Talking and Writing and All Things Plants

Like the old Jackson Browne song, I'm pretty much "running on empty" these past few weeks. It's been madly busy as I've been working like a maniac on the book, plus beating the garden into submission, plus been on the road giving talks, plus being on the road visiting nurseries and garden centres and friends. Everything has to do with plants at this time of year. I talk about them, write about them, read about them, take their photos, sigh over other people's photos of them, swap stories with others about their plants, work with them, flop in the grass and stare at them happily. I'm quite plant-obsessed.

Happily, lots and lots of people share this obsession. Like the Friends of the Garden at NSAC, who tend to the magnificent Rock Garden on the campus. I've written about this garden before, and will do so again. I was there this morning in between taking photos of someone for one client and heading off to Pictou County to give a talk to a group of like-minded plant addicts. It was grey and cold and threatening to rain, but I didn't care. The spring gentians were in bloom. More on the Garden in the next few days. After I catch up on some sleep. I hope.
In New Glasgow this afternoon, I went with a friend to West River Greenhouses after my talk. Though I had sternly told myself I wasn't buying any more plants until I got some of what is at home planted, it didn't quite work out that way. This photo doesn't do this Calluna 'Spring Torch' justice, but I took it tonight in my kitchen with my little camera. The spring foliage is green with new growth in orange, pink, gold...I nearly went into orbit when I saw it. Naturally, I had to have it. I do promise a better photo in the sunlight with some (hopefully) fairly accurate colour.
And the colour is somewhat off on this zonal geranium too, but I had to show it to you. It's called 'Vancouver Centennial' and when I read about it somewhere recently, I knew I'd be very, very happy to make its acquaintance. It looks like it's singing 'O Canada' rather than 'I Believe'; it's a plant for all Canadians, with those maple-leaf like leaves. I don't even care if it blooms. It's just seriously cool.
And speaking of seriously cool--and seriously generous and wonderful--look at this watercolour painting that the members of the Highland Garden Club in Pictou County presented to me this afternoon after my talk! I LOVE it: it's by local (Pictou County) artist Lyn Sue Wice, and it and the handmade card they gave me with it just made me warm all over. Gardeners are such generous souls! The thing about giving talks, or about writing about plants, is that I learn so much from others who share their experiences, wisdom, plants and more with me. And that's the joy of sharing this obsession for green growing things with so, so many people.

That's it for today...I'm truly running on empty and plan to spend Sunday sleeping in, allowing LongSuffering Spouse to cook me breakfast, ignoring the phone and email for the day, and then puttering in the garden if the weather is good and in the greenhouse if it's not. Maybe I'll even put together a bloom day post, only slightly late. I hope everyone has a lovely restful happy day, exploring your own happy plant obsessions.

Finally following up with my Foliage Followup

As many other garden bloggers can tell you, our good friend and fellow blogger Pam @Digging came up with the delightful idea for a Foliage Followup to follow Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. Since I was fashionably late with the bloom day post, it only goes without saying that I'd be behind the eightball with this post as well.

Let's start with this splendid leaf, shall we? Oh, what can that be from? Confused? You'll understand in a few minutes.


I don't have a huge number of really interesting-leafed plants indoors, but I did pick out a few that tend to particularly please me. The cyclamens are the best, with their various patterns of green and silver-appliqued leaves and their lacy edges. I like the first photo (top lefthand) because it also caught a bit of rainbow from a crystal snowflake hanging in the window, during a rare episode of sunlight on Sunday. So pleased was I to see sunlight that I spent a good deal of time just playing with the light on leaves, which looked variously like roadmaps or weird chlorophyll landscapes. My other indoor faves include a lovely succulent, several variegated hoyas with a LOT of rosy colour in their foliage, and an intriguing syngonium that came in a container stuffed with three other plant species and pleaded with me to rescue it. Oh, and the coolly dramatic posturing of my Cycad, which I adore for its prehistoric moodiness.


Outside, there's quite a bit more going on. When I created this montage, the program would not cooperate and put the rhododendron leaf photos beside one another. They're on the same shrub, an eight foot tall beast; the leaves that were basking in sunlight had relaxed and were looking almost springlike, while those in shadow were remaining sullenly, chillily rolled up in protest of winter. I know how they feel.

There are only a couple of deciduous trees/shrubs included; one is a fragrant viburnum, I think Burkwood, which has kept a few of its leaves; the other is my small copper beech, which hangs onto its leaves obsessively until spring. The other non-conifer offering isn't foliage, actually, but the flowerheads of Miscanthus 'Huron Sunrise', which I just included because I'm a rebel sometimes.

I've mentioned before that I really love conifers, particularly those with bright, interesting foliage; included here are a few of my favourites. Clockwise, from top righthand corner: Chamaecyparis 'Heatherbun';
bottom right, Thuja 'Rheingold';
bottom left,
Thuja 'Sherwood Frost', with its ivory tips;
second from top left, another ancient, fascinating plant, Thujopsis dolobrata, the only member of the genus Thujopsis.
Centre: One of my favourites just because I like to say its name: Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Plumosa Aurea Nana'.

Now, about that leaf at the top?

This is my answer to my ongoing trouble with hollyhocksp: I bought this sculpture of a hollyhock plant a few years ago, and it stands in the back garden, oblivious to all assaults of weather. It may not be botanically exact, but it doesn't die off from winter rot, or come out pink when it's supposed to be yellow-flowered, or any of the myriad other ways hollyhocks have sought to thwart me. Although I guess the oxidizing of its leaves give new meaning to 'hollyhock leaf rust', don't they?

post written by jodi (bloomingwriter)