'And they were all Yellow..."

I remember there was a time when I thought I didn't like the colour yellow. Maybe it was because of the awful lemon-yellow of painted walls, or harvest gold appliances, of my childhood and youth. I do not wear the colour yellow, but I love my softly yellow walls in my home, and the cheerful colours of so many yellow flowers. I'm still not particularly a fan of school-bus yellow flowers, but there are so many other, more subtle and gorgeous flower colours, and this seems to be my year to plant a lot of yellow. Starting, of course, with one of my favourite roses, 'Graham Thomas'. 

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.

When Yellow isn't, and On the Road Again (soon)

Once again I am madly charging along trying to catch up with the rest of the blogosphere, and have been absent without leave. Or is that without Leaf? In truth, between plenty of work, some family matters, mostly quite pleasant but time consuming, new kittens, and other entertainments, it's just a very full time of year. There's way more social media to follow now than there was even two years ago, and there's no way I can keep up with all of it, so I don't even try. I do read blogs but don't comment too much because I often read them at night in bed on my iPad, and I dislike typing on that. I don't have those 20-year old flexible thumbs...

The next two weeks are busy, and I do mean busy, as I combine book sales with garden talks and article research. This week, Thursday sees me doing a morning Talk, Tea, and Walk at the Carmichael Stewart Museum in New Glasgow, 11 am-130 pm. I'm looking forward to this especially because it's a fundraiser for the Museum, so I hope we have a good turnout.

After I leave New Glasgow, I'm off to the Other Island, Cape Breton Island. Hugely looking forward to that as well, because I'll be doing two events at The Bayside Garden Centre and Farmer's Market in beautiful Whycocomagh. (If you don't know how to say that name, you should come visit and we'll teach you). Friday, I'll be at the Farmers Market with several other authors, and we'll all be reading from (or talking from, in my case) our books and doing sales and signings to coincide with the grand opening of the Market. Saturday, I'm scheduled to do one or two seminars on "Never too late to plant!" and hopefully doing more book sales and signings.

Next week, I'm going to be in New Brunswick from Tuesday-Friday, doing assorted events at several of my favourite nurseries. I'll be at Scotts Nursery in Fredericton on Tuesday; Kingsbrae Garden on Thursday, and Corn Hill Nursery near Petitcodiac on Friday. I'll have more to say about these this coming weekend.

So, now what's all this about when yellow isn't? Well, we all know what yellow looks like, right? It's not a colour that's easily mistaken for another colour. That soft yellow rose in the top photo is definitely yellow, whereas you might find it more challenging to describe the Rudbeckia in the photo above. (It's called 'Cherry Brandy', by the way, but that doesn't help you to determine the shade it is.)

Sometimes flowers are named with a description. This hemerocallis (daylily) is called 'Sweet Hot Chocolate', and despite the challenge in photographing some daylily colours, I think it's pretty well named. It doesn't smell of chocolate the way chocolate cosmos does, but oh well.

This spider daylily is as yet unnamed, and is described as being green. Even with the wonky colour of one of my monitors, I don't see anything green about it. However, this is also its first year to bloom so who knows what it will look like in a year or two.

There are several varieties of true lilies in this photo, including 'Golden Splendour' trumpet lily, one of my favourites, and 'Tom Pouce' oriental, which is sort of yellow and has a yellow throat. Pretty much as advertised.

Now, I have no idea who this fragrant, splendid oriental lily is, but I can assure you it is NOT Yelloween, which is what I bought it to be. Neither are any of the other bulbs that I planted as Yelloween. Now that's not the end of the world, because I never met a fragrant lily I didn't love, but still...I believe sometimes I'm cursed when it comes to yellow.

This is a yellow tiger lily that was here when we moved here. It has multiplied over the years and is a very pretty yellow shade. Again, it's pretty hard to mistake yellow for any other colour.

Now, if you've been a reader of Bloomingwriter for a couple of years or so, you know there are certain things that thwart me. One of them of course is goutweed, which we should just all say no to. The other is my inability to get yellow hollyhocks in my garden. The only way so far I've succeeded is to plant a metal sculpture of one. Even that isn't quite yellow.

People take pity on me, send me seeds, give me plants. Last year, my friend Lee Dickie at Briar Patch Nursery in Berwick took pity on me and gave me two plants, one supposed to be yellow, the other red. She had them labeled, and I planted them carefully, marked where I planted them, and waited for this year to arrive. I anticipated finally, FINALLY having a yellow flowered hollyhock in the garden.

This spring, one of them had succumbed to the weather. The label said it was the red one. I was okay with that. The other was healthy and vigourous. I started to hope. Until today, when I went out and discovered THIS...

This is not yellow.

Not even close.

I know when I'm defeated. I'd better not see ONE yellow hollyhock on my travels over the next two weeks. Not one. :-)

Green flowers give me hope for spring...eventually.

Arghhhhhhhh!  As this winter of unending snow continues to bring still MORE snow to us beleaguered Nova Scotians, we cope in different ways, don't we? Some flee to warmer climates for a few days or weeks of sunlight, beaches, but I'm not wired that way. I need sunlight and green, yes, but not traffic and travel headaches.

I was in the city the other day to pick up a couple boxes of my new book to sell at various locales, and took a copy in to my friend, florist par excellence Neville MacKay of My Mother's Bloomers. He, in return, had made up a bouquet for me to celebrate this new arrival. Of green flowers, which are one of my favourite delights, indoors and out.

Chocolate and Wine and Romance for Valentine's Day

Well, it's Valentine's Day once again, and I'm here to offer a gardener's point of view on what makes for a happy sweetheart. In a word (or three): chocolate, wine, and plants= romance for a gardener! 

I'm a big fan of good quality dark chocolate (Hershey's waxy crap need not apply) but I'm also very fond of chocolate flowers and foliage in the garden, so for your viewing pleasure I offer some delightful, and very low-calorie, chocolate plants. 

Among my favourite perennials are foxgloves, and Digitalis parviflora 'Milk Chocolate' is a definite star. The flower spikes and individual florets are nowhere near the size of the standard species, but they're such a lovely unique colour. Last year, my plants began seeding themselves a little bit, and I've promised one plant to my friend Alice, so as to share the love around.

In the Pink, the colour of happiness

One thing about snowy winter days: they sort of remove most of the colour from the natural world, swathing everything in purest white and turning other shades to somber, yet tranquil, darkness. Browns, greys, blacks, shadows. While the landscapes are soothing on such days, our hearts yearn for colour, especially in our quiet gardens.

Here again we turn to gardening in the mind's eye, remembering sundrenched days when the gardens blazed forth with a rainbow of colours, across the spectrum.

Apparently it's not enough to have a plant of the year, person of the year, song of the year...there's also a colour of the year, as selected by Pantone. This year, the colour is called Honeysuckle, and is an interesting shade of pink. I'm not a colour theorist, and I'm not necessarily a huge fan of pink, except where flowers are concerned. Our friend Joey of The Village Voice calls pink The Colour of Happiness, and I can certainly agree with her there--as I agree with her on most things having to do with the garden!

My favourite pink flowers are the annual and perennial poppies, which flaunt their colours throughout the summer, providing bees with pollen and me with plenty of delight watching the shows.

When I am able to cajole hollyhocks into blooming, they're never yellow, the colour I long for in hollyhocks. Oh no...they're always some shade of pink, or in this case, verging on fuchsia.

This pink gerbera is about as close as I can get to the 'honeysuckle pink' shade that Pantone has decreed this year's colour. What I want to know is, is this supposed to be a colour to decorate our homes with? Wear on clothing? Ummmm...I like it just fine in the garden, or in the house as a flowering plant, but that's the limit.

Last summer was the first in a few years that I was unable to find these most excellent African daisies, or venidium, anywhere at my favourite local nurseries. This plant has a metallic sheen to its flowers, which I've had in red, orange, and this lovely pink shade, and hope to find again this year.

Pink seems to be a polarizing colour, in part because it has been politicized for a certain disease, but aside from that it's a colour many people have a strong opinion about. What about you? Does pink have a prime position in your perennial preferences? Or do you push pink into the past, preferring pastels or pungent purples?

Okay, I admit it. Been working too hard, and insomnia is making me slightly giddy. Enjoy the pink petals, friends, and I'll return after I catch up my work and my sleep!

Skywatch Friday: The Garden of the mind's eye

Once again, we've come to the end of a year of gardens, writing, plants that came and went, and of course, Skywatch Fridays. This is the first snowy Skywatch for me since last winter, but I can pretty much guarantee it won't be the last one. 2011 looms ahead in a few hours, and although I plan a retrospective or two, they're not for today. Today, I celebrate the return of the sun and the garden of the mind's eye.

Gisela of Guildwood Gardens quoted a phrase from another writer to me last year that I've kept in my notebook of wonderful thoughts. I had been lamenting the lack of sunlight as winter began, and was creating my own sunlight with collections of golden flowers.

Green flowers for a Green Christmas

After the recent spate of storms, including a rainstorm last night that kept us from watching the lunar eclipse live (but we saw it via the joys of the Interwebs), we are pretty much expecting a green Christmas here in Scotts Bay (and probably all of Nova Scotia). I'm okay with that, because it makes travel easier, and to me, Christmas spirit doesn't have to do with snow, but with family and friends.

Back in March as part of my coping-with-Farch techniques, I purchased my first paphiopedilum orchid, this green-flowered beauty that goes by the name of Paphiopedilum 'Limerick x Greenvale x Cherokee'. As a slightly early birthday present, 'Limerick' has presented me with a flower stalk and bud; I'm intensely excited about this, and decided a post celebrating green flowers would be just the thing.

I've always been besotted with green flowers, which seem to be a very polarizing flower colour; people either love them for their exotic beauty or dislike them because they're not some other colour, like hot pink or blazing scarlet or perfect blue. Well, I love all those colours too, but greens just resonate with me. I have several green flowered phalaenopsis (nameless but lovely).

Many flowers start out green and change to other colours as they mature, including the eryngiums that I grow. The striking bracts surrounding the central flower stalk of Eryngium 'Miss Wilmott's Ghost' are a particular favourite.

'Limelight' hydrangea is a stellar performer in my garden, producing huge, coneshaped clusters of flowers in the palest of green shades.

Others are also besotted with green flowers, as this book 'Green Flowers' by Alison Hoblyn demonstrates. I have this book and enjoy looking through it especially in the dead of winter. Naturally, it's from the good people at Timber Press.

There are green-flowered native plants to charm us, including the delightful Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum)...

And more exotic choices such as the green-flowered hellebores.

I love Bells of Ireland for their faint minty fragrance as well as the complex beauty of their flowering stalks. As with many green flowers, the showy part of the 'flower' is actually a modified leaf called a bract.

In this case of Echinacea 'Green Envy', however, both the central cone and petals are delicious green. This was one of my must-have plants when it first was released and continues to be a favourite, long-blooming allstar in my garden.

I was able to acquire echinacea 'Green Jewel' this past summer, and it has also been a jewel of a performer, producing flowers until a hard frost sent it to napping.

I love nicotiana of any colour; this one isn't as fragrant as some of the species and other hybrids, but it was a great performer in containers this past summer. I'm not certain, but I think this is N. alata 'Lime Green.'

Many of the euphorbias boast acid-green flowers, (sort of the colour of Mountain Dew), which are especially attractive when planted near something dark. In the case of Euphorbia charachias 'Fens Ruby', the plant's foliage supplies the dark colour as a fabulous contrast to the flowers.

At least a couple of times during the winter, I indulge in some cut flowers, and HAVE to include green blossoms in the mix. Sometimes they're dyed, but other times they include Bells of Ireland or green chrysanthemums like these.

I look forward to the spring blooms of snowdrops with their happy green accents, but also love to see the lesser-planted but equally charming summer snowflake (Leucojum), which sort of resemble a snowdrop on steroids.

And despite the myriad of tulip colours that we can enjoy, some of my favourites are naturally the viridifloras, or green-flowered cultivars, like 'Spring Green'. They look cool and fresh alongside newly emerging hostas.

Are you a fan of green flowers? What are your favourites?

Having the Hots for Hot Papaya...

Since I first saw photos of 'Hot Papaya' Echinacea about 18 months ago, I have coveted this plant with possibly even more enthusiasm than I have for blue poppies, 'Green Envy' echinacea, and purple hydrangeas. It's no secret to regular readers that I am totally besotted with coneflowers of all colours, but this one just rang my bells. I love orange flowers...love echinaceas...love the double cones...it was obviously a match made in gardening heaven. (Click for larger collages).
The really fun thing about this particular coneflower is the way it changes colour pretty much daily. This collage shows its changes from the the day I first started tracking its opening flowers--or extending flowers, because they're rather cool the way they develop--about a week ago, until today. This is all one flower, until the photo where you see two of them in the bottom right-hand corner. They're a bit magical. They change from sort of muddy greenish orange to a sunny golden-orange to a deeper orange with tinges of pink...and they just keep changing and getting more splendid.

I have many other coneflowers, all coming into bloom, although there are still half a dozen that haven't yet gone beyond the green button stage. The gold/yellow ones that I have, the all-red 'Tomato Soup', the new 'Firebird', and the always later-blooming 'Green Envy' are still preparing to do their thing in earnest. But for now, I'm just going to crow gleefully over the beauty of 'Hot Papaya'. Here's hoping it is as sturdy as some of the other fancy-coloured jewels in my collection.

And since I know there are more varieties to come...I guess I'd better extend the bed that I have most of them in. Because we all KNOW I will need the newer ones, too. They're my only bad habit. Well, and books. And cats.

Pollen on my nose and other true stories

Mid- to late-July until August finds me dealing with a peculiar condition. It manifests itself as yellow, orange or rust coloured stains on the end of my nose. The diagnosis is easy to make, and the condition not at all serious. It means it's daylily and lily blooming time again, and I'm sticking my nose into as many flowers as possible.

Remember when there were only a handful of daylily colours and forms available? Or so we thought. There are actually thousands of named cultivars, probably thousands more that are unnamed or mislabeled. I first saw a huge display of hemerocallis cultivars at Red Lane Gardens, in Prince Edward Island, about a decade ago. That was the beginning of my love affair with these durable, versatile plants.


When my friends Wayne Ward and Wayne Storrie decided to develop a daylily nursery, I couldn't have been more excited for them. Canning Daylily Gardens has been steadily growing for the past few years, and tonight little Wayne told me that they have 1200 cultivars on display in their gardens. They don't yet have that many for sale, but they have somewhere around 700, I believe. Certainly there is something for everyone.

While I know some of my plants by name, others have caused me some confusion over the years. Tonight I got smart and took a half dozen with me down to Little Wayne to get them identified. My plan is to map out where they all are so that I don't have to go through this every year. The beauty in the top photo is one of last year's purchases, 'Inherited Wealth.' The wine-coloured one above is 'Dark Star'. In my garden, it's almost as tall as I am, about 5 feet.

'South Seas' is one distinctive daylily, though this photo doesn't do it justice. Its colour is a vibrant coral/salmon, with hints of pink, and awesome fragrance. It sends me running across the grass to smell it when it begins to bloom.

'Mateus' is a prolific variety, and I have divided mine and planted it in several other spots. It too is fragrant, and I like the pale midribs and ruffled edges to this beauty.

When 'Ice Carnival' first came out, it was proclaimed as being one of the closest to truly white daylilies available. It may depend on what your soil is like, but to me it's more the colour of lemon pie filling with the meringue whipped into it. Softly yellow, very soothing.

It took a while to figure this spider out, but it's 'Wind Frills'. It didn't bloom last year; the Waynes gave it to me several years ago when I was still uncertain about whether I liked the spiders or not. I like this one, that's for certain.

This is 'Shango', which was one of last year's purchases. I love the varieties that are a mix of rose and gold, for some reason. And the very dark ones. And the ones with the dark eyezones. And...

Here's one with dark eyezone; 'Wineberry Candy', which is in my wine and chocolate garden.

When I take photos of daylilies, I invariably focus on the flowers because the only drawback to these fabulous plants is their ordinary foliage. Unfortunately, you can't see the size of the flowers to scale. This is 'Chicago Royal Robe', we think, but I've had it since the first year I planted daylilies here. Not a big flower, but it sure is floriferous.

Not the best photo, but in the foreground is 'Smuggler's Gold', while in the midground is one of my favourites, 'Swiss Mint', another nearly-white variety with exquisite fragrance.

Slugs have been a problem on some varieties, and had tried to get a good grip on the edge of 'Destined to See', another of my favourites. It doesn't have much scent, but with all those colours it's okay.

Somehow, the photography gods smiled on me today and I caught 'Roses in Snow' showing off its true red colour very nicely. There's only one problem: it's not displaying the white edging as much as it is supposed to. The Waynes aren't selling this one anymore, probably because it is such a diva, but I'm keeping mine because I love the rich red velvet even without the white accents.

This little fellow didn't have a name when I bought him for 5 bucks from a plant table five or six years ago. He's dependable, with a huge number of blossoms and a long bloom period, and I've taken to calling it 'Yellow Duckling' because it blooms near the spot where the ducks come up to eat their feed.

'Tani' is a real pretty little star--actually, she's not that little, boasting big flowers when they are fully opened. I was impatient and took her photo before the blossom had finished unfurling.

I love the quaint, funny, and sometimes truly bizarre names attached to some of the daylilies by their breeders. This, for example, is called 'Romeo is Bleeding.' I forget now where I bought it, and it doesn't come up as fancy as some photos show it, but its rich colour and whimsical name made it a star in my garden.

This is just a few of the daylilies that are responsible for my pollen-nose. There will be more to come in future posts; one of the cool things about these plants is how they just pop into bloom over night or in the early morning, so each morning presents me with new jewels to gaze at. And new blossoms to get my nose into.