It was very odd to be gardening today....whilst it is still winter! Well, maybe not so much gardening as clearing out the decay of last year, but none the less, in a normal winter I would still have been spending the afternoon by the fire, drinking hot tea and eating toasted crumpets. After a misty, murky start to the day, I spent almost all of it outside, clearing out, cleaning up, and generally starting to get things ready for the new season. Things are budding out all over, which I still can't quite wrap my head around - last year nothing moved in my garden until May. The clematis is shooting out, the roses are pruned and sprayed and the boxwoods are starting to show new buds. I was delighted to find that after years of bronze fennel envy (mine never made it through the winter and were always quite spindly), my experiment of mulching heavily with spent compost in the fall has taken them through what little winter we've had, and there are some very robust new shoots popping out. All of my red kale and tomato seeds have germinated, and I'm planning to start some chard and white cosmos tonight. We look set for a slight cooling trend towards next weekend, but then the long range forecast suggests it will go back to being well above normal, so I'm optimistic that we're out of the woods for this winter. Hurrah!
lovely red shoots are bursting on my tree peony, and the New Dawn roses were pruned, sprayed with dormant oil and sulphur and fed with vermicompost today.
tasty chive shoots - perfect in mashed potatoes!
I re-layed the brick patio a couple of years ago in a herringbone pattern. I gave it a good hard sweep today, and it looks better, but I need to weed thoroughly and add some more polymeric sand to keep it looking pristine.
Lots of brush to send to the curb! Luckily yard waste collection starts this week.
This clematis jackmanii is bursting out far earlier than normal. I gave all of the plants with a love of alkaline soil a handful of ashes from my wood burning fireplace today, including clematis, peonies and lavender.
On another note, my friend, The Diva is singing with the Saskatoon Symphony tonight, in the Brahms German requiem. Wish we could hear her somewhere a little closer to Toronto soon.....but in her honour, here is a clip of Elizabeth Schwartzkopf in a particularly beautiful section of the requiem, which I know the Diva will perform beautifully.
Providing support is always a tricky business. Too little, and things fall flat and full potential isn't reached, too much (or too late), and things will look constrained and strictured. I have a bad tendency not to stake things sufficiently early in the season, so I've been looking through my photo albums to get some inspiration. Hopefully this will spur me into action in good time this year, and my garden will benefit from getting just the support it needs!
The best type of support is when there is no intervention at all, such as here at Crathes Castle, where a yew hedge provides the back drop for a splash of vibrant red, from a perennial tropaeolum.
Or here, where a self clinging Boston Ivy was decorating the ancient stone walls of the idyllic house we rented in Provence a couple of years ago.
Of course, the more walls you have, the more options you have as supports. For example, the imposing red sandstone walls of Glamis Castle are the perfect spot for a streak for burgundy foliage
And here, again at Glamis, on a more intimate scale, trellises of roses soften the stonework
At Duff House, a lovely Georgian mansion near Montrose, there are wonderful examples of espalier adorning the protective walls of the flower gardens
I was less keen on these arching supports at Duff House....a bit 1970s looking to my eye
But I think this example, of golden hops covering a series of arches, in order to highlight the lovely stone font at the end, works perfectly. When we visited the gardens at Crathes Castle in late July, the yellow/gold/chartreuse coloured section of the garden looked spectacular.
Ropes can be used to good effect. Here at Threave Castle Gardens, in Dumfries and Galloway, even naked, they look really good (more than can be said for the poor box hedges, which must have been damaged by a series of bad winters
Here, at Cruickshank Botanical Gardens, in Old Aberdeen, ropes support lovely climbing roses. When in bloom, they must form wonderful cascades of flowers.
Even when not in full bloom, the ropes add interest.
Herbaceous borders need careful planning, first to place plants appropriately according to height, and then to engineer an appropriate staking system. Looks perfect here, at Threave.
And another perfect example at Crathes.
And here are the mechanics behind it....I know I've blogged about this before, but I think it's such a great system!
I crafted twig supports like these last year for my peonies, and they worked really well.
These sturdy examples are from Threave - mine were much less robust, but did the job.
In my own garden, I covered up the garage with a cheap trellis from Ikea, which supports a lovely white clematis, which flowers in late spring......
....and then is smothered in glorious New Dawn roses in late June.
For the last few weeks my garden has been predominated by a yellow and purple colour scheme, with roses, lady's mantle, and achillea providing the yellow, and aquilegia, veronica, salvia and delphiniums providing purple and blues. But now that we are in mid-summer, a streak of pink has become the most eye catching feature, with lilies and some carpet roses coming into bloom. It's nice to see a distinct transition into mid-summer, particularly given the heat of the last few days here in Toronto. I'm really pleased that despite early signs of impending doom, the alien invasion was averted! I'm also very happy to see that my lavender hedge, whilst still not quite a hedge, has filled in a bit in year 2, and by next year, I hope it will be quite a feature. There are also a number of self-seeded baby lavender plants around, so I can use them to fill in a couple of gaps.
I love the look of these tall lilies before the buds burst - very sculptural
The window boxes are filling in and add a bit of old world charm
The first of the lilies are opening up
This white eryngium has taken on its frosting of white. I like how it stands out against a see of green, and that it picks up the grey of russian sage and white echinacea
You can start to see the line of my lavender hedge starting to form, now that the plants are in the second year
Delphiniums are still doing well. The lady's mantle is a nice contrast
I really wish I could make the fragrance of these gardenias come across the blogosphere!
The New Dawn rose is at its peak now, and the flowers are engulfing my potted fig
I have a baby fig! If it doesn't drop off, it will be my first!
New Dawn roses, with their lovely shell-pink colouring
These roses are now 3 years old, and are blooming profusely and covering my unsightly garage
The Canada Day long weekend seems to have flashed by in a whirl...but it's been a highly productive one, with 2 batches of strawberry jam, newly installed gutter guards (and clean gutters), a nice shiny, black sealed roof on the sunroom, a cherry clafouti and numerous garden chores accomplished. Finally, after clambering down off the the garage roof, it's time to sit down and relax with a cocktail and a good book in the backyard, and put my feet up. Other than a torrential, tropical thunderstorm late yesterday evening, the weather has been picture-perfect all weekend, and the temperatures are starting to climb. Canada Day itself was celebrated with a tasty backyard barbecue with Davey & Mr. B, followed by a soiree at the Doll's House, with the girls, and a quick stop on the walk home to watch the celebratory fireworks. The girls were insistent that no hostess gifts should be brought, so I put together a nice bouquet from the garden to take over instead. The roses are looking fantastic right now and I was able to couple them with some very candyfloss looking pink astilbe.
Rose, astilbe, the last couple of peonies, dianthus and Lady's Mantle made a nice, full looking bouquet.
A rose posy, featuring Elina, Graham Thomas and yellow carpet roses.
My new rose garden has burst into bloom, and the plants seem vigorous, rude with health and prolific in bloom. The garden is a little soggy for outdoor photography today, so I brought a few blooms in to enjoy in the dining room. Notable by its absence is the Caramel Fairy. Although the plant is as healthy and full of bloom as the others in my tiny rose garden, it is by far the ugly stepsister, black sheep, odd man out.......you get the drift. If you remember, my plan was to have a small selection of different forms and habits, all in shades of yellow, the idea being to have some sense of variety, but in a muted and harmonious way, given that the "rose garden" is a circle about 5 feet in diameter. Caramel Fairy is not at all the faded amber I had expected (about which, by the way, I had some misgivings in first place), but instead is a kind of nasty, faded, dusty looking salmony-peachy-tangerine colour. It looks like those old fashioned wax flowers that Victorians liked to keep under glass domes in their parlours, or like a plastic rose that's been left unattended at a grave for several years. All in all, rather a disappointment. I'll dig it up in the fall - let me know if you'd like it for a corner of your garden!
A spectacular weekend on the weather front. Barely a cloud in the sky, temperatures in the high 20's, with tolerable humidity and a light breeze off the lake. Evenings cooling down pleasantly to make for good sleeping weather. My only concern is that it has been quite some time since the torrential rains of April and even May, and my garden is parched. Have laid out a series of strategically located drip hoses to try to keep things in good health, with intermittent and deep soakings. It's been a busy weekend, but I did manage to get quite a few garden chores taken care of. Here's what in bloom this weekend, and my Order of Work for this week.
These peonies always remind me of the fresh cream meringues I loved as a child!
June is the peak month for Alchemilla molis.
I find these mallows get quite weedy after their first bloom, and mean to pull them all out every year. ....but they always re-seed and when they look like this, it's hard not to give them a reprieve each year.
The meadow rue I planted in the spring is blooming now, and complements the peonies beautifully .
I was weeding beside this dianthus for some time this morning.... the scent is just delicious!
Finally got round to putting up new, stronger brackets to hold the window boxes I planted a few weeks ago. I went "cheap and cheerful" with the planting scheme this year.
Clematis Arabella has been blooming beautifully for a few weeks now.
My yellow rose garden, planted this spring, is starting to come into bloom, and I'm quite pleased with the varieties I ended up selecting. It was tough to decide - so many to choose from!
I'd always thought Sweet William was strictly a biannual, but I've had this one in place for the last 4 or 5 years, and it merrily comes back from the same plants each year. They don't die back, but just seem to go dormant under the snow, in winter.
I had the Achillea "Moonshine" in the back yard for a couple of years, but it never got enough sun. I moved it this spring and it's repaid handsomely for it's new dry, sunny spot. I love the carriage of the flowers and that intense sulphur-like yellow.
The new salvias are a hit, and I love the dark leave geranium (whose name I can't recall right now).
The lavender "hedge" I planted last year is starting to come into bloom. It's still a little sparse , but hopefully next year it will be considerably fuller.
In an "over forty" moment, I cannot remember what this demure bulb is called, but it's quite pretty nonetheless!
Order of Work - June 18 & 19, 2011
much weeding
more spraying with insecticidal soap - both roses (aphids) and now gardenias (spider mites) needed attention
laying out of soaker hoses to provide relief from the drought we seem to be heading into
planted out a tray of Victoria salvias, and a few sunshine impatiens, to fill in some gaps
divided off a couple of pieces of Moonshine achillea, which is suddenly become one of my favourite things in the garden
finally hung up window boxes - better late than never.
Listening to:
Dame Janet Baker singing "Where corals lie" from the Sea Pictures by Edward Elgar. I love Janet Baker, partially because she was the public, or television, face of opera in the UK when I was a child in the early 70s, but I heard a recording on the radio of Canadian contralto, Maureen Forester singing this song, and it can only be described as "breathtaking".
