Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day--in the bleak late autumn!

It's been months--well over a year, actually--since I participated in one of Carol's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Days, and I thought in keeping with rejuvenating myself and my blog, I'd join back in the fun, because it IS all about having fun with plants. Especially in December, where we've gone from sub-arctic temperatures to rain, fog and drizzle. Too soggy for me to venture outside but I know from being out yesterday, putting up lights, that there's nuthin' bloomin' outside, so we need to adjourn to seeking out indoor blooms.


To keep me from becoming an irritable writer and spouse, I keep fresh flowers around the house as much as possible during the dreary months of late autumn and fall. I realized yet again today, though, that one of my favourite cheer-me-up colour ranges of the spectrum, however, doesn't necessarily photograph as well as I'd like with a digital camera. The hot pinks, magentas and fuchsias of the floral spectrum tend to blow out quite a bit unless you use a filter, and I don't have one to fit the particular lens on my camera at the moment.


I have done one round of experimenting with David Perry's Mason Jar Master Class, but my wide-mouthed mason jars have a textured pattern in the glass, and aren't as tall as I'd like. That being said, I did like the light play on the paperwhite flowers that I dropped into the jar the other day for a trial run.

Before frost hit, I remembered to rescue a couple of my outdoor pelargoniums and bring them inside. This salmon-coloured one is happily adjusting to life in a not-so-sunny-but-warm kitchen, and putting up lots of new blooms.

This is one of those 'colour not done justice' photos. This fantastic pelargonium has flowers that are bicolour, red and hot fuchsia, but it's hard to see that no matter how often I experiment with photographing it.


That's okay about the colour blur, though, because the flower shape is just so striking on this one, I wouldn't really care what colour the blossoms are.


My cyclamen are still doing very nicely in the coolness of the office, although I feel the need to add a couple more colours to the collection. When I venture out tomorrow for appointments and errands, who knows what will follow me home?


The last phalaenopsis flower is still hanging on tenaciously, and I think this particular orchid is considering putting up one more shoot of buds. The other two are resting, spent after a long flowering fiesta.


My friend Neville MacKay gave me a bouquet containing these dendrobium orchids more than 6 weeks ago, and there are still three stems producing flowers. Another week or so and they'll be done, but what joy they've given me!

Meanwhile, that first Amaryllis is being coy about opening her flowers, but I find once they start to show colour, they unfurl fairly quickly. Going to watch closely for the next day or so and see what happens.

One of my favourite cut flowers are the curious Bells of Ireland, Moluccella laevis. These have been hanging out with a bundle of fuchsia dianthus for well over a week, and show no signs of really faltering. I love their somewhat-alien appearance, and find they have a faint but fresh, minty scent. The green bracts tend to dry to a tan colour, and the flowers themselves are pretty insignificant at the centre of those 'bells.'

I'm in the process of decorating our Christmas tree, but it's no wheres near finished. And I have a confession that's somewhat scandalous. I don't have a lot of Christmas ornaments that are plant-themed. I tend to collect penguins rather than plants in ornaments, but I do have half a dozen of these wonderful handmade ribbon pinecones scattered around the tree.

And for giggles, a sparkly branch of pomegranates and berries festoons a pot already occupied by two whimsical pottery mushrooms and a somewhat-chewed blue plumbago plant. Hmmm. Who might have chewed on that plant?


Surely not Spunky, here looking annoyed because I woke him up to take his photo! Well, yes, actually he is the chief plant-nibbler. Happily, he never dines on anything toxic, and he tends to look both innocent and annoyed when caught in the act. He's very tired right now, a morning's naughtiness having worn him out. So I think I'll take the hint and join him in a nap.

This concludes our Bloom day tour! Don't forget to visit around the blogosphere and see what's blooming in other gardens or homes, and thanks as always to Carol for having continued this fun monthly event for us to enjoy.

More musings on books: Planting and planning

How is a plant obsession born? Do we wake up one day and decide arbitrarily that we're hooked on hostas, or delirious about daylilies, or excited about echinaceas? I don't know the answer to that except from a personal perspective. I like plants that do well in my climate, are easy to care for, strikingly beautiful in flowers or foliage or winter interest, are unusual, or native, or new...okay, I admit it, I'm a plant collector. And I'm all right with that.

I do find that the longer I garden, the more I develop an appreciation for various genera and species of plants. Take viburnums, for example. There's been a highbush cranberry (V. trilobum) in our garden since before we came here. It's a handsome, energetic shrub, with lovely lacy flowers followed by luscious-looking red fruit beloved by birds. I've long been acquainted with witherod, or wild raisin (V. cassinoides), also native to our area, and planted several here in our garden. Then I got to know the fragrant viburnums and something clicked in my brain. I wanted more of them, and wanted to know more about them. So I was very glad that Michael Dirr, horticulturist par excellence, shared my passion and kindly wrote a book about these lovely, versatile shrubs. For those who have the woody bible, Dirr's Manual of Woody Plants, his Viburnums book (Timber Press) is much more conversational and far less of a reference textbook. I think viburnums are like potato chips and you can't have just one. Or two. (I'm up to six different species, I think, and counting).


Let it never be thought that I'm a plant expert. Plant addict, yes, but I soak up information about plants like a sponge, and there is always a stack of books beside my desk, for me to consult with when I'm writing about plants and gardening. One of the volumes that hasn't strayed back to the bookcase since I got it is Tomasz Anisko's When Perennials Bloom. (Timber Press) Subtitled An Almanac for Planning and Planting, it's a hugely valuable reference for gardeners of all skill levels. Want to know when Astrantia (masterwort) will flower? How to plant it? The book profiles well over 400 perennial species, giving their bloom periods based on calculations and averages made around the world. So this is a useful book whether you live on the windswept Fundy, on the exuberant prairies of the midwest, or in Europe and beyond.


We are blessed with an abundance of space on our property--seven acres, much of it pasture, but a good chunk of it planted out by me with help from my longsuffering spouse. So we have room for big plants, and we grow a number of them. If you like plants with oomph-impact, then you'll love Tall Perennials, by Roger Turner (Timber Press). You don't HAVE to have an expansive acreage to carry off a few impressive-sized plants, either; Turner gives useful tips on how to garden effectively with tall- or wide-growing perennials, as well as a substantial list of recommended plants (noting caveats where necessary).


Turner gets the distinction of having a second book in this list, also published by Timber Press, a slightly older volume (2005) called Design in the Plant Collector's Garden. It's subtitled 'From Chaos to Beauty', and it's helping me to create a little more beauty and a little less chaos in my ongoing experimentation with plants. I just got my hands on this book a little earlier in the fall, so I haven't yet put what I'm learning into practice. Ask me next summer how I'm doing mixing the trialing of plants with creating a nice-looking garden rather than a hodgepodge. It's a work in progress, always.


Finally, here's my must-have recommendation for this year, for those who are into growing perennials: Our own Nancy Ondra's Perennial Care Manual (Storey). Actually, I recommend any book by Nan that you can get your hands on, because she is THE quintessence of a good garden writer: informative yet encouraging. (I have her Fallscaping and Perennial Gardener's Design Primer and love them both). This latest offering tells you everything you need to know about creating a good perennial garden and Nan profiles dozens of perennials, providing information on how to grow the plants, what problems exist (and how to cope with them)...or as the subtitle says, 'What to do and when to do it." I know other bloggers have recommended this book as well, and I'd just like to add my voice to that chorus of positive reviews. If you're a perennial plant lover, you will need to have this book in your library.

And probably you'll need more bookshelves too. I remind my spouse that my three bad habits are plants, cats and books, and that he should be thankful. I think he is, except for when one of the cats knocks over a plant and then sends books cascading onto the floor too.

The Gardener's Bookshelf, Part the First: Books for Plant Lovers

We are currently in the middle of a frigid gale, one that's impressive even for those of us who are regularly scoured by gale-force winds. The house has stood here for over 100 years and withstood worse, but it does moan, grumble and shudder by times when a particularly virulent blast comes in off the Bay.

This makes it more than a little hard to concentrate, to sleep, to work...so I'm quasi-working by attempting to reorganize my bookshelves, and then getting distracted by titles and falling into them. I have a lot of books, both from my days at university (where I majored in Can Lit and minored in Can History and biology) and from my life as a bibliophile in general and plant/gardening nut in particular.

Since we're heading towards Christmas at a speed even faster than those galeforce winds, I thought I'd post some of my favourite books, both new and old. I do book reviews for the provincial newspaper, including garden books whenever possible, but there are a lot of books that don't get the attention they deserve. Perhaps they're a couple of years old, or more. Perhaps they're caught up in the deluge of books that are published every year, and get lost in the shuffle. Or maybe they're just so good that I think everyone should have them.

So while the house shakes, Bruce Springsteen croons on my speakers, and I amuse myself by checking in with Twitter every little while (yes, I capitulated, finally. You may now laugh), I offer you the first of several lists of books I think every plantlover should have. We're starting off with books about plants: not so much about how to garden, but merely about the awesomeness of plants AS plants.

My friend Kylee also wrote about Planthropology at her book-blog, Gardening By the Book, and she also loves it. I keep it at my bedside so I can peruse a section or two and ogle the photographs and just be glad of authors like Ken Druse, who writes deliciously about the plants of his life. Last year in my garden roundup column for the paper, I wrote "If you add only one gardening book to your library this year, Planthropology should be that book."

What's the must-have book for this year, in my opinion? Come back to the next post to find out.

I simply HAD to have the two volumes of The Botanical Garden when they came out a few years ago. (Actually, I just checked. It was seven years ago. Gleep!) They are two of my most cherished books, and if you have any books by Phillips and Rix, you know why. They developed an innovative and stunning way of photographing plants, showing individual structures and not just the whole plant.

What I especially like about books like the two Botanical Garden volumes is that they introduce me to plants from around the world that I would otherwise never see, unless in passing mention on someone's blog or in a book. The plants are divided up into families, so it's very cool to see what all is in the Ericaceae (heath) family, or the Caryophyllaceae (pink) family along with the standards that I know.

Though this may seem sacrilege to many Canadian readers, I'm not a big fan of Marjorie Harris. I do, however, love this book, which is a wonderful course in the native plants of North America. There are wonderful stories of the plants' places in history, in their uses past and present, far beyond just as mere garden ornamentals.
I get sent a lot of books in the run of a year by publishers, some that I've requested, others that just arrive here in hopes I'll review them. This one, Flora Miriabilis, I ordered myself after seeing it on a few lists and seeing Kylee's review of it. I use the Missouri Botanical Garden's website as a source of great information on a regular basis (and hope to get to MoBot some day--I did go to Powell Gardens last year when I was in Kansas City, but MoBot is in St. Louis). So knowing that people from MoBot were involved in this book, and that National Geographic published it...I ordered it promptly. It just arrived today, and by the time you read this post, I'll be in bed, heating pad on my feet, reading away at it. But just a half-hour browse through the book showed it was well worth purchasing. My library is happier for its arrival. So am I.

Amorous about Amaryllis

A few faithful readers, including Tabby at Crooked Heart, and several people without blogs, asked some questions about bulbs, in particular amaryllis, and I thought I'd quickly put together a post to help those who have either never been seduced by these glorious plants, or else have had trouble with rebloom.

First question I'll answer came from Joy, who doesn't do bulbs inside because she worries about her cats getting into them. Amaryllis ARE toxic, but I swear that our cats know that; in all the years I've grown amaryllis, and in all the cats we've had, I've never had problems with anyone ingesting a toxic plant. I think cats are smarter than dogs when it comes to avoiding things that will make them sick. The Cat Fanciers Association has an extensive list of plants toxic to cats, but it doesn't specify what parts are toxic: amaryllis bulbs are especially toxic, but I've never had a cat try to do anything with the plants except dig at the dirt. Bad kitties.


Amaryllis are deliciously easy to grow because the bulbs don't need prechilling: you buy them, plant them in a properly sized container (about an inch wider in diameter than the bulb) with about 1/3 the bulb sticking out of the soil. Water well, and then wait: times from planting to bloom vary, and I don't know if that's cultivar-related, or depending on the treatment they've received before we buy them. I planted four bulbs of different varieties all on the same day (5 November): two have put up stems and buds more than a foot tall, one is getting started, and one's still thinking about it. Dee mentioned hers were sulking--I remember one I bought one year that I planted in early November and it just sat and sulked until February, when it erupted into a splendid plant, putting up two stems of amazing flowers. So I hope Dee's are worth the wait too.


Our kitchen is quite warm with the woodstove, so I often put a bulb or two out there to inspire them to grow well. The secret is to keep them well watered--moist, but not soggy.

I find once they get their stalks well up and the buds expanded, it's very quick for the flowers to open. Although I can't find the labeled photos from this 'Sydney' from two years ago, I remember taking photos of the flower buds every hour or so until the first flower was well opened.

So once they've finished flowering, what then? Cut off the flowerstalk once the flowers are all withered, leaving just a short stub at the bulb end, and let the leaves grow large and vigourous. They're making food for the bulb, so that it can create flowers next year. Once mild weather comes and the risk of frost is past, you can put them outdoors for the summer. Some people bury plant pot and all, but I sit mine on the back deck. You have to remember to water and feed them regularly through the summer months, too.

Next September, before you have a frost, cut off the tired, yellowed leaves and store bulb, pot and all in a cool, dark location. Our cellar is perfect for this, we've found. Do NOT water or feed the bulbs during this period. Don't let them freeze, don't store in a fridge or other location near fresh fruit: as with tulips and other bulbs, embryonic flowers will be killed off by the gases emitted by ripening fruit. I wonder how many people forget that, and rest their bulbs in a root cellar beside a bag of apples?

After 6-8 weeks, bring the bulb up, repot in fresh potting medium, water and fertilize, and wait. You should start to see regrowth in about 6 weeks or so--remember, these are plants, and they don't read instructions; some will start growing more quickly, like those that are almost in bloom here, while others meditate for a while longer, like the one recalcitrant bulb I have.

Finally, Shady Gardener asked what that strange photo was of at the beginning of my previous post. It's a Christmas ornament made of beads and pins that I purchased at a craft fair a few years ago. I absolutely love it, and actually keep it hanging in my office yearround, for an instant rainbow. I'm trying to do the Macro Master Class that David Perry, awesome photographer, inspired many of us to try; my only problem being that my Mason jars aren't quite big enough so that I was a bit too close. But it worked for me anyway, and looked like beaded fireworks.

Group Hugs and Amaryllis Pots

What can I say about the past couple of days? You are all awesome, that's what.
Reading back the comments on my previous post, I feel like I've been given a huge group hug from around the blogosphere. It's really, really wonderful to receive such tender, thoughtful and heartfelt feedback from you guys. Between your comments, the renovating of Bloomingwriter, and reading my way around the garden of blogs I normally visit, I feel reinspired, refreshed and ready to go forward into year 5 of this wonderful world of blogging.

Obviously many other bloggers sometimes face the question of why we do this, and whether it's of any use to any others. I'm all about encouraging other people, whether in gardening, in writing, or in reaching for their dreams. That's why I started Bloomingwriter, as a way to give back to the gardening community, because I always, always learn something new whenever I visit or talk with another gardener, whether in person or by email. And that's a huge gift, so this is my little give-back.

I think I'll post shorter entries more often, and see how that works, with fewer photos per post. Well, that's my thought today, anyway.


Mr. MacGregor's Daughter asked in a previous post how I got the amaryllis bulb into this narrow necked planter. The container opens from the bottom, you put the bulb in, add the soil, put the lid back in, and set it on its saucer. Water and wait. The container is made of pottery/ceramic, and is quite heavy so it helps stabilize the bulbs. (I lugged this one and a smaller one, for hyacinth, on the flight home from Canada Blooms nearly five years ago. That was entertaining.)


There's only one drawback-I don't know if the company (based in Ontario) is still in business or not. Its website is still up but doesn't seem to have been updated in a long time, so I'm reluctant to mention its name. I think they had a great idea, although the vases were pricy, even with a discount for promotional purposes, but I've never seen them in garden shops around here, nor heard any more about them.

I expect this amaryllis to flower in the next week or so, and will post photos when it does.

Thank you again, dear friends, for your support and friendship across the miles. I <3 y'all.

"So long, it's been good to know ya..."

I posted a passage of a song called 'A Children's Winter' on my facebook yesterday, to celebrate that first snow. The song was written by the late and much loved Dermot O'Reilly, and performed by him in the band Ryan's Fancy about 30 years ago.

I got reminiscing about this Irish-Canadian group's music and how much we enjoyed it. Another song by Ryan's Fancy got stuck in my head: "So Long, it's been good to know ya." That seemed appropriate given some of the things I've been contemplating, regarding Bloomingwriter.

January will mark 4 years of doing this blog, and I have enjoyed it immensely, mostly for the privilege of getting to 'know' other garden bloggers around the world. About two years ago, I got hugely brave, and following the instructions created by my friend Kylee at Our Little Acre, I revamped the blog into the way it's looked until today. I've been trying to decide whether to move to Wordpress, whether to change the look of the blog, whether to stop blogging completely. After all, there are gazillions of gardening blogs out there, many of them totally awesome, and what's one more? I've stepped away from doing memes, from participating in awards, and don't have the time to respond to every comment, which makes me feel guilty.

But I decided the best thing to do for now was to spiff Bloomingwriter up for Christmas. We just redid our bedroom with a fresh look, and I used lavender (the plant and its colour) as the motif and one of the colours in there. I like it so much--lavender being one of my favourite plants, after all--that I decided to use a similar theme on my blog. So here it is.

Still haven't decided about Wordpress, or whether to continue blogging when I have so much else going on, but we'll see what the winter brings. Meanwhile, to my old decor, it's "so long, it's been good to know ya..." It served me well, but onward & upward. I hope you like the new look as much as I do.

Winter leaves her calling card

I've been cracking jokes in The Canning Gazette and elsewhere about how I put studded snow tires on my car a month ago, and as a result nature has felt no need to bring snow to our area. That all changed overnight, with the first of what will probably be many snowfalls for the winter of 2009-2010. It rained for hours before it grew cold enough to snow, so the precipitation stuck to everything with an undercoating of ice.

There's a little too much snow to show off the seedheads and structures of a lot of the plants in the garden, but you can see the graceful sweep of this Actaea 'Pink Spike' seedhead.

Some people prune out their Harry Lauder's Walking Stick (Corylus avellana 'Contorta') so that there aren't as many branches and the twisted structure can be better seen. But I like mine as it is, all wavy branches covered in wavy snowsweaters. In front of it, the Hinoki chamaecyparis is a little too cloaked to show its structure, but it's still pretty.

It's still too early in the season for the birds to have devoured all the fruit from the Viburnum trilobum, and the juice from the berries made garish snowcones.

Our red osier dogwood's branches (Cornus sericea) are just starting to glow with winter colour

I never know quite how I should feel about the multiflora roses that are scattered around the county (and beyond). On the one hand, they're invasive little suckers, and I wonder what they might be displacing. On the other hand, their tiny rosehips are beautiful in arrangements, birds feast on them, and the plants are gorgeous when they're in bloom and graceful when they're bare. I know they're listed as noxious/invasive elsewhere but so far aren't here. Someone referred to this plant as the 'Acadian rose', wondering if the Acadian settlers had brought it here, but I've found nothing to prove that. Anyone have anything to offer on that subject?

I guess of all the annuals in my garden containers from this past summer, this alyssum gets the award for being the most persistent. I think when the snow melts, however, she'll have finally thrown in the towel. I hope it seeds; it's been a delightful, carefree plant.

The wind didn't want to let up, so I came back indoors to let the warmth of the kitchen stove and the fragrance of paperwhites perk me up.

One of the amaryllis is promising a show in the not too distant future. In fact, quite a show. I have to move this one to my office from the kitchen to slow it down a little in its zeal to flower. Not sure which one this is til it flowers, as I kept the labels but forgot to mark down which bulb was in which pot. I'm sure none of you have ever done such a thing...

One of the Christmas cacti decided it really, really can't wait for Christmas, so it became the November cactus instead. It's just wrapping up most of its bloom, but there are a couple of others on tap to perform as we race towards the season of light, love, and joy.

Oh, and my snow tires work just great. So bring it, winter. The sooner you get going, the sooner you'll be done. Or so I tell myself.

The End of November Approacheth!

If there has been a defining weather pattern colour for NOvember, it's been grey. Grey skies, often wringing rain out like water from a dirty dishrag, making me feel grey with the blahs. Thankfully, we're into the last gasp of NO(light)vember, and moving on to December and the colourful lights and decorations of Christmas.


I don't need any excuses to go visit my friend Rob Baldwin in Upper Falmouth, but there was also the happy occasion of having to pick his brain for an article I was working on. Not surprisingly, the day I visited was grey, dreary and raining. But it wasn't cold, and we walked around the nursery and winter greenhouses, and Rob's plantings and containerized plants proved a point that he's always maintained: we in Atlantic Canada can plant for brilliant colour in the fall and winter when we most need it.


Rob's a huge advocate of evergreen plants, both broadleafed and coniferous, and all you have to do is walk around the nursery and the rest of his property for a little while to see his point about their versatility and variability in colour, size, shape, texture...and then make your wish list and start filling it. (I have quite a few, but every time I go to the nursery, my list expands. What a surprise that is).


This is 'Sunkist' cedar (Thuja), one we both agree on as a must-have shrub: it holds its golden colour really well, and is a great bird plant, both for them to hide or nest in (larger plants) and for the cones they use as food sources. My own 'Sunkist' isn't huge, but after four years in my garden it's never had any problem with dieback or windburn.


This is a form of Labrador tea (Ledum groenlandicum) that Rob grew from seed collected on our epic voyage to northern Nfld and southeastern Labrador two years ago with Captain Dick Steele and a dozen or so other intrepid plant hunters. Rob collected the seed for this off the side of a high hill at Blanc Sablon, Quebec, where we took the ferry from Labrador back to Newfoundland. I sat down at the ferry terminal and had a batch of kittens worrying about him climbing that hill after seed, but it was obviously worth it. The seedlings from that site are growing with an odd reflexed habit to their leaves, possibly to shed snow and protect themselves from the bitter winds that would scour that hill face.


This is one of the finest of native plants for a wildlife garden or just because it's gorgeous: northern Bayberry, Myrica pensylvanica. It is fragrant, has this amazing fall colour, holds its leaves for a long time before November winds take them, and has cool blue-grey berries which birds eat. People use it in decorative wreathmaking, too.


"I don't know why more people don't use Russian cypress," (Microbiota decussata) Rob said when we came to this collection of containers in one of the cold frames. "Look at its fall colour!" I totally agree with him (and it's one of the plants on my 'add this next year' list. In the summer, it's obligingly green and creeping and wellbehaved, but its fall colour is as splendid as 'Heatherbun' chamaecyparis, which I do have and love.



I happen to be very fond of native dogwoods like the red osier dogwood (Cornus sericea). Its red twigs glow beautifully especially against a backdrop of snow. This is the gold-twigged form, 'Flaviramea', which also works well; and for those of you with a flare for decorating, try adding a few twigs of both the red and gold forms to your winter flower/foliage arrangements. They're awesome.


Many rhododendrons and (especially) deciduous azaleas do really, really well here in Nova Scotia; they like the acid soil, and breeders have been propagating all kinds of good, cold-tolerant forms. This small leafed beauty is R. kiusianum, the Kyushu azalea; I was quite enchanted with the variation in foliage colour, and think I'll try it in the most sheltered part of my garden next spring.


Some of the younger and more borderline-hardy plants are spending the winter in one of the big greenhouses, where they will be protected from winds and snow. The photo doesn't really do them justice, because there are just so many forms and colours.


I've never seen this shrub before, and I want it. It's Disanthus cercidifolium, the redbud hazel, a member of the witch hazel family. Look at that fall foliage colour! Obviously I'll have to cold test this on my high hill, but it's apparently hardy to Zone 5. Want want want.


You can call this Golden fernleaf false cypress. Or Golden Dwarf Hinoki Cypress. Or, if you wanna exercise your tongue, Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Tetragona Aurea.' Just don't call it drab, boring or ugly. Because it's one of those catch-your-breath awesome chamaecyparis. Want want want WANT!


When Rob first moved to his property about 20 years ago, there wasn't much of anything there. He began planting trees and shrubs. A lot of trees and shrubs, especially evergreens, in all sizes, shapes and colours. There's always something to look at there, but this really is when the evergreens come into their own.


We came across this 'Pink Dawn' viburnum, getting a jump on spring out underneath some hardwood trees. Perhaps it knows something we don't about the coming winter. Maybe it's going to be a mild, open one. But there will still be plenty of grey days that will need alleviating by lots of colourful plants indoors and out.


Or else, like Mungus, I'll have to decide to climb into the duvet and sleep til spring.