Oh, Deer. The Curse of Many Gardeners.

There are several questions that garden writers get over and over again, and try to answer with varying degrees of success. “How do I keep deer from eating my…?” is the most often, and most plaintively-asked question. You can fill in the blanks as to what they’re eating, depending on the season: rhododendrons, holly, thuja and yew in winter; tulips and crocus in spring; daylilies, hosta, roses, daylilies vegetables, tree and berry fruits, and a host of other tasty options in summer. They’re voracious. And they’re not going away any time soon.

Winterless-post: favourite perennials

As we stagger through the seemingly interminable ordeal that is winter in Nova Scotia, it’s sometimes hard to remember what our yards looked like when it was sweet summer. While this seems to have been a particularly long and gruesome winter, we’ll make it through to spring again soon. I keep telling myself the pulmonaria will be blooming before we know it,

This is the time of year when plant breeders begin ramping up the excitement by unleashing scores of new cultivars on a gardening public eager to try different plants. I’m as keen to experiment as anyone, but I also have plants that are such proven performers in our garden, I’d never think about casting them out in favour of some sweet new thing with a fancy plant patent and complex name. Many of us love to push the zone by trying plants that aren’t reliably hardy, but we also like to grow plants that come back reliably, year after year, like dear friends. That doesn’t mean they won’t, occasionally fail to thrive or even expire, but no plant is foolproof unless it’s plastic.

Submitted for your approval, some of my favourite perennials.

5 years of Blooming Fun...

Life is always entertainingly busy around these parts. Right after the holidays, people came back to work, looked at their calendars, and freaked out about the time, and bombarded me with “we need to get this done” statements. Those sorts of announcements  don’t bother me at all, as I like to be busy, but I’ve been so busy that I plumb missed my own blogaversary.

Somehow, I thought it was at the end of the month, not two weeks ago. Whoops. Well, at least it wasn’t my own anniversary, a birthday or something else of import.

Introducing...my first paphiopedilum orchid bloom

Patience is a virtue when it comes to dealing with certain plants. I present to you, Paphiopedilum 'Limerick x Hillsvale x Cherokee', a splendid young ladyslipper orchid that I purchased last March during the annual orchid show and sale held by the Orchid Society of Nova Scotia at Acadia University's Harriet Irving Botanical Gardens.

The orchid fancier who sold the plant to me told me it would take a year or so for it to get around to flowering. I was quite all right with that--having more than enough plants in the house, there is always something blooming here.

Not-so Wordless Wednesday: Wondrous Winter Wings

One of the best parts of winter is the arrival of the snow buntings, also known as 'snowbirds'. These charming little songbirds are a very good excuse for me to hide behind a curtain in the house, trying to photograph them through snow- and salt-splashed windows. (It was far too cold the past couple of days to go outside and hang around trying to stalk these little guys.)

Snow buntings prefer open ground, and you will see drifts of them along roadsides, in farm fields, or large open spaces like we have at our property. They are not often seen in cities, for obvious reasons. Neither am I, though, so I can relate to them. They're also really, REALLY skittish, so I was pleased to get as decent shots as I did. They land on the west side of our barn roof, and start working their way up to the peak...

Cats and poisonous plants, part one: Indoors

An off the cuff Twitter conversation with a friend of mine the other day prompted me to create a public service post for my cat-loving readers. She hadn't known that so many plants, both those grown indoors and those in our gardens, are toxic to cats. I've written about this before, but it bears bringing to other cat-loving plant people's attention on a regular basis.

Cats do like to get into things, although usually those are food-related items such as cans of soup. Yes, this is Mungus. If someone is doing something bad in our house, it's usually Mungus.

Coaxing Spring with Flowering Twigs

Welcome to winter in Nova Scotia, part the 83rd. After some lovely snowfalls and brisk cold...it's pouring rain outside. Yuck. In desperation to cheer us all up, I suggest that when it stops raining (or whatever it's doing where you live,) we all go outside and cut some twigs off flowering shrubs and bring them indoors to force. Wouldn't it be nice to have a couple sprigs of Chaenomeles (quince) flowering indoors in February?

Bursting with indoor colour for Bloom Day

I don't do a post for every Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, mostly because I don't like to follow memes every time they run. But in the bleak midwinter, we need an outburst of colour to cheer our souls, and I have to say my house is blooming happy right now. Let's lead off with those tropical-looking darlings, members of the hibiscus family. I have two young, vigourously growing plants, both of which are flowering right now. This porange (pink-orange) beauty is one of my favourite indoor plants.

Hibiscus are well suited to growing as houseplants for most of us. They like it a little warmer than some varieties, so at this time of year I move mine out of my office (the coolest room in the house, unless I run a heater) and to the sunniest, draft-free spots. They don't like soggy feet but need to be watered regularly, especially this time of year. I draw off a watering can full of water and leave it set all day before I water the hibiscus, and this keeps them from getting shock to their roots.

Skywatch Friday: After the Snow

The first serious, get-down-and-boogie snowstorm came along on Wednesday, with nearly a foot of snow blanketing everything and creating wonderful snow-art, ranging from dustings on asclepias pods to drifts in some of the borders. Hey, if we are going to have winter, we might as well have snow, to protect those hellebore buds from the vagaries of temperature shifts so that they will bloom when spring comes!

A heavy snowfall accompanied with impressive winds tends to make everything look new, interesting and fresh. Although the grey skies tend to make for a bit of a monochromatic Skywatch Friday, things are serene and relaxing as I walk around the property.

Wordless Wednesday: Sleepy kitty, sleepy hellebore buds, sleepy teasels

In the Pink, the colour of happiness

One thing about snowy winter days: they sort of remove most of the colour from the natural world, swathing everything in purest white and turning other shades to somber, yet tranquil, darkness. Browns, greys, blacks, shadows. While the landscapes are soothing on such days, our hearts yearn for colour, especially in our quiet gardens.

Here again we turn to gardening in the mind's eye, remembering sundrenched days when the gardens blazed forth with a rainbow of colours, across the spectrum.

Apparently it's not enough to have a plant of the year, person of the year, song of the year...there's also a colour of the year, as selected by Pantone. This year, the colour is called Honeysuckle, and is an interesting shade of pink. I'm not a colour theorist, and I'm not necessarily a huge fan of pink, except where flowers are concerned. Our friend Joey of The Village Voice calls pink The Colour of Happiness, and I can certainly agree with her there--as I agree with her on most things having to do with the garden!

My favourite pink flowers are the annual and perennial poppies, which flaunt their colours throughout the summer, providing bees with pollen and me with plenty of delight watching the shows.

When I am able to cajole hollyhocks into blooming, they're never yellow, the colour I long for in hollyhocks. Oh no...they're always some shade of pink, or in this case, verging on fuchsia.

This pink gerbera is about as close as I can get to the 'honeysuckle pink' shade that Pantone has decreed this year's colour. What I want to know is, is this supposed to be a colour to decorate our homes with? Wear on clothing? Ummmm...I like it just fine in the garden, or in the house as a flowering plant, but that's the limit.

Last summer was the first in a few years that I was unable to find these most excellent African daisies, or venidium, anywhere at my favourite local nurseries. This plant has a metallic sheen to its flowers, which I've had in red, orange, and this lovely pink shade, and hope to find again this year.

Pink seems to be a polarizing colour, in part because it has been politicized for a certain disease, but aside from that it's a colour many people have a strong opinion about. What about you? Does pink have a prime position in your perennial preferences? Or do you push pink into the past, preferring pastels or pungent purples?

Okay, I admit it. Been working too hard, and insomnia is making me slightly giddy. Enjoy the pink petals, friends, and I'll return after I catch up my work and my sleep!

Bouncing over book news and other Friday Fun

Writing a book is kind of like planting a tree, or maybe more like doing winter-sowing; you put in a bunch of work, then there's a lull, while you're busy doing other things, and then suddenly it's spring and the seedlings are germinating or the tree is leafing out.

That's where I'm at right now. Last year, I worked for months on the manuscript for my second book, Plants for Atlantic Gardens, and it was a huge effort made easier by having wise fellow gardening and writing friends who I could turn to. Then there was a lull while my fabulous editor did his magic, then another flurry of work for me, then another lull. Well, those lulls were occupied by other things like other work obligations, so really, the time flew past.

The garden of indoors...Phalaenopsis orchids

If there is a more perfect cure for winter (other than a trip somewhere warm) than orchids, I don't know what that would be. For those of you who think you can't grow orchids at your house, I'm here to tell you: if you can grow a simple African violet, a Christmas cactus, a philodendron, you can grow phalaenopsis, or moth orchids.

Trust me on this. I have about a dozen, in myriad shades and shapes and yes, even sizes. When I first became intrigued by these graceful, long blooming and elegant plants, they tended to come in only a couple of colours, white and magenta, at least locally. They were also very expensive. Today, things have changed quite dramatically!

Canada Reads...The Birth House!

Welcome to 2011, everyone! I hope you've had a great New Year's and Christmas holiday and are settling back into the regular routines of your week.

As I mentioned in my last post, there are going to be a few changes to Bloomingwriter in the coming weeks, especially as the end of this month will mark 5 years of me bathering on here. One of the changes I have been sort-of implementing of late is the publishing of book reviews and author interviews. Although these will mostly be of books pertaining to gardening, botany, and such, I also plan to drop in the occasional review of a favourite fiction book, and a talk with its author.

CBC Radio has a program on each winter called Canada Reads, where five 'celebrity judges' debate the merits of five recent works of Canadian fiction. The show will run in early February, but there's been a lot of hype and chatter in recent weeks and days. This year marks ten years of the show, and the books were selected from works published in the past ten years. To my great delight, one of the books in the top five is The Birth House, by Scotts Bay resident Ami McKay! This is one of my favourite novels of all time, and not just because it's by a writer who is a friend and is set in my community. It simply reads like a dream. Chapters/Indigo included it as one of their best books of the decade, and it's been published in numerous other countries, including the USA, Great Britain, Germany and the Netherlands.

Skywatch Friday: The Garden of the mind's eye

Once again, we've come to the end of a year of gardens, writing, plants that came and went, and of course, Skywatch Fridays. This is the first snowy Skywatch for me since last winter, but I can pretty much guarantee it won't be the last one. 2011 looms ahead in a few hours, and although I plan a retrospective or two, they're not for today. Today, I celebrate the return of the sun and the garden of the mind's eye.

Gisela of Guildwood Gardens quoted a phrase from another writer to me last year that I've kept in my notebook of wonderful thoughts. I had been lamenting the lack of sunlight as winter began, and was creating my own sunlight with collections of golden flowers.

Everyone loves a garden centre sale...

Is there anything better than a sale at a beloved garden centre? Especially when the sale is 50 % off EVERYTHING, from pots to plants, from ornaments to bird feeders...
That's the case right now til closing on New Year's Eve at Den Haan's Garden World in Middleton, here in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley. Oh, boy...since I had been given some money as a birthday present, I knew I would have to go treat myself. And I did!

Winter-themed Plants for a White New Year...

I trust that everyone has had a wonderful Christmas, although many of us have been plagued by weather challenges. Here, the Green Christmas gave way on Boxing Day night to an onslaught of weather, including freezing rain, rain, snow, and much wind, assorted power outages and other adventures. Today, the weather continues, blasting us with a few of those 'flurries where winds blow onshore'. But that's fine with me as I have not been outside for two days, content to read, write, nap and otherwise wind down from the chaos of Christmas.


When we were still snow-less in Scotts Bay, I got to thinking about various plants that have snow-related cultivar or common names, thinking that would make for an amusing post. Some of the plants that I have in my garden include Hemerocallis 'Roses in Snow.'

Blooming Friday: A "White" Christmas of sorts...

Thursday was my birthday, and on Wednesday, LongSuffering Spouse arrived home with a big box full of packing, tissue paper and the like. "The weather is milder today so I could bring this safely home to you," he said. "It's a day early, but happy birthday!"

He chose this phalaenopsis because he knows I like white flowers, and also because it has a purple 'heart' of sorts. Awwwww...So along with being a green-flowered Christmas, it's now a White Christmas too...(and we actually do have a light dusting of snow outside, which is enough for me.
To all my readers near and far, to those travelling and those at home with loved ones, to my fellow garden bloggers, writers, gardeners and book lovers...a Happy Christmas to one and all. May you receive the desires of your heart this season, and may we all see peace on this earth of ours.

Green flowers for a Green Christmas

After the recent spate of storms, including a rainstorm last night that kept us from watching the lunar eclipse live (but we saw it via the joys of the Interwebs), we are pretty much expecting a green Christmas here in Scotts Bay (and probably all of Nova Scotia). I'm okay with that, because it makes travel easier, and to me, Christmas spirit doesn't have to do with snow, but with family and friends.

Back in March as part of my coping-with-Farch techniques, I purchased my first paphiopedilum orchid, this green-flowered beauty that goes by the name of Paphiopedilum 'Limerick x Greenvale x Cherokee'. As a slightly early birthday present, 'Limerick' has presented me with a flower stalk and bud; I'm intensely excited about this, and decided a post celebrating green flowers would be just the thing.

I've always been besotted with green flowers, which seem to be a very polarizing flower colour; people either love them for their exotic beauty or dislike them because they're not some other colour, like hot pink or blazing scarlet or perfect blue. Well, I love all those colours too, but greens just resonate with me. I have several green flowered phalaenopsis (nameless but lovely).

Many flowers start out green and change to other colours as they mature, including the eryngiums that I grow. The striking bracts surrounding the central flower stalk of Eryngium 'Miss Wilmott's Ghost' are a particular favourite.

'Limelight' hydrangea is a stellar performer in my garden, producing huge, coneshaped clusters of flowers in the palest of green shades.

Others are also besotted with green flowers, as this book 'Green Flowers' by Alison Hoblyn demonstrates. I have this book and enjoy looking through it especially in the dead of winter. Naturally, it's from the good people at Timber Press.

There are green-flowered native plants to charm us, including the delightful Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum)...

And more exotic choices such as the green-flowered hellebores.

I love Bells of Ireland for their faint minty fragrance as well as the complex beauty of their flowering stalks. As with many green flowers, the showy part of the 'flower' is actually a modified leaf called a bract.

In this case of Echinacea 'Green Envy', however, both the central cone and petals are delicious green. This was one of my must-have plants when it first was released and continues to be a favourite, long-blooming allstar in my garden.

I was able to acquire echinacea 'Green Jewel' this past summer, and it has also been a jewel of a performer, producing flowers until a hard frost sent it to napping.

I love nicotiana of any colour; this one isn't as fragrant as some of the species and other hybrids, but it was a great performer in containers this past summer. I'm not certain, but I think this is N. alata 'Lime Green.'

Many of the euphorbias boast acid-green flowers, (sort of the colour of Mountain Dew), which are especially attractive when planted near something dark. In the case of Euphorbia charachias 'Fens Ruby', the plant's foliage supplies the dark colour as a fabulous contrast to the flowers.

At least a couple of times during the winter, I indulge in some cut flowers, and HAVE to include green blossoms in the mix. Sometimes they're dyed, but other times they include Bells of Ireland or green chrysanthemums like these.

I look forward to the spring blooms of snowdrops with their happy green accents, but also love to see the lesser-planted but equally charming summer snowflake (Leucojum), which sort of resemble a snowdrop on steroids.

And despite the myriad of tulip colours that we can enjoy, some of my favourites are naturally the viridifloras, or green-flowered cultivars, like 'Spring Green'. They look cool and fresh alongside newly emerging hostas.

Are you a fan of green flowers? What are your favourites?