Skywatch Friday: After the Snow

The first serious, get-down-and-boogie snowstorm came along on Wednesday, with nearly a foot of snow blanketing everything and creating wonderful snow-art, ranging from dustings on asclepias pods to drifts in some of the borders. Hey, if we are going to have winter, we might as well have snow, to protect those hellebore buds from the vagaries of temperature shifts so that they will bloom when spring comes!

A heavy snowfall accompanied with impressive winds tends to make everything look new, interesting and fresh. Although the grey skies tend to make for a bit of a monochromatic Skywatch Friday, things are serene and relaxing as I walk around the property.

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

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!

Bouncing over book news and other Friday Fun

Writing a book is kind of like planting a tree, or maybe more like doing winter-sowing; you put in a bunch of work, then there's a lull, while you're busy doing other things, and then suddenly it's spring and the seedlings are germinating or the tree is leafing out.

That's where I'm at right now. Last year, I worked for months on the manuscript for my second book, Plants for Atlantic Gardens, and it was a huge effort made easier by having wise fellow gardening and writing friends who I could turn to. Then there was a lull while my fabulous editor did his magic, then another flurry of work for me, then another lull. Well, those lulls were occupied by other things like other work obligations, so really, the time flew past.

The garden of indoors...Phalaenopsis orchids

If there is a more perfect cure for winter (other than a trip somewhere warm) than orchids, I don't know what that would be. For those of you who think you can't grow orchids at your house, I'm here to tell you: if you can grow a simple African violet, a Christmas cactus, a philodendron, you can grow phalaenopsis, or moth orchids.

Trust me on this. I have about a dozen, in myriad shades and shapes and yes, even sizes. When I first became intrigued by these graceful, long blooming and elegant plants, they tended to come in only a couple of colours, white and magenta, at least locally. They were also very expensive. Today, things have changed quite dramatically!

Canada Reads...The Birth House!

Welcome to 2011, everyone! I hope you've had a great New Year's and Christmas holiday and are settling back into the regular routines of your week.

As I mentioned in my last post, there are going to be a few changes to Bloomingwriter in the coming weeks, especially as the end of this month will mark 5 years of me bathering on here. One of the changes I have been sort-of implementing of late is the publishing of book reviews and author interviews. Although these will mostly be of books pertaining to gardening, botany, and such, I also plan to drop in the occasional review of a favourite fiction book, and a talk with its author.

CBC Radio has a program on each winter called Canada Reads, where five 'celebrity judges' debate the merits of five recent works of Canadian fiction. The show will run in early February, but there's been a lot of hype and chatter in recent weeks and days. This year marks ten years of the show, and the books were selected from works published in the past ten years. To my great delight, one of the books in the top five is The Birth House, by Scotts Bay resident Ami McKay! This is one of my favourite novels of all time, and not just because it's by a writer who is a friend and is set in my community. It simply reads like a dream. Chapters/Indigo included it as one of their best books of the decade, and it's been published in numerous other countries, including the USA, Great Britain, Germany and the Netherlands.

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.

Everyone loves a garden centre sale...

Is there anything better than a sale at a beloved garden centre? Especially when the sale is 50 % off EVERYTHING, from pots to plants, from ornaments to bird feeders...
That's the case right now til closing on New Year's Eve at Den Haan's Garden World in Middleton, here in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley. Oh, boy...since I had been given some money as a birthday present, I knew I would have to go treat myself. And I did!

Winter-themed Plants for a White New Year...

I trust that everyone has had a wonderful Christmas, although many of us have been plagued by weather challenges. Here, the Green Christmas gave way on Boxing Day night to an onslaught of weather, including freezing rain, rain, snow, and much wind, assorted power outages and other adventures. Today, the weather continues, blasting us with a few of those 'flurries where winds blow onshore'. But that's fine with me as I have not been outside for two days, content to read, write, nap and otherwise wind down from the chaos of Christmas.


When we were still snow-less in Scotts Bay, I got to thinking about various plants that have snow-related cultivar or common names, thinking that would make for an amusing post. Some of the plants that I have in my garden include Hemerocallis 'Roses in Snow.'

Blooming Friday: A "White" Christmas of sorts...

Thursday was my birthday, and on Wednesday, LongSuffering Spouse arrived home with a big box full of packing, tissue paper and the like. "The weather is milder today so I could bring this safely home to you," he said. "It's a day early, but happy birthday!"

He chose this phalaenopsis because he knows I like white flowers, and also because it has a purple 'heart' of sorts. Awwwww...So along with being a green-flowered Christmas, it's now a White Christmas too...(and we actually do have a light dusting of snow outside, which is enough for me.
To all my readers near and far, to those travelling and those at home with loved ones, to my fellow garden bloggers, writers, gardeners and book lovers...a Happy Christmas to one and all. May you receive the desires of your heart this season, and may we all see peace on this earth of ours.

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?

What a gardener wants, what a gardener needs...

I don't think it's really very difficult to give gifts to gardeners for Christmas. From plants to pots, from garden art to a few yards of mulch, if it has to do with the garden, we're probably going to be happy with it. I do have some suggestions for the late, panic-stricken, longsuffering spouses out there who are trying to figure out what to give their gardener this Christmas season.


I only recommend companies, books, businesses or products that I have experience with.No one has paid me to make these recommendations, though in some cases I've been given products or discounts to try something out. Just so we're clear on that. In many other cases, I've simply bought the product or dealt with the business and am more than comfortable in recommending them.

Such is the case with buying bulbs, which I do through Botanus or GardenImport. Their bulbs are always top quality, huge, and shipped in perfect condition. And here's a case where gift certificates are ideal; we gardeners love to receive gift certificates, which we can use for planning our spring planting frenzies. More on those in a minute. Gift certificates, that is, not spring planting frenzies.

I have two pairs of Ethel gloves and just love them. The newest ones I got are made of bamboo, and are very comfortable, lightweight but easy to work with. That particular style isn't waterproof, but I have others for doing seriously soggy work. Locally, they're available at Halifax Seed, or can be mailordered from Rittenhouse if you're looking for styles not in stock at your local nursery or garden supply shop.

Every gardener likes to receive well made hand tools, whether secateurs or trowels, dibbers or pruning saws. I get mine either from Lee Valley or the Nova Scotian company TrailBlazer. But don't forget the junior gardener, who will be delighted by these rainbow coloured, safe-to-use tools from Lee Valley.

I don't care for a lot of department store garden lighting, especially those horrid plastic patio lanterns or the type that look like runway landing lights. I do, however, very much like the blown glass solar powered lights from Allsop Home and Garden. These are the Aurora Glow String lights, the 'Seaglass' colour. I have brought mine in for the winter, but had them up on the arbour all summer--my only problem was getting a good photo of them in the evening, but that's a fault of the photographer, not the product. I have one of the 'Firefly' lights as well, but I think you really need to have a few of them to make a good effect.


Garden art is always welcome, providing you know what the gardener likes. I got these metal crows from a young artist a few years ago, and I wish I knew where he had moved to--he does wonderful work from these small cutout type sculptures to large pieces in the shape of coneflowers, iris, cattails and more!

I'm sure wherever you are, there are local artisans who do garden-themed work, whether photography, sculptures, plant pots, wind chimes, or jewelry. I found these papier-tole monarch pieces at the Annapolis Royal Farmers Market this summer, but I have other interesting pieces including pewter earrings from Amos Pewter and copper leaf-shaped earrings from The Copper Meadow here in Canning.

I can never find nearly enough garden-themed Christmas ornaments to suit me, but I do have a few, including those created yearly by Amos Pewter in Mahone Bay. My office is filled with garden-themed items, though, from photo frames to clay tiles done by local artisans.


It's no secret that I am highly enamoured of bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Through the wonders of the garden blogging community, I discovered the exquisite artwork of Val Littlewood. I have three of her bee prints, and also her wonderful little book of collected drawings and paintings from her art show back in June.


Gardening and birding are two activities that naturally go together. My favourite place to buy bird feeders and related items is For The Birds Nature Shop in Mahone Bay, who sell a really fine diverse product line. They have garden items as well as bird feeders, baths, houses, weather stations, bird feed, binoculars and much more, and they have very good mail order service.


Obviously, we can't buy perennials, shrubs, trees or annuals at this time of year (at least in most of Canada) and expect them to survive. However, we can give gift certificates to local nurseries, to be redeemed next spring. Most of the nurseries that I patronize offer gift certificates.


I wrote in a recent garden column in the Halifax Herald that gardeners LOVE gift certificates, including handmade ones. We never have enough compost or mulch, or topsoil...or labour to help us with applying those things.

...for those on a budget, a gift certificate for a few hours labour weeding, planting, moving soil etc is a really, REALLY great idea. Or, a gift certificate for a garden consult, for those who are new to gardening or planning a renovation.


For myself, hubby is going to rebuild my greenhouse next spring, and I'm planning on making it a TARDIS-themed structure. Sadly, it's unlikely to travel through time, nor to be bigger on the inside than on the outside. But you just never know.