Flurries, feathered friends and other miscellany

I’ve mentioned before how we are often inclined to get something we fondly refer to as ‘flurries where winds blow on shore.’ After the brief respite--I did warn it would be brief!--we had one of those days and nights yesterday, and I’d estimate, judging by the look of the yard and the sides of the road, that we got about 4 inches of ‘flurries’. Of course, with those famous winds that blow onshore, there are places where fields are bare, and other places where drifts are quite tall. In our yard, however, things are mostly sensible—because of those mild days and rains that did take away a lot of the snow, about the deepest patch I can find is somewhere around three feet in length, stretching along the upper paddock fence line like a cresting wave down at the beach.

It's been amusing to watch the bluejays this morning, because the temperature has also dropped into the teens (about -10 C, I think). The jays are fluffed up to be the size of partridge, setting in the rhododendron and diving out during lulls in the wind to have a snack at the feeders. Even more fun was watching the cats watch the birds, although Spunky Boomerang and Simon Q are exhausted from all that activity and have decided that having a rest is more important than watching bird television, at least for a while.

In between working on assignments, I’ve been doing some reading up on—what else?—plants, poring over the latest magazines, books, and of course those plant catalogues that I love to mention. I’ve also been spring-cleaning my computer hard drive, sorting out articles and ideas, photos—oh me nerves, there are too many plant photos!—and generally pretending I’m being organized.

Something a friend said the other day ticked in my mind when in shuffling through my harddrive documents, I came across a quotation that I really like, and that sums up the way many of us like to garden; using the style of ‘benevolent neglect’. An editor friend of mine told me that a late gardener from up around Stewiake, NS, used to describe her garden thriving under her tender ministrations of benevolent neglect. Others have confessed to worrying so much over their gardens in the summer, overworking themselves sometimes in the quest to make everything look 'perfect'.

One of the things I do when giving talks or writing articles is encourage people not to stress over their gardens. Just relax and enjoy it all—we’re supposed to be gardening for the love of it, not to get all into a froth over having perfectly edged borders and flawless drifts of perfectly matched perennials, immaculately mowed and trimmed expanses of velour-green grass (blerk!) and everything just so, like something out of a Martha Stewart daydream. If that’s the way you want your garden and your yard, that’s fine with me—but let’s not stress about these things unduly. It's about gardening for joy, isn't it, and making our patch of earth a happier, more peaceful and lovely spot, isn't it?

What I can see of our back garden looks not so much like it’s suffering from benevolent neglect at the moment—instead, it’s just resting under a perfect carpet of snow. The wind exhausted itself and took a little pause, the flurries relaxed…and the sky smiled to empart a perfect winter sunset, just before the performance of the lunar eclipse, which others have already talked about, including Lisa at Greenbow's marvelous collection of photos.

After the grunge that emerged earlier in the week, I actually prefer this. Underneath, the garden sleeps, while I make plans to add to, amend, change, and encourage the plants already there…in moderation, and without stress. It is, after all, my labour of love and a labour in progress, not a deadline driven assignment.

Speaking of which--I'm always juggling deadlines, which is how I prefer to work, but occasionally bump up against one that is giving me a headache. So I'm a bit behind in my blog-reading, emailing, commenting, and so on, including replying to all your comments here on Bloomingwriter. For now, I'll just warmly welcome those of you who are new to visiting, thank everyone for their cheery and helpful comments (especially about hellebores, and Frances, I did get a couple boughs over top of my plant!), and will catch up on visiting others in the next few days.


And I'm a bit wistful, too; yesterday would have been my dad's 76th birthday, had he not been taken from us by early-onset Alzheimers several years ago. I feel him around me all the time, sometimes more strongly than others, and never as much as when I'm in the garden, or thinking about planting tomatoes. Miss you always, Dadums.

Potpourri: A melt, buds, and books

What a difference a few days makes. This was the scene here last Monday--and again on Wednesday. Then the rains began. We had a rain, a freeze, a pause for a couple of days, more rain, and then just a bit of a break.


Hard to believe that five-foot drifts could disappear to almost nothing in spots, but that's the nature of winter these days in my fair province. We could also have those drifts back--or worse--in a few days. It's no wonder we get a bit winterweary, crabby, gloomy at times. Then suddenly the sun comes out, and we're almost giddy with relief, even though we know the respite is brief.


This is also a hard time to get excited about the gardens, because everything looks so messy. Detritus from perennials breaking down, from the dooryard being plowed time and again the past few weeks, stuff that has been hiding in the snow, all emerges and clutters what looked so quietly pristine while wrapped in clean white snow. However, if the weather holds for a day or three, I might make a bit of attempt for pre-spring cleaning. Longsuffering spouse gets to rake the gravel off the grass...but we'll wait til we're surely finished with plowing. April, for sure!


A walk around the yard yielded some surprises, despite the grunge in beds. Normally, a wallflower surrenders by late fall, driven into mush by the frosts, the cold, the snow, the rain...but look at this! Either this plant has become a mutation, or its buds have freezedried...or it's still planning to live and bloom.


Now, today I was doing a bit of catchup reading and was lost in complete and utter hellebore-envy, when I went to Frances of Faire Garden's post about her hellebores. Regular readers have heard my lamentations in the past about my troubles with hellebores; they grow beautifully for me, come through what normal gardeners have for winter, start to wake up--and get slammed by one of our later rain/snow/cold sessions, and turn to mush. I put one more plant in last spring, under my hamamelis 'Diane', and wasn't feeling too optimistic about its survival chances. So imagine my surprise when I found that so far...the plant is alive and well.


And what's this? Can this be...buds? On MY hellebore? Could this be the year? (Hope springs eternal...)
Now, my question to those of you who do well with hellebores: if YOU lived in an eccentric climate where spring plays with our affections until well into May...with wild fluctuations in temperature, all kinds of precipitation, and other crankinesses...would you mulch this plant now with straw or evergreens to protect it from what's coming?


And now for something completely different. Remember in my last post I said I had other authors I wanted to recommend, especially when it comes to colour? Well...lest readers think I'm only crazy about British/European designers, here's a pair from the US I can really get excited about. Stephanie Cohen and Nancy Ondra have collaborated on a few books, and I have two of them. The Perennial Gardener's Design Primer is just how I love my books: a cheery, encouraging, and down-to-earth talk that demystifies the art of planting perennials, whether you're planting for seasons, for problem sites, are a beginner or a perennial addict--or are all of the above! Nan, of course, is one of the great team at Gardening Gone Wild, and also maintains her own site at Hayefield; I don't know Stephanie except from her books, but these are the kind of writers that make you feel like you're sitting at a table, sipping tea and talkin' plants with them, not being talked down at.


And their most recent collaboration is perfect for those of us who love to lengthen the gardening season: Fallscaping! Thanks to this book by Nan and Stephanie, and also thanks to other great writers who inspire like the Netherlands Piet Oudolf, I'm learning all kinds of intriguing ideas for using foliage, late blooming perennials, and other plants and planting combinations for autumn gardening. I haven't finished this book yet--other books are in the queue for reviewing for publications that pay the bills--but if you've ever wondered how to avoid the latesummer meltdown and keep your garden looking terrific well into winter: go buy Fallscaping.

And now...this just in...it's snowing again! The good news is, we were able to get Leggo My Eggo and Jenny the donkey-from-Mars outside today to stretch their legs, after nearly a week in the barn, because the ice finally melted enough that they could go play. We've still got weeks of weird weather to go, but we'll make it. We always do!

Colour in the Garden: Be Bold!

As my friend Kylee says, a garden designer I ain't. It's well known I may possibly be just a little bit of a plant addict...I just love plants, trying old as well as new varieties, trying different colours, textures, heights, and so on. I'm not shy about using colour in our gardens. The fun thing about playing with plant colours is if something doesn't work, you can change it quickly--it's not like painting your house and deciding it's not quite the right shade.

One of my favourite authors and inspirations is the late, great Christo Lloyd, and this book is one of a few I would have to take with me if I were stranded on a desert island.

In past posts I've written how Christo exhorts gardeners to 'learn the rules of colour--so you can break them!' Never being one to follow rules too rigourously, that works just fine for me. It was fun to find that rules I thought I was scandalously bending are things he approves of wholeheartedly.

There aren't too many colours I don't like, mostly because in many cases the shape of the flower or the bloom period or other feature overrules any hesitation I have about a particular colour. I'm not strong on pastels, but I do have some, of course. There's just one problem with pastels, and that has more to do with where I live than with the colours themselves.


Well, when you deal with as much RFD (Rain, Fog and Drizzle) as we oceanside dwellers do in summer months, you don't want to have only soft pastels...at least I don't! Not only do they tend to look like hell when the wet causes roses to ball like soggy lumps of kleenex, they just look washed out after day 3 of fog.


Whereas this would never look washed out, would it? This is a friend's garden, down the Valley where the heat shimmers in high summer. Marnie has some similar colour tastes and plant loves as I do, obviously, because hers is one of my favourite gardens, private or public!


Maybe some people find this many bright coloured plants tiring on the eyes...in which case you can cool them down nicely with something a little more neutral, like silver foliage on these rose campion plants (Lychnis coronaria, at least I think it still is unless the taxonomists have had a meeting!)


While this may cause some to run shrieking in horror, blue and orange is one of my absolute favourite colour pairings in the garden. I wouldn't wear those colours together, I don't think, but in the garden they provide me an instant lift. As an added bonus, both the wallflower (cv unknown, sadly) and the corydalis (C. elata, not the less-hardy-here C. flexuosa)


Some of my plantings have worked out really well, not so much by planning--I'll admit that freely--in earlier years I tossed everything in together and hoped it grew, but now I do plan a wee bit. I like the way the deep wine poppies (and their more red cousins) play off the even deeper wine, almost black foliage of Cimicifuga--whoops, that's Actaea now--'Black Negligee'. There are several gold-foliaged plants nearby to add contrast: Bromus 'Skinner's Gold' and 'Aztec Gold' veronica, among others.

It's no surprise that I'm a voracious reader, of magazines, newspapers, books, blogs and my evergrowing library of gardening books is the envy of many a visitor--those who get let into the sanctum sanctorum of my office. Another of my favourite authors is Britain's Sarah Raven, who is another cheerleader for gardening with joy, whether you're planting peas or portulaca, lettuce or lithops.

When I am feeling really tired and whited out by the dreary days, I know a cup of chai tea and a look through The Bold and Brilliant Garden will make me feel much, much better.


In looking back through photos of past container plantings of annuals, I don't think I've ever used exactly the same combination more than once. Most of our annuals, except the free range species (nigella, poppies, sunflowers and other exuberant selfseeders) are in containers, which I use for portable colour, moving them around the dooryard, entryways, and borders where there's a lull happening. Perhaps some bulbs are dying down, and perennials haven't yet gotten their growth; or perhaps I've whacked some of the perennials down to cajole a second flush of blooms out of them. Pop a container into a bare spot, and voila! Instant brightness. (And all these annuals give my pollinating friends something extra to dine on, too.


There's a lot going on in this particular part of the front garden, I admit it. The plants are selected to take some shade in afternoon, to always provide some colour (that yellow corydalis will flower nonstop until snow) but also there's a fair bit of focus on foliage texture; ranging from the straplike leaves of Hakonechloa (Japanese forest grass), Asiatic lilies and hemerocallis to the fernlike Corydalis and Aquilegia species, and the coarser, strong foliage of Echinops. And for good measure, there's the silver spangled foliage of Lamiastrum, Dicentra, and Pulmonaria species. It might be too much for some, but for us, it works. And for the butterflies, bees, hummingbirds and others who visit constantly--it apparently works well, too!

Finally...a shoutout to my computer-genius offspring Ryan, who got into my blog template and made the side panels wider, so that I could post images and html widgets without them overflowing off the template. We're still puzzling over the way the template reacts to titles, but he'll figure that out. He reminded me that we were some of the first people in our area to be on the Internet (1993!) and that he's grown up with all this--he was playing on the Internet when others in his grade 1 class didn't know what it was. I smile, nod, admit to being a pretty good writer and a dunderhead about HTML and Java, and am very grateful for his skills 'behind the scenes'!

Wildflowers in Winter: Week 5

Looking down through the rest of the topics for Wildflowers in Winter, it looks like this may well be my last post. For sure we won't have any wildflowers outdoors before the end of the project; I don't have contact with any kids to speak of (my son is grown and thankfully there won't be any grandchildren any time soon!) and as for art...well, we'll see. Of course, I'll get to visit all who do their own posts, which is just as satisfying.

This week was a challenge because looking around the house, I noticed a dearth of wildflower stitchery. I don't do needlework--it's been years since I cross-stitched anything--and I don't seem to buy any. Or so I thought. Then I looked closer.

This clever card incorporates fabric, paint, glitter and sequins to create one of my favourite plants (no surprise, it's a blue Meconopsis!)


And this little darling incorporates two of my favourite things; cats and flowers! Handstitched by an artist in St. Andrews by the Sea, New Brunswick, I had to have him when he looked at me.


Some of you will have seen this before; my huge leather sunflowers, also made by a local artist. Aren't they terrific? I move this wall sculpture around the house on a regular basis, because every time I look at it, I smile. And that's always a good thing, as we all know.


I have a LOT of silk scarves of various patterns, but they are either abstract in design or feature cats, blueberries, whales and porpoises, or, most intriguingly, a jellyfish! But then I realized I had this silk painting done by well-known artist Holly Carr, who lives here in Canning. I would love to have a larger piece than this 'Poppy Angel', and maybe one day I will.I bought this at an auction put on by a local group raising funds for solar lighting systems for schools in Uganda, so it was a beneficial thing all the way around.


Whew...two posts in one evening!? Now I get to read and catch up with what everyone else is up to! Happy blogging!

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day: Endless FARCH, Pt 1

Once again it's time for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, the keep-gardeners-sane project developed by Carol of May Dreams Gardens, and it's been really cheering for a northern gardener like me to see those of you with real blossoms outside in your garden. As some of you know, (in some cases, first hand!) this has been the week of much weather here in Nova Scotia, and we're all a bit weatherbeaten. But in my office, it's sort of summery; because there are no less than a dozen plants flowering, with a few others scattered through the house.
Deliver me from plant temptation, though, because this azalea is doing quite nicely; so much so that I'm deeply tempted to go get one I saw the other day in a deep purple colour--I'd never seen a house azalea that colour before, and the blossoms were larger too. Will I go back and get it? More importantly--will it still be there when I go back?


Although the growth on my evolvolus is looking a little straggly from lack of sunlight, it's still producing flowers every few days. IN another month I'll cut it way back and start fertilizing it, getting it ready for going outdoors for the summer, but meanwhile, these blue flowers just make me very happy.


Another great success this winter has been the flowering of the Phaelenopsis--so well has it done that I'm getting mentally psyched to pick up a couple more easy orchids. There are two upcoming orchid shows happening, one in Halifax and one in Wolfville, and I know a couple of serious orchid-breeders/raisers, so you all know what will happen when I go visit them!


This is a first in a long time! My pheasant-breast aloe is starting to flower! This is one of those plants that pleases me so much architecturally because of its shape and colouring and texture, it doesn't have to bloom to be a star--so right now, it's really taking pride of place.


Although the flowers have long since dropped from the two poinsettias that I've still got (I let the other two go to sleep), this pink one and the bicolour are both still doing well, holding all their leaves and coloured bracts too. They're only small plants, and will likely succumb to be tired after a while, but for now, I still am enjoying them immensely.


Those saintpaulias/African violets I rescued from the bigbox store have settled in nicely and appear to be thriving. They are also, so far, cathair free, because I've cleverly put them where the cat children can't get at them. Plus they don't seem to be tempting dietary supplements, so no one has come after them to chew on them.


Someone--it may have been Diane of Alberta Postcards, whose current Blooms Day post is from Lotusland, also known as British Columbia--mentioned the fragrance of cyclamen in a post some months back. I have to confess I hadn't noticed any scent before, and I do find it somewhat ephemeral. The while cyclamen appears to produce the most scent, and that early in the day, and I love the purity of its blossoms, too.

A final note--I'm delighted to see how many have participated in the Garden Bloggers Geography Project so far! It's really enjoyable to learn more about where you live and garden, so different from my location. And yes, I'll get a post up about HERE, too, perhaps sometime this weekend. I also have several book reviews and my Wildflowers in Winter post to do, plus finish a couple of articles and start drafts on others. I'm never bored--frequently tired, but never bored--as we count down the days til spring arrives, (first, however, I gotta survive FARCH!)

Chocolate (plants) for Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's day, for those inclined to celebrate it. In between weather tantrums here and some electrical and internet interruptions, I skipped over to the Canadian weather website to have a look, and look at this! My country is turning itself into a Valentine! Those red provinces and territories all indicate weather warnings. That's us over here on the east coast (right hand side of the image, the last piece attached to the continent). The only places not indicating severe weather right now are southern Ontario, British Columbia and...Saskatchewan? Whew...Kate must be getting a bit of a respite. Here, we've gone from snowstorm this morning to torrential rains tonight. It's enough to make a person completely scream, and reach for the chocolate.

What do you mean, there's no chocolate in the house at the moment? Okay, what about outside?

Last spring, I started building a chocolate and wine garden. These are two of my favourite things, although I don't allow myself much of either. Wine clashes with a prescription I must take, and chocolate--well, I like high quality dark chocolate, and that gets pricy. So to feed my craving another way, I thought it would be fun to put in some chocolate and wine themed plants. We won't bother with the wine plants right now, but come along and have a look at what's tempting for the chocolate lovers among us.


One of the first plants I got that had chocolate in its name is Eupatorium rugosum 'Chocolate'. Also known as Joe-pye weed and mistflower, this is a highly recommended plant for butterfly gardens. I find it likes it a little drier than its native kin, but it's done nicely for us.


There are so many heucheras out there, and many of them have food-connected names--I think those are usually from Terra Nova Plants out in Oregon. This one is 'Frosted Violet', and a star performer it's been for me; it grew enormously this past year and looked great right into autumn--though I haven't seen it for several months due to the big drifts of snow covering it--and most of this part of the garden!


If you're craving more chocolate and more heuchera, look no further than 'Chocolate Ruffles' heuchera. There seems to be a bit of variation in how rich the colour shows in this plant, but I'm quite smitten with heucheras so I don't care--it settled in nicely and next year who knows what it will look like?


I love most cranesbills, with one of my favourite being Geranium phaeum, the mourning widow cranesbill. The deep chocolatey flowers last a long time, and last year I got my hands on G.p. 'Springtime', which has marvelously coloured foliage too.


New to me last summer was the 'Chocolate Stars' corydalis (C. quantmayerana). It didn't flower much, but I was so fascinated with its foliage, I was okay with that. You know how I am about foliage--it's as important to me as flowers, and sometimes, even more important.


Now this plant IS all about the flowers; chocolate foxglove, Digitalis parviflora 'Milk Chocolate'. Isn't it delightful? A friend of mine has had this plant for several years, but it wasn't multiplying enough to share with me, so I was really, really happy to find a couple of plants at a nursery in Antigonish. I should have bought them all, although I'm told it grows decently from seed. Anyone try that yet?


Too much chocolate can be a bit overwhelming, even cloying, so if not a good glass of wine to temper it, how about a good Espresso? In this case, it's 'Espresso' cranesbill. I don't remember this flowering last year, but I didn't care about it flowering--it's all about the foliage, this time again!


An interesting plant that I've found slow to develop in our garden is Rodgersia. I have the common variety but also this unusual and fun 'Chocolate Wings'. It doesn't get tall, which may be why I thought it was being slow--it spreads to about three feet but only grows less than a foot tall. It doesn't matter, though--its colour is so great, if I find it hasn't spread much when I see it in spring, I'll go get a couple more plants!


From Renee's Seeds came the wonderful Chocolate Cherry sunflower. It's pollen free, so I don't expect any selfseeding to happen; I have a few seeds left from last year but can always get more.


Don't you love columbines? Of all sorts, from species to hybrids, from the modest Granny's Bonnets to the huge, longspurred showoff types? This is Black Barlow, one of my favourites, although my most favourite is the wild red columbine. It doesn't work in the chocolate garden, but Black Barlow does!


And one more plant that doesn't have chocolate in its name, but does put on a great show of deep, richly coloured flowers: Dianthus 'Sooty'. I apologize for the quality of this image; I can't find the photos I took of mine, and I pulled tis from a seedsite somewhere online last year--and can't figure out where! This year, however, I'll get more photos and be more organized about categorizing them all.

What I don't have here is any of the chocolate scented plants (other than chocolate mint--and that's in a container) like Chocolate cosmos or chocolate vine. So far, anyway--this IS, after all, a work in progress. And some might dispute having a purple or copper beech in the chocolate garden, but the foliage is just so rich and dark--even when the leaves change colour in fall, they turn a nice light bronzed chocolate colour. So it works for me. It's my garden and I'll plant what I wanna, right?

That's about it for here for tonight. Because I'm shutting down the computers before I go to bed to read, I've pushed the date ahead a couple of hours--I hope everyone has a lovely Valentine's day, in spite of whatever weather tantrums you might also be enduring!

Valentine's Day: Thinkin' Pink

Angela at Cottage Magpie has challenged bloggers to do a post on pink things around our homes for Valentine's Day. Being a gardener, and not being one who uses pink in the house too much, I naturally thought of pink-flowered plants, the perfect gift for many a romantic soul.

Pink isn't a colour I wear much of--never was a pink girly girl as a child, more the tomboy with scuffed knees and dirt-coloured teeshirts and shorts! Nor is it my absolute favourite garden colour. In fact, I thought of doing an "I don't like pink" much in the way Nan Ondra did an "I don't like white" post to rave reviews. The results would be probably surprisingly the same; that I do like it.


It depends too on the interpretation of pink. Do we mean shell pink, rose pink, hot pink like fuchsia, (or is fuchsia closer to magenta?) or some other colour? Let's see....this annual poppy is definitely a happy pink with subtle colour changes. But a poppy could come in any colour from black to blue to pink to jubilant orange and I'd love it.


I was thinking I don't have much in the way of pink roses (they lean closer to magenta, some of them) and then I remembered one of my favourites is the wonderful rugosa Polareis, softly pink and white. It's also divinely fragrant and I'd rather have one fragrant rose than a dozen scentless longstems from the florist.


Normally, anything pink and related to breast cancer sends me into a rage, mostly because I find the whole fundraising thing around cancer to be rather repugnant--so much money is spent on PR, but that's a tantrum for another day. However, I bought this pink potentilla intentionally; money from it was being donated to a local group for breast cancer survivors, and I bought it to put in my former mother-in-law's memory garden, who died nearly two years ago.


Another subtly pink flowered plant, this one a peony of unknown name but exquisite fragrance and porcelain like beauty.


Astilbes are one of those plants I love whether they're in flower or not, because their foliage is just so great. Some of ours came from a nursery where they were simply labeled "White" "Red", "Pink" etc. This one was labeled "White"...but it's just fine in pink, too!


From a garden I visited this summer, a marvelous collection of lilies, in a rainbow of shades, but the pink ones really got me; especially the fragrant ones, which were beyond exquisite.


And I love Pinks, meaning of course Dianthus--annual pinks, perennial pinks, they're all good and I can't possibly get enough of them, especially if they're nicely fragrant, which these are.


Okay, maybe I'm splitting pink hairs a bit. This flower is mostly white and green, but with a bit of pink and deeper rose to it. Astrantia are one of my most beloved plants the past couple of years. The flowers aren't huge, but they're so perfectly patterned; I've been known to sit and just LOOK at one for long periods of time. A kind of garden meditation.


A bit of a deeper rose-pink now in this late-summer sedum, with a real cute bumblebee as bonus. Late summer and fall is actually when I most like pink; it tempers all the golds, rusts, oranges and reds that are in the garden, slightly cooling them, although put something pink in the wrong spot and it even screams "NO" to me!


I've grown very fond of this fleeceflower, which behaves nicely, flowers profusely, has a bit of a rest, and then throws more blooms later in the season, for good measure.


We can't forget pink foliage, either. Keeping a nishiki willow somewhat pruned (I just prune lightly) promotes new growth with that lovely pink in with the green and cream;


But this hardy kiwi takes the pink cake for rosy foliage, wouldn't you say?
There, that's enough pink for today...it cheered my heart too, given that although the sun is out, the snow is blowing and drifting into huge waves now in the yard and road.