this winter!



Streptocarpus. Den Haan’s nursery in Middleton has a whole raft of these in jeweltones. I stopped dead when I saw them, and said to myself, “You can only have ONE!’ These deep, royal purple was the one that insisted it needed to come with me. Others pleaded, but I was firm.



Agastache: You have to love a plant called Hummingbird Mint, don’t you? I do. I’m especially besotted by the salmonorange-pink cultivar I overwintered (but it isn’t in flower yet) so I content myself with this one. Hummingbirds DO adore it—I have a number of these plants strategically placed around the garden, in planters and planted out. It makes me happy to smell it, too—lightly citrus and mint, sort of reminiscent of bee balm but lighter.



Agyranthemum. Daisies of all sorts delight me, but many of them verge on the ho-hum. Not this beauty. Your eyes do not deceive you—not only is it bicoloured, it’s stripy. Like a candycane. What could I do but pick it up? It’s a bit leggy, but I’ll whack it back after I use it in my talk tomorrow, and let it bush out some more.



Evolvolus. Blue Haze. Isn’t it sweet? Blue, blue flowers, the size of quarters, all summer. It’s a relative of morning glories, and a charmer—I found it two years ago and grow it indoors as well as out. Don’t let it dry out, because it sulks and wilts, but otherwise it’s a steadfast performer, and much beloved in my containers.



Calla. This is my first time growing calla lilies, and I’m going to put them in a container and see how they do. I may also add a ranunculus to the mix, just because I think the juxtaposition of foliage textures and flower complexity will be stunning.

Did I mention I’m going off on a jaunt tomorrow, too? Wonder what I’ll find that has to come home with me….

The top gardening aids I can’t be without

We all have things we can't possibly live without in our gardens. Here are some of my favourites, although with all the deadlines I have, there's not much time to use them right now....


A ho-mi digger. I wrote last year about my digger, purchased at Lee Valley Tools, and how it came to an unfortunate end when my longsuffering spouse ran over it. Being a good guy, he did succumb to my broad hints and purchased me a new one this spring. We’re going to paint its handle bright fluorescent blue or orange, so that I won’t lose it anywhere again.

Good garden gloves. My favourites were given to me by Wendy Rittenhouse, of the venerable garden supply company, two years ago at Canada Blooms. I still have them—both of them! They’re made by West County, and they’re excellent—still holding together nicely after nearly three garden seasons of hard, hard treatment. I’m going to order their waterproof ones now, as I’m so impressed with the quality.

Footwear. I’m hard on footwear in the garden, and while it’s a bit early and wet at times, my favourite shoes for the garden are my brilliant turquoise blue Crocs. Yup. After having them recommended to me a number of times by fellow gardeners, I tried em…and I love them. In fact, I regularly wash them and wear them out in public as comfortable footwear.

Seedling waterer: Another marvelous offering from the marvelous people at Lee Valley. When I use it in my talks, everyone has the same reaction…. “ooooooooo…gotta get one.” It’s a rubber bulb that holds only 12 ounces of water, and you squeeze gently to put the water out through a brass rose with fine misting abilities. Works beautifully on seedlings, doesn’t knock them down or overwater them. I wish the bulb was a bit bigger, but that’s only because I have a LOT of seedlings now. Excellent, must have tool.

Camper’s Edge: From the brilliant people at Trail Blazer Tools, this could be called the Gardener’s Edge too. It’s a combination of knife and saw, both of which fold politely into the handle. I started using this when I’m dividing perennials, because the saw cuts neatly through roots, and then the knife is perfect for dividing sections of perennials into smaller clumps. Trail Blazer makes a lot of awesome tools, and as I get to know the tools better, I’ll let you know more about the rest of them.

Seaboost. I know I’ve been talking about this for a few years. I’ll keep talking about it, too. It’s an awesome organic fertilizer, either liquid seaweed fertilizer or dried seaweed meal, and I use it ALL the time, indoors and out. The liquid can either be watered in or mixed into a spray bottle and used as a foliar feed. Joe also sells horticultural vinegar, neem oil and diatomaceous earth, all of which are ideal tools in the organic gardener’s problem solving arsenal.

Organic weedkilling brew. I forget where I learned about this, but it’s something I use all the time, especially in walkways or along the edges of gardens (where I want to kill off grass and weeds.) It’s a simple mixture to make, but as with chemical herbicides, bear in mind that it will kill ornamental plants as well as weeds, so be careful where you use it.

The recipe? Mix together one cup of salt into one gallon of vinegar and add a tablespoon of dish detergent or baby shampoo (I guess this acts as an emulsifier, but I’m no chemist). Pour or spray it on offending weeds in walkways, driveways, along edges of gardens, etc. A friend of mine used apple cider vinegar she got from a farmer, and sprayed half her yard with that and half with a glypsosate based weedkiller. The vinegared weeds were dying the next day, where glyphosate takes up to several weeks to do its thing.

Plants. Oh yes, plants. All kinds of them…

And what garden gear can YOU not possibly be without???

The freelance sailor sails again...

Gosh, I have to be one of the luckiest people around. I really LOVE what I do as a freelance writer. I get to tell stories about some truly interesting people, places, activities, and of course gardening and gardeners are included in that category. Today, however, while I am busy writing out some notes for an assignment, let me regale readers with my further adventures aboard the Canadian Coast Guard Ship Matthew. I arranged earlier in the week to go back aboard Matthew for a whole day, to trail along behind the hydrographers and other staff and the officers and crew, just observing how they go about their merry days, as I have assignment to write about their work. So I got the call first thing yesterday morning, and by 0830 I was at the wharf waiting for my taxi--the Fast Rescue Craft--to arrive and pick me up. The Matthew was waiting near the Split for us (out beyond the dancing water of the riptide, of course), and I was greeted by the chief scientist Mike Lamplugh and the captain Roy Lockyer. (Seen here with the quartermaster who is steering the vessel)


What a great day I had. I'm so fiercely proud of the men and women of both the Coast Guard (the real coast guard, the men and women who crew the ships, not the brass!) and the scientists who work with them; whether habitat biologists from Bedford Institute of Oceanography, or hydrographers from the Canadian Hydrographic Service, or geophysicists and others from the Geological Survey of Canada (Now part of NRCan) Lots of acronyms, of course!

The Matthew runs like a finely tuned machine; her officers and crew conduct this graceful choreography with the scientists conducting their research; the bridge officers hold the ship on a steady course while the multibeam arrays probes the bottom of the upper Bay of Fundy, scoping out the depths and the sea bottom's composition, all to create mindboggingly detailed maps and charts.

The engineers keep the ship, her engines, the launches and the FRC all humming and healthy, the deck crew operate the winches and such to deploy various pieces of way-cool science gear, the cooks feed us all like we're royalty (a good cook is worth his weight in gold on a ship, believe me, and the Matthew's cooks, Stephen & Greg, are outstanding! )

All this makes it possible for the team of researchers to do their thing; using state of the art, multi-million dollar equipment like the multibeam and a bank of computers and networks that would be the envy of most people, and the two launches, the Pipit and the Plover, that go in close to shore to scan the sea floor where Matthew cannot go...


Most of us have absolutely no inkling of an idea what our coast guard does, or what the scientists who explore our oceans do--as one scientist told me several years ago, "the sea floor is not made of concrete". It's alive and pulsating with various types of sand, silt, cobbles, gravel, and bedrock, and accordingly vast and wonderful types of ocean life; each with its own role to play in that 'circle of life'. And there are marvels and mysteries most of us will never see.

So the hydrographers and other scientists on Matthew do their work, and they create stunningly detailed high resolution pictures of the bottom with which they can create maps and charts for mariners and others to use--and to teach us more about the marvels that are the oceans surrounding our country.



I'm always a bit wistful to take my leave from a CCG ship, whether it's from a brief visit aboard the marvelous Matthew or from the incredible Hudson where I've spent weeks, or even after spending more than a week doing fisheries patrol and search and rescue aboard the good ship Cygnus...but as we raced away from the Matthew in the FRC last night, en route back to the wharf, I whispered a quiet "see you later" to the ship and her people...with any luck I'll sail with her again, maybe to the Labrador sometime soon...and then there's my quest to get aboard Sable Island...a story for another day.

Fair winds and following seas, folks...

Plant-lust in May

Four days of really warm, summery weather, and the gardens have exploded in earnest. On the Valley floor, Amelanchier has started flowering, with its lovely white blooms and coppery new foliage. We’re behind here, but the tulips have popped open in the last day or two, surrounded by seas of daffodils. These tulips are a species, I don’t remember which one without looking up. Aren’t they happy?

It’s always dangerous to go to garden centres at this time of year…plants beckon seductively to us, suggesting that we can’t possibly live without them in our gardens, and what are we to do with such tempting comments?

To be fair, it started out innocently, as these things always do, as a totally altruistic trip to Baldwin Nurseries to take some of last year’s big black pots down to Rob for his recycling pleasures. I also had planned to drop in and see my friend Catherine and then to finish out my jaunt with hubby’s truck by getting some bags of mushroom compost from the organic mushroom plant.

Well. Coming down the Mines Road towards Rob’s nursery, I met a tractor trailer coming UP the hill. Hmmmm. Whatever would a tractor trailer be doing out here? Especially one with a big shiny trailer, rather than a log loading boom and log trailer. Sure enough, when I pulled into the nursery, I saw them, lined up like leafy and flowery soldiers. A shipment of new stock. Shrubs—pieris, rhodos, japonica, flowering almond, some chamaecyparis…and oh my goodness, isn’t that a Betty magnolia? A whole slew of them?



Ulp. What’s a girl to do?

Yup.... Magnolia stellata Betty. It was love at first sight. And the price was excellent—Rob’s prices always are fair, and his quality awesome (I can say this because I don’t expect him to have time to read anything until about November, so he won’t get a swelled head…) so it was a case of “I need this and I’m having it and I don’t care if it’s in the inventory yet and can I lay it down in the back of the truck?”

Of course I brought one home. And have planted it already too. I haven’t yet planted the Acer japonicum seedlings he gave me to cold test, nor the Stained Glass hosta I also HAD to have…but Anne is in pride of place in the front garden, where she’ll get some protection from some of our winds. I resisted the flowering almond; AND the Cornus kousa AND the purple beech (til next time, when it and an Acer rubrum and a Quercus rubra (red maple and red oak, respectively) and a Japanese tamarack and whatever else catches my eye get in the truck bed.

After that it was off to see Catherine, where we lamented the appetites of deer-vermin, celebrated the efficacy of cider vinegar as a herbicide (with salt and detergent), conspired about plantings for the year…and Catherine had an extra Dorothy Perkins that was in the wrong spot and did I want to take it home with me?

Well, sure—Dorothy is a favourite in Nova Scotian rural gardens, and I didn’t have one. I had a rose that was supposedly Super Dorothy, but it had been on a rootstock, and after three years, I realized I was getting rootstock, some wild and not that interesting canes that never flowered, and out it went. Catherine and I both agree that buying bud-and-graft roses is essentially a waste of time in Nova Scotia’s climates, and roses grown on their own roots rule.

Gardeners have a love of sharing plants with other people. I have given away lots of extra perennial pieces for a plant sale coming up, and have started potting up some things to take to friends around the province next week. Including—don’t laugh—nettles. Yes, nettles. I’m very partial to them because they’re a larval food plant for the red emporer butterfly, and for other creatures too. Plus in the compost heap they’re highly nutritious. Another gardener who shares my enthusiams for nettles wrote to ask if I knew where in the city she might find some…so of course I volunteered to bring some in. Only those of us who really do appreciate native plants in all their myriad variety—well, okay most of their myriad variety—don’t get me started on buttercups or ground ivy!—understand the importance of having plants that others would call ‘weeds’ in our gardens.

Granted, Anne isn’t a native plant. I’m not a purist, because I’m too fickle hearted—I love plants of all kinds. I rationalize, however, as addicts do—sure Anne is native—somewhere, just not here!

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

This just in.....

I was up to my ears in dirt, grubbing happily away in the front garden, hauling out buttercups and talking to Tigger, when I heard a certain, distinctive sound.

Bzooom. Bzoom.

A big fat joyous bumblebee had trundled past me earlier in the afternoon, but this was a different sound.

And there he was...the first male hummingbird of the season. He stopped and hovered a few yards from my face, as if to say, "Well??? Where the heck IS it. I'm HUNGRY!"

I got two feeders out fast, and he has now forgiven me for being slow off the mark.

The swallows arrived back today, with a whirl and twitter and aerial ballet that made me flop back in the grass and grin in bliss.

Mind you...the blackflies also arrived tonight, at least one did, while I was tenderly tucking some Virginia bluebells into the shade garden, hauling out wood anemone by the rootfuls, and celebrating the profusion of red trillium--and the white is back!--all in this one happy locale.

It is a very good thing to have spring...even if it gets cool again, we know the good weather is coming.

Glimpses of spring

The weather has warmed up significantly in the Valley, and even up here it made it to 57 degrees F (it was near 80 in the Valley). Too windy for me to do much given my still crappy cold, but I puttered a bit and had a look at the growth happening. Some things I saw decidedly cheered me, starting with a burst of scilla.

The shrubs and trees are all nicely budding: in no particularly order, I saw nice new buds on the Amelanchier, (shadbush, chuckly pear, serviceberry), the Ilex verticillata (all three Canada Holly, whether male or female we don’t know yet), the Aronia melanocarpa (black chokeberry), the Katsura (Cercidiphyllum) both Chaenomeles shrubs (quince/japonica), the amur maple (Acer ginnala) and, to my husband’s great cheer, Crataegus ‘Paul’s Scarlet’ hawthorn. He was really worried about that young tree after the depredations of the white tussock moth last summer. I kept telling him that it would be fine. And it is, just as the horse chestnut and red buckeye, his two pride and joys, are doing. The wee Caragana, or Siberian pea shrub that I bought two years ago for three dollars at the high school yard sale has put on impressive growth, although it will need staking as it’s still sylphlike enough to lean hardover in some of our gentle gales of wind. The evergreens of various types are doing fine, a little windburn on a couple of them (no surprise there!) and they’re all such lovely colours right now.


And then there are the perennials. I’ve already exulted about one of the Meconopsis crowns. Well, turns out there are four crowns happening on that one plant, and another one nearby has at least two crowns. I discovered another plant tonight in another location, and THIS one surprised me, as I let it flower last year without disbudding it. Now, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether it’s the blue one or the purple one, because I can’t exactly remember which was where in that spot, and photos don’t help, as they were surrounded by a sea of blue corydalis. So we’ll wait and see what happens.

Some of the plants that have challenged me in the past cause amusement with other gardeners. Take geums, for example. They’ve given me fits over the years, but it’s because they need good drainage in the winter. What do you know but I got several of them through in my special bed for unique and problem child plants—and the two fascinating herbaceous potentillas: ‘Arc en Ciel’ and another one, I think it’s Fireball but not sure, also came through with flying colours. Also poking up through with intriguing red foliage is Polemonium ‘Stairway to Heaven’. I really like this plant. If it never flowered I wouldn’t care, so long as I could enjoy its foliage, which reminds me of a Nishiki willow; green and white tinged with pink on new growth. Delightful!

A number of red trillium are up, which initially surprised me, because it seemed early for their foliage to be poking up. Not sure about the white or yellow species yet, because…ahem…I’m not entirely sure where they are. Labels don’t always stay where they’re put, especially here where we have such freeze and thaw cycles and wet ground and so on. I have a general idea where they are, and it seems to me they’re also later than the red ones. Lots of plants are slow in the spruce shade garden, but they generally come along, from hostas to gentians to bloodroot to mayapples to a variety of ferns.

Another plant I was curious about is the golden Japanese forest grass, Hakonechloa ‘Aurea’. It’s come through with flying colours, which leads me to think I should try the all gold form this year too. Bromus ‘Skinner’s Gold’ is up and looking great, and so is the variegated yucca I planted in Marilyn’s memorial garden (for my son, who when he was a toddler gave ‘yuckies’ as kisses to his grandparents). The yucca is a bit windburnt but I probably pulled the mulch away from it too early. Some other grasses like Calamagrostis ‘Karl Foerster’are sending up shoots, but it’s plenty early for many of the later-flowering species, and I don’t worry about any of them except the Japanese blood grass, which may not have liked the winter wet. We’ll see. If it croaked…there are always other plants.

What’s NOT up yet are the new echinaceas, but I’m not worrying about them. A quick visit to the well established E. purpurea clumps shows that they’re not up either—they tend to be slow up here, so I’m not sounding any alarm bells. Daylilies are up, hostas are not, but the big filipendula is poking through and SO is the ornamental rhubarb I got last year in Shelburne at Spencer’s.

And now for something completely different...

The phone was flashing when I came downstairs this morning. I hit the voice mail, and heard the voice of one Richard Smith, captain of the Canadian Coast Guard ship Matthew. He and the Matthew and a team of scientists from NRCan and the Canadian Hydrographic Service were out in the Minas Channel, doing ocean floor mapping using some very cool equipment. They had to put a scientist ashore in Scotts Bay this afternoon, and did I want to come out for a few hours visit?

Did I? You bet. I’ve never sailed on the Matthew, but I’ve sailed with Capt. Smith when he had the Hudson and had a great time. The Matthew does hydrographic survey and oceanographic work all around Atlantic Canada (and is named after the ship John Cabot used to explore the new world back in 1497). No doubt Cabot would have been speechless at THIS Matthew, with her two huge diesel engines, her arrays of gear for surveying the sea bed, her radars and radios and computers…even the gear used to create fresh water from salt.

So I scooted down to the wharf after lunch, and pretty soon the Matthew’s Fast Rescue Craft (FRC) came rocketing in to pick me up. Kindly, they brought me both a mustang survival suit and a hard hat (de rigeur on FRC excursions), and after a brief pause to don the suit (best done laying down on the wharf—I wonder what the people up on the roadside thought of some strange woman wrestling into a brilliant orange suit?) I scrambled down the ladder and into the FRC, and we headed out to meet the Matthew.

Well. Have I mentioned that we live in the land of the world’s highest tides? Tides that thunder down through the Basin, around the basalt sea stacks of Cape Split at a speed of around 8 knots? With whirlpools and ‘dancing water’ and wild waves turning every which way in the strange currents. When my better half was a fisherman, I was out in his Cape Islander more than a few times experiencing the awesome power of the riptides. Today, we didn’t go through the rips, of course, not in a small zodiac with two 50 hp outboards—we went out around, and the crew handling the FRC did a brilliant job. It was fun—like riding a bucking horse, or whitewater rafting, or as I teasingly told Capt. Smith, like driving on the back roads of Hants County (where he hails from). We bounced across a few waves, but it was safe, and I just sat back on the bow seat and felt the water dance around us and was happy.

Three hours is too short a time to really get a sense of what scientists are doing, and these scientists are certainly at the top of their game. I’ll have to talk further with a couple of them to understand more about what they’re up to, but that’s fine. I know that ultimately they’ll create better, safer charts for fishermen and other ships, for pleasure boaters and more; and they’re also getting a better sense of the underwater habitats of all kinds of fish, shellfish and other creatures.

Everytime I go out on a ship, I realize just how much we all don’t know about the waters that cover so much of our earth—and that so many of us live near. With scientists such as these, we are learning a little more. The current team on board the Matthew are working in various spots around the Bay of Fundy, hopefully seaming together data from other sessions up in this area, to make a clearer picture. One scientist showed me scars on the ocean floor made by icebergs—over 10,000 years ago. And those scars are still there! Gives some sense of perspective to our own lives…and to what damage we humans might do to our oceans.

Headed back home in my water taxi after enjoying supper in the mess with Captain Smith, and at some point during the afternoon, the sun finally decided to come out and the wind calmed. There are two main water behaviours out around the Split--either dancing water or (excuse me, but this is the term) "flat-ass calm." That's how the waters were as we came past Cape Split, the tide seeping back out towards low water. It’s been a few years since I’ve been out by the Split from the water, so had to snap a few photos of it as we zipped by…

And then, to finish off what was a marvelous day…the hepaticas are finally in bloom. Only about a month behind other gardeners, and several weeks behind regular scheduling here, but hey…at least they’re out. Maybe spring has remembered us.

The presents (not presence) of spring

Cinco de Mayo, and you’d think that we’d be able to have some decent weather wouldn’t you? NOT. Another cold, dreary, wet, windy, dreary, depressingly unspringlike day here on the mountain—well, throughout the region, actually. It’s enough to make a person sneeze…yup. I made it through the winter without a cold. Made it through the winter without the flu, or Norwalk, or any of those other winter calamities. But now…I’m sneezing, sniffly, feverish and mopy. Oh well…maybe it’s a good thing that it IS cold and yucky out. No reason to go out grubbing in the garden, right?

Well…I have been out looking in the garden. Next posting I’ll do a bit of a report card on what’s growing on. But mostly I’m taking my comfort from visiting a couple of nurseries and picking up a few new plants to test out here. Taking photos in nurseries is a good way for me to remember what I saw where, and what I really CAN’T live without. Plus it brightens up blog entries on a cold May evening.

After the Saltscapes Expo, where Blomidon Nurseries did some plant décor, I KNEW I’d have to go get Juniperus horizontalis ‘Limeglow’. I was tempted by this low growing shrub last summer when it was radiant lime-green/gold at the nursery, but decided to wait. The Kingstec crew used it to great effect at their Wine and Trees event, and that further tempted me. So the other night when I was picking out presents for my mother’s birthday, I gave in and bought a Limeglow for the back evergreen garden. It’s three different colours right now, green, bronze-red and gold. Really. I’m not making this up. I’ll take a photo tomorrow and prove it. Meanwhile, go look at the entry in the Missouri Botanical Garden website to see for yourself. The photo isn’t great, but the description backs me up.

As readers of my newsletter know, I was visiting Briar Patch Farm and Nursery yesterday for the first time this season. This is a lovely nursery, a bit of a drive for me, so normally I combine it with doing several other things the same time. Lee and John have fascinating stock always, and it’s well worth spending an hour or more browsing through the greenhouses display areas and gardens (and stopping to ‘talk’ with the geese!) just to get a look at everything. A number of plants caught my eye; the Proven Winners Colour Choice shrub Coppertina really IS as copper coloured as the press hype makes it out to be. What is it about copper/bronze foliage that gets me? I don’t know, but I like it, so I’ll have to have it—soon as I figure out WHERE to put it, of course.

Two years ago Captain Dick Steele gave me a pieris to test in our garden. It might be getting a little too much shade, but it’s protected from the wind most of the time. I don’t think there will be flowers this year, so I may need to go back and get THIS beauty to go along with it.

Pieris Valley Fire. Oh, my. And it smells heavenly. Some people think pieris is overwhelming, but I find it intoxicatingly delightful. We always have a good mix of fragrant shrubs, perennials and annuals in our gardens, as I think that fragrance is a crucial part of gardening. And since pieris wafts its delightful scent at a time when a lot of other things aren’t yet blooming, it’s especially welcome.

When I was in Dartmouth at Lakeland Plant World on Tuesday, I spied several plants from my ‘must have these’ list. Several woodland phlox (Phlox divaricata), which I love for their luminous blue-mauve flowers and sweet fragrance wanted to come with me, and did. But what excited me most were three Euphorbia. ‘Efanthia’ is a Proven Winners variety and an amygdaloides variety with evergreen foliage. Excalibur has red-edged foliage and a striking pale yellow midrib through its leaves, and apparently has great fall colour. And then there’s ‘Bonfire’, which I’ve been obsessing over since I spied it—the foliage stays burgundy all summer, and there are these flaming yellow flowers and bracts to crown it.
It’s a type of polychroma or cushion spurge, so it will remain politely in place in the garden.

It seems that I’m a person of many contradictions. I love heritage plants—am growing a host of them from seed in the living room, including tomatoes!—but also embrace new and interesting hybrids. We have a nice collection of native plants on our property, but also try things that certainly aren’t native. From funky new euphorbias to oldfashioned pansies like the antique shades at the beginning of this entry, they brighten our days. That’s the wonder of gardening—there truly are plants for every taste, (especially for those with a multiplicity of tastes) and so we can all bloom where we’re planted—and grow things that bring us joy.

To my mind, that’s what gardening is all about.

Top garden centres in NS, repeat

If you're looking for that post on my favourite garden centres, it's back in April...but I'll repost the link here to keep it current. Am still building the master list, but it's slow going in between work that pays the bills.

Round two in the hollyhock challenge

It’s Monday evening and I’m actually glad that the weather continues to be grey and wet and generally April-like. Because after the weekend that was the 3rd annual Saltscapes Expo, I’m tired out. Been home for more than 24 hours and I’m still about as energetic as last year’s garden; sort of limp and unenthusiastic. The show was a tremendous success, I think, with great crowds, marvelous exhibitors, lots of interesting people to talk to…although I’m SURE I missed out on talking to some folks, because I couldn’t stay in one place all weekend. I mostly hung out around the Yamaha Do-It-Yourself stage, as promised, but there were breaks to go for meals or washroom breaks or to actually have a look around the show too.

We are very blessed with talent in Atlantic Canada. Never mind what ol’ squinty eyes Harper says about our culture of defeatism. He’s talking out of his butt, because he knows NOTHING about us. Some of the best of the best were at the Expo; marvelous chefs from hotels, restaurants and resorts around the region; artisans and craftspeople who do such marvelous, beautiful work that some of it left me speechless; musicians of every type, informative, knowledgeable speakers and just generally upbeat people all through the three day event.

Overall, the reports I heard from people, both visitors attending the show and exhibitors, was very positive. One thing bothers me, though. There are always a few exhibitors who are never satisfied, who carp and complain about every little thing, and grumble about not having enough sales or being too hot, too cold, too crowded, not crowded enough. These people tend to be seasoned individuals who have been going to shows of various sorts for years. Which always makes me wonder—if you dislike doing shows and dealing with people so much, why bother going?

Then there are the refreshing, upbeat, delightfully talented individuals I met this weekend. Two of my favourites are Jim Chadwick and Carrie Stroms from Metal Petals Garden Art . I’ve mentioned their business before (I just met Carrie on the weekend, though) and that I was looking forward to meeting them…and my goodness but I’m delighted with them. They are two very talented and innovative individuals, doing wonderful garden art from the crows, cats and dog silhouettes that they do to the flower sculptures, ranging from ‘crazy daisy’ style plants that are attractive accents to the big focal pieces like echinaceas, roses, poppies, and oh, yes, my absolute favourite piece.

You may remember my Troubles With Hollyhocks and how the floral fates conspire to prevent me from having most hollyhocks in general and yellow ones in particular. Well, I’ve solved that problem forever. Behold, the only hollyhock I’ll ever need, ever again:

It’s about four feet tall, and it’s the perfect plant. When I spied it, I had to have it. Didn’t ask how much it was. (Jim and Carrie’s prices are exceptionally reasonable, incidentally). They even brought it back to the stage where I was speaking all weekend so I used it as a prop in my talks, and hopefully brought them more business.

So my war with hollyhocks is over. But what do you bet I’ll have yellow hollyhock seedlings popping up everywhere, after throwing all those seeds around the garden last fall?

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!...she chortled in her joy!

We’re about to plunge headlong into the whirlwind of activity that is the third annual Saltscapes East Coast Expo. For those of you in Nova Scotia, or nearby—if you don’t come see the show, you’re missing a HUGE treat. What a LOT of exhibitors, many there for the first time, many of them related to gardening. I can’t wait to actually MEET James Chadwick of Metal Petals Garden Art, among other artisans, craftspeople, and so on. I’ll have to keep a tight rein on the grocery money, lest I succumb to one of James’ marvelous flowers…though it WOULD look marvelous in the back garden.

Of course I got to see my friends from Blomidon Nurseries, Bunchberry Nursery, Baldwin Nurseries and Springvale Nurseries, and met two interesting new growers from Foggy Hollow nursery in Noel, Hants County. Many people weren’t at the park when I arrived; the show doesn’t open until noon tomorrow, (Friday) and some exhibitors are old hands at coming in to do setup and going out to rest up for the next few days. It will be hectic, but it will be SO worth it!

I got back from Halifax about 1930, and thought I’d take a stroll around the garden, even though a chilly wind is blasting in off the Bay this evening. A few quick snapshots to show just where we are in the scheme of growing things.

First, a little tease: Who knows what these little furry brown things are? (No scrolling down to find the answers, either.)


Those of you who are ardent readers of Kate Smudges know she’s been rejoicing in hepaticas (liverworts) for quite a few days now. Well, I’m really happy about that, though I was somewhat in despair too, because my hepatica were buried in snow until a few days ago. However, to show how far my part of Nova Scotia is behind Kate’s Regina, Sask garden….

This would be one of MY hepatica. Patience, patience, jodi….

There are a happy host of crocus around the garden, and one dazzling yellow iris (Iris danfordiae, one of the miniature/dwarf iris like Iris reticulata, though not as reliably hardy in my garden.). The chionodoxa are popping up nicely, I spied one scilla straggling out from under some mulch, and the puschkinia are definitely happening—plus more (single) snowdrops and some snowflakes, too (Leucojum). And the perennials are popping up where welcome sunlight and warmth is smiling on them. In fact, as soon as the snow came off the pulmonaria, it obligingly shook its leaves and started opening flower buds. Still small, yet, but coming along nicely.

Have you figured out yet what that funny looking plant is? Patience, gentle readers…

A couple of interesting things to tell you about. I had an email from a gentleman from Hants county the other day, telling me about his family business, Lavender Grange. Since lavender is one of my favourite scents/plants, I was excited to read about this. THEN yesterday, in Wolfville, I found some of Rob and Annette’s products; I bought the shampoo and body lotion. Well…they’re going to do SO well with these products. They’re gorgeous—richly brimming with lavender essential oils, lovely quality, no dyes, and wonderful tasteful labeling. I can’t wait to go visit a little later this spring, and to try more of their products.

You’re going to hear me talking about another company now and again, too. I’ve taken on a project as a field consultant for Trail Blazer Products of Dartmouth. Trail Blazer is maybe best known for their outdoor equipment, such as their famous takedown saw…but they’ve developed a whole line of gardening tools too; very high quality, well made, and with a lifetime guarantee! (Though if my longsuffering spouse ran over the cultivator with the tractor lawnmower, I wonder if they’d consider that a valid reason for replacement?) Anyway, I’m going to be fieldtesting their gear in my garden, and letting you know more about it in the coming weeks. I’m really impressed by the company’s integrity and commitment to quality products—and they’re local, proudly Nova Scotian, but selling in 40 countries around the world. Pretty exciting stuff.

Okay…I’ve teased you long enough. Here’s a bit of a hint…


Yup. It’s true. That’s the young growth of a Meconopsis (I think this is grandis rather than betonicifolia, but both are glorious.) In other words…one of my blue poppies is awake—it’s in the warmest site of the four different spots where I’ve got blue poppies happening. Those three furry little creatures are all part of one plant, and this is a very good thing. Some blue poppies are prone to monocarpic behaviour, meaning they flower and die, especially if they only have one crown. I let one plant bloom last year with only one crown formed, just to see whether it would come back or not. This one, I bit my lip and disbudded. The purple Meconopsis, I let flower too, (and I forget its variation) and while I’m not sure, it looks like either seedlings or the crown is awaking from THAT spot.

So, my dear friends who are coaxing/nurturing/bribing/pleading with blue poppies: take courage. All good things come to those who are patient with these lovely, sometimes cantankerous plants.

And I heard spring peepers earlier this evening, and had a purple finch at the feeder this morning. Spring HAS returned to Scotts Bay.

See you at the Expo!

How to Celebrate Earth Day

How did YOU celebrate Earth Day? We declared a mental health day, and made a road trip across the province and down the south shore in our trusty Yaris. First stop: Ivan Higgins’ nursery, Cosby’s Garden Centre, in Liverpool. Ivan’s had a busy winter, teaching classes, doing commissions, and for the garden centre’s evergrowing display of his artwork, creating a whole series of concrete sculptures, including a set of acrobats—lifesized acrobats, a la Cirque du soleil.

Of course, a trip to Ivan’s means a chance to find a plant that absolutely HAS to come home with me…in this case, it was Hamamelis ‘Diane’; she nestled quietly in the back seat of the car as polite as could be.

Next stop: The Port l’Hebert Pocket Wilderness, owned and maintained by Bowater Mersey, or whatever the company is called these days. Anyway, the pocket wilderness is one of our favourite spots in the province, with wonderful walking trails through pristine hardwoods, along the shore and up to a placid brook. We were hoping that mayflowers would be in bloom, but they’re not quite ready—seems everything in the province, even on the milder south shore, is behind this spring.

Note to flower lovers: PLEASE don’t ravage wildflower plots, especially of lovely and not-that common plants like our provincial flower. It drives me nuts to see people selling bouquets of mayflowers every spring—huge bouquets, which have been pillaged and ravaged from wild stands of these plants. Take photos of them, smell them, enjoy them…and leave them alone for future generations to enjoy, okay?

Next stop was Shelburne, and a quick tour around Spencer’s Garden Centre. A few small perennials needed to get in the trunk of the car, of course. (Blue flower lovers, rejoice: I picked up two Lithadora ‘Grace Ward’, which has lovely blue flowers. We have to treat them as annuals in these parts, of course.

Then it was on to Barrington, Clarks Harbour (Cape Sable Island, home of the famous Cape Island lobster boats—best lobster boats in the world!) and then to stop and take photos of the wind turbines at Pubnico Point…

And the last stop on our Earth Day festival was at Ouestville Perennials, where Mick the cat greeted us at the cash…

And Alice and I had a fine old chat as I drooled over her plants, while Lowell and Julien talked about more manly type obsessions. We’re going to get a couple of her red oaks in about a month’s time. One I’ll plant in memory of Lowell’s cousin Lawrence, who died a couple of weeks ago. The other, I think I’ll plant for all our young soldiers serving in Afghanistan—especially those who have paid the ultimate price.

Now, if only we could get rid of that asinine fool who is the so-called minister of the Environment, and all the others like him who are trying to say Kyoto is a bad thing… (I don't know, maybe we could send them all to Tralfamadore, Kurt Vonnegut's planet of many dimensions... this lot of what one author calls Deniers and Delayers (of global warming) are obviously from another dimension!) maybe our Earth would start to heal. and we could make the spaceship out of Hummer/SUV parts, and fuel it with the hot air out of all these non-green politicos. It's a good thought...

One Week to Expo, and Spring may be coming

This time next week, we'll be well and truly into the thick of the Saltscapes East Coast Expo, which runs April 27-29 If you're in the province--or even in one of the neigbouring provinces--do come by. This show is like nothing else in Eastern Canada, and it's way, way more fun/interesting/informative than any of those dull trade shows where people stand around like robots trying to sell us plastic siding or carpet or overpriced RVs to add to global warming.

All this is to say, I'm going to be madly busy preparing for the show, where I hope to see many of you and swap gardening stories. I'm doing two talks a day, one on growing annuals etc from seed, and one on shade gardening. So my postings to bloomingwriter may be a bit erratic until the show is over.

For now, I'll leave you with a bit of a photo essay, starting with a view of the Valley

A few miles from our place, there's a spot aptly called the Lookoff. I'm not sure how far you can see from here, but I know we can view three counties: Hants, Kings and Annapolis--and maybe, if we hang over the edge a bit, Cumberland county too. But that's probably better done from Blomidon.

The Valley is the agricultural heartland of Nova Scotia; a lot of horticulture, from blueberries to cranberries to tree fruits to a wide range of vegetables; beef, chicken, eggs, poultry, some dairy; Right now, the view from the Lookoff is all in shades of brown, as the sleeping land stretches under a warming sun and prepares to start feeding new life.


I went to visit my friend Rob Baldwin in Falmouth this afternoon, and bring him some milkweed seeds. Rob's into butterfly gardening too, and has selected perennials for his nursery based in part on their usefulness as a butterfly plant. He took me into his new propagating greenhouse, where we rejoiced over germinating Japanese maples...


Then watched a host of bees and flies stuffing themselves on the crocus and heath,

and just generally remarked on the marvels of plants, wild and cultivated.

On the drive home, I was looking at assorted yards quilted with scilla and crocus in bloom. This was on the Valley floor, where there is usually less snow, and decidedly warmer temperatures. But then I arrived home, and my long suffering spouse told me I should go for a walk around the nonsquishy parts of the garden.

Well. The snowdrops are quite happily recovered, and flowering joyfully. A few new, single ones have popped up in another bed, and the crocus are tentatively thinking it might be safe to open. The yard is sodden, and there's still close to a foot of snow in some spots; but I figure that will be gone by tomorrow night.

And then this little fellow looked up at me.

Pushkinia. I love their blue and white striped blooms, their brave attitude. They're slow to form colonies (or maybe I dig them up unknowingly...it's been done!
Maybe spring hasn't forgotten us. But until I hear the green frog chorus in the pond, pluckin' their banjos and singing silly frogsongs...I won't feel we've turned the corner.

And the peepers will be right after that.

Bring it on, spring. We're more than ready.

April showers bring...dreams of better days

Good grief. It’s raining again—but it is so raw outdoors I expect it to turn to freezing rain or worse any time now. The cats and I think we’d best spend the day hugging the stove, so most of us are in the kitchen doing just that.

Yesterday, there was sunlight, and enough warmth that the tide of snow subsided a bit more in the yard. But there’s still plenty to go around…


Although the dear little snowdrops have reemerged, looking a bit bedraggled and wan after an unexpected snooze of a week, but they’re here and they’re valiantly smiling.




Of course, the weather is a perfect topic of discussion among strangers waiting in checkout lineups, at the credit union, just about anywhere you see more than one person. We are reminding each other that it IS, after all, only April, and a Nova Scotian April is one of the most treacherous of creatures, right up there with neocon prime ministers who bully and go back on their word. (Oooops. That was a mini-rant of the political ilk. Must be the weather causing it. That man and his band of pirates are another major topic of conversation among thinking Canadians these days.)

On to better things, as the title suggests. I was looking through some of my photographs last night, selecting a few new ones to update my work website, and I found one that explains a little about where we live. I’ve mentioned Cape Split before, which is the promontory that terminates the North Mountain, a few miles down the hill from here. The Split thrusts out into the Minas channel in a curve like an appendix on the western side of Nova Scotia (if you look at a map of the province.) There are a number of basalt sea stacks that form the Split, broken off from the end of the cliff and catching the whirlpools and eddies of tide with great drama.

From our yard, we can only see Little Split, the end of the sea stacks; but we can watch the tide roaring through the channel, and around the end of the Split. The tide routinely screams through there at 8 knots, and it does make a distinctive roaring sound. Some call it “The Voice of the Moon”, and I have always thought that was the perfect description.

All that water—and all the fog, wind and other weather related to living on the edge of the Bay of Fundy—are partly responsible for our weather, as I’ve remarked before. But the cooler temperatures allow me to have my blessed blue poppies, and also bring on great gardens when the time comes. And the time will come, before too much longer. Last year, things came on a bit early after the weather smartened up in mid-May. They also last longer—this photo was taken on the first of June, and the double-flowered tulips were just nicely in bloom.


So I breathe deeply when I hear the wind screaming, and ice pellets—yes, they ARE pellets now—hitting the windows. Before long, we will be tending our gardens in earnest, even though on days like this we await that time more eagerly than children await Christmas morning.

Next entry, I’ll go back to my top ten (or so) perennials, and regale you with the wonders of sea holly.

A further weathersnit and wild gardening

Well. What’s a gardener to do, other than mutter? Thursday was a glorious day—sunny, warm, not even that windy. I went to Dartmouth to meet with some work and personal associates, and sat on the wharf eating lunch, feeling warm sun on my face and figuring that maybe, just maybe…we’d broken the back of the weather.

Not so. Woke up in the middle of the night to hear ICE pellets hitting the window. Staggered downstairs and looked out—at another few inches of snow, and then this glazing of ice over top. Returned to bed, hauled covers over head, and grumped my way into sleep.

Today it’s sunny for the first time since Thursday, and I don’t know whether to be glad or worry about what comes next. However..I’m watching goldfinches stuff themselves at the feeders outside the office window. They are definitely turning gold from the tarnished-grey-green they’ve been all winter. And where the ground is emerging from melting snow, it has that lovely warming-earth scent. We’ll be okay.

I’ve got bees and other pollinators on the brain this week, as the stories we’ve been hearing about honeybees with colony collapse disorder has got me thinking about ways to create pollinator-friendly gardens. Ours is such a one, we hope, and I asked my friend and wild gardener Wild Flora for her wisdom and suggestions, which she’s generously been sharing with me—and with readers of her blog. So I’ll be writing an article about how to encourage pollinators to the garden very soon.

I often wonder what visitors to our garden think. Last year when we were part of a garden tour fundraiser for a local youth group, I was away (tee hee! It wasn’t intentional—I agreed to be part of the tour then discovered I had to be in St. John’s Nfld that weekend.) As a result I didn’t get to trail around and listen to what people thought of our yard. Martha-Stewart-perfect, it ain’t. Far from it, actually. It’s a work in progress, and some of the progress is very incomplete, so there are beds that are partially planted, others in need of thinning, borders that need edging, more things to plant, beds to join with other beds (to make mowing the grass easier for my beloved longsuffering spouse, of course). The ground is uneven in places, in part because our property is at the crest of a hill and slopes to the north. It’s wet in spots, especially after a rain. It’s not a formal garden, but one of jubilant growth.

And oh my…there are wild areas that are never touched. There are grasses growing 5 and 6 feet tall. There are NETTLES over by the spruce tree hedge that we’re slowly developing. There are THISTLES—all kinds of them—down by the pond, which is full of cattails and edged by some alders and willows and reeds and who knows what other wild stuff. Can’t you just hear some of the perfect-subdivision-patch gardeners? “Whyever would she have THOSE growing there?” “Why doesn’t she spray those?”

The answer is simple, dear friends and gentle gardeners. This is a haven for most all creatures great and small. (except raccoons and coyotes. I don’t like either of them, but we manage.) The cattails filter the pond, shelter wildfowl and frogs and other welcome visitors, and look really nice with redwinged blackbirds sitting on them. Alders filter impurities from groundwater, if there happen to be any impurities (including pesticides) around. Nettles are a food plant for the red admiral butterfly. Thistles feed many small seedeating birds. The tall grasses shelter a host of other things. The burdocks…well, they sneak in. We’re working on getting rid of them, but hey, those big tap roots are very efficient at loosening compacted soil. Likewise with dandelions.

Of course, there are plants that I don’t welcome in the garden. Horsetails are a bit annoying, and creeping buttercups, and ground ivy, and couchgrass. Those would be the worst nuisances. But I happen to like sitting on the ground on a warm day, digging up weed plants and throwing them on the lawn to wilt (and drive my dearly beloved crazy!) before I dump them in the compost heap. I love that we have a full orchestration of insect, bird and frogsong happening here throughout the growing season. We love sitting on the deck out back watching butterflies flit through the yard and pasture, or the swallows teaching their babies to fly. We enjoy the vast variety of plants, both cultivated and native that surround us. And we count our blessings daily.

I always write my articles encouragingly, urging people to bloom where they’re planted, and to plant what gives them joy. I don’t nag excessively about growing organically, even though I think it’s an infinitely more responsible, healthy and wise choice than dumping a gazillion chemicals onto lawn, garden, shrubs and trees. So with that in mind, I tell people: welcome to our yard. It isn’t something you’ll find in the pages of Gardening Life. But it’s happy, it’s ours, and if it’s not to your tastes…no worries here. We love it. ☺

A book of blue flowers

While we wait for the snow to melt—and it is melting, though perhaps not as rapidly as we’d like—I take great comfort in reading the blogs of other garden-obsessed individuals. There are some wonderful blogs out in the blogosphere, and some marvelous writers, whose prose lifts my soul, makes me laugh, moves me to tears, teaches me all kinds of things…so in honour of those talented individuals, I’ve created a separate set of links for the blogs I love. I hope you’ll visit them all. Like snowflakes, kittens or wildflowers, no two are exactly alike, but each has their charm. Who knows how many of these souls I’ll ever get the pleasure of meeting face to face—we’re flung across this country, and our southern neighbour, like dandelion fluff? But across the miles, we connect and share our gardening victories, challenges, puzzles and solutions.

This morning, following a comment on one blog, I ended up at Our Little Acre, written by Kylee in northwest Ohio. She’s about to embark on adventures with the exalted diva of the garden, Meconopsis betonicifolia. Blue poppies. Yup. Been there, done that, continue to do it, always will, so I share her enthusiasms.

What IS it about blue flowers? I mean truly blue flowers, not flowers that are violet but called blue, or lavender, or mauve, or otherwise not-blue? No slight to them, but those of us who crave blue in our garden get absolutely giddy when confronted with it. Perhaps because, relatively speaking, blue flowers are rare—consider the quest for the blue rose, as nebulous a challenge as finding the fountain of youth. Compared to other colours, it’s not widespread throughout the plant kingdom. And of the families where blue flowers are found, many of the genera are less than easy to grow in any climate.

Consider delphinium. Those tall, statuesque beauties do have some lovely blue cultivars, but can be a challenge to grow in warmer climates. We do fine with them, but invariably when they and the peonies are in bloom, we get clobbered with a real good summer storm that does its best to beat them down. One way to get around that is to grow the Chinese delphinium. They aren’t tall, and their flower spikes aren’t as showy, but they are blue and they won’t break off in a rainstorm.

Likewise, Lithodora is one of those plants with lovely, cobalt blue flowers and deep green leaves; but it’s only hardy to about zone 6a, or 5b if you’re very lucky and have good drainage and protection from winter cold and wet. Happily, it’s not expensive, so my philosophy the past several years has been to purchase a couple plants and treat them as annuals, either planted in the garden or in containers.

Gentians are sometimes tricky, although of the few I’ve tried, we’ve had pretty good success. To be honest, we probably would have had more success in years gone by if I’d realized what was coming up WAS a gentian, and not a weed. They tend to do fine here because they are slow to emerge in spring, and by the time they do decide to come up, the weather has gotten halfway sensible and not so apt to kill more tender perennials. I’m going to try several different ones this year; my favourite for ease and showyness is the willow gentian, Gentiana asclepiadea; it has never faltered since first being planted some years ago.

Those blue poppies..well, I’ve told my tale of woe about them in the past, but we’ve gotten a few established now so we’re blessed with a few stunning blue flowers each year. Last year, I also got a cultivar that has purple flowers, almost the colour of Patty’s Plum poppy. Quite lovely, especially since it was planted near a variegated Japanese Forest grass and the electric blue corydalis, C. elata (hardier and more consistant a performer here than C. flexuousa. And fragrant too.)

In the annual world, there are several blue flowers that I can’t be without. One is the dainty blue woodruff, never a showy performer but a dainty and steadfast one. Another is the Chinese Forget me not, which I understand can be an overachiever in some parts of North America, but has only selfseeded occasionally and a little here. California bluebells, Phacelia sp., are gorgeous gentian-blue beauties that I’m growing from seed this year for the first time; and some of the trailing and upright lobelia make me very happy. Heavenly Blue Morning Glories also make me wander around with a beatific smile on my face.

But my favourite blue annual, hands down, is the delightfully named Poor-man’s lookingglass, Anagallis, or blue pimpernel. I first saw it in a book a few years back, then got one plant somewhere—I forget where. Then I discovered how easy it comes from seed. It’s a sprawling plant, somewhat messy in containers but because of that deep, gorgeous, intoxicating blue. The flowers close up in cloudy or rainy weather, hence the common name. There’s a cultivar called ‘Skylover’ that I love just for its name, but there are also two ‘Wildcat’ cultivars that are wonderful. ‘Wildcat Blue’ is the rich cobalt blue, while the other is ‘Wildcat Orange’. They look terrific together. I’m serious. Colour theory isn’t my thing, but blue and orange are opposite one another on the colour wheel, so they make a striking study in contrasts. This year I plan to sow orange California poppies with the anagallis, just to make my heart glad.


There actually IS A Book of Blue Flowers, written by Robert Geneve and published by Timber Press, that oh-so-wonderful publishing house for all things horticultural. I bought the book earlier this year—yes, dear readers, bought it rather than requesting it as a review copy—because I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to review it, but knew it needed to be in my library. I highly recommend it as a reference book for those who share my love of blue garden flowers. There are well over 100 species/cultivars listed, along with cultivation notes, so that any of us can grow blue flowers, regardless of where we live. True blue forever…