Ask and you shall receive

Rain glorious rain - by the bucket. Everything is bigger, greener and full of vigour. Today it showed 5C (40F) on my thermometer and the wind is really gusty. I had every intention of doing a lady-like putter about the garden this fine Sunday a.m. - and instead did a quick spin and ran back in the house to my sofa, the Times and my coffee. As soon as my fingers warm - I'll go back and mow some of the lawn - anything to keep moving out there. Tonight they're forecasting 3C - which is just a silly temperature for this time of the year.

So without further ado, here's what's been going on in the garden this week:

Monday....
I swear it looks I took this picture while I was practicing a new sport - run, squat and shoot. I assure you its little arms are intact. Poor snap or not, it just reinforces how important bright leaves are for me in a dark garden. Athyrium 'Ghost is just one of the best at providing its own little beacon of light.
The Erodium is back - blooming up a storm.

Big wind during the day and overnight.....here are all the pine cones I'd been waiting for around Christmas for the table.

Hard to capture, but a lovely little perennial - Lychnis atropurpurea. Here is the description from Chiltern Seeds: "From the Balkans, where it is found in moist mountain meadows, comes this rather fine perennial with purplish stems, reddish-purple marked leaves and ten inch panicles of deep purple flowers in late spring. 12-18 ins." Actually, a pretty good description for Chiltern. I've chosen to torture this plant placing it in my sandy dry soil, next to my path - so it will on occasion get a shovel full of salty snow. A very good forget-about it kind of perennial.

Never really noticed before how the flower form of the Cornus alternifolia resemble the form of the branches.

And the Japanese tree peonies are starting to bloom. I think this yellow variety is shy - none of the blossoms face front.

Wednesday

It has been exceptionally bright - and very high UV. For the very brief time this H. montana macrophylla is hit with the sun - look at the sunburn. If the leaf is hit with the sunshine while it's emerging, it just collapses on itself and turns to goo. I'll probably cut this leaf off in a few days when the plant is a little bigger.

Just a short while ago, the tulips were here with their great colours - my favourite hidy hint for ugly tulip leaves - big juicy hosta.

Thursday

Just to prove you don't need a massive bank account to be a great gardener - take a look at what you can do with seed and a great imagination. Jacques, who is the Oakville Trafalgar Hospital gardener, has let the Allium go to seed and then has scattered the seed a little further every year making this wonderful purple river. Sure, it takes a bit of time, but what a wonderful effect.

Friday

Such a happy little geranium at the bottom of my steps.

Am going to have to double check the name of this little woodlander - but not until it warms up a bit.

Facing west in the garden - very pleased with my Loblaws Japanese Maple.

Saturday

Finally got into the garden to do some serious maintenance and edging. I'm not a happy girl until the edges look good.

I had let some milkweed sprout in the garden several years ago. We're on a migration path for monarch butterflies. Every year, I find it in another spot - here it is making nice with the phlox.

OK, will have to take this later in the season to see if I love it or not. In any event, I love the Terra Nova introductions, but some of these bizarro colours don't seem to have a pair in nature. This is H. 'Georgia Peach' - I'm growing it with some grasses that look like they're dead, but they're not. This is Carex 'Bronzita' that I started from seed in 2007 - mea culpa, mea maxima culpa - the hair cut was my silly idea. The ends were dead, it was too close the the edge of the bed, in any event, I feel very sorry that I chopped it up and am hoping it will grow. My artist friend Lisa said perhaps the Heuchera would look good with something with a silver leaf - and I think she's got an excellent point - I've got a silvery salvia somewhere I've got to try the other pot with.

And here's what I hope to tackle after the lawn - the edging - and all those little unwanted volunteers. As a note, for those of you who want to try Wonderberry tomatoes, you'll never have to buy seed the second year, or any other year following the first. Fortunately, I like these tiny little black tomatoes, and I get to sit on the lawn while I read - two good things to be thankful for on a beautiful Sunday morning.

Maybe if we ask nicely, we could get a bit of rain?

The yards and yards of organic matter I've added to the beds over the years appear to have evaporated along with any moisture. When I was out weeding yesterday, the soil fell away from the roots like a little cloud of dust. While the sandy soil makes for easy digging and great drainage, during patches of dry weather, I really have to make sure that any new additions get the water they need.

This new Cornus alternifolia 'Golden Shadows' (last year) appears to be a water pig. Yesterday afternoon the pretty little gold and green leaves were hanging straight down.

Look at this lovely wisteria - I know in southern climates they can be a real nuisance, but for us, the blossoms are a celebration. Even though we had a really tough winter the flower buds came through big time. It's just such a romantic looking vine.

Here are the most immense tulips by the hospital down the street. These gorgeous pink/white blossoms are bigger than my hand.

I love Allium -especially the nice big purple ones. However, have yet to find a good partner to hide the scruffy leaves. Saw a mass planting in Toronto where the city had combined a short spirea with them - looked very handsome, but not the look I'm after at home.

A seeding success - a very sweet little Thermopsis fabacea. Not quite as chartreusey as Thermopsis villosa that is about 2.5 weeks away from blooming.

I went back to my Gardens North seed description for T. fabacea:

"A handsome and long-lived plant native to Kamchatka and the Kurile Islands. Yellow flowers in an erect, axilliary raceme emerging from the leaf axils. The leaves are broadly elliptic to obovate. The axils of the plant often have short spines. This species is a brighter yellow and taller than many of the other species. Highlighted in a past Horticulture Magazine in a list of "Heroic Performers". Very drought tolerant once established"

And, as you might have guessed, my Google for the day was "Kamchatka" which is located in Russia's far east. I suspect this plant may be as close as I'll ever get to being there.


Can you guess what this is? If you can, you're better than I am. The only reason I know is that I took the photo....

Here it is, my favourite Hosta - H. montana macrophylla - I've got it here to hide the uglies of the tulips - unfortunately it grows so tall, it looks as if the last blossoms of the tulips are about to drown.

And, with all this glorious weather, some of our not so welcome guests have re-appeared too. Here's a crane fly having a little rest. In many areas they can completely wreck a lawn - they lay their eggs and the offspring have a complete root buffet - leaving behind a big patch of brown ugly lawn.

I've been spared much damage in the past - hoping this little creature decided to go across the street where they've applied more fertilizer and the lawn is oh-so-much more green and yummy.

Plant Collector Eludes Detection

Kevin and I had a very exciting morning last week. (Previous post might explain where we had 'allegedly' driven.) Somehow we were in the car with a shovel and 7 empty pots with no 'intention' of going anywhere near where there were plants that needed to be rescued, when all of a sudden, something happened and we discovered we were driving home with rescued plants in the back of the car. After much discussion we decided that even not knowing how they got there, we better hurry up and plant them in order that they come to no harm. So far so good - except for the gang of squirrels and a rather destructive raccoon obviously sent over from the the builder's team to create havoc - the orphans seem to be settling into their new digs.

Well, it's been gorgeous here - freezing (and yes, I do mean freezing as in frost in the a.m.) - but clear and beautiful. So Monday, Kevin and I headed off to one of Oakville's best viewed-in-the-Spring walking trail in order to see the Mertensia virginica that grow wild along the banks of 16 Mile Creek. As you can see the trail is really well taken care of - and also you might notice the rather steep incline - down at the beginning - and a butt crunching climb as you head back to the car.

In order to plant this sign - someone would have had to stand in the middle of the largest patches of poison ivy I'd ever seen.

There are lots of wild flowers along the pathway - a very pretty geranium.

Here's a view of the red clay that gardeners to the north of the highway have to content with.

Looking at these pictures, wonder if you can really see what I saw when we were there....this was the first sight of the Bluebells.

Glad we got there this weekend - as you can see, they're just starting to decline.

Such a lovely colour on the forest floor.

So glad we made the time to go for a walk in the woods.

Back at home - it really is a wonderful time of year. Even those little bits of remaining tulips from mass plantings of years ago manage to enchant.

Just one of whatever these were - and so absolutely perfect.

I always think these Parroty tulips look so girlie.

A sweet little scramble of plants. Later I'll take a shovel to that Lily of the Valley....it was a very good year for it - it is everywhere.

Worked hard on edging this bed on Saturday. Death toll quite surprising - 3 very large Ajuga, two shocking chartreuse Hypericum & a fancy Brugmansia. They had all looked really good coming out of the winter in April - just one of the things you learn when you garden in this climate - alive in April means very little - always wait until May to see what you've got.

So much tidier with a better edge. This bed is about 50 feet long. I've given up having much grass under this Norway Spruce.

There's no time to rest on my laurels. At some point soon, I've got to tackle this Monarda - all this from a 4" pot 3 years ago.

Hosta 'June' looking fresh and pretty.

Another little weird feature of gardening - this Inula (the kind that is never bothered by insects) is looking perfectly revolting at the moment.

25 feet away - same type of Inula, same seed package - different bed - and look - not a mark on it.This is Berberis thunbergerii 'Gold Ring'. I bought it as a whip and the chartreuse ring around the edge of the dark leaves (there were about 5 of them) was very distinct. Now, not so much. Just had to tuck my camera in to get a bee's eye view - he was very, very cross - had to hot-foot it across the lawn to get away from him.

It is a pretty view - well worth the effort.

And to end it all, some Mertensia virginica in my own garden (bought from a very nice nursery! Honest.).

Trying to Conquer the Contrasts of Spring Light

Anything that sounds the least bit like a complaint or a whinge in this post should be completely ignored. It is spring. It is beautiful, and although we did have a bit of frost in some parts, I sat outside before dinner and just smiled at it all like a fool. My challenge is trying to capture it all. My brother's friend used to joke that the Queen (she's on all our lively coloured currency that only Canadians use for anything) squinted when he opened his wallet. Well, I think I'm doing the same with all this glorious sunshine....and so is my camera. I've produced more 'black velvet' photos than I've ever done before.

Here is an establishing shot taken this a.m. so you can see how things are moving along. I'm under my largest Japanese maple facing north.

Crept into my flower bed - violets, tulips and the unsophisticated smaller quince hedge all vying for attention. Light is pretty good here.

This white Epimedium is quite different from the little orange one out back - flowers are held well above leaves - putting the lens right into the low sunshine. Really looks like the flower edges are melting away into the ferns.

Is it me, or does this barrenwort look like she's trying too hard.

A dear little Viola sororia 'Freckles' starting to open. Pay no attention to that blast of light to the left and top....

So, now the light is up a little higher and smashing into the orange lily tulips (Ballerina). The colour representation is pretty good. However, with the good comes the smudge of black velvet at the bottom.

My walking buddy is at a music festival this week and so Kevin and I are on patrol. We came across this building site - formerly nice house on a big lot. And look at these trilliums!

I just adore it when they start to go all pink and pretty. (Yes, camera is definitely compensating for high light, light petals and dark green....)

Did I mention that I'd lost my patch of something that looks just like this....wonder if they'd notice.

You just know they're going to put in a good looking house when they've got a sign like this:

Ah yes, when luxury just isn't enough, I say give 'em Ultra Luxury.

Oh well, further along on our walk spotted this little Euphorbia - they've built up their rock garden so all the plants are just at hip level. Very welcoming.

OK, back home - one hour later, the Ballerinas look like they're back to the barre and out of the bright lights. That's Hosta June - very reliable, not bothered by bugs and lovely to look spring, summer and fall.

Have you ever started to photograph something - and the more pictures you take, the more you realize you're just not capturing what you're seeing. This is an Akebia quinata - called Chocolate Vine so that you buy it in the store. It doesn't smell like chocolate, but it is rather cool and I'm going to try to get a good shot over the next few days, if I have to run down both batteries trying. These flowers are girls - they're big and pink and puffy - the boys are the paler bits that dangle.

Boys hanging around, not open.

Is it my imagination, or does it look like someone didn't want her picture taken?

You can sort of see what the boys look like here.

Sort of a foolish arrangement - perhaps the reason I've never seen fruit on this vine.

So much easier to take a photo without the sun blasting off all over the place.

I think that this little Trollius is my favourite Black Velvet Photo of the day. Remember, if you're going to stroke it, the nap runs down.