Spring's Shy Entrance

Wouldn't you know it? Here I am, buried in work and fighting off this durned ol' infection, and spring has decided to not only find us, but to hang around for a few days. This is the third sunny and mild day in a row, and you can hear the land and its life yawning, stretching and looking around. "Well! That sun sure feels warm, and the wind isn't blasting in...Maybe it IS time to get going with the season!" I haven't been outside yet today, but my LSS gleefully told me earlier this morning that I'd have to go outside just to walk around when it gets warmer.


When I was at NSAC on Saturday, I took a stroll down to The Rock Garden, which in my mind is the most wonderful public garden in Nova Scotia. Even on a dreary, cold day, with no sunlight in sight and a chill mist dripping on me, it was still wonderful to amble through the paths, pausing to look down at alpines clinging to stone, managing despite the day's dreariness to show bursts of colour.


This Hamamelis 'Jelena' isn't fully open yet, so it's hard to see the subtleties of colour in its wonderful flowers. But the vibrant fragrance was there, and that was enough to cause me to smile.
Spring's unfolding is a little like the Rock Garden's plants: a bit subtle at first glance. You need to take your time in an alpine garden, because many of the plants are small, short, evolved that way after millions of years of hanging on to whispers of soil in clefts of rocks on cliffs and mountains. Yet pause and study a sempervivum's complexities, or the delicate gradations of colour in leaves, or the stunning beauty of a mass of saxifrage blooms, and you catch the joy of these plants.


This saxifrage caught my eye from across the garden. Because (as with so many public gardens, as many of us have ranted before) so many people help themselves to plant labels (and plants!), there are few labels in the garden, so I can't tell you what species or cv this might be. All I know is that the saxifrages in MY garden don't turn this colour, so this is a WANT plant. Bernard Jackson will know--he's the man who designed and built this garden, and also was the first botanist and gardener at the MUN Botanical Gardens in St. John's, Nfld. We've very lucky to have him in Nova Scotia--he's a lovely man, very wise and generous and gracious too. This year I will get to his own garden--he's invited me in the past and last year just didn't work for us.


If spring unfurled all at once in a blast of colour and fragrance and sound, maybe I wouldn't cherish each plant's awakening as much as I do. There were certainly outbursts of colour at the AC, such as in the heath gardens behind the Hort building, but even without flowers, heaths and heathers are some of my favourite plants because of the glory of their winter display.

More to come, when I take my camera for a walk around the yard. I know we're not out of the weather-woods yet. But isn't it funny how a few mild, sunny days erase the scars of winter from our souls so quickly?

The Lost has been Found!

With apologies to Lewis Carroll, Oh frabjuos day! Callooh, callay, she chortled in her joy. After all that waiting, and fretting, and longing (and even threats to post a Lost and Found ad on Craigslist)...spring has decided that yes, she DOES remember where Scotts Bay is. This afternoon, the temperature got up to 62 degrees F here at our place (especially out of the wind). The glacier is melting with great enthusiasm, and suddenly, as LSS told me yesterday, there are sprouts of green growing things everywhere.

Despite not feeling real well, as I try to dodge another bout of diverticulitis, I did go outside and work for two whole hours, cutting down dead stocks of perennials, raking gravel off beds (where LSS dumped it when plowing the massive drifts of snow we did have over the winter), trimming a few shrubs, and even pulling some perennial weeds (ground ivy, willow herb, couchgrass and chickweeds). And I WAS amazed at how, despite the snow and wind and cold and snow and--well, you know what we've endured this winter--the perennials are poking up through quite nicely. Shoots of new growth included

Euphorbia griffithii 'Fireglow' (looks like orange asparagus shoots)
Euphorbia cyparissias (both regular species and 'Fens Ruby')
Eryngium planum (flat sea holly)
assorted rudbeckias
assorted Papaver orientalis (Patty's Plum, among others!)
Gernanium macrorrhizum (pink and white)
Various sedums

There was probably a lot more, but I didn't explore too closely. In keeping with my determination not to get overwhelmed with all the tasks that need doing, I am sticking to the mantra of 'One Bed at a Time' as I clean up and study what needs moving, dividing, and so on. Please remind me of that when I DO invariably get overwhelmed, okay?


I know I left some of you hanging when I hinted at new plant purchase yesterday while in Truro. So without further ado....look what happened! It SPOKE to me, pleading to be brought home and rescued from the cold unfeeling staff at the big store, and the customers who don't know the difference between live and plastic plants. So what could I do?


This phalaenopsis was unlabeled as to cultivar, but it's green or greenish yellow, depending on how the light hits it. It'll keep my other two company just fine, I'm sure.


In other news, thanks for your good wishes and support of our decision to keep Rescue Kitty. He's gaining weight and isn't dehydrated now, he's using the litterbox though he has to remember about covering things, and while he's still in seclusion, I hope sometime this week to let him out more into the rest of the house. He's still very thin and quite weak so I don't want him to argue with one of the other catchildren and get hurt. He's a funny boy, very loving but also talks and mutters a lot, and his little feet seem to hurt him. He probably traveled a long way before finding our barn; his pads do look worn but his nails, though short, aren't worn off. I'm slowly working at getting the tangles from his coat, and he IS definitely a handsome boy. And I think his name is Dexter, but I'll let you know when he tells me for sure.

The Master Gardener from Sweden

Peter Korn can’t get too much sleep during the gardening months. He puts in fifteen hour days on a regular basis at his garden in Eskilsby, Sweden, about 30 km east of Goteborg. But then, he has a LOT of garden to work in--and is increasing the plantings every year.

Peter has been on tour in North America under sponsorship by the North American Rock Garden Society (NARGS). Because the Nova Scotia Rock Garden club is an affiliate of NARGS, the club could get Peter’s visit to our fair province covered by NARGS sponsorship. A few days ago he spoke to the Atlantic Rhododendron & Horticultural Society in Halifax, where he was also a great hit.

For about 90 minutes this youthful, exhuberant gardening enthusiast showed us slides of his garden, which is only a few years old. His first garden, which he built over a few years at another house, no longer exists, bulldozed by the buyer of that house. But Peter is a philosophical type of gardener, who simply took all his plants (before they were bulldozed) and moved to the home of his new wife. On five acres (2 hectares) of what was “a green wall” of spruce forest, Peter has created a stunning vista of scree, desert, ‘cliffs’, and filled his property with thousands of plants, including many, many alpines from all over the world.

Peter propagates his own plants from seed and cuttings, (several thousand different SPECIES each year) and he’s certainly a patient gardener. He has had seeds that have taken years to germinate; I guess those of us who get impatient when something hasn’t germinated after a few weeks have a lot to learn about just relaxing and letting nature take her course.

His brother is a cyclist and botanist who travels all over the world on his bicycle, and collects seeds which he sends back to Peter. Stellan (I think that's his brother's name--his website is in Swedish, not a language I know any words in) travels with a GPS so when he collects seeds for Peter, he takes a reading so that Peter will know EXACTLY where the plant was growing.

I’ve never seen such a diverse collection of plants; many of the genera are familiar, but species I’d never heard of. The most intriguing thing we learned today is how Peter grows many of these plants in pure, coarse, sand. He piles heaps of coarse sand on top of grassy areas (not removing the sod) and then plants his alpines directly into this (shaking the soil from their pots off before he plants them). He then covers the sand with scree, or gravel, which helps to keep the sand in place. He waters once, and then, that’s it—the plants are on their own. There’s minimal weeding to do because the sand isn’t a desireable germinating medium for many non-alpine plants, and the alpines are provided that perfect drainage that they crave.

Some of his plants don’t live. Peter is philosophical about this; he’ll try again with some, or simply plant something else. That’s a good healthy philosophy to have!


As part of his presentation, Peter brought a small container of the sand he uses in his gardens. Running my fingers through it, I wondered if this is as close as I’ll ever get to Sweden. I hope not. Now that I’ve met Peter and seen his talk (these photos are from his website, with his permission), I need to add another garden to the gardens of the world I’d really LOVE to see.

It wasn’t Austin, to be sure. But it was an enjoyable, illuminating day. And I shan't tell you what followed me home from a department store I went into for cat food. Not another cat, to be sure. Something a little more stationary.

Photos, from top: Meconopsis rudis; Penstemon pulchellum; Calceolaria uniflora; Fritillaria pudica.

Listening, Looking, and Longing for Spring

Oh, tulips...I remember what tulips look like...when we used to have spring...
Permit me a little blogger-envy, gentle readers. I would have loved to join the bloggers spring fling this weekend in Austin TX, hosted by the amazing Austin gardeners; Zanthan Gardens' M. Sinclair Stevens; Bonnie at Kiss of Sun, Diana of Sharing Nature’s Garden; Digging’s Pam Penick, and many other talents. The closest I’ll get to Texas any time soon was today, when I spoke to a veternarian in Weatherford for a story I’m doing about a horse…

However, this weekend I am going to Truro, to my alma mater, the Nova Scotia Agricultural College, to hear Swedish garden designer Peter Korn give a presentation on Rock Garden My Way.

Mind you, the AC Rock Garden won't be looking quite like it does in summer, and Truro isn’t Austin, but I’ll be among the company of other plant addicts, and that’s always worth a lot. On my way to Truro and while I’m there, I’ll be looking for signs of spring while probably dodging snowflurries and other meteorological insults.

Speaking of spring…it’s no wonder I’m getting antsy, because I’ve had a look back at notes and articles and journal entries for previous springs, and things ARE very slow. Normally by this time of year, we’ve heard the banjo-tuning songs of the green frogs in our pond. This year, the pond is still frozen. While the early spring birds are here, they look less than happy, trying to navigate across the grass in galeforce winds, poking at frozen ground in hopes of finding a tasty worm or other dinner entrée. Any frogs are still buried in mud; we don’t have spring peepers so much as we have peepsicles. The only sounds I’ve heard the past couple of days have been galeforce winds; so bad this afternoon that one of the Halifax bridges was closed to high-sided vehicles, while the waters of Scotts Bay were roiled, angry and decidedly turbulent.

Nothing like spring about any of this. While the snow has mostly melted from much of the area, we still have vestigial glaciers in parts of our back yard, and frozen mud in the pasture which really annoys the horse. So I’m not the only irritable one. But my irritation is tinged with worry. Where the heck has spring gone? Should we run an advert in the personals? Or on Craigslist?

“Missing since 21 June, 2007: SPRING in Nova Scotia. Description: Fair skies, gentle breezes, plants popping into bloom, warm temperatures and happy gardeners. Suspected caught in the hot air out of Parliament Hill in Ottawa, and blown to the south. Would the finder please redirect this gentle season to get its butt down to Atlantic Canada (and other parts of Canada and the northern US) before a shortage of dark chocolate and orchids causes a recession.”

Well…though I can't be with them, I really do hope all the Spring Flingers have a terrific time in Austin and send some spring warmth back this way. Or else I’ll need to succumb to more orchids. For now I’ll cuddle Mr. Rescue Kitty and wait for him to tell us his name.

The Rescue Story continues--(was NOT an April Fool Story)

Happy News! My veterinarian tested our rescue kitty for both FLV and FIV (Leukemia and feline Aids) and he was negative on both counts. So I've brought him home to feed him up and work on getting his coat unmatted, and we expect to be able to get him vaccinated and neutered within a few weeks, as soon as he's strong enough to stand the anaesthetic and innoculations. He's about a year old and will probably be a big handsome kitty when he's fed up--he's part Maine Coon, apparently, and he's definitely a sweetie. The rest of the catchildren are still pouting, but they'll handle it. Thank you to all of you for your good thoughts and support. We don't know his name yet but I expect he'll let us know in the next week or so. We'll keep you posted on his improvements.

Yesterday afternoon my Longsuffering Spouse burst into the house, calling for me to come and get my boots on and come out to the barn. I thought that Leggo had gotten into trouble, or Jenny had tried to teleport to Mars, or something equally upsetting. But no. Look what we found in a little nest of hay under the ladder to the haymow.

I'm always suspicious of cats outside, because they're usually wild as hawks. But when we spoke to this little fellow, he spoke back and came right out from underneath the ladder. LSS picked him up.

"oh good god almighty honey....he's starving. He's nothing but bones! Get him something to eat!" His voice trembled in rage and grief.

My LSS is a retired lobster fisherman, as I've said before. He can pick up a 250 pound lobster trap (they have to ballast them up here because of the tide) and toss it like a stone. He manhandles huge chunks of logs onto the woodsplitter, and while he's a bit heavy, he has muscles in places a lot of us don't even have places. I call him my chunk of North Mountain granite--solid, strong, steadfast.

He's also a complete mushball, where cats are concerned. We went through this a few years ago, when he came home with a little cat who looked amazingly like this one, only a grey tabby rather than brown. She was starving at a house down in the Bay, a castoff from somewhere, and the homeowner wouldn't feed her. So LSS bundled her in the truck, brought her home, handed her to me and said, tears in his eyes and voice choked up, "I couldn't leave her there to starve, darling..." Well, of course not!

Currently, the stranger is in seclusion in the kitty isolation ward. He's eaten and drunk, let me brush him and determine that he IS a male--a complete one, but very immature--and let me tangle some of the burdocks and hay and hairballs out of his fluffy coat. His tail is enormous in size, fluffy as all get out, and it and his head are the biggest things on him. The rest of him is just bones, hair...

...and purr. And talk! He's another talker. I just spent an hour with him snuggling him down. In the morning, I'll take him to our vet to be tested for feline leukemia and if he's negative, we'll get his boosters and set a date for neutering, and he'll be integrated into the family. If he's positive...but I'm hopeful that he's negative. I think he's young enough that he could still be carrying immunity from his mother. Other than being desperately thin, he appears healthy; strong gums and teeth, bright eyes, no discharges, no sign of fleas.

But what set me into rage was when he went to the litter box, and did his business. Not to be gross, but what he put in the box was full of...bird seed. Not bird feathers, bones, or anything like that. Bird SEED. He must have been eating what was on the ground outside under the main feeder. And he's so friendly...he isn't a kitten that's always been wild. He was someone's pet, til someone got tired of him.

Meanwhile, the rest of the catchildren are doing the eggshell walk, tiptoeing up to the door to look into the ward at the stranger, and a couple of them have made noises that sound like a cross between a vacuum cleaner and a fire siren. Spunky came in here, jumped up on the desk and lay down on my bluetooth keyboard, frowning at me, while others have been racing around the house acting like they'd seen ghosts. But they'll get over it. And hopefully in a day or two they'll all be racing around the house together.

Somebody tell me there IS kitty karma out there, and that the person who jettisoned this little fellow will face retribution. There MUST be kitty karma...the little guy did know where to go.

So it might not be a kitten. But like my buddy and enabler Kylee...and Yolanda...and any other who wouldn't turn away a starving creature...what else could I do?

Une Poisson d'Avril for Garden Bloggers Muse Day

We all know how TS Eliot begins his monumental poem The Waste Land; even those who don’t know the poem (or understand it, and don’t worry if you don’t!) know these oft quoted words:

April is the cruelest month, breeding
lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory and desire, stirring
dull roots with spring rain.

Given that we’ve all had a long, tiresome winter (some of us longer and more tiresome than others) but that we’ve finally made it out of Farch, I thought about rewriting Eliot’s poem. However, it is 434 lines long, an astonishing miasma of satire, allusions, prophesy, wistfulness and dread.

While words do come easily to me, especially when galloping on about plants or cats or books or gardens, I don’t feel quite up to that monumental a task.

So instead, submitted for your consideration, gentle readers, my offering for Garden Bloggers Muse Day, and also the day of Poisson d’Avril:

April is the foolish month, breeding
cattle out of great pumpkins, mixing
skunk cabbages and Indian artifacts, stirring
Daffogerbera roots with endless rain.

Happy Muse Day, all...if you want me, I'll be bottling up the latest precipitation and getting ready to sell it as blue poppy fertilizer.

Bouquets of Heartfelt thanks and Lambish Weather

Listen... Can you hear that?

Exactly so. There's little or no wind. What a concept!

We're having an actual spring-like day today for the last day of Farch, so I'm hoping that this seemingly endless period will go out like a new spring lamb. The snow is gently melting, evaporating rather than just running off everywhere, as the temperature isn't that warm, but the milky sunlight and patchwork sky is promising something else for precipitation in the coming hours. I know that one brief respite does not spring make, and that we're apt to have a session of Farchpril before Nature throws up her hands and lets us have real spring. But I'll take each softer day as a real gift. Just as I take the privilege of reading other blogs, and having you read mine, as a real gift.

It's always hard to know how many people come back to read comments after they've commented, and some posts generate a lot of comments, which as others have observed, can take time to reply to. Because I'm pressed for time right now with assorted deadlines and plenty of research to do, I decided to make a brief post taking off my gardening hat to everyone who visits here, to all whose blogs I cherish and read, to friends across the miles, most of whom I may not ever get to meet.

To answer questions asked in comments: the handsome kitty in the previous post is owned by very nice people who have a large workshop where my longsuffering spouse is working on rebuilding his Cape Islander boat. Tigger Ells is a rescue cat who is neutered, needled and much loved, and he LOVES to hang out in the workshop 'helping' hubby. So though he's gorgeous and adorable, he has a great home...but I have a feeling that one of these days I'm going to go into our no-kill shelter and have a look. The last time I did that, I came home with Mungus...

How lucky we are--blessed, some would say--to be able to play in this great medium of the Internet, to celebrate and rant and teach and learn and just be. At least, that's my feeling. My son and I were talking a week or two back about how we are actually net-veterans, having gotten online first with Bulletin Board systems, then with the early days of the Worldwide Web, back in 93 and 94. We never would have dreamed of blogs, or iPods, or lightning fast computers--my first colour computer, bought in 1994, had a 25 mhz chip in it and 4 MG of RAM, which was pretty speedy at the time.

I've said before that I'm a glass half-full kind of person, and firmly believe in encouraging and helping others. I'm deeply touched by the caring I see, both in comments posted here and on the dozens (possibly hundreds--I don't dare count, now!) of other blogs I read on a regular basis. I take great delight in the varied textures and personalities of the blogs and bloggers; like snowflakes, no two are alike, but each one is perfect in its unique tone and texture. Each one enriches me, whether the writer is talking about something blooming in the garden, trying out a hobby, tempting me to try a new recipe, or having a good chortle or rant over something that's tickled them.


I've shown this photo before, but today, I offer it as a bouquet of appreciation to each of you; the rainbow for hope and peace, and the 1st place ribbon beside it, (no, this isn't my arrangement, I'm hopeless at such things!) to show you that you're all stars in my heart. Thank you to each of you for what you do, and for the sharing and caring you give to others, most of whom are perfect strangers--myself included--across the miles.

Namaste, friends.

It's Kylee's fault...she said I could!

It's been one of those weeks around here at Sunflower Hill, as the weather tries to play coy with us. And I confess to some decidedly moody moments this week, ranging from angry to discouraged to just plain sad.

Angry because of a new 'gardening blog' that basically wants to take advantage of others' work with no benefit to the participants who join the 'team'. I'm not going to post the link because they'll get no free promotion from me.

Discouraged because winter seems never ending. We got another six inches of snow yesterday, as did some of you in the US and points further west in Canada--talk about being weather-bludgeoned.

And sad because today should have been my parents' 50th anniversary. Would have been, had my father not been taken from us nearly three years ago by Alzheimers Disease.

Normally I'm a glass half-full kind of girl, rather than glass half-empty...but these things have been bothering me. So when the going gets tough, what does the tough do?

Go looking at plants, of course. In this case, the orchids I've been thinking about for the past week or so, ever since I saw a nice collection of phalaenopsis in a farm market/nursery just after St. Patrick's Day. Just walking in the greenhouse, listening to the fountain splashing and the birds chirping and smellng hyacinths and daffs and soaking in the smell of green, growing plants is enough to raise my spirits.

Just why is this Kylee's fault?


Weeeeellllllll....she did a delightful post just yesterday about how we all know that she loves cats and plants. And she was faced with temptation: to choose a pretty cat that has been hanging around her place, or a pretty new orchid she's been thinking about getting. She asked which we thought she had chosen, and many of us, knowing and loving our friend as we do, said, "Both of them, of course!"

And I confessed to having had visions of a new phalaenopsis in my house. And she said

Go ahead, Jodi. You know you want to, and I'm giving you permission. :-)

So I did.

It was hard making a decision for just one; several of the unusual ones had me REALLY tempted, but the greenhouse at this market isn't really designed to be holding plants this early in temperatures this cool. While there is heat in there, some plants are showing signs of distress, and are getting overwatered, over fed, etc to try to snap them out of it. Which we know won't work, so it really was my duty to rescue this beauty, wasn't it?

Now, I realize that in Kylee's case, she opted for both choices, and she did give me permission to do so too. But I avoided our kitty shelter today, just to be on the safe side. When I went down to the barn where my longsuffering spouse is working on his boat, I met this handsome, charming fellow, who LSS has been telling me about for weeks. And it was all I could do not to pick him up and bring him home. Newly neutered, sweet tempered, purrs as soon as you touch him, wants to be held all the time, and a 'talker' too.

I think his parents would object; and I know our catchildren would. So I resisted temptation, halfway, anyway.

This must qualify me for that second orchid, right?

Our provincial flower: The Mayflower

Larry over at Growing Up suggested that maybe bloggers would like to take part in writing a meme about their provincial, state, or national flower. He kicked off the meme with a nice post about the provincial flower of Saskatchewan (that's one of our Canadian provinces, for those of you from other parts of the world). Since it's snowing here yet again, I thought this would be a perfect project to embark upon, and hope you'll all join in too.


Nova Scotia's provincial flower is the trailing arbutus, more commonly known as the mayflower. A member of the Ericaceae or heath family, its botanical name is Epigaea repens, and it's related to such popular plants as blueberries and cranberries (Vaccinium, various species), rhododendrons and azaleas (Rhododendron), Bog rosemary (Andromeda), and wintergreen (Gaultheria), not to mention of course heaths and heathers (Erica & Calluna). Ericaceous plants like acid soil, which is commonly found throughout much of Atlantic Canada, and certainly here in Nova Scotia. Mayflower is a subshrub, creeping along the ground in woodlands, (both conifer and hardwood), with woody stems and leathery, hairy leaves. Apparently it ranges as far west as Saskatchewan, and as far south as Florida, although it is sparse in many regions and listed as endangered or vulnerable in several American states.


Although we call it mayflower, it usually starts blooming in April here in NS, although bloom time can vary from one county to the next. I have seen it as early as March on the south shore, but around my county it's usually mid-to-late April before the flowers come along. Flower colour can be white, tinged with pink, or very pink, and the flowers are edible too. The fragrance is wonderful, sweet without being cloying, and it too varies in strength, possibly connected to the type of soil where it's found growing.


Despite being related to all those ericaceous cousins mentioned above that we do use in gardening, the slow-growing trailing arbutus doesn't like to be transplanted, and I do not know of anyone who has it growing in their garden, nor any reputable nursery around here that offers it for sale. I've never tried it, because though our soil is acidic, it's also clayey and mayflowers demand humus-rich sandy soil that drains well, preferably around oaks or pines. To me it's a plant to enjoy where it's growing in its natural habitat, to visit and smell and photograph and cherish--and leave ALONE. At one time, mayflowers came close to being exterminated in the New England states because greedy street vendors would tear the plants up to sell posies of flowers. The mayflower is also the state flower of Massachusetts, where apparently it's illegal to pick the plants. We may need to enact similar legislation here, because I've seen people selling bundles of mayflowers in the spring at farmers' markets, and this means that wild patches are being seriously damaged.

So there's a little look at a darling of spring woodlands, Nova Scotia's provincial flower, the trailing arbutus or mayflower. Maybe within a month or so I'll have photos from this year's flowers. As I've said before...hope springs eternal, even though it's snowing again.

Spring limps slowly towards Nova Scotia

Contrary to the suspicions of those of us who don't lean towards the current provincial government, spring in my fair province hasn't been cut due to budgetary restraints. It's just taking its own sweet time to reach us. Maybe it decided to linger longer in the gardens of some of my blogging friends and comrades, painting their gardens in swaths of freshest green, spangling flowers here and there in lovely flourishes. I know that spring, like a shy maiden, has been playing coy with Layanee, who also is longing for the season to really begin; with Dirty Knees, who claims to be jealous because some of our southerly neighbours are bragging of daffodils while DK can only post photos of last year's flowers due to snow still covering the garden; John at WiseAcre Gardens is experiencing similar snowy gardens, since winter doesn't seem to realize that its best before date has long passed, and so should it.


I sympathize, truly I do. But there is hope that spring is trying to put in an appearance here. Look what I found a couple of days ago (Easter Monday, to be exact); these brave little double Galanthus are scarcely an inch tall but already opening their bundles of delightful joy to the sun. When the sun manages to bludgeon its way through the clouds, that is.

In looking back through previous years, the snowdrops' emergence is right on schedule--that is, in spots where there's no snow. A stroll around our place shows the yard and garden at its very worst, with perennial stalks needing to be cut down and removed to the compost heap, great patches of snow still lingering a foot or more deep in some spots, and the grassy parts of the yard as frost-heaved and hillocky as to resemble a miniature version of Gros Morne. The pond is still full of ice, so no frogs are tuning up their banjos just yet, but the redwing males are calling for females to come-and-greet, come-and-greet, from their sentinel positions on cattail stalks. Yesterday I watched skeins of Canada geese winging their way in from the north and landing in the fields and dykelands around the Habitant river in Canning. To some they may be a nuisance, but they're one of my definite signs of spring's return. In the autumn, their cries sound mournful--in spring, they sound jubilant, even while landing in a snow squall!


We're still weeks from the arrival of the hummingbirds, but in about three weeks time I'll start putting out the feeders in case any early arrivals get blown in by the gentle spring zephyrs that blast in off the mighty Fundy, bless its gorgeous but cold heart. That's part of the reason for our cold springs, being as we have these huge bodies of water almost completely circling our province. Were it not for the isthmus of Chignecto that connects us to New Brunswick, we'd be another island province.

One of the beauties of keeping a blog over several years is that I can quickly find out what was happening at this time in previous years. We have had more snow this winter than last, and I don't think that's a bad thing--except I worry for those areas of Canada and the US that got way more than usual and are subject to flooding. Here's hoping that the snow leaves gradually--I know that you're all impatient for spring, as am I, but we'd like it to gently unfurl, not wash everything away in a torrent of meltwater and rain.

Hope does spring eternal, just like the seasons, in the gardener's heart. Little things like the less-tarnishe plumage of the goldfinches, the profuse shedding of my hairy mudball horse, the swelling of twig buds and the brightening of willow bark, all remind me that the seasons will change, even if slowly. And last night, leaving yoga class in Kingsport, I caught a scent on the air that I hadn't smelled in many months. You all know that scent--the indescribably sweet, (to gardeners) rich, inviting fragrance of the land warming up.

It's coming, friends. Just three months ago, we were recuperating from the indulgences of Christmas. In another three months, we'll be grumbling about too many weeds, hot sunny days, an excess of garden to-dos...but we'll be grinning while we do this, won't we? And long before that, we'll feel the reality of spring energy all around us.

Hang in there, fellow gardeners. We'll make it.

No snackin' on the plants: Cats, toxic plants, and Juno

Would this innocent little face chew on a plant? Well, yes--hopefully, only a non-toxic one.

A couple of times in the past few days, I’ve been prompted to make a note to myself about cats and plants. The first prompt came when I saw Joy’s delightful post about her cat Sophie and the artificial plants she likes to chew on. The second prompt came when a commentor asked if I keep most of my plants in the office, or how do I keep the cats from dining on them. So I figured it was time to return to plant-related posts, before I dive back into the deadline dance tomorrow in my “real” writing world.

I’ve written articles about toxic plants before, for a variety of publications, including a horse magazine, a popular consumer magazine, and a pet magazine. So each piece had a particular angle, of course. Because we have 8 cat-children in the house, and no dogs or small kids or other creatures, I can only talk about cats (and equines) and plant toxicity—and for the purpose of this posting, I’m just going to focus on houseplants and cats.

For those of you who are dog-people, probably most of the plant concerns are similar, but I’m not a veterinarian and not totally versed in this. The main thing for all pet owners to remember, in case of potential pet poisoning from chewing on a plant, is to immediately consult your vet—and take a sample of the plant with you when you go to the clinic, if you don’t know the plant species. Write down the number of your local poison control, or of the ASPCA or SPCA poison control, and keep it where you keep other important numbers. Just in case.

As you know, we have a fully-stocked family of felines, all of whom share the house with us. I’m also a compulsive gardener, both indoors and out. In all the years I’ve been owned by cats, I’ve had to go to the vet exactly once with a case of suspected poisoning from a plant: and that was when Thistle chewed on poinsettia leaves quite a few years ago. At that time, a lot of the literature said that poinsettias would kill children, pets, and other creatures, but the fact is, the sap of the bracts and leaves DOES irritate and can cause stomach upset and irritation in the mouth, but there have been no documented cases of death to a cat from poinsettia poisoning.

That’s not to say that the cats don’t enjoy nibbling on plant leaves! They do, and they also seem to know what they should leave alone and what’s tasty to them (unlike a lot of dogs, which will eat darn near anything, in my experience.) The very naughty Spunky Boomerang, who has never gone outdoors since he was rescued as a wee small kitten, has a thing for plumbago, pruning mine down to a six inch plant before I realized he’d discovered it and moved it again. Plumbago isn’t toxic, and interestingly, he and his cohorts leave alone the amaryllis, which IS toxic. They also don’t bother the large plants in the living room—the jade tree, the Norfolk Island Pine, the succulents and cacti. They’d get at the African violets if they could reach them, I daresay—and saintpaulias are not toxic to them—but I keep their furry little bodies away from my furry-leafed little friends. Cyclamen are toxic, as is crown-of-thorns and azalea, so these all live in my office, where the door is shut when I’m not in; the plants are out of reach, and I do have faith that the cats know what they can dine on, but I’d rather be safe than have a veterinary bill.

You can provide plant matter for your cats, often in the form of catgrass, or catnip; ours love catgrass and I have several pots of it in various stages of growth all the time. Catnip causes a riot as we have at least one hardcore catnip junkie, so growing it indoors just isn’t possible (they’d scale anything to get to it, I’ve discovered.) They also are fond of spider plants, of which I now have none, and true ferns—Boston fern etc, NOT asparagus ‘fern’, which is a member of the lily family and toxic to cats.

That reminds me: both the ASPCA and the SPCA warn cat owners that many species of lilies (including Easter Lilies) are highly toxic, even deadly, to cats, causing kidney failure.

So, how do you know if your plants are toxic to felines or not? What do you do if concerned that Mr. Fluffy or Ms Kitty has chewed on a plant? There are some excellent resources on the Internet, and I’ll list just a few here:

Cat Fanciers Association has an excellent section on poisons and cats, including a long list of plants that are toxic to one degree or another. They also thoughtfully provide a significant list of plants that AREN'T toxic.


The Canadian Poisonous Plants Information System is a thorough resource, not focusing only on cats, but on plants that are toxic in general, at all levels. It also provides both common and botanical names, which is invaluable in narrowing down possible identifications of poisonous plants.

One of my favourite sites for accurate information is Cornell University, and their Poisonous Plants Information Database is easy to use and thoroughly informative.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has its own Animal Poison Control Centre and website, as well as a phone number for consulting: be aware that while the call is an 888 number, you may be charged a consultation fee for calling. They have a nice article on seventeen common poisonous plants on their site, and you may be surprised by a few of the species listed.


I'd rather have cream, please, than ol' plants!

Finally, for the catlovers among us, I found out today about an interesting little blog based in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, which has no pet shelter at this time. A member of the local SPCA took an abandoned, pregnant cat into foster care several weeks ago, and the cat, named Juno, (after the movie by the same name starring Nova Scotia actor Ellen Page), had her kittens a week ago. Juno has her own blog, where we can follow the growth of the kittens and her adventures with them. It infuriates me that someone would abandon a young and pregnant cat in winter, but my cat-hat is off to Lynda for fostering Juno and her babies until they can be adopted out to good homes. When I win the lottery, my plan is to sponsor a local vet to do free spay-and-neuter clinics for the feral cats around my county, plus for anyone who can't afford the fees for neutering. Mind you, I have to win the lottery first.

Increase Your Blog Appeal #3: Drawing the numbers & Housekeeping

Let’s do the housekeeping first: heartfelt thanks to all of you for your comments, suggestions, and feedback. I finally got Blogger to let me in to edit my site (ever since I upgraded Safari it’s been problematic to access the site editing options) so was able to change my background colour and darken the text font. As I said in a comment, it’s easy to change the font size of a blog I’m reading, as an Apple user. We use Apple/Command and + or – to increase or decrease the size of something we’re reading, and there are also buttons in some programs. Unfortunately, because I don’t use a PC, I don’t know what the equivalent command is, but in Firefox, for example, you should be able go to the menu under View: Text: and find the command to increase or decrease text size.

Xris, the affable Flatbush Gardener, also told us about improving blog usability with expandable post summaries (thanks and a tip of the ol’ gardening hat to you). He also mentioned sites that will analyse your website performance and make recommendations. I confess to being essentially a luddite about web-based things—I’m a writer, a quasi-professional photographer, and a rank amateur about web-based design etc, so a lot of this has been utterly new to me—and slightly scarey, too, being new! So once again, a tip of the hat to Xris for sharing these tidbits of info.

So, you’ve done all these things and you’re perhaps wondering about increased readership? I know some people don’t care how many readers they get, but others do. After all, we’re putting our thoughts out there for the world to see, and we want people to see them, right? For whatever reasons. I do my blog in part as a way to give back to the gardening community at large that I learn so much from, and to promote local nurseries and other topics of interest, plus to promote other bloggers that I enjoy. I call it gardening karma, and prefer to be positive and encouraging, except, of course, when growling about the weather, which we all do on occasion, but especially we who are Canadians—it’s a national pastime for us.


Networking: I can’t stress this enough. Read other blogs, but most importantly, leave comments. Comments are the blossoms in a blogger’s existence, even though we sometimes have to put up the word verification exercises to keep out spambots that want to take over the known universe. Take the time to say, “hello, I was here, loved your blog”, and you’ll find the recipient comes to visit—and leaves comments—and before long, you’re back and forth like old friends. My days wouldn’t be complete without regular visits to a number of blogs I especially love, quite frankly. There’s not always time to leave comments, of course, and sometimes, for reasons only known to the blogging sites, it’s a challenge to do so.

RSS feeds: I confess to not being able to explain this real well, but others certain can and have. Having a feed that people can subscribe to lets your fans know exactly when you’ve written a new post, and in some cases emails it to them directly. You can use any number of methods to burn a feed. I use FeedBurner . There are numerous feed readers for every webbrowser too, if you prefer to read your blogs right in the browser.

Get Involved with Blotanical. I’ve extolled the virtues of Blotanical before, and will continue to do so, because it’s an awesome resource for finding new blogs, tracking posts, getting to meet other bloggers, and simply having fun with garden blogging. Yes, you can collect points, (which sadly, aren’t redeemable for mixers or earrings or more plants), but it’s for fun, and I’ve met so many new (to me) bloggers as a result of my activities with Blotanical. Like anything, the more you put in, the more benefits you get out, so if you don’t sign in, send notes, visit other blogs, or otherwise get involved, you won’t see any increase in traffic. But I’ve been tracking my stats for almost a year now, and they have increased significantly by being involved with Blotanical.

One thing I'd really like to encourage: if you're involved in Blotanical, either as a blogger or a non-blogging member (or just visiting) take a page out of Carolyn's book and go visit Blogger # 300--or 200, or 176--in the top 300. Carolyn says it best, but I'll summarize and suggest that you do explore new-to-you blogs whenever you have time and inclination; whether via Blotanical, or via people's lists of blogs on their websites. You'll find an amazing, rich and terrific world of gardeners out there, all crazy about "this thing of ours" called gardening--and garden-blogging.

Answer Your Comments: If you love to get comments, then reply to them, and see how many more you get because you do give feedback. It amazes me that some so-called professional writers find it beneath themselves to respond to comments on their blogs. Others are far more generous and their comments in return are just as interesting as the posts. I cherish each comment I receive (except the spam ones) and do try to answer quickly, but sometimes fall behind. Some bloggers choose to answer comments by going to the commenter’s blog and posting a comment in reply, and that’s a nice idea too. And some have figured out how to answer each comment directly underneath, in italics--perhaps this is a feature of Wordpress or Typepad, because I can't find it in Blogger. Anyone?

Blogging Awards. Some think these are silly, or a waste of time, but I think they’re great fun. What better recognition than to be accoladed by fellow gardeners and bloggers? Some of the awards are memes, where you are awarded a particular accolade and then spread the joy forward—and I confess I was awarded two during a recent busy period of my life and lost the messages as well as neglecting to play them forward, for which I apologize profusely! One really neat set of awards is Colleen’s Mouse and Trowel awards, where you get to nominate, then vote for, your favourite blogs in a whole fine host of categories. So this is a shoutout to Colleen for all the work she’s put into those, and an encouragement to readers to get involved and nominate your favourites in the next couple of weeks.

The most important thing to remember about blogging? It’s all meant to be fun and a pleasure, not a set of tasks. In that way, it’s like gardening, so I’ll wrap this up with a paragraph from a gardening column I wrote early in the year:

• Most Importantly: Stress-less gardening. Repeat after me: gardening is not rocket science. We are gardening for the pleasures of it, not to stress ourselves with growing longer beans than the guy down the road, or perfect roses that are the envy of the neighbourhood, aren’t we? We garden for the exercise, not to wear ourselves out until we hurt all over, but there are things we can do to make it easier for those who are older or dealing with illness or injury. The main thing is to give ourselves permission to not get it all done perfectly.

Just substitute “blogging” for “gardening” and remember not to stress or worry—just enjoy blogging, as I enjoy reading all of you! ☺

A picture’s worth a thousand words: Increasing Your Blog Appeal, Part 2

From the feedback I’ve been getting, these posts are being useful to some bloggers, and that’s great. The only thing I want to stress is that nothing here is meant to be taken as criticism, merely as observation and suggestion.

Appearances are important with blogging. Most of us know of blogs we read in part because they are simply so beautiful to look at, with clean, interesting design, good use of photographs, and of course, good articles. What’s appealing to look at? Here are some pointers.

Limit the posts on your front page. If every post you wrote for the month of February loads when someone clicks on your site, some visitors are very unlikely to stay. For example, although we have highspeed, it’s sometimes a bit erratic due to our location and our provider’s business having grown faster than anticipated, and our speed drops to nearly that of dialup. For those on dialup, loading a page that is full of posts, each full of photos, is nearly impossible. In Blogger, you can adjust how many posts appear on your front page, and I’m sure it’s the same for other blogging sites. Likewise, if you post archives on the side of your blog, people can easily find earlier posts they may have missed or want to revisit. Personally, I limit my blog’s front page to 3 days worth of posts, which is normally 3 posts, though occasionally—like now—I’ll do more than one post in the span of a day.

Photo use: Photos are the eyecandy that can catch a reader’s attention, and if a fine photo or seven is backed up by interesting text, you’ve got a winner. Just bear in mind to scale your photos so they aren’t too large. Most people know this, but it’s really frustrating for someone on dialup to arrive at a favourite blog only to find dozens of images, each more than several hundred K in size, all of which take time to load. You don’t need to set your photos at more than 72 dpi for computer screen resolution, and a few inches wide and high will give perfectly fine photos at sizes that aren’t unwieldy.

Blog appearance. I love that so many of us are customizing our blog templates and making them totally unique. Two things to check: that whatever colour of text you’re using works on the background colour without causing eyestrain, and that your wallpaper is tasteful but doesn’t offend the eyes. There’s one blog I’ve stopped reading because the background pattern and colour combination literally makes my head hurt, and it’s a pity because it’s a nice blog.

Advertisements: I don’t mind a few Google ads or other ads that are related to gardening, but if a site is so packed with ads that I can’t find the actual post, I don’t go back. Plus I avoid blogs that are blatantly commercial, encouraging you to make money from some homebased MLM or hyping a score of products they’ve probably never seen. From years of reading, however, I confess to having an interesting talent—the ability to read around advertisements and be completely oblivious to them, whether in magazines, newspapers, or websites. I could go to any site right now and read a post, be able to say what it was about and what the photos were—but not what any ads were about. I do post reviews of books and tools that I can recommend, and so do others, and I really appreciate those who review items in a balanced way.

Accessories: Personally—and I stress this is my personal taste—I don’t care for music, dancing babies, flashing gifs, or most videos on blogs. When I’m reading blogs, I can actually switch from my usual music for working—Chopin, Bach, or Mozart, as a rule—to the more contemporary stuff I’ve loaded from my cd collection into iTunes. And strangely, audio files of birds twittering or the computer equivalent of Muzak clash rather strongly with Sonata Arctica, Steve Earle, Damien Rice or Within Temptation. (Yes, I am that eclectic). Videos don’t bother me as much—I like webcam feeds of birds, etc—but I have to switch browsers to look at them, as currently one browser is having a tantrum about some video files, and I suspect this is a problem for others too. Plus these can eat up bandwidth, and as noted before, the whole world isn’t on broadband/highspeed internet yet.

One Important Caveat: This comes from an associate of mine in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police: have a care just how much personal information you put in your blog. We hear warnings to be careful of what we post on sites like Facebook, but my associate reminded me about blogging, as did a discussion with a friend who is also a credit union manager. As sad as it is, there are unscrupulous people out there with nothing better to do than prey on good people.

Next time: How about those numbers?

Increasing your Blog Appeal, Part 1: Worthy Words

This being the Easter weekend, which we don’t particularly observe (but we wish those who do a most joyous Easter!), I’ve designated it a time of non-work. Can’t do anything outside (it’s snowing again, giggle giggle—might as well laugh, right?) to catch up on blog reading, as well as other reading done purely for the joy of it, but also thought I’d batch-answer some emails that I have answered privately but which other bloggers may find useful too.

“How do I improve my visitor numbers?” “What makes for a popular blog?” “Can you tell me why I don’t have more readers?” “What’s for supper?” These are questions that I get asked on a regular basis from fellow garden bloggers. Well, okay, except for the last one. That’s from my longsuffering spouse, and the answer is sometimes, “whatever you’re making”; depending, of course, on whether I’m on deadline.

What we like in other gardening blogs is as individual as what we like in our gardens, of course. I can tell you what works for me, both as a writer and as a reader of a LOT of gardening blogs—something like two hundred of them, now, and thanks to Blotanical, probably even more than that. I’ve stopped counting, actually. Rather than overwhelm you by putting all the information in one post, I’ve broken it into three parts for easier reading.

Write well. You don’t have to be a paid, professional writer to write well, as there are dozens of excellent blogs out there written by people who simply have a passion for gardening and for the written word. I love blogs that use humour while they’re also being informative, but I also just enjoy information that’s presented with style, passion, and clarity. I personally prefer posts with some detail rather than the quickie posts of a few sentences that are just done for the sake of posting. Those look obvious to me, and probably to others too. I certainly don’t care if a blogger goes off-topic from gardening, either, although if it’s a topic about which I have no interest, I just skip til next time. Again, it’s each to their own tastes.

One tip I’ll share that I always tell my writing students: go easy on the exclamation points (marks) in your writing. We all use them from time to time, of course, and that’s fine— an occasional ! draws attention to something you want to stress. I tell students that exclamation points are rather like swearing or salt; they season an article if used lightly, but too many tend to overwhelm, distract, and annoy the reader. One of my clients insisted that it was his ‘personal style’ to use two or three !!! in ever sentence in his newsletters and his website, and I finally got through to him by reading his newsletter back to him, shouting at the end of every sentence. He got the point—and removed some of the points. It’s the same with using emoticons or acronyms like ☺ or LOL: too many are distracting, the occasional use tends to highlight a point and cause us to smile, too.

Use titles for your posts. These can be simple “Better Blogging” or humourous “Rabbit Wars: My Rules of Engagement” or very informative Good Friday- “Legend of the Dogwood”, but they’re an important way to catch readers’ attention. If they’re too long, they tend to be distracting but worse is no title at all, because it doesn’t give any indication of what the blogger is posting about.

Avoid the temptation to nag or be overly negative. We all know we catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, and if a blogger is overly preachy, I stop reading. I like to encourage other gardeners/bloggers, and can offer suggestions and feedback in a way that doesn’t discourage them. Likewise, there are a few out there that I avoid completely because they are constantly carping and putting down, either magazines or nurseries or landscapers or other subjects. It’s one thing to rant with good reason, (as well as grace and skill) another to be critical just for the sake of being critical. Putting others down doesn’t make a person look better, and in my eyes discredits them significantly.

Post regularly. That doesn’t mean put up seventeen posts in one day. Quantity doesn’t necessarily equate with quantity, but if you post several times a week, daily, or weekly, or in some other regular manner, readers return eagerly to see what you’re up to. Some bloggers don’t post through the winter months, thinking there’s nothing to write about. I’d say that the hundreds of us who have kept writing and posting since the last fall frost have proved that wrong, wouldn’t you?

Next: Images and other visuals.

Mother Nature is a Trickster

Okay, so while half the garden blogging world was joyously exulting in the arrival of calendar spring, what did we get in lovely Nova Scotia? Yet another ice storm. Well, we hadn't had one for a couple of weeks, after all, and we apparently needed to have roads, doorways, drives, plants, and anything else possible, covered in a case of finest crystal.

Bah. Humbug.

As if that wasn't enough, the ice on the wireless Internet receiver outside was so thick it blocked our service for a good part of the day...but the good news is that our intrepid service provider--a local company that does care about their customers--fixed the bottleneck of traffic in Scotts Bay so that we shouldn't have any more of the terrible downtimes we've endured in the past few weeks. So two thumbs up to Steve and the crew!

However, the weather, though annoying, isn't that surprising. I heard Environment Canada meteorologist David Phillips interviewed on CBC this afternoon while I was sulking in bed with the heating pad and a cat or two foot-warmers, and Phillips reminded us that we Maritimers have long, glorious, exultant autumns...the tradeoff being our springs, not to put too fine a term on it, suck. While many of you have been laughing in flowers, or at least giddy with spring preparations, for some time now, we have a few weeks of cranky weather left to contend with before we can say spring has arrived. But that's why we are such a stoic, sturdy lot. Or so we tell ourselves.


My coping mechanism this week was to simply get me to a nursery and load up on a few new houseplants. Not that I needed any more, of course, but it's not about needing, it's about coping with spring's tardiness. Most of my houseplants, of course, live in my office because I spend so much of my working life in here, so a few more to add to the atmosphere was a good plan, at least in my spring-starved mind. Since my salmon-pink kalanchoe is still blooming amazingly well...


...I brought a nice happy yellow one home to keep it company. These plants do so well with a minimum of attention; mine sit on the windowledge, where I occasionally remember to water them, and they bloom their heads off for months, and in fresh clear colours, too.


My son asked me, back before Christmas, for a peace lily (Spathiphyllum). I haven't seen one lately, but found something in the same family (Araceae) that I thought might do: an anthurium, or Flamingo flower. In fact, I liked it so much I needed one too. Of course. Big surprise, that. I just love the spathe and spadix that make up the inflorescence of these plants. For those whose botany is a bit shaky, the spadix is that spike in the centre which carry the tiny male and female flowers (the 'jack' in the pulpit) while the spathe is actually a modified leaf, a bract (remember the bracts in the euphorbias, such as poinsettia 'petals'?) or the pulpit part of a Jack-in-the-pulpit. That may have been more than you wanted to know, but it might be handy for playing Jeopardy sometime.


I happen to be extremely fond of succulents, both the hardy sedums that grow in our gardens, and the less-hardy types that we enjoy indoors, in collections or in dish gardens. So I also picked up four different succulents that I was pretty sure I didn't have, just going on the colour and shape of leaves. The problem with some of these garden centre places is that the plants come in from somewhere else bearing labels that say "succulent" or 'cactus', or something else not very helpful. So I'm not sure yet if I got sedum, echeveria, aeonium, semps (pretty sure not) or what. This isn't one of my collections, but was at the greenhouse at Kingstec College, and is a lovely colourful grouping.


This is one of the most gorgeous succulent dish gardens i"ve ever seen, located at the Rock Garden at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College. It lives outside all summer, and I assume the staff put it in one of the greenhouses for the six months of winter that we endure. Oh, now I'm depressed again. I had to bring up the lack of spring, didn't I?

Maybe I'll just take a page out of our cats' book of wisdom, and sleep for a few weeks. Wake us up when spring really gets here, okay?