No lilies indoors! An Easter warning & other options

"Hello. My name is Tiny Timbit, and I have an important message for all you cat owners out there. It's about keeping us safe during Easter (and during other times of the year."

 "There are all kinds of plants that you can have in the house when you have kitties. We usually won't bother most plants that might not be tasty, like Hydrangeas..."

A New Year, a new garden, a soon to be new me?

Finally, it's 2013, a year I never dreamed I would be so glad to see. As many of you know, 2012 was my very own personal "annis horribilis", in which I not only lost my beloved partner, but also was uprooted from the home we made together and lived and gardened in for 13 years. I am well and truly grateful to be almost through that terrible "year of firsts" that comes after losing a loved one.

 So many of my friends, near and far, have gone through illness, death of a loved one, job losses and relocations, in the past year or two. Through my own experiences, I really, REALLY know how they feel and can say my mantra for life now is "Be kinder than necessary, for everyone we meet is fighting some kind of battle." It doesn't cost us anything to be kind to one another, although events in the world can often make us wonder. I have been so blessed by the kindness of my family and friends, and am determined to pay it forward in whatever ways possible.

A blast of colour for a December Day

 Suddenly, we're well into December and Christmas/Yule/Solstice and winter are rapidly approaching. There are deluges of posts and articles all about Christmas plants and winter interest and other seasonally appropriate topics. However, I'm not that keen on talking only about winter topics right now,   so instead, I thought I'd offer up some observations of favourite plants past and present. Starting with this 'Forest Pansy' redbud (Cercis canadensis), which will be one of the first purchases I make to plant in my new garden. I've already told Jill at Bunchberry Nurseries to put a good one aside for me next spring! This is its fall colour--in spring, its foliage is a rich wine-purple colour, and it doesn't even have to flower with foliage like this.

 Anyone who reads my sites and articles knows that I am besotted by blue flowers, be they annual, perennial, biennial--so long as they're really blue and not dyed or painted. Not a fan of those hideous dyed blue phalaenopsis, but I love this annual, Anagallis, also known by the common names blue pimpernel and poor-man's weatherglass, because it closes up in cloudy or wet weather.

There's Lilies and then there's Daylilies...

It's that time of year when daylilies are popping out everywhere, and sure as eggs are eggs, someone will innocently refer to them as 'lilies'. So I thought that it was time to have a quiet chat about some of the differences between the two families of flowering plants. 

Daylilies: Botanical name is Hemerocallis, which translates from the Greek to "beauty for a day". Which, coincidentally, is the length of time each individual flower on a plant lasts. There are a few different species of Hemerocallis, but thousands, and I do mean thousands, of named cultivars.

Lilies: Botanical name is Lilium. These are the true lilies. There are a number of different species of lilies, including Orientals, Asiatics, Martagon, and many others. But they're all true lilies. 

(Golden Stargazer, an Oriental lily, highly fragrant and gorgeous.)

Daylilies grow from thick, fleshy tubers or rhizomes. Here's a photo of some daylily roots. Each one holds one crown, or "fan" of daylily leaves.

True lilies grow from scaly bulbs. The above photo shows a typical lily bulb, with its fleshy scales. Roots grow out of the bottom of the bulb, while the new plant emerges from the growing tip. (from The Suburban Gardener's blog, a useful resource with lots of photos of different types of lilies).

Daylilies have grassy foliage. The flowers are held on sturdy stems called scapes, which emerge from the crown (growing point) of the plant. Each scape can hold many individual flowers, and some scapes are branched and have even more flowers. The first year or so of a daylily's life it may only have one or two scapes, but as the plants multiply they produce many more scapes and many more flowers. (This is a fancy variety called Spacecoast Gone Bulldogging', at Canning Daylily Gardens here in Canning, NS.

True lilies have a central stem with leaves arranged in a whorl all around the stem. The flowers are born at or near the top of that stem. (I've had this Asiatic lily for years and have no idea what its name is. Big, vigourous and deep pink, no scent of course).

At a place like Canning Daylily Gardens, you'll see hundreds of different varieties of daylilies, in a huge array of colours. It's a great place to go to get excited about growing these wonderful plants, which are quite easy to grow.

This is 'Luzia', a white Oriental lily, showing its cluster of buds arranged at the top of the plant. Some true lilies are dwarf and suited to growing in containers, while others are best grown in a garden setting. 

('Starman's Quest', one of my favourite daylilies. It is quite near another favourite, Timelord. Alas, there is no Tardis daylily, yet.)

The flowers of daylilies are edible and often used as garnishes or in salads. However, if you're a pet owner, please be aware that the aerial parts (the stamens and carpal, or the sexy bits) are moderately toxic to animals. That said, the entry on Hemerocallis in Mind-Altering and Poisonous Plants of the World is very brief.

This species of lily has been in my garden since before we bought the place, so I'm not certain of the species and don't know the variety at all. It's lovely, and a later-bloomer.)

The flowers of true lilies, however, are toxic in all their parts, especially to cats. I have a friend who very nearly lost one of her cats when it got pollen on its coat and, being a cat, groomed it off. While I grow all kinds of lilies and over a hundred different daylilies in my garden, I leave all of them outdoors to be enjoyed, and leave the cats indoors where they are safe. It just makes sense to me.

There, hopefully this brief primer will help people to understand why daylily enthusiasts correct those who refer to their plants as 'lilies.' Both families have plenty of amazing cultivars to choose from, but neither of them have true blue flowers. So maybe that's a project we can work on!

How we got the Itty Bitty Kitteh Committee!

So, back in mid-July, we discussed getting a couple of kittens, as a friend of mine was breaking up housekeeping due to personal reasons, and had a number of young cats and kittens that she wanted good homes for. My son and I went to see them, with intent to bring home two of them, both males.

However, when we got there, we found a third kitten that I felt very sorry for. He was older than the 8 week old kittens, about 6 months, and he was sad because his brother had been adopted without him. So, we came home with three little cats, all males. Or so we thought. You know where this is going, don't you?

Cats and poisonous plants, part one: Indoors

An off the cuff Twitter conversation with a friend of mine the other day prompted me to create a public service post for my cat-loving readers. She hadn't known that so many plants, both those grown indoors and those in our gardens, are toxic to cats. I've written about this before, but it bears bringing to other cat-loving plant people's attention on a regular basis.

Cats do like to get into things, although usually those are food-related items such as cans of soup. Yes, this is Mungus. If someone is doing something bad in our house, it's usually Mungus.

Wordless Wednesday: Sleepy kitty, sleepy hellebore buds, sleepy teasels

Pieces of April on a morning in May

It's Saturday, the first of May, Day 2 of the 6th annual Saltscapes East Coast Expo. The show is fabulous as always, with all kinds of things to do and see, taste and listen to. There are musicians and dancers, artisans and speakers, cooks and creative people galore, lots of cool retail items, innovative ways with food... I always explain the show as being as if Saltscapes magazine came to life in Exhibition Park; it's not your average home or trade show. It's just different, and I'm honoured to be a part of it.

The show comes at a very hectic time of year, especially for me, as I race towards my book deadline, enjoy the pleasures of the garden, visit different clubs and other organizations to give talks, and also meet my commitments to my other clients. It means something has to give, and in my case that something tends to be both writing my blog, and visiting others as much as I like to, and also not being as active at Blotanical as I normally am.

Someone asked me recently, "Why do you blog? Do you make money from it? Are you selling a service? Why don't you promote yourself more?" And so on. These questions, coupled with some rather cranky and mean-spirited posts and discussions I've read recently on assorted topics around the blogosphere, really got me thinking again about why I DO write this place of little scribbles.

Here are my answers to those questions, for what they're worth:

1. No, I don't make money from this blog. I have a google ad section on here, but I've never had a payout on it, (and in fact, I block ads via my browser so I don't even SEE the ads that come up. I am going to discontinue them because the randomness of them annoys me, and often promotes garbage sites that I don't wish to encourage).

2. I'm not selling a service. People who wish to hire me to write for them contact me by other means. And I'm plenty busy, with some very good clients who are great to work for, so I'm blessed to be able to make a living doing what I love. That's part of the reason for the blog--a way to give back to others.

3. I've never been much on self-promotion. There's nothing wrong with it for those who do wave their own flag to help encourage readers and/or buyers of whatever they're selling, etc. It's just not how I roll. It embarrasses me to be at the top of the favourite heap at Blotanical for long periods of time, I don't like awards, and I won't be asking anyone to vote for me in any of the award memes that go on periodically around the blogosphere.

4. But I do take pride in writing posts that (hopefully) amuse, educate, and most importantly, encourage others. Doing talks at events like the Expo remind me why I do what I do. People come to ask questions (and if I don't know the answer, I try very hard to find the information for them). They tell me stories about their gardens, their battles with goutweed, their interest in new plants and new ideas about gardening. They show me photos of their gardens, give me wonderful tidbits of information that I had no idea about.

They say things to me like, "Because of your (columns/talks/blog posts/newsletters) I have added new plants to my garden." or "We've added some plants to encourage bees and butterflies." or "I've gone organic in my garden."

People often come up after a talk and tell me that they are encouraged when they read bloomingwriter. They don't all leave comments, of course, just like everyone who reads a newspaper doesn't necessarily write letters to the editor. I can tell, from looking at my stats, how many of my readers come from around the region.

I make them laugh, sometimes. I make them think, and most importantly, make them think they CAN garden. Because they can, of course. Sure, it can be hard work, but it's also an uplifting, happy-making, beauty-making pastime. There's a satisfaction with looking at a newly-planted shrub, or with having pleasantly-sore muscles after a day spent making a new bed or battling the goutweed.

I will maintain until my last breath, "We can all grow great gardens. IF we want to." But let's be clear: there's nothing wrong with NOT wanting to garden, either. Not everyone has the time, space, interest, etc. It's not my way to be didactic with people, not about what they should plant or how they should garden (or how they should write a blog, for that matter) ; when something becomes a 'should', it loses some of its spontaneity and joy. I prefer for people to choose to plant a garden or go organic or encourage pollinators.

THAT's why I write this blog, and why I sometimes feel guilty when I'm so busy that I can't post.

To end on a less pensive note, here's a totally gratuitous photo of the always-naughty Mungus, having an overdose of catnip. He got this bag down off a high cupboard, ripped it open to share it with his cohorts, then licked it quite clean. Then had a nice long snooze.

Which is what I'm about to do!

Sir Mungus of Anjou and the Eagles

It's no secret to regular readers of bloomingwriter that we are owned by seven amusing cats, the most amusing--and I swear, intelligent--of whom is Mungus. Or, after his little performance yesterday, Sir Mungus of Angou. He celebrated the fact that I brought home some really fine Anjou pears from a local farm market by laying on the bag, nuzzling the pears, and sprawling ON them.

Now, If there was nowhere else in the entire house for him to lay and rest, he would throw a riotous hissy fit worthy of Garfield or Bill-the-Cat if we tried to prevail upon him to lay on the pear bag. I wasn't quick enough to snap him trying to bite one of the pears, but he decided that they were an ideal place to rest. Perhaps they are used for acu-pear-ssure and relieve the weary muscles of hardworking felines.
Did I happen to mention that Mungus is, PEARhaps, a bit of a ham-cat? He also likes to prevent the reading of the newspaper on a regular basis, which given the sad state of the newspaper really isn't a huge loss.

Since this is normally a garden-related blog, here's a gratuitous photo of Yet. Another. Amaryllis. This is the double-flowered Pasadena, quite a handsome thing, and likely as close as I'll ever come to the real Pasadena. Sigh. Sometimes it's hard hanging off the easternly edge of the continent.


This coming weekend marks the kickoff of the 19th annual Sheffield Mills Eagle Watch festival. The festival runs for three consecutive weekends and is a great way for families to spend some quality time in the outdoors, observing some of the many bald eagles that overwinter here. This fellow was sitting in one of the 'eagle trees' located near a poultry farm, likely digesting his breakfast, when I came back from town this morning, and obligingly gave the baleful eagle-glare while I snapped his photo. Over here in my community of Scotts Bay, we have a few eagles that live here yearround (as a few do elsewhere in the Valley, while many go to Cape Breton for the summer/nesting months) but I never, ever get tired of watching eagles. Not ever. They may be our neighbour to the south's national bird, but we love them too.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day--in the bleak late autumn!

It's been months--well over a year, actually--since I participated in one of Carol's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Days, and I thought in keeping with rejuvenating myself and my blog, I'd join back in the fun, because it IS all about having fun with plants. Especially in December, where we've gone from sub-arctic temperatures to rain, fog and drizzle. Too soggy for me to venture outside but I know from being out yesterday, putting up lights, that there's nuthin' bloomin' outside, so we need to adjourn to seeking out indoor blooms.


To keep me from becoming an irritable writer and spouse, I keep fresh flowers around the house as much as possible during the dreary months of late autumn and fall. I realized yet again today, though, that one of my favourite cheer-me-up colour ranges of the spectrum, however, doesn't necessarily photograph as well as I'd like with a digital camera. The hot pinks, magentas and fuchsias of the floral spectrum tend to blow out quite a bit unless you use a filter, and I don't have one to fit the particular lens on my camera at the moment.


I have done one round of experimenting with David Perry's Mason Jar Master Class, but my wide-mouthed mason jars have a textured pattern in the glass, and aren't as tall as I'd like. That being said, I did like the light play on the paperwhite flowers that I dropped into the jar the other day for a trial run.

Before frost hit, I remembered to rescue a couple of my outdoor pelargoniums and bring them inside. This salmon-coloured one is happily adjusting to life in a not-so-sunny-but-warm kitchen, and putting up lots of new blooms.

This is one of those 'colour not done justice' photos. This fantastic pelargonium has flowers that are bicolour, red and hot fuchsia, but it's hard to see that no matter how often I experiment with photographing it.


That's okay about the colour blur, though, because the flower shape is just so striking on this one, I wouldn't really care what colour the blossoms are.


My cyclamen are still doing very nicely in the coolness of the office, although I feel the need to add a couple more colours to the collection. When I venture out tomorrow for appointments and errands, who knows what will follow me home?


The last phalaenopsis flower is still hanging on tenaciously, and I think this particular orchid is considering putting up one more shoot of buds. The other two are resting, spent after a long flowering fiesta.


My friend Neville MacKay gave me a bouquet containing these dendrobium orchids more than 6 weeks ago, and there are still three stems producing flowers. Another week or so and they'll be done, but what joy they've given me!

Meanwhile, that first Amaryllis is being coy about opening her flowers, but I find once they start to show colour, they unfurl fairly quickly. Going to watch closely for the next day or so and see what happens.

One of my favourite cut flowers are the curious Bells of Ireland, Moluccella laevis. These have been hanging out with a bundle of fuchsia dianthus for well over a week, and show no signs of really faltering. I love their somewhat-alien appearance, and find they have a faint but fresh, minty scent. The green bracts tend to dry to a tan colour, and the flowers themselves are pretty insignificant at the centre of those 'bells.'

I'm in the process of decorating our Christmas tree, but it's no wheres near finished. And I have a confession that's somewhat scandalous. I don't have a lot of Christmas ornaments that are plant-themed. I tend to collect penguins rather than plants in ornaments, but I do have half a dozen of these wonderful handmade ribbon pinecones scattered around the tree.

And for giggles, a sparkly branch of pomegranates and berries festoons a pot already occupied by two whimsical pottery mushrooms and a somewhat-chewed blue plumbago plant. Hmmm. Who might have chewed on that plant?


Surely not Spunky, here looking annoyed because I woke him up to take his photo! Well, yes, actually he is the chief plant-nibbler. Happily, he never dines on anything toxic, and he tends to look both innocent and annoyed when caught in the act. He's very tired right now, a morning's naughtiness having worn him out. So I think I'll take the hint and join him in a nap.

This concludes our Bloom day tour! Don't forget to visit around the blogosphere and see what's blooming in other gardens or homes, and thanks as always to Carol for having continued this fun monthly event for us to enjoy.

Happy Halloweening from the kitties!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures
If it's not one thing it's another. Been buried in work (which is good and fun and interesting and pays the bills) but also down-a-quart, healthwise. So I've been missing in action again. I told the catchildren they could do the post for Halloween but most of them weren't interested, being busy sleeping.

We don't get trick or treaters here now, because the local kids are all grown, & we're too rural for others to visit except from car. So we'll have a quiet evening of reading, whether online or actual books. And napping, in the case of the catchildren.


However, no Halloween is complete without a big black cat, so Rowdy Retread hopes everyone has a fun and safe day and evening. He isn't going trick or treating, but is good at supervising yard cleanups. And at having naps.

Mungus isn't so interested in candy treats, but he highly recommends pizza. Especially pizza that comes with a big box he can lay on afterwards for his post-pizza nap. (what's left of the pizza is in the fridge, incidentally).

I'll be back later with something more garden-related!

Of Mayflowers and Catnames: Letters Across the Pond

Dear Sylvia:

Doesn't everyone write blog updates and letters at 4 in the morning? Probably not. But when I wake up from a sound sleep in a hotel room, sans cats and LSS, I know there's absolutely no point in going back to sleep any time soon. So since I'm behind in my correspondence with you, as well as with my blog posts, this seemed like a good time to catch my breath and catch you up with life in Nova Scotia. 

This weekend finds me, as I observed in my last post, in Halifax at the 5th annual Saltscapes Expo. This is a unique show for the province, put on by Saltscapes magazine, where I've been a writer for a number of years. Saltscapes is all about Atlantic Canada, and I've been privileged to write about a lot of topics over the years, including, of course, gardening. I'll post photos from the show at some point during the weekend. 

We're experiencing a true spring weekend. After two days of ridiculously prolific wind and rain, the sun pushed through the clouds, quelled the wind somewhat, and put temperatures into the high teens and low 20s celsius, (high 50s and low-mid 60s, for those of us still resisting metric 3o years after the fact). I can HEAR my garden growing from here, but happily, Longsuffering spouse is doing a great job on the basic cleanup. I don't know if I can cajole him into doing any weeding, but he'll edge beds if I ask him nicely. 

In working in the garden myself the other day, I discovered to my sorrow that several of my spring-flowering, fragrant viburnums had a lot of snow damage; broken limbs, some of them right to their main trunks. None of them are particularly large--two were put in last year--but I was very sad to see the damage. Having 5 or 6 feet of snow piled on top of you for weeks on end will do that, alas. I've pruned the breakage, took it inside, and put the twigs into a vase of warm water. Maybe they'll flower. Or not. I may move the two smaller shrubs, and you can be sure I'll protect them next year. The magnolia stellata nearby suffering a couple of small twig breaks, but nothing serious. Nor of course did the curly willow. It's all part of being a gardener, isn't it?


A couple of branches broke off my Pieris shrub too, and those I took inside several weeks ago and put into a vase. They've rewarded me rather nicely.

It's so nice to smell fragrant flowers again! Sure, I've had some cut flowers with lovely scents, like the tulips and lilies I've purchased to help get me through winter, but there's nothing nicer than smelling a sweet fragrance outside in the garden. One of our best spring fragrances, to my mind, is that of our provincial wildflower, the mayflower or trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens.) This ericaceous plant looks nondescript when it's out of bloom, with its leathery, hairy leaves and trailing habit. But then it flowers...



And suddenly, we know for sure that spring really has found our province. These dear plants make me absurdly happy. I can be found sitting on sun-warmed ground in places like my beloved Pine Grove, peering at the flowers, smelling them, taking their photos, and grinning a lot.

I don't pick mayflowers, and while I've been tempted to dig a cluster from the woods near our place, I haven't yet done so. I worry about them the way I do about the ladies slippers, not wanting to disturb them in their natural habitat. But I think this spring I'll wander down to the woodlot below our place, the same site we successfully rescued clumps of red trillium from, and see what I can find. I feel no guilt in rescuing plants from a ravaged woodlot that will likely never see replanting, and besides that, it's almost time to go counting trillium, a ritual of spring that LSS and I faithfully enjoy.


A footnote to today's post is actually directed mostly to your compatriat, James Alexander-Sinclair of Blackpitts. He wondered in his comment on my last post about Spunky Boomerang being saddled with such a name. Despite his questioning of my sanity, I can assure James and other cherished readers that Spunky chose his name himself. He was a wee kitten when we rescued him and his sister from the side of the road where someone had abandoned them, and barely escaped death when he darted across the road in front of a passing vehicle. He got blown into the ditch, and emerged wailing and complaining, went up into my arms and began to purr. And has never expressed a desire to go out-of-doors since. 

We had him and his sister for a few days before he told us his name. They do that, you know. His sister became MangoTango almost immediately, but he was coy for a few days. Then one night I heard LSS talking to someone. I went into his office and he had this little kitten sitting in his hand looking at him. "You're quite the spunky little fellow, aren't you?" he said to the kitten. He put the little fellow down, and he promptly got back up on the desk again. And again. And again. He still does this: climbs up on my desk, and if I put him down, he looks indignant and gets back up. Over and over. He returns...like a boomerang. 

And that's how he told us his name.

That's MY story, anyway. Spunky doesn't mind. He just doesn't like it when I go away. 

Time to wrap this up and get a few more hours of snoozing before I hit the ground running for another busy day of talking gardening with other plant-people. More soonly, and I hope your wonderful garden is savouring every moment of spring. 

cheers, jodi