Conifers, Hellebores and mystery plants

It was too good to last, the spell of nice weather! Today the cold rain, fog and drizzle arrived, but I was gone to the city in preparation for the marathon of activity that is the fourth annual Saltscapes Expo. I'm leaving in the morning to go back to the city, and the show opens at noon, running to Sunday at suppertime. I give two talks a day, plus I expect there will be lots of potential articles to write about; there usually is. The Expo isn't like your typical (boring) home show or anything dull like that. NO plastic siding or tacky carpet or vendors hawking crap; there are plenty of interesting vendors with unique artisan jewelry, pottery, soaps, foods; talks and demonstrations, music, food to sample...it's like the magazine is dumped into the Exhibition Park and brought to life. Hectic, tiring, but a lot of fun, too.

While the good weather did last things grew insanely fast this week. Including, of course, the weeds, but they'll keep til I get home; LSS doesn't do weeds, and he'll be busy here holding down the fort. As a little present, that Helleborus purpurascens decided to open its first blossom for me. I'm very excited, and of course, have had a flareup of Urgent Plant-Seeking Madness. (UPSM, not to be confused with GADS)


When I was at Briar Patch the other day, I oogled and ogled and drooled over the hellebores that Lee and John have on hand. How do you like 'Goldfinch'?

Or perhaps 'Kingston Cardinal'? No, I didn't buy either of them...but given that my big hellebore has at least half a dozen buds and seems to have survived brilliantly...I just might succumb to buying ONE more.


This is one of my must have plants this year. Meet Sciadopitys verticillata, also known as the Japanese Umbrella pine. I've been thinking about this handsome, slow growing evergreen for a year now, and finally I've decided where to plant it (it's a bit marginal here) and am going for it! Of course, I'm also getting a small gold Korean fir, too--emphasis on small, so I can afford it and so it will settle and grow nicely--and some more conifers. And some more shrubs. And some more perennials...


This is one of my 'I have to have this' plants from last year. Juniperus horizontalis 'Lime Glow' is delicious, with brilliant gold and green foliage, tipped with burgundy in the late winter and spring. It's not a big plant, working well at the front of a border with a collection of other perennials and shrubs, but somewhere up front where it can catch your eye.

Congratulations to Ewa, Adrian and Layanee, who all identified the mystery shrub as Thujopsis dolobrata! AJ, of course, you didn't point out you were there the day I got my Staghorn Cedar from Bunchberry...and Layanee, since I don't have deer problems, I'll enjoy mine and hope the deer leave yours alone.

I'll try to post over the next couple of days, and get caught up on my blog reading, too!

Heath or Heather? Do you know the difference?

Someone asked in an earlier post--and I'm really tired tonight so can't go back to check--about the difference between heaths and heathers. I'm no expert on these plants, though I do love them and am slowly building a collection. But I can tell you a bit about them.

Heaths (Erica genus) and heathers (Calluna genus) are both members of the Ericaceous, or heath, family, which includes Rhododendrons, Azalea, Ledum (sometimes seen as Rhododendron) Andromeda, Pieris, Gaultheria, Vaccinium...all of which are acid soil preferring plants, woody shrubs, some evergreen, some deciduous.

Nova Scotia, like the rest of the Atlantic provinces, is mostly well suited to growing ericaceous plants because we have a lot of acid soil. The exceptions to that would be the areas with more calcareous soils, which are alkaline, such as around the gypsum quarries near Windsor. But with some regular soil testing and amending, gardeners can make their soil agreeable for ericaceous plants.


Ericas, or heaths, bloom in late winter to spring. Heath rhymes with Easter, which is how I learned to remember which flowered when. Heaths also have foliage that looks like little tiny evergreen needles. Of course, both heaths and heathers do amazing things with their foliage in fall to winter. This one, Mary Helen, is an Erica x darleyensis hybrid, and as you can see has fantastic colour. I bought this plant yesterday to celebrate Earth Day. No, not really--I bought it because I wanted it! and to go with it, a second heath called Darley Dale, because when I was cleaning up around my heath/heather bed, I realized I had more heathers than heaths, and I wanted to add more plants for bee and other pollinator encouragement.


Heathers start to bloom generally in midsummer, and can continue throughout the fall. This particular beauty is Con Brio, I think--my labels have lasted well but I'm still getting mixed up with some of the varieties I have. Notice how the leaves of heather are more scaley than needle-like; that and their flowering period is mostly how you tell the difference between the two genera; and no one will scold you if you call them all heathers. At least, I won't.


Both heaths and heathers work marvelously well with conifers, perennials including perennial grasses, broadleafed evergreens, and well, okay, most any other plant you choose to add to your bed. Just bear in mind not to plant things that will overwhelm the heath plants, which tend to spread out into handsome mats but not get too tall. This is one of the display beds down at Bunchberry Nurseries, and it may explain a little bit why I am so obsessed with evergreens, and urge others to try evergreens as well. I'll be writing more about them in future posts.


Another one of the display beds at Bunchberry. Jill will have a booth at Saltscapes Expo (only three days away! Ack! I'm not finished my talk preparation yet) so for those of you in the area, do drop in to the show on Friday-Sunday and see Jill. I plan to go back down in a couple of weeks and collect a few plants that I've been salivating over. It's just hard to decide on ONLY a few...one must pay other bills and so on.


I leave you with a bit of a puzzle. Last year, this was one of the plants Jill brought to the Expo. I took one look at it and went into complete and utter plant lust mode. It's not the most showy of plants in the garden, but it's strikingly different, and one of the reasons I think conifers and other evergreens are so interesting. Talk about texture. This is a fascinating plant, and doing very nicely in my garden. Well, yes, of COURSE I had to have it! I'll post the answer with my next post.

Hope Springs Eternal

While I was at Bunchberry Nurseries on Saturday, my friend gleefully told me I HAD to see this white thing in Jill's garden. Of course, everyone knows about my mishaps with hellebores so it really wasn't too much of a surprise to find this pristine white hellebore blooming happily in one of the display beds.


A weekend of warm weather, and even in beautiful upper Scotts Bay, things are popping up everywhere. Where on Saturday there was only green, suddenly the Iris reticulata are in bloom.


Though they're small and dainty, I like these irises better than the big showy ones. They are like petit point in the garden, with those delicate edgings of contrasting colour on their falls.


The pink chionodoxa started five days before the blue ones popped up, and while I like them very well, I adore the blue ones. This china blue colour makes me very happy; they're a little less cobalt than the Scilla, which aren't showing up yet, but the only thing I can think of in a comparable colour would be the sky blue delphinium we have later in the season.


I had to go to Falmouth this morning to do an interview, and since I was in the neighbourhood, I dropped in to see my buddy Rob Baldwin at his nursery. Things are livening up there with plenty of healthy new growth and oh yes, bloms. Some are quite subtle, like the flowers of Acer rubrum, the native red maple...

Or decidedly un-flowerlike, like the greenish yellow catkins of Corylus avellana 'Contorta', or Harry Lauder's Walking Stick.


In the propagation house, there are exciting discoveries. Rob is growing American chestnuts from seed. No matter how many times I look at a tree seedling, I'm always dazzled at how a magnificent tree begins with the emergence of tiny growth from a seed.


Although I was really good at Jill's the other day, temptation was NOT to be resisted today. Walking in one of the greenhouses, a wall of scent smacked me like a wave. Mayflowers, I thought? No, Rob doesn't propagate mayflowers. Oh, well, then it MUST be...Viburnum bodnantense 'Dawn (used to be called 'Pink Dawn' but you get the point). And I MUST bring it home this time. Did you know you can get a five foot tall, 3 gallon shrub into the front of a Yaris? And my longsuffering spouse, bless him, hasn't yet asked me that famous question...

"Where are you going to plant THAT?"

Road Trip and Return of the Glunkers

Today I went to Upper Clements to Bunchberry Nurseries to give a talk on pollinators. It was like Old Home Week, with a dear friend and several of her dear friends coming up, and other good gardening chums also being there, and of course Jill, who owns Bunchberry, is a master plantwoman and garden designer. She specializes in heaths and heathers, evergreens, grasses, but also has alpines, Japanese maples, perennials, and lots of other interesting things. I wasn't on plant-purchase mode today because we need to do more garden cleanup and moving of plants before I can even think about buying new plants, but the first thing to incite plant lust in me today was this golden Korean Fir, wearing its best spring plumage. Isn't it delicious? The regular one is beautiful enough, but this one sent me into happy plant dance mode.


Jill gave me this hardy cyclamen to try in my garden, and I can't wait. Its foliage is wonderful, and while the flowers will be gorgeous, with leaves like this who needs flowers?


After the talk, I spent some meaningful time with the plants, wandering around the display garden, and was very happy to see plenty of deliriously happy bees bobbing around the heaths. I also added other plants to my 'I can't possibly live without these' list, all of which will get here eventually; mostly delicious conifers, heaths and heathers, sedums and semps...well, yeah, you know how it goes with me. I'm a plant addict.


Doesn't this just look like stained glass? It's the cover of a journal I had to have! I found it at this wonderful store I go to in Annapolis Royal, a few miles from Upper Clements. My plan is to leave it right here on my desk by my computer (and yes, Lisa, I DO work with two monitors--makes life a lot easier for me to have several programs spread out over two screens) where I can jot down the names of plants, where I got them, and so on.


In the same shop, these paper napkins spoke to me. Of course I had to have them-lavender and blue poppies being two of my favourite plants, as many of you know.

Yesterday, I had a joyous note from Soliloquy's Nancy Bond, gleefully announcing that the spring peepers had commenced their song at her home in Windsor, about forty minutes drive (or ten minutes as the hummingbird flies) from here. Having spent part of the evening in the garden last evening as a treat for having been insanely busy all week, I knew that things were warming up rapidly. I tore outside and stood on the deck listening, and heard the first of several sounds I've been waiting for: the banjo-string plucking of the green frogs (Rana clamitans) that inhabit our pond. Tonight, they're chuckling deliriously, singing their come-hither songs to one another. We're still a few days from the spring peepers (Pseudacris crucifer) but if I had any doubts that we've made it into real spring...those doubts have vanished on the gleeful wave of frog-song.

Feeling the kiss of the sun--and the ouch of the muscles!

We've just had the second of two warm days up here on the mountain. Yesterday, I had no time to go outside and play, so I convinced myself it was better to let the yard dry up a bit more while I slaved away indoors on my assignments and projects. Today, with some things under control, and having had to go to pay my respect's at a friend's father's wake, I figured the garden needed me for a little while--and I needed to be with it. So with my intrepid assistants Tigger and Mungus (on his harness) in tow, I headed out to see what new surprises might be seen.


Not only have the pink chionodoxa opened, but there are pollinators out and about already! Good thing we also have the hamamelis in bloom, and a few more days like this and the poplars and red maples will be starting. It was just SO nice to get up close to this bee for a photo. There were at least half a dozen of them around, and that was simply music to my ears. Especially since the frogs are still silent. A look back at past years shows that they've been this shy before, so I won't panic.


Well, whatever might THIS be? Hmmmm...imagine my surprise when I saw the tag-Helleborus purpurascens. I bought this plant several years ago, and thought it had shuffled off its mortal coil and become, a la Monty Python, an ex-hellebore. But no! It must have just grown leaves last year quietly, in behind the more boisterous plants and gotten strong enough that it.IS. GONNA. FLOWER. Whoo hooo!

Watch the weather gods dump some enormous cold front or seven feet of snow on me for this.


Although we spent only a couple of hours outside working, we accomplished quite a bit (one bed at a time, remember!) and after going back to work for the past six hours, (and not sleeping much the past few nights) I'm actually pretty tired out. So I'm going to listen to Spunky Boomerang, my personal office assistant, who has been trying to get me to go upstairs to bed for some time...good night, all!

Blissful surprises for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen and all the ships at sea, welcome to another round of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, created for your viewing pleasure by the always-delightful Carol of May Blooms Gardens! This particular episode of GBBD is of great satisfaction to me because, finally, I have something outside I can share with you all.


Let's get right to the entertainments for this lovely cold but sunny day, starting out with the crocus collection. Although schoolbus yellow is not my favourite shade of yellow at the rest of the year, it's like sunshine made solid at this season, when spring is still a little coy, winds have some bite in them, and most of the garden is still shuddering off its old drab winter coat.


These little darlings have wine-purple accents on their slightly different shade of yellow, and I can see them from the house with no trouble at all.


Hamamelis 'Diane', who has been working on flowering for about two months now is in comfortable and wonderful full bloom. The only drawback is that this cultivar doesn't have the fragrance of some, but I plan to add 'Arnold's Promise' and 'Jelena' to the garden very soon, as well as our native species.


A couple of the heaths, glad to be clear of their winter mulch--only put down to protect them from the cold drying winds of midwinter--are just yawning and stretching and preparing to flower in the next couple of weeks. Although all my heaths and heathers are small, I have more heathers than I do heaths. But I'm going to Bunchberry Nurseries on Saturday to give a talk, and will promptly remedy my heath-shortage at that time.


If memory serves me correctly--it very often does not--these are pink flowered chionodoxa, or glory-of-the-snow. They are in the rock-garden in a south-facing spot, and tend to come up promptly and joyously as soon as sunlight hits them regularly.


These aren't flowers, obviously, but I just love the way Sedum 'Angelina' is contrasting with the rich deep colour of the sempervivum, don't you?


A host of single-form galanthus has popped up out in the back garden. I don't remember planting them and I don't seem to have photos from other years--normally there are a few leucojum or summer snowflakes here, but not for quite a few weeks yet. Maybe they've spontaneously generated, knowing of my love for snowdrops of any size or colour?


Looking a little tattered, but still sweetly charming, the first of the Johnny Jump-ups that freerange around here have opened up to the sun. I happen to adore any viola, and these remind me of my grandmother, who loved them too.


After several days of wet weather, the paddock had dried up enough that we could put Leggo and his donkey-from-Mars out today. Leggo has been charging around the paddock snorting and bucking and acting silly a good part of the day, while that tangle of feet in the background is Jenny, down for a roll to scratch her back.


There were two things outside today I was especially happy to see. This is the first one--common as can be, but still cheering to my heart. It's coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) the first wildflower to start blooming here; its little yellow flowers come up first, followed by its big thick leaves in a couple of weeks time. Now all I need to hear is the frogs glunking--they haven't started yet, probably still thawing out, but their songs and the coltsfoot blooms tells me that it IS spring, no matter the temperature or the precipitation.


And this...can it possibly BE???? Thanks, I am sure, to Frances of Faire Garden, who advised me some weeks ago on what to do with my hellebore plant...IT'S GOING TO FLOWER! Jubilation reigns supreme. This is good gardening karma, which to my mind proves that Kylee is gonna have blue poppies, and Lisa is going to have annual poppies, (but I can't remember where she told us about her poppy challenges) and...well, whatever challenges YOU is going to behave itself this year.

Ohhhhh. I hope I haven't jinxed myself by showing these hellebore buds...

To wrap up today's post, thank you so much to whomever of you nominated Bloomingwriter for Mouse and Trowel awards. I'm very touched by your support, especially as the nominations land me in the company of some of MY favourite bloggers. There are so many marvelous blogs out there, it's hard to pick only a few, and I want to vote for everyone. (but we only get one ballot, so I've had to flip a coin in a few cases.) I'd just like to win the LOTTERY, so then I could go visit everyone--or bring everyone here for a visit in midsummer. Bouquets to all of you, and best wishes to all the nominees.

Buying Local: Supporting Our Local Nurseries

Our favourite Flowergardengirl, Anna, has been holding an interesting conversation over at her blog about small nurseries and bigbox stores, and how customers behave. One of my personal irks is how some people go to a nursery where the staff know what they're doing, pick their brains for information, and then go off to a bigbox store to get plants that are cheaper. This drives me crazy and is the height of rudeness, but we do know that there are many rude and inconsiderate (and cheap) people in the world, don't we?

Now, in some areas, there ARE no good small, locally owned or independent nurseries, in which case the only option is to go to a large store that carries gardening supplies. Yarmouth is sort of like that. To the best of my knowledge, there's no nursery right in the Yarmouth area now; travelling up the south shore there's Ouestville Perennials in West Pubnico, and Lavender Hill, and Spencer's, and Cosby's. To the west, heading back my way, there's Bunchberry Nurseries, and Woodland Farm Nursery in Upper Clements, then Garden of Eatin' Farm in Paradise, and then a deluge more. But all of these are an hour or more from Yarmouth. Several of the big department type stores have very well-stocked garden centres—Canadian Tire and Kent are two that spring to mind—and their managers have been good about bringing in interesting plants and taking care of them. In my snooping about, I've found perennials at both places that I've not located elsewhere, so of course I had to drag them home with me.


For a lot of us, though, we have some really fine choices, especially here in the Annapolis Valley. Although my blog readership is located all over the world, I do know that many readers are from Nova Scotia, and appreciate knowing where nurseries are. And some of them are getting on the ball and developing websites, which makes it really helpful for web-savvy gardeners who can look at plant lists all winter long, planning for the day when spring warmth entices them out to do more than just look. Some nurseries are supposedly updating their websites, and some have so many broken links that I don't want to include them here. Several lf the nurseries I recommend don't have websites, but that doesn't matter, because they're just so great everyone ought to go there (if you live in or near NS, of course! A bit of a commute from Rhode Island or California or North Carolina, I know...)

Here are some of my favourite nurseries in Nova Scotia. (This is gonna be a multipart discussion, so only a few to start with.

Baldwin Nurseries, Falmouth. I've written about Rob Baldwin before—he's a friend, after all, but that aside, I like what he does and how he does it. He grows a LOT of trees and shrubs, including many natives, plus is getting into perennials more and more, especially those that are good for butterflies and other pollinators. He's going to be at the Saltscapes Expo again this year, (coming up in less than two weeks, panic!)

Bayport Plant Farm, Bayport, near Lunenburg. Of all the plant people I know and respect--okay, worship and adore--Captain Dick Steele is my absolute favourite hort hero. Dick is the spryest, most bright and enthusiastic 92 year old man I know--a man who can propagate plants all day long seven days a week, and barrel his car across the Labrador Highway on his annual plant treks, and charge past everyone else climbing the hills at Battle Harbour, Labrador.

Briar Patch Farm & Nursery, Berwick. It's no secret that I like people who genuinely like plants, and Lee and John Dickie genuinely like plants. It shows at their nursery and farm, which includes marvelous display plantings, intriguing plant choices, and knowledgeable staff. I've found some real treasure there over the past few years, and this year I think it might be time to try the Japanese Umbrella Pine. We'll see how tempted I am when I visit for the first time and see that little plant's glowing yellow foliage. You know what will happen. So do I.

Bunchberry Nurseries, Upper Clements. Jill Covill and I went to NSAC at the same time, but it was many years before our paths crossed again. Jill specializes in heaths, heathers, native plants, evergreen shrubs, and grasses, and if you live in NS, you simply MUST visit the garden centre in early August during the peak of heather bloom. I'm giving a talk down at Jill's next Saturday during her annual opening Spring Fling, and how many plants do you suppose I'll bring home with me THIS time? I always say because of Jill I developed an obsession over heathers and heaths, and now that I know I can grow them….well, you know the rest.

Canning Daylily Gardens, Canning. I’ve known Wayne and Wayne for a long time, and value their friendship as well as their knowledge and enthusiasm when it comes to daylilies. If you live in Nova Scotia and are a daylily lover, you simply have to come visit the gardens during late July-early August, when peak bloom is happening. The Waynes have some really unusual and new daylily cultivars (some of which aren’t ready to be sold commercially yet) and over 300 cultivars for sale; something like 800 different types in the display garden makes for a rainbow of colour.

Ouestville Perennials, West Pubnico Alice d’Entremont’s nursery is the furthest away from my house in terms of travel time, located in the beautiful community of West Pubnico, so I don’t get to visit her nearly as often as I want. But when I do, I spend a few hours, because Alice is a wise, knowledgeable plant enthusiast and her display garden and nursery make me intensely happy to visit. Usually Mick and/or Angie, the two guard cats, escort us as we meander around. And I invariably leave with the car full of plants that I simply had to have. You’ll find many interesting and hard-to-find plants at Ouestville, so it’s a collector’s delight, but there’s something for every gardener. Trust me on this….

Stay tuned for further posts on local nurseries!

The good news and the not so good news

Day five of springlike weather here--I'm not even sure if it got down to freezing last night or not. Sunny with some clouds is a good thing.

The bad news...Dexter attacked Mungus last night, and when I went to separate them, he bit me. Hard. As in four punctures and a bruised muscle in my hand. So he's not able to stay here. Happily, my vet who operates the no-kill shelter is taking him. He'll be quarantined for a week or so and then the staff and volunteers who work there will work with him, and determine whether he can be adopted only as a one-child cat-family, or if he can go to a home with more than one. He will NOT be euthanized, which is why I support this particular veternarian and shelter so wholeheartedly. I have even told them I'll pay for his vaccinations and neutering, or at least make a donation of that amount to pay for food etc at the shelter.

We can't know what he's been through elsewhere in his young life. Someone may have abused him, or he may just have had an upset, although everything had been quiet all day yesterday until this incident last night. We're both very sad, but on the other hand we know we can bring kittens into the household and integrate them with no trouble, so maybe we'll adopt a couple of babies a little later. And I'll go in to visit him until he's placed in his 'forever home.'

The funny thing about this is that I was remarking earlier in the week that cats are much more predictable and trustworthy than humans, having had some sort of weird upset with a person I had considered a friend. But just as people can be unstable, animals can be too. The only other time in my life I've ever been bitten by a cat--seriously bitten--was with a very strange cat of my father's, who went postal on us years ago--that one had some real health problems, it turned out, and we finally got him captured and kennelled and to the vet for his final destination.

So Dexter will be fine...just not with us. Meanwhile, it's a good thing I'm on multiple antibiotics anyway. And had a tetanus shot recently. I think my garden needs me this afternoon. The rest of the catchildren know I'm upset, because they're following me around being helpful and comforting. Like real friends do.

What a difference a day makes

When I decided it was time to take a break from work and go out for a walk around the yard yesterday afternoon, Tigger came bounding gleefully across the yard burbling excitedly. Perhaps he thought that we'd go inspect the catmint again like we did on Tuesday, or maybe he was just glad to get back into his role as chief gardening assistant, feline division. Tigger's a senior feline, twelve years old now, but warm sunny days make him very blissful. Catnip, or catmint as a last resort, makes him even more blissful, but we're still a few weeks from any significant amount.

We've now had 4, count them, FOUR days of mild, fine weather. The glacier is now completely vanquished from the yard and garden, although there's still a bit of dirty residual snow in the ditches and along the pasture edge. On Tuesday afternoon, I photographed these dear little crocus, barely out of the ground and showing off their colours...

They must have been the advance scouting party, because today they were joined by quite a few more, all basking in the sun's gentle smile. I even saw a bee--I think it was a honeybee, though it might have been a bee-mimic fly; I couldn't get close enough to get a photo.


A few feet away, another host of crocus stretched forth to sing their song of joy to spring.


Having pulled the mulch away from pretty well everything that I did protect, I'm amazed at how far along some things are. This euphorbia is a polychroma cultivar, the variegated 'Lacey'. I guess there are no worries about its hardiness here in my garden.


Little colonies of snowdrops are now emerging to warm my heart too. I know, I know...some of you had snowdrops MONTHS ago. But we didn't. And I simply love these perfect little plants, so fresh and clean looking. It took them a few years, but now that they've well established, they're starting to multiply in earnest.


We have single snowdrops too, as I showed in the last post. I can never decide which I like better. Each has its own particular charms, of course. The thing about the doubles is that you really do have to flip their little heads up to admire their petticoats of petals, where the singles just stand tall and elegant like little white tuxedos.


I've decided that Sedum 'Angelina' is definitely a star in all seasons. Aren't the colours in it almost undescribably lovely? They remind me of the heaths and heathers that turn such flamboyant colours. Beside 'Angelina' is another sedum, a variegated species the name of which escapes me right now, but both are quite happy. And as with the rock garden at NSAC, these little bursts of iridescence cause me to slow down and enjoy each little gift, before the song of spring becomes more of a full orchestration.

One last happy observation; the ice is gone from the pond, which means we should be hearing the green frogs in a few days, if the warm trend continues. And that will be just fine with me.

I know there are messy days yet to come, but we'll take each day that comes like this as a real gift.