Petals of Light...Parrot Tulips

AS we trudge on through March, I do all kinds of things to help me cope while others are celebrating spring's arrival. Yesterday, a bunch of tulips in the grocery store caught my eye, and climbed into my cart. Who was I to argue?

I divided them into two vases and put some in the kitchen (warmest room in the house) and some in my office (coolest room). It doesn't take long for them to respond to the temperatures. 

These are parrot tulips, called Libretto Parrot. I hadn't seen them before, and normally I go for the more flamboyant parrots. But I liked the subtle freshness of these. A woman who used to work for the Bulb Information Centre told me that she thought parrots look like technicolour lettuces. I see her point. 

At first, tulips in a vase splay every which way, but this morning the office tulips, still more closed than the kitchen vase, stood up pertly and offered their petals for inspection. 

I explained to the kitties that these tulips had frilled edges to their petals, but I didn't want to see teethmark 'frills'. They've been very good and left them alone. 

Even though the natural light wasn't perfect, I didn't want to use my flash to explore the tulips subtle beauties. Their petals are so lustrous, translucent and light-holding, and the secrets in their hearts make me smile and smile. (I was too lazy to go out to my camera bag in the car trunk and get the macro lens this morning. Maybe tomorrow). 

Gazing into these perfect petals, I am sure that spring will eventually find its way to us, even to my high windy hill. 

The Newest and Shiniest or the Faithful Old Favourites?

Over the course of the past few months, when we couldn't do so much gardening as we could writing about gardening, many posts have been about new plants as well as old favourites. Some gardeners want to try the latest, to see if they’re also the greatest. Others are content to stay with their tried and true faithful plants. Where do you fall in the discussion?

As with so many topics, I end up pretty well in the middle of the road on this one. My theory is, of course, to bloom where you’re planted, and plant whatever makes you happy. Orange-red geraniums aren’t my thing—I prefer hot pink. As I've mused in earlier posts, Impatiens make me impatient, at least in my own yard, but I’ll happily enjoy them in yours. I’m not crazy about coreopsis except for the threadleaf types, I never plant a begonia, and of course everyone knows how I feel about goutweed. JUST SAY NO!

I love my oldfashioned columbines, which pop up everywhere throughout our garden and hybridize themselves wantonly. But without plant breeders and amateur plant enthusiasts who keep an eye out for something different, we wouldn't be able to enjoy such delightful variations as 'Black Barlow' aquilegia.

Like many gardeners, I have some old trusted and true plants that I wouldn’t give up for any reason, things that have been in my garden for ages and that aren’t going anywhere.

Old fashioned orange oriental poppies, for example, make my heart exceedingly happy. Well, okay, I admit I never met a poppy I didn’t love, of course, but those big crepe paper orange ones just shout summer joy to me. Even the smaller, more profuse orange perennial poppies make me slow down when I'm driving by a big patch of them. Sure, they only last a few days, but I liken them to cancan or flamenco dancers. They liven up things wonderfully, but you don't want to watch a musical comprised only of those dances, do you? Just savour them as exclamation points of joy.


Patty's Plum oriental poppy, however, became a subject of great desire the moment I first set eyes on it several years ago. And of course, the wonderful Meconopsis or blue poppy has turned gardener's heads ever since Frank Kingdon Ward brought them seriously to our attention in his accounts of searching for these rare and cranky plants.


But you know what? I'd trade my ability to have Meconopsis in our garden (which bloom for a couple of weeks) for the blessing of having literal drifts of Mertensia around our place in late spring. I dream of having carpets of Virginia bluebells in my wooded areas, like Entangled showed us in a woodland not far from her garden.

Some older species do have their faults, like being less disease- or pest-resistant, but they have their own vigour to compensate. Many of the old fashioned perennials I grow are natives or heritage plants, and I grow them because I love them, and because pollinators love them too--but also because I want to see them prosper and continue to exist even if plant snobs turn up their noses at them.

The writer and curious, compulsive gardener in me also needs to be able to try out some of the new plants so I can tell other people about them, but also some of the newer plants just make me glad to be a gardener. Black Negligee cimicifuga, for example (now classified as Actaea by those taxonomists who love to torment us), is a beautiful plant, and one that has never given me even a moment’s trouble since I first planted it three or four seasons ago. There may come along ‘blacker’ variations any day now, but I’ll stick with this one, thanks.

One of the greatest pleasures I know of is arriving at a garden centre and finding a plant, be it genus, species or cultivar, that I either didn’t know about (and there are a gazillion of those) or hadn’t thought about (ditto.) Of course, that’s why my grocery budget seems to dwindle some weeks, while the ‘garden groceries’ seem to take up much more room in the back of the car.

If you browse a variety of nursery or garden-related websites, you’ll find that they often have a list of interesting new annuals, perennials, shrubs, etc for the coming gardening year. Terra Nova Nurseries always has an exciting list of new perennials, although sometimes we don't see them available in much quantity for a year or two after the first announcement.

And while I do eagerly search out and try new plants, it's against my principals to tear out and jettison older varieties, even rambunctious species like Oenothera tetragona (sundrops or evening primrose). Of course we have enough room here to just keep spreading plants out, and there are always gardeners coming along who are starting out and need some good passalong plants. Gardens are for sharing, and besides, that, they're utterly personal, so we like what we like. I lost complete respect for one gardening magazine and a couple of writers in that basically vanity-publication because they sniffed about older, less flashy varieties and how they tore theirs out and jettisoned them to make room for newer, flashier, more trendy varieties. I understand digging something up and sharing it with someone else to make room in your own small garden for something new--but tossing it into the compost? Can't quite do that.

So I'll wallow happily in my mixture of old favourites and new divas, which may seem like pandemonium to some but makes me exceedingly happy. Just don't call the plant fashion police on me, okay?

Jodi's Gotta-Have Plants, Part 3: Never Enough Coneflowers.

Coneflowers are definitely a plant I can't get along without in our gardens. They were one of the first perennials I put in at Sunflower Hill, and they are so pleasing to the eye and to wildlife that I've just kept adding them. 

Despite their preference for good drainage, they do well for me, maybe because I've put them where the drainage is the best, and amended those beds with lots of compost and other organic matter to ensure decent drainage. They bloom for a long time up here, which just adds to their appeal, and they come on in mid-summer when some other plants are winding down. Some of them keep going until a hard frost, and probably more would if I were better at deadheading. 

We started out with the standard purple and white varieties, but then breeders began releasing new cultivars on a regular basis, and my addiction grew. And grew. And grew. 
E. 'Coral Reef' is far different from the old-fashioned coneflowers we all know and love, but I can't wait to get my hands on it. Some don't care for the double-flowered varieties, but so far I have yet to meet a coneflower that didn't incite instant plant-lust in me. 
(Photo by Terra Nova Nurseries.)

The first new-coloured varieties to be released, at least that I heard about, were two from the Chicago Botanical Gardens breeding program. I first saw 'Orange Meadowbrite' and 'Mango Meadowbrite' (above photo) at Canada Blooms five years ago, and tried the plants a year or so later with mixed success. My speculation was that they didn't care for the freeze-thaw cycles of a Maritime winter, but I was also concerned at the size and health of the plants when I bought them. Sometimes plant companies are in such a rush to introduce new varieties that they grow them on a little too fast without doing proper hardiness testing. However, last year I picked up two very-well-grown plants, one of each Meadowbrite, from my friend Rob Baldwin's nursery, and I expect they will return this spring. 

One of the exciting colour lines comes from Itsaul Plants in Georgia, who have at least half a dozen colour forms in their 'Big Sky' series. I managed to get both Big Sky 'Sunset' and 'Sundown' several years ago, but 'Sundown' is the only one in the lineup now. 

'Big Sky Sunrise' is one of my favourites, with its soft yellow petals, and it's done quite well for me here. It's nicely fragrant too, and definitely a bee and butterfly magnet. 

'Big Sky Sundown' is a handsome plant, but I can't always tell it apart from 'Sunset' especially if the labels go among the missing. 

'Harvest Moon' has a handsome gold colour, not that irritating brassy yellow of many later-summer flowering perennials. I wish it would multiply more rapidly but maybe I'll just have to get a couple more plants to add to the grouping. 

'Twilight' is probably popular with those fond of the movie and book series with the same name (count me out there, yawn), but I bought it for its nice red central cone and because I'm trying to collect the whole Big Sky Series. 

I extolled the virtues of 'Coconut Lime' in a previous post, but it's such a pretty thing I had to show it off again here. 

Pale pink is NOT my favourite colour, but I bought 'Hope' because Terra Nova Nurseries dedicates this to breast cancer survivors and to the memory of those lost to the disease; they donate a sum for every plant sold to a national association dedicated to finding a cure for the disease. I plant it in memory of my former mother in law, Marilyn, who was taken far too soon by this damn disease. 


(Photo by Terra Nova Nurseries.)
This is the well named 'Green Eyes', and its striking green cone is enough to make me track it down and tuck it in among the rest of the coneflower collection. 


(Photo by Terra Nova Nurseries.)
Now we come to the 'Oh-my-gawd-I-must-have-this' cultivars. As a former volunteer firefighter, I simply MUST add E. 'Flame Thrower' to my garden, don't you agree?


(Photo by Terra Nova Nurseries.)
I'm not sure what wag decided to name this beautiful plant 'Tomato Soup', but it's about the reddest of all the coneflowers. It's not available around here yet as far as I know, but when it is, you KNOW I'll have it. 


(Photo by Terra Nova Nurseries.)
Also from Terra Nova comes the equally waggishly-named Mac N Cheese. I may pass on this one because it's a lot like Sunrise and E. paradoxa, (one of the parent plants in some of these colourful crosses) and I'm not a fan of Kraft dinner. 


(Photo by Visions Photography )
Then there's this, which I have to have no matter what. Kylee mentioned it a few posts back, as has Graham Rice, and I haven't gotten this worked up over a coneflower since 'Green Envy' several years ago. Meet 'Hot Papaya'. What a perfect name for this plant, and why do I have a sudden urge for a papaya with hot sauce on it? The breeder of this plant also brought us 'Coconut Lime', so I'm hopeful to have 'Hot Papaya' joining the ranks in our garden within a year or so. 

You know what? The original plants were called purple coneflowers, but I've never found them to be particularly purple, more of a magenta--a colour I love, but it's not purple. I wonder when the breeders will actually give us a truly purple coneflower to add to the collection?

It's not that easy bein' green...

My apologies for seeming to have fallen off the radar the past few days. Because of some interesting events in my life in recent weeks, I've taken on a new project that is both highly challenging and highly satisfying. However, it is keeping me VERY busy, and also out on the road some. So as sometimes happens to us all, I have gotten behind in my blog reading, commenting, and even my own posting. Rest assured, however, I'm still around, just busier than a Nova Scotian snow-shoveller with only a teaspoon with which to clear the drifts. 

All the weather tantrums of recent weeks, coupled with the blossoming of spring in some of your gardens further south/west/'nother continent/hemisphere has got me craving green in the very worst way. And I don't mean the green that forms in the bottom of my vegetable crisper when we forget there's a cucumber in there. I'm looking for signs of gardening life. Since I won't see them for a while, I turn to my photo albums. And since several of my blogging friends have been talking about green-flowered plants in recent posts (and if I was less tired I'd go find the links...) I had the urge to talk a bit about green flowers.

I suppose for some people, the notion of a green flower is a bit bizarre, since normally we're craving all kinds of colourful blossoms in shades of blue, rose, red, gold, orange, and purple. But I love green flowers, in part because they are not hugely common, and because they're fresh and wonderful and just appeal to my delight in unusual things. So I'm sharing a few of my favourites, including two echinaceas; the delightful and perfectly named 'Green Envy' (top two photos), which I've had for two years and just adore, and the more comical but equally delightful (and delectably named) 'Coconut Lime'. The latter doesn't look so much like a coneflower to the purists, maybe, but I like its shaggy, mopheadedness. Is mopheadedness a word? If not, it should be!


As those of you who read one of my favourite blogs, Our Little Acre, know, Kylee scored herself a bargain phalaenopsis the other day, and it's one of the handsome greenflowered varieties. Although I've yet to meet a phal. that I didn't love, the green or greenish-yellow flowered types, like Phal. 'Golden Music' are particularly appealing to me.



This is my own green phalaenopsis, sadly nameless other than 'Jodi's prolific green monster' (I believe that's what Longsuffering spouse nicknamed it last year. It's still resting, which means I should get my act in gear and move it into a better lit location and get it forming flower stalks

 

From the truly exotic and unusual, we visit something equally unusual but not quite so showy. This is the alpine Bolax, (I believe the species is glebaria but I'm too lazy to go find my records right now). It's a native of South America, but it grows in an alpine trough whic I overwinter inside the greenhouse--unheated, but protected from wind, rain, snow, sleet and other assorted insults. It's a very cool plant, slowly forming a mat, and very plastic-looking in appearance.


This is the annual Bells of Ireland, a truly cool plant. The green 'flower' is in fact a bract, or modified leaf, with the tiny creamy object in the centre the actual flower. I've grown these from seed and had fun with them, but they have declined to reseed for me, and I find germination very spotty. They have a lovely delicate minty-lemon scent to them which just adds to their charm, and they're very popular with florists.

I'm very fond of hydrangeas, as I've written before, and this is the Proven Winners PeeGee type 'Limelight.' I love this plant. It hasn't given me a lick of trouble, it flowers like mad maniacs, the flowers gradually fade to tan (and a few of them are still hanging on, the last time I checked.

Now, the purists among us might debate the colour of some euphorbia species and cultivars, preferring to call them chartreuse or acid-green or yellow. But I'm looking at the bracts surrounding the flowers of this Euphorbia 'Efanthia', and they seem decidedly green to me. Whatever you call them, I like them. 
It's no secret that I am also highly fond of tulips, especially the viridiflora types. I believe we have 'Groenland' and 'Apricot Parrot' (fading to pink from apricot) in this photo, and I like these later-blooming tulips even more because they present these intriguing colours and patterns when a lot of other plants have begun their riot of rainbow shades; they're a bit more subtle, and soothing as the heat of late spring begins to find us. 

And this is one of those plants that makes me jump up and down and declare "I want I want I want!" Primulas do very well for me, and that's almost enough to make me go after 'Green Lace', but for one detail; the literature I've read put it at zone 6, and I'm a mixed zone 5 a-b, depending on where in the garden you go. It's still a new introduction so I may be good and hold off for another year. Unless I find it in a nursery, and then there's no guarantee that Urgent Plant Seeking Madness won't strike me suddenly. 

And last but never least, a viridiflora that causes me both joy and sorrow/frustration. A green flowered hellebore caused me to fall in love with these plants nearly a decade ago, and I've been dallying with them for the past six or seven years. As many of you know, until last year that dalliance was mostly an unrequited love affair, but last spring, with the help of Faire Frances, I did succeed in getting several plants through to joyous blooming. I'm not quite ready to try the lovely green hellebore again just yet. Not yet. I keep telling myself that. 

Jodi's Gotta-Have Plants, Pt. 2: Which Witch(hazel) is Which?

March has come in, not like a lion or a lamb; just a grey, nondescript day. But that puts us almost halfway through FARCH, and that's reason enough to celebrate by talking about favourite plants.

Some years back, my longsufferings spouse and I were traipsing through Pine Grove, a marvelous park established and maintained by Bowater Mersey in Milton, near Liverpool on Nova Scotia’s south shore. We were coming across a clearing when I caught a fragrance on the air, sweet as honey. We couldn’t figure out where it was coming from until I discovered a modest shrub, leafless of course, but festooned in these spidery flowers with stringy petals of orangish-gold. It was a witchhazel, of course, and there began my love affair with these easy-care, handsome shrubs. 


(photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
Witchhazel belongs to the genus Hamemelis, and there are five species native in North America, with only one, H. virginiana, being native in eastern Canada. It’s considered a shrub, generally ranging from 15-20 feet in height and spread. What’s interesting about the native species is that it flowers in autumn, generally between October and December, with stringy-petalled flowers that are generally yellow but occasionally tinted with red or orange. The petals look like crumpled streamers of crepe-paper, and while they aren’t beautiful, they usually have a lovely fragrance.


Hamamelis mollis is the Chinese witchhazel, and said to be the most fragrant species. It’s much used in gardening and landscaping in milder climates but generally isn’t hardy below-15 degrees Fahrenheit, at which point bud damage can occur. Sadly, I don't remember where I got this photo or what cultivar this might be.


Where H. mollis comes in handy is as a cross with the Japanese witchhazel, H. japonica, resulting in hybrids generally classified as H. x intermedia. These tend to flower in mid-late winter or early spring, depending on where you are and how buried in snow your plants get. Some of the more spectacular flower colours are in the Intermedia hybrids, including 'Ruby Glow' (above photo); 
'Jelena' is also sometimes labeled as 'Copper Beauty'. I haven't gotten my mitts on one of these yet, in part because I find them regularly priced much higher than you might expect. And of course in containers, they flower early in the season, often before garden centres even put their stock out, so you have to be prepared to live for a year or so without flower display, at least in my cool neck of the woods.

The first one I plan to purchase this year is 'Arnold Promise', and part of the reason for that is the foliage colour in new growth, seen here on a plant from the Nova Scotia Agricultural College Rock Garden in Truro, NS. 

The flowers are yellow and can be very profuse, and according to the good people at the Missouri Botanical Garden, the fragrance is quite wonderful. I know scent can be highly personal, but I am very fond of the scent of witchhazels and would happily have them everywhere in our garden. 


Witchhazels make fine specimen plants and provide us with four season interest; the Intermedia hybrids flower from winter into spring, summer foliage is handsome, and fall colour can be spectacular. Most importantly, witchhazels are easy-care shrubs, seldom bothered by diseases or insects, and requiring minimal pruning other than to remove suckers if you don’t want your plants to spread or if they are grafted onto hardier rootstock.

My witchhazel is 'Diane' (seen flowering in the top photo) and she has routinely been buried in snow this winter, and even had one session of being encased in ice earlier in the winter. 

While others are already enjoying their witchhazels in bloom, I have yet to even find Diane, although she is slowly emerging from snow after the melt we had on Friday and yesterday. But that just means I get to enjoy other gardeners' plants until mine is ready to flower. 

Which will happen one of these days. Spring does always come.