The Very Historic Gardens...A Nova Scotia Must-see

While western and southerly parts of North America are beginning to relax into their anticipation of spring's arrival, SOME of us are still getting bludgeoned with winter weather. As we shoulder yet another winter storm of snow-rain-sleet-snail-whatever out of the sky, I thought we could use an escape from it all. So let's go to one of the most beautiful places in Nova Scotia: Annapolis Royal Historic Gardens.

The Gardens were established 30 years ago on a 17 acre parcel of land overlooking the tidal Annapolis River, adjoining an area first settled in 1605 by the French explorer Sieur de Mons and cartographer Samuel de Champlain. The community originally named Port Royal was variously occupied by the French and the British for over a century until the latter finally took it for the last time and renamed the settlement Annapolis Royal in honour of then-monarch Queen Anne. 

Jodi's Gotta-have plants, Part 5: Dazzling Designer Daylilies

As I mentioned in my previous note, daylilies are a plant propagator's delight, which is why there are more than 60,000 named varieties out there. There are some very famous breeders, including the late Steve Moldovan, whose partner carries on his work; Frank Smith, whose plants are simply awesome in the extreme; James Marsh, who created the 'Chicago' named series of hybrids (and others) such as Chicago Sunrise and Chicago Scintillation; Pauline Henry, who was responsible for the 'Siloam' series, including Siloam Frisbee and Siloam Plum Tree; and many, many others.

I stopped by Canning Daylily Gardens last night on my way home from somewhere else, because I liked the light and because Wayne and Wayne were still at the field. I wandered around with my camera, snapping photos of some of the cultivars I just gotta have one of these days, although some of them are a bit expensive for me yet. This beauty above is called 'Smile Again', and is one of Frank Smith's new releases from 2006.
The Waynes bought a whole series of Frank Smith daylilies new releases in 2006 and I've been slobbering over them ever since, watching them as they (slowly!) multiply. This is the strikingly gorgeous 'Voodoo Magic' which is not yet for sale in Canning. But gazing on it is free...

I actually have this one but didn't have a good photo of it for my previous post: this is called 'Russian Easter' and is a David Kirchhoff release. (There's also a daylily, hybridized by Henry, called 'Siloam David Kirchhoff', and I THINK I have it somewhere in my garden....)

Sometimes I just adore daylilies for their names, which can be hilarious, touching, or just plain whimsical. This one is called 'Lies and Lipstick'.

And this is Green Flutter, which I know I have somewhere in the garden too. Big Wayne told me to bring down flowers of the ones suffering from Lost Label syndrome, and he'd identify them.


Of course, if you have lies n lipstick, it's inevitable, perhaps, that there'd be a daylily called 'Beloved Deceiver'.

And if you're very, very good, perhaps you'll become 'Forever Redeemed'. (I did roll my eyes at some of the names, but this is such a gorgeous daylily I had to include it. )

This is another of those "I'm pretty sure I have this one, but I'll wait til they all flower or else I'll buy this and find it already in the garden". 'It's called Etched in Gold.'

Since it was late in the day when I took my photos, some of the blooms were just starting to lose their splendor, while others had faded to mush, and still others were yet to open. I like the softly yellow ones, such as this, which is called Dianne Lee Longson.

This is my most must-have daylily. My father's name was Ivan, so it goes without saying that I'd need this Frank Smith introduction, which is called 'Crazy Ivan'. But it's still very expensive, and I can get a dozen other daylilies for the cost of one fan of this. I'm patient. I'll wait.

This is called 'Circle of Fire', and I'm not sure why, but it's 'right some beautiful', as the saying goes. I like the cultivars with frilled or ruffled edges, especially in contrasting colours.

I've been admiring 'Artiste's Favourite' for a few years and I don't think I've bought it yet. Of course, it's possible that I'll go to get it and find it's sold out. The Waynes do a huge business and now with so many varieties in bloom, people come in to look at the display beds and snap up plants as fast as they can. So I'd best check it out today!

Rounding out today's rainbow of "I want that!" daylilies is the very striking 'Art Imperial.' I stress that's today's group of those I want. It's raining so I won't go to the garden today, but I know full well that when I do, I'll come home with another batch of photos of my must have daylilies. Hopefully this is enticing you even more, too.

Dazzled by Daylilies

I met a lovely woman the other day while I was out poking around a couple of nurseries. She confessed that she didn't particularly care for daylilies. I suggested that she take some time in the next week or so and get to Canning Daylily Gardens during their official open garden week (though visitors are welcome anytime, it's just that they're heading into peak bloom shortly) and see if she didn't change her mind about that. I think she'll find that there's more to daylilies than the ol' ditchlily that we all know and (mostly don't) love. Take 'Pride of Canning,' above, which was bred by Wayne and Wayne of Canning Daylily Gardens. What's not to love about this happy lovely flower?


There are somewhere in the vicinity of 60,000 named daylily cultivars. Gardeners love to collect them, breed them, crossbreed them, swap them with others. They've come a huge way in the past thirty or forty years, and now you can get daylilies in every colour but blue, pure black and pure white. Some come close to black and white, though. And most have fascinating watermarks, contrasting edges or throats. How about 'Roses in Snow'?


I have dozens of daylilies, and some of them have no names. I was given them by friends, or bought them from someone's garden, or (ahem), managed to lose the labels, in some cases. I'm sure someone recognizes this beauty, but I cannot find its label, remember where I got it, and haven't a hope in hades of figuring out which one it is by myself.

Although I have a number of solid-colour daylilies, I tend towards those with contrasting centres, like this 'El Desperado,' which is one of my favourites.

And this 'Destined to See' was destined to come home with me from the moment I saw it in a catalogue or a magazine. It's a bit of a slowgrower, but worth it when it blooms.

There are a few daylilies with double-names that are quite similar, and I get them hopelessly mixed up. I know I have 'Always Afternoon', 'Daring Dilemma', 'Classic Caper' and 'Daring Deception'... but which is which? This is 'Always Afternoon'-- I think!

And this is 'Night Beacon', which shows up really, really well as the daylight fades. You can see why.

'Smugglers Gold' is one I particularly like, although it sometimes gets blotchy when we have a lot of rain. My daylilies are just starting to open, however, so I'm hoping that the weather will settle down a bit before they get blooming in earnest.

This striking beauty is called 'South Seas' and I really like its unique colour. It's also fragrant, if I remember correctly. This time of year finds me walking around with yellow staining on my nose, as I MUST smell all the daylilies to see which are fragrant.

Remember I said breeders were getting closer to getting a real white daylily? Wayne and Wayne gave me 'Swiss Mint' a few years ago, and it's not only nearly white, it's wonderfully fragrant.

Designer Jeans lives in my butterfly garden, and something about it reminds me of butterflies.


And to wrap up this ode to daylilies (the first of probably several I'll do this summer), here's the wonderfully striking 'Malaysian Monarch.' Isn't it wonderful? I'm waiting patiently (or not) for ours to all pop into bloom. And then i'm going to photograph each of them exactly where they are and then see if Wayne and Wayne can identify them all. Then I'll label them all. Maybe.

Blaze of Glory Part the Second

When we left our foliage festival, we were in the courtyard at the KC Irving Centre at Acadia University, admiring the Vaccinium. Let's have a closer look at some of those flamboyant colours, shall we? 

I wasn't over at the Gardens this weekend, but things are looking a little different, I do know that. We've had a lot of wind this past week, and a lot of leaves have blown off; and those that haven't blown off have started to bronze quite dramatically. It IS, after all, NO-vember.. 

However, the berries of Myrtle, or wild bayberry (Myrica pennsylvanica) will stay on their twigs for a long time yet, and they're really interesting to look at. I've never had any bayberry candles, but I'm told they're lovely too. I'll just enjoy the plants as they are, for the time being. I don't have that crafty gene. 

This is one of the most flamboyant plants in my fall garden: a spirea called 'Tor'. During the summer, it's just a polite, tidy shrub that flowers inconsequentially. Come autumn, however, it erupts into some of the most amazing shades. 

This sugar maple is on the street where my guitar teacher lives. It stopped me in my tracks when I saw it and of course I had to walk back to it and take its photo. Sugar maples and red maples are among my favourites, as I noted in Blaze of Glory Part the First. 

I believe the double flowered oakleaf hydrangea I showed in that same post is 'Snowflake'. I too am so tempted to try it. But one hydrangea type that does very well for me is the paniculata 'Grandiflora' types, also known as PeeGees. This one is at a local nursery and is very spectacular this year. 

This is a late-flowering shoot of 'Quick Fire' hydrangea. The rest of the shrug flowered earlier in the year--as in midsummer--but it put on a real spurt of growth on this one shoot and produced flowers, to my astonishment. This cultivar is a star in my books, almost as much as 'LImelight'. 

This is one of my lacecaps, a blue-flowered one, but right now it's the foliage that is appealing to me most of all. 

My deciduous azaleas are doing fun things right now, too. This is 'Golden Lights'. 

I should have gotten out this week to take more photos of this one, which is one of the seedling plants I got from my friends Sharon and Bill. I think this is the one I nicknamed 'Bill.'

One of my favourite perennial species is Euphorbia, and this particular variety is 'Fireglow.' Some of its shoots also put on a second flush of blooms and bracts and they've turned a fabulous rainbow of colour, too. 

i'm not sure which cornus this is, but I'm guessing Cornus alba. The rich wine foliage contrasts marvelously with the snowy white berries. It's not in my garden, but up at the Irving Centre, so I just need to contact one of the staff to get its identification. 

And this glorious plant is the arrowwood viburnum. It also isn't in my garden. Yet. Native viburums, cultivated ones...I love them all. I think they may be habit-forming, don't you? 

Powell Gardens: The Native Plants of Missouri

Okay, we're back to talking about plants again. Specifically, native plants of Missouri, on account of I don't know much about them overall. However, part of the reason my luggage was rather heavy on the way home was that I bought two books that will help to shed some light on the flora of Missouri (and Kansas, as we were in and out of that state because of the way the border weaves around the city and surrounding areas.)


This is fun for me, because I love seeing plants that I might recognize as far as family or MAYBE genus, but no further. Because we were under such time constraints the whole trip (sleep was optional, as was eating but I drank a LOT of water), I didn't get to talk to a botanist at Powell Gardens, and the one person I did speak with was more informed about the garden plants than about the natives. So we'll go to books and the wisdom of blog-readers for some identifications.


One of the two books I scored is this lovely volume on Butterflies in the Kansas City Region. Beautifully bound and full colour photographs all the way through, including of many plants that attract pollinators. You know how I am about pollinators...


This wonderful fieldbook of shrubs and vines has a companion wildflower book, I understand, but it wasn't at the Gardens store. I'll probably try to track it down just because I'm such a nutcase about native plants. Beautifully illustrated, and well written, with botanical terminology as well as common names and interesting asides. Possum Haw? (Ilex decidua) Wahoo (Euonymus atropurpurea) Gotta love such names!


Okay, plant people, put on your thinking caps and let's consider some of these wildflowers. This one appeals to me because of its graceful foliage and pretty yellow flowers.

Here they are a little closer. (ETA: Thanks to Lisa, we know this is Partridge Pea, Cassia fasciculata)


This one I recognized as rattlesnake plant, Eryngium yuccifolium, because I have the immense pleasure of having it grow in my garden. Here's hoping it selfseeds as it flowered beautifully this year.


Some sort of tickseed or sunflower caught my eye. I suppose I could have picked a stem to dry and preserve, but I just couldn't do that in a public garden, even with masses of wildflowers in some areas.


I'm thinking this is some sort of liatris. (ETA: yes it is, after Gloria put me on to Rough blazing star (Liatris aspera), which I crosschecked against my other photos. I love this plant, more than the standard liatris in our garden.)


And this, a centaurea, aster, or heck, maybe even a liatris. Or something else completely again. Whatever it is, it's a butterfly magnet, as it was covered in small pollinators which kept flying while I tried to get in for a closeup.

Not the best shot of this tiny-flowered plant, and it was also somewhat wilted in the heat. It grows to five feet tall, though and was quite graceful, weaving in among the grasses and the sunflowers.


I THINK this brown seeded plant is called basket flower, but I'm not sure, and I haven't looked it up yet, but the seedheads are certainly attractive! And there's some sort of blue flowered, vetch like plant beside it, and of course assorted grasses.
(ETA: Actually, it's called Illinois bundleflower (Desmanthus illinoensis, thank you Gloria) and it's really quite a charmer, if only for those delightful seedheads)

Sigh. I want to go BACK to Powell Gardens, maybe in early summer, and observe the place much, much more closely. Because it's marvelous, and I hope that Missourans and Kansas residents (what do you call someone from Kansas--NOT DOROTHY!) take excellent advantage of this public garden, which is completely worth a whole day's visit. Just bring lots of water to drink. And a sunhat.