Just keep planting, just keep planting...

Okay, gardening peeps, I know it's hotter than the hinges of hell in much of North America--even in Nova Scotia--but I want to have a wee chat with y'all about gardening in summer. So go pour yourself a tall ice tea, or coffee, or other fluid (ruby red grapefruit juice for me) and let's converse about a few things.

The plant in the top photo is Geum 'Eos'. It has gold-green foliage as well as those blaze orange flowers, and naturally, I had to have it. I saw it the other day at a nursery, thought about it for a few days, and went back today to get it. And a few other things for good measure.


Now, I realize it's July. And That a lot of the asphalt 'garden centres' have already folded up their tents and scuttled back to being bigbox purveyors of soap, soup, tshirts and tires. But they aren't real garden centres, run by real people who care about plants. They'd like you to think that because they're done for the season, you should be too.

But I like to gently chant, "Just keep planting, just keep planting", much in the same way that Dorrie sang 'Just keep swimming' in the movie Finding Nemo. Yes, it's still one of my favourite movies. I am sometimes twelve. And am all right with that.

Here in Atlantic Canada, (I can't speak for other regions, but I'm sure it's the case) lot of REAL nurseries and garden centres are still very much open, and still very much carrying excellent, interesting, and oh yeah, HEALTHY plants. Like this rudbeckia 'Cherry Brandy' which insisted it needed to come home with me too.

Going to real garden centres--you know, where the people actually know, like and can talk about plants honestly--gives you a chance to see plants that you're not real likely to see at the bigbogblowout place. Take astrantia. I don't remember where I first saw this plant, probably in a book, but I got my first one from Lloyd Mapplebeck at Hillendale Perennials in Truro. But I've also bought them from Brooklyn Farms in Grafton, Lavender Hill in Jordan Falls (outside of Lockeport), Dayton Red and White in Yarmouth, Lowland Gardens in Masstown/Bass River, and a few other places that I can't remember now because I didn't write them down at the time.

Do you know this cool plant? It's blue star, Amsonia sp, and while I don't remember where I got my first two plants--I think possibly from a mailorder nursery in British Columbia--they've been star performers for a decade--so much so that I added a cool cultivar called 'Blue Ice' when I found it at Briar Patch this spring.

Centaurea dealbata. Persian coneflower. A bee and butterfly magnet. Again, I've had mine for years, and I got it from one local nursery or another.

I KNOW this alpine sea holly came from Baldwin's Nurseries in Falmouth, because I bugged owner Rob Baldwin to get Eryngium for his perennial collection. If you're a pollinator fan, this is an exquisite plant for attracting bees and butterflies, plus it's astonishingly gorgeous.
We all know Maltese Cross, but have you seen this salmon-coloured cultivar before? I also have the common blaze-red one as well as a pure white variety, and am hard-pressed to decide which one I like the best. Of course we all know that I have that problem on a daily basis. All of my plants are my favourite. Except goutweed, of course.

For the first time since I got 'Black Lace' sambucus, it's flowering this summer. I thought I would be unimpressed with the flowers since I'm so much about the foliage of this great shrub, but the flowers are charming me too. And the bees seem happy with them, too.

Here we have a mutant foxglove, to go with the mutant strawberries I wrote about last week. I don't know what caused this weird flower on the top of an ordinary pink foxglove, but with the odd weather we've had this spring, plus the excessive numbers of some bugs, who really knows. Has anyone else seen a foxglove do this before?

Planting new stuff at this time of year just requires that you make sure to water newly planted and not-yet established plants regularly, especially if you're having grilling heat. I keep planting new things all summer and even into autumn (until I switch to planting bulbs, of course). So long as I can find something I want/need at a local nursery, I will drag it home and find a place to plant it. I don't plant in the heat of the day, of course; I have holding areas where shrubs and perennials waiting to be planted just hang out, getting some sunlight, some shade, and regular watering.

This bellflower is as tall as I am (over five feet). I have NO idea where I got it from nor what species or cultivar it is, but I really, really like it a lot. Anyone recognize it?

Despite the fact that some places are well and truly ahead of where they 'normally' would be in growth and blooming this year, my garden seems to be holding on its normal schedule. This honeybells (whether you call it Nectaroscordum siculum or Allium siculum is up to you) is just coming into full, happy flowering this past few days. I wish they multiplied faster than they seem to do, but they are ensconced among many other plants so maybe they just don't like the competition.

Well, I'd love to stay and chat, but there are plants waiting to go into the ground--I hope you'll scoot out in the next few days and visit YOUR local plant nursery. I have some good Nova Scotian ones listed in the sidebar to the right--not everyone has a website, of course, and I don't have everyone's website up, but these are some favourites of mine. And I'll be visiting them more now that the big project is finally almost out of my hair...

All together now..."Just keep planting, just keep planting..."