Extraordinary Light, Petals and Feathers

There's nothing like a computer disaster to throw one's carefully organized work schedule right out the window. And unlike those Gen Xers and Yers (Is that a word) whose dexterity with texting on phone keyboards is phenomenal, I'm not much of one for writing using only my thumbs. So I've fallen way behind with reading blogs, posting to my own, and so on. To say nothing of my own work. Happily, my period of being electronically unhorsed is over and tomorrow is a holiday, meaning I can do a marathon of catching up.

Being in electronic pergatory for a few days didn't deter me from poking around the gardens, stalking flowers and feathers and foliage with my cameras--when it wasn't too windy, or too foggy, or too late in the day. The other night, things just conspired together to work rather nicely, and I spent some time looking at leaves with sunlight filtering through, as with the katsura foliage above.

In probably all of the rest of Nova Scotia, the shadbush (Amelanchier) has finished flowering--mine, however, is just at the peak of its bloom. This is one of my favourite native species, and for those who like a large shrub/small tree with three strong seasons of interest, the amelanchier is an exquisite choice. Bronze foliage in spring, dainty white flowers that turn into tasty purple-blue fruit (if you get to them before the birds do), great fall colour--what's not to love?

Another native that does my heart good, this one a perennial--Solomon's seal, Polygonatum. The hummingbirds love this perennial, which spreads slowly to form elegant colonies. At least, it spreads slowly in my garden--I would actually not complain if it picked up the pace a little!

Many of you ooohed and ahhhed over my photo of the opening flower on my tree peony; they're such ephemeral beauties, as tonight, the petals are beginning to drop from my plant. This is supposed to be 'Kinkaku', which has flowers rather coppery coloured and similar to the nonstop begonia 'Fire'. This isn't Kinkaku; possibly it's High Noon? Any ideas? (It came mislabeled from the nursery, so it's a mystery to us. )

Proving that biggest flowers aren't necessarily the best, the charming blooms of my tiny epimedium 'Lilafee' have now opened. I hope this one spreads like gangbusters, because as I wrote in an earlier post, I'm crazy about epimediums, and 'Lilafee' is small-but-mightily beautiful.

My cushion spurges are erupting into their full glory as well. Above is 'Lacey', one I've had for four or five years now. I love its cool bicolour foliage against the acid yellow flowers and bracts.

And this is 'Bonfire', and it's puzzling me somewhat. At both my mother's and at another friend's, this plant has a lot more golden-orange to its flowers than does mine, which is as you can see distinctly avid yellow against the purple lower foliage. Maybe it's a soil acidity thing; maybe mine is just so newly opened whereas the others have been open longer. I'm going to watch, because I'm curious that way.

Five years ago, I bought this spring flowering perennial sweet pea from Lloyd Mapplebeck in Truro--I believe the correct name is Lathyrus vernus. It's not fragrant, it doesn't want to be divided (having that typical legume tap root) but hummingbirds zip to it and it makes a happy burst of purple-blue in my front garden.

There are a lot of courting songbirds (and other birds) in our gardens these days, although we don't think we've seen this Rose breasted grosbeak's mate yet. He certainly does enjoy our feeders, though!

Last Sunday, the male hummingbirds arrived, and demanded we get our feeders up for them, STAT! We happily did that, and they've been feasting at the feeders as well as on spring blooms since then. We saw the first females on Thursday, so we can expect lots of aerial displays, acrobatics, squeaking and battles as the courting and family making goes into high gear.

Spring is such a perfect season. Even when it's windy, or foggy. I hope all of you are enjoying spring as much as I am. Most days, that is.

Wordless Wednesday: "Anticipation...is making me wait!"

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.

Skywatch Friday: Cape Split's Voice of the Moon

For this Skywatch Friday, a wee bit of geography and more than a wee bit of gratitude. We live near the top of the upper Bay of Fundy, home of the world's highest tides. But we don't just have splendid water; we have splendid geography, including the basalt stacks that compose Cape Split. This rocky promontory with its 400+ foot cliffs juts out like an apostrophe from the western side of Nova Scotia's shoreline. It also creates some amazing tidal phenomena. Things can be all very serene, as they do in this photo, which I took from a Coast Guard Zodiac on my way back from a visit to the survey vessel CCGS Matthew, several years ago.

(photo not mine, but I can't remember if it's from NS Tourism or a local photographer. Have had it for years.)
Twice a day, the mighty tides swoop into the bowl created by the 'comma' of Cape Split, into the waters of Scotts Bay. As all that water moves around the end of Cape Split, a riptide is formed; one that runs at about 8 knots.
A view of the end of the Split from the Minas Channel side of the Bay. The tide is just starting to run, and though it looks sort of serene on the surface, it's anything but. This is a wild place to be; the Bay's floor can go from being just a few dozen feet deep to over 300 feet in just the time it takes to draw a breath, and that also contributes to the dancing water.

During the turning of the tide, the rips create whirlpools, eddies, 'dancing water', currents that are not safe for small vessels, and that can give even experienced mariners bad moments. (You should come through here in a dungeon of fog as well as a run of tide. Been there, done that, in a lobster boat a few years back. Whew.)

I thought it appropriate to mention the Split and the tidal tantrums today, as just a few days ago the Bay almost claimed a couple of victims. A lobster boat got into mechanical trouble not far from Cape Split, and started sinking. The captain and his two crew members were airlifted to safety by the Search and Rescue team from 14 Wing Greenwood, our local Air Force Base. The boat is now on the bottom of the Bay. Boats, however, can be replaced. Human lives cannot.

While I don't know the fishermen involved in this particular event, my longsuffering spouse is a retired lobsterman, and he knows the waters of the Bay and just how treacherous they can be. He also knows the captain of the vessel that got in trouble, but even if he didn't, there is a bond among fishermen as there is among many dangerous trades, from firefighters to miners to pilots. And the many coastal communities along the Fundy shore--both in New Brunswick and here in Nova Scotia--are deeply connected to the waters that surge past us daily. So we're all very grateful to the SAR crew, and to Glooscap and any other gods that might have been watching, that the voice of the moon--as some call the tidal roar that calls around Cape Split during the changing of the tide--didn't create a very different outcome.

Wordless Wednesday: Rhododendron Ramble at Rob Baldwin's Nursery

Epimedium Excitement

One of the things I wax on and on about when giving talks or writing about plants is about the importance of loving foliage as much as flowers. If we select our garden plants with an eye to interesting foliage as well as marvelous blooms, we will never lament about the "midsummer meltdown" or about a lack of interesting things happening in the garden. Foliage is sometimes subtle, sometimes spectacular. Sometimes, it's almost more important than the flowers on a plant.

Epimediums make me very happy, especially now that I have some established in my garden and doing well. Their flowers are lovely, but they aren't what you call flamboyant, not like a big puffy peony or a perfect rose or a swath of lilies. No, epimedium flowers make you pause, flop on your tummy on warm dry grass, and take time to admire these small wonders. If you're at all prone to flights of fancy, you might think these are the equivalent of daffodils for the "wee folk" that inhabit some gardens. That's what struck me today, studying the flowers of this E. sulphureum species; yes, I know they have four petals, not six, but I'm sure the garden fairies aren't all botanists.

For most people, the epimediums--or if you prefer, barrenwort, bishop's cap, mitrewort, or fairy wings--are past blooming by now. In my garden, they're just pushing through the ground, or, as in the case of the new ones that trailed home after me on Saturday, they're sitting in the greenhouse waiting for the blasted winds to come down from gale-force so they can join those already in the garden. This is E. youngianum 'Niveum, with pure white flowers, one of the new ones, which I found--among many other treasures, though I resisted and didn't buy everything that caught my fancy--at Pleasant Valley Nurseries in Antigonish. This is a wonderful nursery, and I don't get to visit nearly often enough, but Phyllis and her staff do a great job of carrying a wide selection of reasonably priced, interested, and healthy plants. (Their new website is under construction, so it doesn't have a huge amount of information yet. You'll just have to go visit!)

From fellow plant geek, professor and inspiration Lloyd Mapplebeck in Truro, I picked up this wonderful E. x versicolor 'Sulphureum' to give to a friend who I think needs to get into these plants too. You saw the flowers up close in the top photo--now you can see the wine tinges of colour in the mostly heart-shaped leaves. These plants will gradually form nice little ground-covers in moist, partially shaded sites. Lloyd did tell me a couple of years ago that we can grow epimedium in more sun than other regions because we don't get so hot here in the summer. While they are quite resistant to dry soil if they're in shade, they want more moisture if they're going to be in a more sunny site. I tried doing just that and had great success after some frustrating tries in earlier years. Lloyd doesn't have a website yet, but you can see him every Saturday at the Truro Farmer's Market, along with several other plant enthusiasts. And he'll give you directions on how to get to his place. I know how to get there, but not so much how to tell others how to get there.

I'm sort of hard pressed to pick an absolute favourite mitrewort, but I am very charmed by 'Orange Konigin', or Orange Queen. Maybe that's because it was the one that first bewitched me and so I had to have it and am happily entranced by its flowers.

E. x rubrum is a nice plant, with very pretty cherry-red flowers lined in white, just as if they were the cap of some clergy. Leaves are a very brilliant green just edged in wine, and I like this one in more sun because its darker colour tends to disappear in shade.
And then there's this little charmer, E. grandiflorum 'Lilafee.' The leaves are significantly smaller than other species and cultivars, especially to start with, and boast a rich wine tinge to young foliage, which is meant to be mostly evergreen. The flowers are a lovely purple mauve colour and have long spurs, more like a miniature columbine than a daffodil now that I think on it some more. I've seen them describes as looking like little purple spiders, but I'm not a real arachnophile; Never mind about Charlotte's web, I'm more inclined to think Shelob's lair when dealing with spiders. 'Lilafee' came from Jane Blackburn's Woodland and Meadows nursery in Clifton, just outside Truro. She was set up at the site where I was giving a talk, and will be at the Farmer's Market in Truro starting next weekend. It's well worth visiting her nursery, especially if you have a longsuffering spouse with a fascination for trains, like Jane's husband does. Their gardens share space with some of Andrew's train memorabilia, including several actual train cars. It's a wonderful place to visit.

Like my other expeditions, Saturday was extremely satisfying--not only did I get to visit three 1/2 nurseries, I got to meet up with some wonderful people at the Bible Hill Fire Hall for the Central zone meeting, where I was speaking on four-season gardening. Including, of course, foliage. Before landing in Truro, however, I made the run to Antigonish, went to Pleasant Valley, and then on to Bill and Sharon Wilgenhof's place, The Willow Garden where a number of rhododendrons and hardy azaleas got into the car. The official Willow Garden plant sale is NEXT weekend but when I explained that I couldn't get there next week because of other obligations, Bill and Sharon kindly dug my rhodies and azaleas, plus some monarda and digitalis to add to my collection. Bill likes to walk me around the garden and show me what he's doing--he's a total inspiration and plant person, rather like my late friend Dick Steele--and only a few years his junior, too. Gardening keeps you young, obviously.

And though it was a day early, as I went past Trenton/Stellarton/Plymouth/Pictou, a shadow crossed my heart. 18 years ago, on May 9, 1982, the Westray Mine exploded due to a combination of deadly methane gas and coal dust, killig 26 miners. I didn't have time to stop and pay my respects on Saturday at Their Light Shall Always Shine Memorial Park. But circumstances have me returning to Pictou County next week for a meeting with other gardeners, and I'll stop and leave a pebble on the big memorial stone to remind them that we honour and remember them always. And we swear to our politicians, "Never Again."

When the weather gets tough, the tough go plant hunting!

It started out innocently enough, as these things often do. I blame it totally on the weather.

After a highly productive early morning writing plant profiles and finishing up a presentation I'll be doing soon, I thought I might go outside and work. Well. I knew it was windy, but when I went outside and got blown halfway across the yard, I got enormously peeved at the universe. I knew there'd be no working outside, so I got thinking about a wonderful plant I spied a couple of weeks ago at Briar Patch Farm and Nursery in Berwick. It's a new annual euphorbia along the lines of the awesome 'Diamond Frost'; this one has more of a pink tinge and larger flowers, and is called 'Breathless Blush'. I figure the weather has moderated enough that I should go pick it up, along with a few other things, and then I can work in the greenhouse, planting my containers. So I headed off down the highway...


...but I didn't go to ONLY Briar Patch. I managed to hit four nurseries, two of which have websites: Briar Patch, and denHaan's, down in Middleton. Because you see, I thought I'd go visit denHaan's, see what they have for annuals, then go have tea with my friend Terri at her Telegraph Tea Room in neighbouring Nictaux.


At den Hann's, I managed to have 4 small fall asters, a burgundy flowered sanguisorba, a huge, purple-belled gloxinia for my office, and several annuals follow me out to the car. One of the annuals is this pink Pentas, a great butterfly magnet.


In Centreville, I had to go in to Gerry Frail's nursery (no website) and collect a few other container plants, including the white osteo in the second photo, 'Osteo Soprano Vanilla'. Though I love some of the newer colours of osteos, I always need a white one or two, and I haven't had one of the spoon-petalled types for a while.


I had this cuphea, called 'Totally Tempted' a couple of years ago. Although it's kind of messy when its flowers finish, I found it a huge hummingbird magnet, so I decided to get another one this year to put in one of the hanging baskets. I picked this up at a small family greenhouse in Aylesford called Marlene's. A miniature astilbe called 'Sprite', which I can't wait to plant, pleaded with me to give it a good home. Well, you know when plants plead with you, you have to comply.

Oh, let's see, what else did I collect? At Briar Patch, a really fine specimen of Amsonia 'Blue Ice'; I have the regular A. tabernaemontana, which has been a tried and true performer for nearly a decade. I did have a 'Blue Ice' a couple of years ago, but...ahem...I forgot where I planted it and I don't know if it went to sleep or if I weeded it thinking it was something else or what happened to it. Have I mentioned that we have a lot of garden beds, and that sometimes things do go astray?


So then I went to Terri's place, the perfect way to wrap up a highly satisfactory break from working. Terri and her husband James moved here from England several years ago, and opened this tea room as part of their new life here. At one time, Terri worked at Heligan and the Eden Project back in the UK, so she's a real plantswoman and a pleasure to talk with. And I'm now hopelessly hooked on what she calls a Ploughman's lunch. I'd read about this for many years, but never had it before. Maybe it was the homemade wholegrain rolls. Or the white Stilton with pears blended into it. Or the delectable chocolate mint herbal tea that I had with it. Or just all of the above, plus good conversation. It was altogether dandy, and much better than sitting home cussing at the wind. I did enough of that when I got back and had to unload everything into the greenhouse!

By the time you read this, I'll be on my way to Bible Hill to give a talk, but first I'll be flying to Antigonish to pick up some plants from Bill and Sharon at The Willow Garden. And then detouring to Lloyd Mapplebeck's Hillendale Perennials to drop off some plants I promised him. Am leaving Longsuffering Spouse at home because...he takes up too much room in the car, and there has to be room for plants.

Skywatch Friday: The Bee's eye sky again...

It's been a bit too windy to track the bumblebees around the garden the past day or so, but I've been bumbling around on the ground again, peering up into flowers and catching perfect blue skies to boot. So here, for this week's edition of Skywatch Friday, are some more bee's-eye views, starting with one of my hellebores, supposedly 'Red Lady'.

I love daffodils, of all colours. While we have a host of cheery all-yellow daffs in various locations, I really like the white with different corona colours. Alas, most of these have been planted for a long time and the names have long since been forgotten. This is one of the so-called pink daffs, and I have to say it definitely is closer to pink than many of them are.
On the other hand, this pure white and happy yellow daff nearby is definitely showing no signs of pink at all.

These pure white beauties may be my absolute favourites. I have no idea which one it is--it's not one of the miniatures, but it's pristine white with only a wee bit of yellow on the back of the sepals on the perianth. In the background, the yellow and white cultivar is happily providing another burst of colour, along with some greigii tulips.

And to wrap up my ode to daffodils, another cheery selection. It's not 'Barrett Browning' which I do have around the garden somewhere (there are still plenty that have yet to bloom, including the miniatures and the poeticus varieties), because its corona is too long. It doesn't matter, though. They're all lovely, fragrant, and happy harbingers of full-fledged spring, perfect against the blue sky of a wonderful May day.

Wordless Wednesday: The rain-washed spring garden

New Page! Garden Events & Activities in Nova Scotia

Because I love to support good, reputable local nurseries, local garden clubs and nature societies, and other organizations and businesses of this nature, I decided to develop a page dedicated to them. It's my first foray into making pages and I can't say I have it all figured out just yet, but please bear with me and we'll get there.

Now, I do ask for your patience with this, as I'm all new to making pages. Because I use a third-party template, I haven't yet dared tamper with making tabs across the top of the blog home page, so you'll have to simply check out the Garden Events page by clicking the link on the left hand side of the blog. I hope you enjoy, and that it helps the businesses and organizations involved!

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!