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.

November Potpourri: flowers and friends and other musings

Have I mentioned that despite my best efforts, I really don't like November. Yeah, I know, only every other breath. Today the sun is coming in and out from behind the heavy woollen blanket of clouds, and part of me thinks I 'should' go outside. The other part thinks staying in my office, blasting Bon Jovi and tidying up the chaos, is a better idea. So we'll go with plan B for the time being.

I call this time of year "The Fourth Gardening Season" because now that we're pretty much done outdoors, we turn to indoor gardening, growing houseplants, purchasing flowers to enjoy, and starting to catch up on that huge stack of unread books and magazines (and blogs!) that we've not had time for in recent months.

As a journalist, one of the things I do is review books, including books on gardening. I also review Canadian fiction, and sometimes history, nature, and science books. Occasionally I post a review here, especially if it's a book by an author I know and like, but there are so many books and only so much time to review them here. Happily for gardening enthusiasts, my dear friend Kylee of Our Little Acre has developed a second website reviewing gardening books, which goes by the delightful title "Gardening by the Book". I'm delighted that she's doing this, and wish her huge success with it. Kylee's a wonderful writer and one of those people I'm honoured to call friend across the many miles that separate us. So I hope you'll check out and refer regularly to her new book blog.


Another of my get-me-thru-November coping tricks includes surrounding myself with flowers, both fresh-cut and in flowering plants. They help drive away the greyness of the days, because it's pretty hard to look at a lovely, graceful flower and not smile. At least it is for me.

Cyclamen are among my favourite fall-winter blooms for my office, which is the coolest room in the house. Since these plants prefer cool house temperatures, they do very well for me, so long as I remember to watch the watering. Like African violets, they prefer to be watered from the bottom so as to keep the corm they grow out of from getting too wet and rotting. Besides their gorgeous flowers, cyclamen feature gorgeous green and silvery-green foliage, richly pattered, so they look splendid whether flowering or not.

I found this unusual plant several years ago and had to have it. It's called Ixora, and it flowers from midsummer until nearly Christmas for me. I had a bit of trouble with spider mites on it last year but got them under control mostly by daily misting of the plant, and it's busily blooming its head off again.

African violets can be exasperating to grow well, but when they're happy and blooming they're just so irresistible. Plus what can I do? I go into department or grocery stores, spy these plants quietly flowering and crying for help, and I have to bring them home. The biggest trouble we have with them is that they are like lint brushes, catching every single cat hair that comes near them.

This single, fuchsia-coloured violet reminds me that my next colour in the garden post will be about the colour fuchsia, or magenta. In looking through my photos, it seems to be a favourite, indoors and out, mostly because it's such a cheery, rich colour.

One more African violet. At the moment I only have three, but I also haven't been to any flower shops or dept stores, etc, in the past week or so. Who knows what will come home with me next time I venture out.

I love kalanchoes. Love, love, love them. Their brilliant flowers cheer me immediately, they are tough plants requiring little more than some light and occasional watering, they flower for months on end...what's NOT to love about them?

This bouquet was given to me by my dear friend (and floral designer extraordinaire) Neville MacKay, owner of My Mother's Bloomers in Halifax. Nearly three weeks later, the daisies and heath-relative (I don't remember its name and keep forgetting to ask Neville) have faded but the dendrobium orchids are still going strong. And I do mean strong!

Neville loves flowers, obviously, and brings in some amazing, unique and gorgeous varieties for his Halifax shop. Here he's holding a type of green dianthus, which were just-arrived when I last visited him. Neville has this ability to encourage anyone to do their own floral arranging and decorating, because he has a an enthusiastic, never condescending and positive attitude, telling people "You can do this!" He and I hope to be collaborating on a project together in the not-too-distant future. We've sort of put it out to the universe and whatever will be, will be.

In the meantime, looking forward to more blooms as the season turns from fall into winter, I planted a few amaryllis bulbs, which are just starting to get going with their growth. Come the Christmas season, I'll gussy them up a bit (Neville says 'tart them up') with a few sprigs of gold-sparkled curly willow, a bow or maybe some decorative stones in the pots that show the bulb, and voila: instant holiday-cheer.

With good friends, family, great books to read and a profusing of floral splendors...I'll make it through the season. If I win the lottery, though, we're heading for warmer climates for a week or two, that's for sure. Note to self: buy winning lottery ticket.

Colour in the Garden: Orange You Fond of orange?

Being as how NOvember is living up to its reputation as being a long, grey month (at least the cloudy days seem interminiable), I thought it was time to have fun with colour again. The colour du jour: Orange, in its various manifestations.
Orange: It’s a mixture of yellow and red, a secondary colour, named after the fruit by the same name. It’s a curious colour, because it’s been my experience that people either love it or hate it. I’m firmly in both camps. I wouldn’t paint my house that colour, or buy a burnt orange car (like my longsuffering did with a muscle car he had in his youth), and the only orange I willingly wear is blaze orange during the very occasional day during hunting season when I’m out riding my horse.


But in the garden!? Oh, jubilation. From the arrival of those yellow-orange crocus in spring (and that unique coral hyacinth, ‘Gypsy Queen), through the tulips and azaleas to the annuals and perennials that dance through the season, I have yet to find an orange I don’t like. Granted, I don't grow orange marigolds, dahlias or canna lilies, but only because I don't choose to grow those plants in any colour. There's only room for so much, after all. Even in my jungle.


I fell in love with Euphorbia 'Fireglow' the first time I saw it, down at Bayport Plant Farm, and had to have it. It does roam a bit but nothing like other rhizome-bearing plants. The bracts just get more and more spectacular in colour, and often we'll find a second production of flowers and bracts later in the season, possibly because I do let this plant spread in a controlled manner.


One of the new annuals I field tested this year was Proven Winners 'Flirtation Orange' diascia. It has been a fabulous annual, flowering its head off profusely all season. I remembered to shear it back a couple of times when it was getting a little scraggly, as they do, but this one stayed much more compact and floriferous than older cultivars. Plus I love the colour, of course. So in my books, we have a winner!


Because of course as with any colour, there are variations on the shade of orange. Amber, peach, pumpkin, carrot, coral, salmon, rust, vermillion…some have pink in them, some yellow, and all work amazingly with the opposite colour on the wheel, blue. The rich orange of this Mimulus aurantiacus, Orange monkey flower, with a blue lobelia hovering nearby, was a star all summer.


I love the colours blue and orange together;they bring out the best in each other, I find. Again, what I do in the garden I wouldn't necessarily do in putting clothing colours together, or painting my house, but the garden colours just work for me.


I was besotted by lantana years ago, and plant breeders just keep considerately creating more new, delicious colour variations. These plants aren't a problem here because they're only annuals; they don't selfseed, and the first real frost will take them out. But they are glorious while they're blooming, and butterflies flock to them despite the (to us) unpleasant smell of foliage and flowers.


The top one is Cherry Sunrise, and this is Tropical Fruit. I think.


Another plant that has entranced me in recent years is the Geum, with its blaze of yellow, scarlet, red, and orange flowers on various varieties. The plant at the top of this post is my favourite 'Cooky', while this 'Mango Lassy' comes in a close second. Both of my clumps have put up occasional sprigs of flowers since the main season passed, and 'Cooky' even obliged me with a few flowers as late as a couple of weeks ago.


This is a flower stalk from the well named 'Hummingbird Mint, Agastache 'Acapulco'. Everything about this plant makes me happy too--the way hummingbirds, bees and butterflies flock to it; the incredibly floriferous nature of the plant; the lovely lemony-minty fragrance, and oh yes, the fact that I overwinter the plant indoors so I'll have it up and blooming first thing in the spring.


As some of my readers know (I'm looking at you, Anna! ) I'm not crazy about petunias, but I love callibrachoas, or million-bells. They flower their heads off all summer, don't need deadheading, hummers love them, their colours are brilliant...is that enough reasons? This is 'Terra Cotta', which also comes now in a Super-Cal, a larger than callie, smaller than petunia, hybrid.


Meet 'Fireball' azalea, which stopped me dead in my tracks at a local nursery and demanded I bring it home with me. I can't argue with plants when they talk to me like that, and now it's out front near the echinacea collection, and with 'Kent Belle' Bellflower nearby to provide a punch of royal purple to the display.


Asiatic lilies have no fragrance, but they sure have brilliant colour. This is 'Cancun', which has been flowering carefree in our garden since the first year we moved to our house. I have another variety, currently without name, that is deep orange without spots, and another that is melon-orange; all of them are eyecatchingly lovely, especially planted near Purple ninebark (Diabolo) or deep blue delphinium.

That's probably enough for this post. Speaking of blue delphinium, there's a solitary, scraggly spike of sky blue delphinium blooming valiantly in the back yard, but it's too cold, grey and windy for this fair-weather gardener to go outside and photograph it today. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.