Red & White for Canada Day!

Happy birthday to the best country in the world, Canada, my home and native land! To celebrate Canada Day, July 1st, here are a selection of flowers in our flag's colours of red and white. (The flags above are at Grand Pré National Historic Site lookoff and feature the Acadian Flag, the United Nations Flag, the Canadian Flag, the Nova Scotian Flag, and the Mi'kmaq First Nations flag.)

Nemesia 'Cherries a la Mode' fits the bill nicely by being both red AND white. Nemesia 'Sunsatia Cranberry' is all red but that's all right!

 This veronica (speedwell) is called 'First Lady'. I really like the speedwells with their elegant spikes of flowers. So, I should note, do the pollinators!

 Sometimes red flowers are very hard to photograph, and this dianthus is no exception. It's actually a blood red colour, but you get the idea!

 While I like dahlias a great deal, I only grow the pot-sized ones, like 'Starsister Red and White'.

 My first peony blooms of the season are on 'Duchesse de Nemours', a pure white variety.

I love the annual verbenas, especially those in the Lanai series. This is 'Candy Cane', and isn't it well named? 

 Although I am very fond of green nicotianas, I was really pleased to find some fragrant, taller cultivars in mixed colours, and they include a pristine white as well as a red selection.

Some of the annual salvias don't do a whole lot for me, but this brilliant red form really caught my eye when I found it earlier this season. I don't remember at the moment what variety it is, but maybe it will come back to me! 

 A double-flowered white bellflower with a faint hint of blue is a real showoff in the garden right now.

A deep red Sweet William is blooming its face off right now. Fragrant, too! 

Shining white bacopa is very attractive to bees, and it keeps on blooming no matter the heat. 

 This odd little annual has won me over because its colour is so strong. It's called Mexican heather, Cuphea 'Vienco Red'. Hummingbirds seem to really love these cupheas (I have another one but it's a different species and colour), and the breeders seem to have fixed the problem of a few years ago when they were messy plants that needed regular deadheading.

 This is the white form of red valerian, Centranthus ruber. I saw one white one at Ouest-ville Perennials on Friday, and told Alice to plant it out, resisting the urge to buy it myself. Today, I found one at Horlings Plants in Gaspereau (at the bottom of the mountain where Luckett Vineyards is) and didn't hesitate!

So that's it for me for today, friends...other than to remember to wish our friends in the USA a very happy 4th of July in just a few days...so here's some blue to add to the red and white!