Photo courtesy of Louise Tanguay
Mary Pratte is challenging us with another Plant ID Challenge. Can you name this plant? Send your answers directly to Mary at gmpratte@sympatico.ca. The winner(s) will receive a clump of European Giner from her garden.
We should not forget that our proper planting-out time is traditionally after the long weekend in May. But who has done that in recent years??? We have all cheated and planted a few weeks before that, and this year has been so warm that I know people have conveniently forgotten about that date so they can get a head start. They might regret it! Snow is in the forecast for this week, and we are not even through April! What will May bring?
Well, I was ordering some peony roots the other night from The Caledon Hills Peony Farm (ordering opened much earlier than usual this year, and they have sold out of many of them already!). I was reminded of a photo from them of their peony fields on May 11, 2020 (yes, you read that right!), and include it here, as a gentle reminder that the May 24 long weekend is only an average last frost date for our area...
Photo credit The Caledon Hills Peony Farm
So, a few people have asked me in the last week or so since seeing the upcoming forecast of snow, if they should cover everything in their gardens! Well, that is nigh impossible unless you have a few old parachutes to spread over your entire plot…. Or if you turn on and modify your irrigation system to spray from above as they do in the orange groves of Florida and the vineyards of California!
If you are going to protect anything, let it be the most tender plants - those we grow indoors in the winter, such as herbs, succulent plants, orchids and other tropicals. Any drop in outside temperature for them can be deadly - the liquid in their cells will freeze, harden into an ice-like mass, and split the sides of their cells, just as water in a pipe would. They don’t have any anti-freeze. Some plants, however, will take some freezing temperatures, because they do have more sugars in them - you have seen pansies, daffodils and early tulips, along with snowdrops and winter aconites covered in snow and then see them bounce back in no time. And then there are the ones whose leaves, at least, are iron-clad, and will make it through anything! Always remember, however, that it is the flower buds which often are killed or damaged, and not the leaves and stems. So certain shrubs and perennials will not die after a hard week of temperatures, but their flower buds might.
Now, the kind of temperature affects survival rates as well. Still not a good idea to leave anything really tender at temperatures in the single digits, but for slightly less tender things - iris, peonies, etc - if one night it goes to -1 and there is a wind, there is not much worry of them freezing. If the nighttime temperatures drop to -2 two nights in a row, the daytime temperature stays at zero, and there is no wind, then that could spell trouble for many things, such as peonies, flowering apples and other spring-blooming plants like Magnolias, Flowering Almonds, Forsythia.
So, if the snow really does come this week, take in those pots you have put out from the heat of the house; use light towels or pieces of light fabric to cover any annuals you have planted in containers already - make a teepee using stakes covered and tied on with string. And for tree peonies, which are in full bud by now, there is always the old orphaned sock method - I wrote about it in this blog last year - May 9th, 2020. And the many, many other plants in your garden - all the trees and shrubs with their newly opened flowers and leaves, for example - well, you will just have to hope they will survive without too much damage. And then there is always next year!
If you have any other tricks for protecting plants during a frost, let me know. Always good to share that information!
Until then, take a look at this photo below. It was taken on April 21st, 2020. History might repeat itself!
Photo Credit: Mary Pratte
Hmmm, it has been very difficult these days to write this blog. The weather has completely messed things up, so, unlike last year, flowers bloom and are gone within a couple of days, they have suffered early on from a lack of rain, then tons of rain the other night, and, once in a while, the weather forecast for the next two weeks says temperatures will dip below zero (although why I would look at a 14 day forecast is beyond me - they have trouble saying if it is currently raining, so why would they be accurate 14 days hence?!?!).
I am having trouble keeping up! So welcome to my 'Asking for forgiveness’ post, with a few photos of flowers or other garden-related tidbits to tide you over until I can complete one of the five other posts I have started but left, unfinished, on my iPad. Let's hope there will not be too many of them....stay tuned...
How about a few Magnolia photos on this dreary day? If you have been out walking (I know, that's all we seem to do these days...) you have surely noticed the beautiful blooms of magnolias in gardens (mainly tucked away in slightly protected back yards, but tempting us with a glimpse of them peeking out towards the street), at the Experimental Farm, on the south side of the Norwegian Embassy (possibly the best around), or at the Beechwood Cemetery .... There are way more magnolias around Ottawa now than ever, thanks (dare I say 'thanks'?) to climate change and careful hybridizing, and the variety of colours is growing as well, with yellows now being seen on a regular basis, and many different pinks to add variety.
So, enjoy the pictures, and don't forget to send in photographs to Kelly. I know she would love to see your favourite magnolia!
Photo Credit: Althea Barcubero
Photo Credit: Mary Pratte
Photo Credit: Lois Camponi
Photo Credit: Lois Camponi
There are three types of peony... let’s see what you do with them in the spring.
1) The old-fashioned herbaceous peonies which we associate with grandma require no pruning in the spring. Or anytime, for that matter. They do need to be cut down to about 4" in the fall and those stems and leaves should never be put in your compost because of disease. Municipal composting is supposed to be carefully controlled so it is hot enough to kill pathogens, although not so hot as to kill the beneficial microbes, so put them in your green bin or yard waste bag. Buds of herbaceous peonies are protected underground during the winter, and actually require a certain number of cold days to set buds, so no mollycoddling for them! For a new peony root, plant their eyes about two inches below soil level in the fall (best time to plant them) and they will just come back year after year.
Come spring, the only jobs are to put down some garden compost away from the emerging stems, and stake (or cut and bring into the house) the large doubles, which were bred to be cut flowers, anyway. Cut when bud feels like a marshmallow and leave enough leaves on the plant so it can feed itself. Cut no more than 1/3 of stems, maximum, leave 2/3. And cut just a stem long enough for your vase, and not at ground level. Ouff, sorry! That sound like a lot of work, but it's not...
Herbaceous peonies emerge from the ground in early spring, whence their protected buds have been hiding all winter! They come in all different colours and shapes of buds and unfurling leaves.
2 ) Tree peonies. When I first grew tree peonies, we had to protect them with stakes and burlap, and if they were planted in a spot which was even a bit windy in the winter, the flower buds which developed up to the top of the stems were almost always unable to withstand the cold. Climate change has made this covering of tree peonies a thing of the past. I now never cover them, only lose a couple of buds on the woody stems to cold, and often have ample buds coming from low down on the stems which produce flowers that same summer. Be patient and watch the topmost buds. When they begin to swell, cut back the woody stem just above the highest live bud on each stem. This is all it takes to make that tree peony look neat and tidy in your spring garden.
If your tree peony gets too big for its space, you can always give it a bit of a pruning in the fall, taking out any very old woody stems with few or no buds, and also removing any small, weak ones. Leave enough stems so they have a pleasing structure and can produce food through their leaves during the summer.
Tree peonies in spring…how to prune
3) Itoh hybrids have the best traits of herbaceous and tree peonies, from which they were crossed. They hold their next years buds near the base of the plant in the fall, so cut them back to the highest buds you can see on each stem. Then you will often find a few buds which have come through winter several inches up the stem. Do not cut them back to the ground, either in the fall or the spring, but do prune away the dead wood above the live buds come spring. It takes them a bit of time to get going at the beginning of the year, so be patient. Eventually, the live buds will swell and start to unfurl, while the dry-looking ones will not. Just take off the dead wood above an opening bud.
Itoh Peonies have buds like both their herbaceous and tree peony parents…some a few inches below te soil, some alive above the soil level through the winter, so do not remove them. Just take off the dead wood above the swelling buds.
As for all peonies, they can do with a bit of well-aged manure or garden compost either in the spring or fall, but be sure to keep it away from the stems. And, while peonies are pretty drought resistant, a dry spring like the one we are having now is tough on all plants in your garden. Give them a good drink to keep them happy. Your birds would love a bath in a sprinkler as well!!!
For all other peony related tasks - purchase, planting, dividing - please do them in the fall. You will have a happier plant if you do!!
Aerial View of Tulip Show Garden in Holland.
I cannot credit anyone for this photo...it was pulled off the internet one day recently ... it brought me such joy, so I thought I’d share it. It made me think of the cycle of life. Here we are, in the second year of Covid-19, looking, still, for ways to stay safe and sane. And here are our gardens, awakening from the winter and settling in to spring, just as they always do.
After reading the horrific stories last year of the millions of plants and cut flowers which landed in the garbage because of the pandemic, I thought that this picture showed a real 'rising from the ashes' type story.
The glorious tulips which are the main stay of the Dutch floral industry are back, and, I would guess, they are more appreciated than ever before. So let's celebrate the season and life in general. Go out and buy some cut flowers before yours start providing you with bloom. And if your are able in whatever state of lockdown we might be in, take some to your elderly neighbour who doesn't get out much (just keep your distance...), to the garbage men and the guy who brings your newspaper (this will surprise them) to your child's teacher (if they are in school), or a special nurse or doctor. To your good friend. To your piano teacher, to someone you see standing waiting at the bus stop who looks sad. To the cashier at your local store who goes into work day after day so we might eat......
As Bonnie Henry says 'Be kind, be calm, be safe', and i am certain that she really wanted to add, 'give someone a beautiful bouquet of tulips, for no reason whatsoever....'
Happy gardening, and remember to email Heather heatherhbrown@gmail.com if you have any questions or comments. I'll do my best to answer.
Only four more sleeps till Christmas.... Here's to a better 2021 for all, and more inspiration to come in the Ottawa Garden Club blog. It has been hard to keep writing in the last month or so, what with grey skies and so little light. I look out my window only to see dog walkers bundled up against the early morning chill, and cold plants looking for their blanket of snow to keep them safe and warm this winter. Let's hope it comes soon!
Look for more postings in the new year!
Until then, have a safe and happy holiday!
Best, Mary
Table centrepiece courtesy of Sue McNee. Thanks Sue, it's beautiful!! Lovely combination of cedar, fir, variegated holly, dusty blue juniper berries and a few bright red Winterberries ( Ilex verticilata, or deciduous holly which grows wild here in bogs and swampy areas). A lovely artistic mélange!
As the first real snow arrives, I am glad we pushed a little to get winter greens (and reds and yellows) into pots before the soil in them froze.
But don’t fret if you have yet to get around to this, you can always completely empty your pots now (you might take them in for the night to thaw the soil, so let’s hope your pots are not too heavy!) and plant up an insert which you can just pop into the container at any time.
Have you made up your planters yet? What did you use? Send us a picture and include the types of branches you chose, and whether you added anything unusual to make the container sing out in that landscape.
I cheated this year and had Eric from Mood Moss come and do my planters, and he sure did a better job than I ever do! He used very fresh greenery and yellow dogwood, tucked three short white birch logs in to give a nice contrast of texture, and worked with the fuzzy beautiful brown leaf backs of Magnolias to break up the different greens. I had placed the containers in spots where they would catch the winter sun, either from the side or backlit. I can hardly wait for the day when the sun comes around and lights up the view from our kitchen/family room.
I think one of the things we don’t do well around here is to make winter gardens. We should try to do more of it…find the parts of the garden which can be seen from inside and make them pop! Interesting plant material, whether for colour or texture; a beautiful sundial sitting above the ground, say on a pith (so nothing is buried if we get a lot of snow); a dark spot in the garden lit up at night to show the shape of a trellis. Take a look at the empty space and dream a little!
At one point a couple of months ago when I first started to realize that winter really was just around the corner, I thought that instead of Christmas lights in our large shrubs it might be fun to have long colour fun streamers of fabric a la Christo (saffron streamers. Google Christo, Central Park) or like some of the ones dreamed up by the designers at the Garden Festival at Les Jardins de Métis.
(Photos by Louise Tanguay, of the installation The Line Garden by designers Coryn Kempster and Julian Jamrozik)
This would not only add colour, but also movement in the garden in winter.
Now am I using lights or streamers? Well, I guess I chickened out and I have defaulted to white lights…maybe next year?
Who says winter is dull and monochromatic? Maybe it is not quite winter yet, but it seems to me to have arrived with the snow which fell last night!
Choose your plants and containers carefully when planning and planting to get good texture and colour in your landscape over the winter...everything from large trees to small containers thoughtfully planted and placed where they can be seen from the inside can break the monotony of the winter months. The light from the sun is low but direct and strong when it does appear.
This is the scene we enjoy courtesy of neighbours...our borrowed landscape.....and it is beautiful! The huge Catalpa lost all of its leaves in an hour just before the snow came the other day and tamped everything down, and the colour behind and to the side of it is a collection of oaks of different shades and the brilliant deciduous needles of the larch, also known as the Tamarack tree. I was reminded today that it is the only native deciduous conifer in Ontario. Unlike most conifers (their seed is carried in cones) which are evergreen and do not lose their needles, such as spruce, fir, pine, etc., larch develops stunning colour over the fall, and then drops its needles going into winter. An interesting structural tree with an extra twist!
In this year when we will be trying to be outside a bit more, give a thought on how to increase the beauty of your outside space.
Your annuals should be at their best about now...well, until a killing frost, so look at them in September/October in you garden to see how you can improve the show for next year.
I have never planted many annuals in our garden, relying instead on the structure and bloom times of perennials to carry the show. But some annuals are real workhorses and I do use them liberally all up and down the border to bring continuity and flow to the space. Repetition of an annual is a good way to achieve that.
And remember, it is easy to plant annuals around fading bulb foliage to cover the yellowing leaves, and then when it comes time to plant bulbs, you can just put them in where the annuals have been.
Number one favourite annual is Salvia farinacea, but more specifically Salvia farinacea 'Victoria Blue'.
The colour “Victoria Blue” goes with everything!
We were taught in horticultural classes at Algonquin College to buy annuals without bloom, or just with one or two so you could be sure of the colour and also so you could pinch the tips out before planting and not sacrifice many flowers. With this Salvia, you really want to make sure the flats have been properly labelled as you will get every version of purple/blue as well as white Salvia, even when the tag in the flats promise, so convincingly promise, that they are all ‘Victoria Blue'! Some of the other colours are ok, but not only is the colour of Victoria Blue superior, but I also think the plant itself has a nicer structure than the others.
And this is a good annual to pinch the tip of when you plant it as it then branches out and makes a great little bush for the front of the border or just back from it. Plant it no closer than about one foot from the edge, however, so it does not fall into the grass.
This plant doesn't self-seed. By fall it is starting to become more woody because it is a sub-shrub in warmer climates. Think of lavender. Woody at the base, then newer , softer shoots coming from the top, but in Provence, the lavender is more of a shrub with better growth year-long. Here, it is definitely an annual.
Salvia farinacea along with Verbena bonariensis
Used extensively in Europe and Québec, it is only recently being appreciated more and more elsewhere. There are many different verbenas for gardens, including trailing types for containers which are often chosen for their long bloom time and rich jewel colours. But this one is very different.
This annual looks like a stick person...not substantial, but instead a lanky annual which tilts in the wind and attracts everything from Monarch butterflies to goldfinches and myriad pollinators looking for seed and nectar in late summer into October. It's fun to watch the goldfinches weigh the branches down as they feed and then tip them back up when they fly away. I had two monarch butterflies here on the verbena for weeks, and the hummingbirds can't resist them either! Hard to imagine that this is such a pollen magnet, as the flowers are minuscule, but a magnet it is!
This is a plant which can be massed in the garden or planted here and there for a purple, hazy film of colour across the entire border. They can be planted at the back, the middle, or even fairly close to the front of a bed, as long as they don’t fall too much into the grass. Everyone asks about this plant, but not many nurseries carry it yet. Call your favourite nursery in the fall and ask if they could bring them in for you come spring.
And, even better, this wonderful verbena is an enthusiastic self-seeder. It has masses of seed on it right now, seed which can be scattered in the fall, or collected and stored in paper bags, then sprinkled out in the spring, or, even more simply, just allowed to do its own thing by falling to the ground around its base.
A must-have annual!!
Teeny wee flowers! Often in nature, the smallest and plainest pack the biggest punch, either for fragrance or nectar production. Humans have bred in, or out, smell and size or shape. Simple is really special.
Seeds from Verbena bonariensis. Gazillions of them!
I use some of these, but not many, and now I have grown Dahlias, the Cleome might cede their place so i can squeeze in a few more Dahlias..... Although......those spider flowers are pretty special! I'll decide next spring when we have a better idea of what will be available.
Cleome is a tall but airy plant which comes in white, pink and a deep pink/purple. The flowers are unusual as are the seed heads in late fall which seem to be attached . It is best planted in groups of 3 or 5 (or more) towards the back of the border, in full sun, and they like to have lots of water during the really hot weeks of the year, or their flowers wilt. There is a smaller version which one sees every now and again, but I have never seen a magnificent planting of them, somehow. I think they were made to be tall!
Another self-seeder, Cleome holds its seeds in horizontal seed pods which look like wonderful haricot verts on a stem, shooting out horizontally from the stem. When the perfectly round little seeds are ripe, the pod bursts open to scatter those seeds far and wide. They take some time to germinate, but provide a lovely surprise when they do begin to bloom.
Lovely colours.
That’s why they call it Spider Flower…all those eggs! Note the tiny black seeds.
I rediscovered Dahlias this spring at Roam Flora, which promises over 80 varieties come early December(roamflora.ca). I used to grow them about 30 years ago, but after several years of hungry earwigs eating their way through the plants, I Found them too discouraging. But this summer I was seduced by the gorgeous dinner plate flowers I saw on roamflora's web site, and they certainly put on a good show this past couple of months! Huge blooms, fabulous colours, fantastic structure in each flower . Early on they were a bit eaten by earwigs and Japanese beetles, but nothing on them since then.
Now, dahlias are not exactly annuals...they produce tubers underground during the growing season, and have to be dug up in the fall, divided (with an eye attached to each tuber) and stored in vermiculite or peat moss and kept dark and dry over the winter. But what a variety of flower forms, colours and sizes. There is a dahlia (or 20) for everyone! As mentioned, I chose to try the huge ones, and, while I have loved their exuberance, the growing advice which came with them was right on...you can't just use any old stake for that size of dahlia. Next year will see sturdier stakes if I go for the big ones again.
Here's to spring!!!
Dinner plate Dahlias
Dahlias floating in a bowl
Showing off in the garden.
A bouquet for my neighbour.
I was working in the garden a few weeks ago, and Heather Brown pulled up in her car. Out she got with a beautiful fall decoration made by Cynthia Hoisak, which she gave to me, apparently a thank you for doing this blog! Well, I am happy to do the blog with nothing in return, but, I could not turn away this gorgeous piece which is still looking marvellous on my kitchen island.
Her beautiful gourd is from a farm north of Gatineau which carries 150 types of gourds!! courgescie.com And the succulents perched atop it can be removed and overwintered in a cool but sunny windowsill.
If you haven't seen the video of Cynthia producing this and several other pieces, go and take a look at it for ideas for your Thanksgiving celebrations (en famille, of course!). Heather sent that video out on September 17th if you want to look it up in your emails.
Thank you, ladies of the OGC! And thank you Cynthia for the inspiration and beauty you have given us!
Happy Thanksgiving !!!
Early on in the spring I had plans to tell you all about peonies. And then Covid 19 overtook our lives.
So, at the time of the year when peonies come back into our minds after a summer of many other plants at the forefront, fall seemed like a good time to try to pick up the cold trail and write more about them, finally, and to answer any questions you might have about them.
Hands down my favourite flower, the peony is one of the hardest working plants in the garden... despite what many people say. Interesting early shoots are often red and blue and grey as they emerge in the spring; the plants provide good structure and pretty leaves all summer in a garden bed; there is a seemingly endless selection of bloom form and colour; bloom time can be spread out over about 7 weeks by choosing different types; pretty fall colour of leaves appears in some varieties; many have unusual seed heads and seeds; herbaceous and Itoh peonies have strong winter hardiness, and, these days, with our warmer winters, even my tree peonies are no longer covered in their very exposed bed except when a very heavy frost threatens their buds which grow on their above-ground woody stems (see blog post below, dated May 9th, 2020, for a simple solution to an early frost).
As an aside, the reason herbaceous and Itoh peonies don't ever need any protection at all is that they actually need a cold period to set bloom. If they don't get a specific number of cold days, they just don't bloom. Hence no peonies in Florida and why instructions here specify planting herbaceous and intersectional peonies with their eyes about two inches below soil level. Deeper than that, and they are too warm! (Not so for tree peonies which should have their graft 5-6 inches below ground so that the tree peony roots take over from the herbaceous graft. More about that later… ) I have even read about crazy peony people (yes, there are a few, but I don’t know them…) who live in warmer climates who put ice over the ground where peonies are growing with the thought of providing enough cold days so they will bloom. Just like trying to change the acidity of soil to accommodate rhododendrons and azaleas, it is not often successful…
Anyway, I realized that I could write a book on these glorious plants, so where would I start for a short blog??? Even this short post saying I am just sending a link has turned into something way too long!
As I was pondering this, I opened up an email from a very large peony grower in the States - Peony's Envy (as a friend noted, a rather unfortunate choice of name….), and it is all there. Everything you want to know to get you started on understanding the basics of peonies. Sixteen sections under the Peony Care heading, most of which are again broken down into more sections covering everything from soup to nuts!!!! Now, there are lots of stories and interesting facts about peonies which are not covered there, but it is an excellent Peony 101 course. Please remember, however, that some things they write do not apply to us at all. For example, planting peonies in the spring bare root, which is a real no-no here.
So, instead of reinventing the wheel, I am going to send you to their site but will be totally available to Ottawa Garden Club members to answer any and all questions about this delightful plant. You have but to be in touch through Heather Brown if you don’t have my email. Let’s see how this works – if there are gaps or confusing items, I will cover those in other posts. And I know there are some interesting tidbits about peonies which you would like to hear, so I will keep coming back to peonies from time to time in future posts. You will all be experts in no time!!
In the meantime, if you need to plant/divide and/or move peonies, now is the time. But remember a few things…
1) never wake a sleeping baby – if your peony is looking well, blooming well and has no disease, why are you dividing it? There are lots of good answers to that question, but do ask yourself before you dig…
2) Try not to buy bare root at this time of the year if they are in plastic bags filled with sawdust at your local nursery. They will have no feeder roots and storage roots will be small. It will take several years before a peony like this will bloom, whereas a large, healthy root from a specialist peony grower in Canada will send up many shoots the first spring and should bloom first year. Ditto for potted peonies in the spring, unless the pot is pretty large. Again, the feeder roots will be cut to fit in the pot, so not ideal for the plant.
The Peony’s Envy site is peonyenvy.ca
The first day of fall, 2020, came and went without too much fanfare this year.....guess the media has more to think of than whether our leaves are changing colour or not. But here we are, realizing for many reasons that we should be out in our gardens as we quietly slip into October, and that it really is time to cut things down.
Fall colour…
But I look out the window and still see much colour, and many plants which have yet to bloom. The most noticeable late-bloomers this year are the Asters. Only one or two are showing any colour, and a few of them seem to have dried out and died after the drought of early and mid-summer. Hopefully we will have a lot of rain in the next while so the plants will form good roots before the ground freezes.
Asters just starting to show colour.
Aconites, the tall, blue, fall versions ( Aconitum carmichaelii, for example, and not to be confused with the tiny yellow flowers of early spring named winter aconites, which are in a different family) have yet to bloom, but that is quite normal. Some years they are the only blooms left once everything else been cut down. They are not even showing colour yet. But try mixing one of the late-flowering varieties with a white fall anemone like Honorine Jobert in a protected but fairly sunny spot, and you will have a lovely combination of white and blue at a time when those colours are rare. Oh, and do remember that all parts of aconites are toxic, very toxic.
Dahlias continue...
…two months of flower is pretty good, although they do start blooming quite late. Roam Flora is where I bought the tubers.... roamflora.ca – a local cut-flower farm in the west end of Ottawa.
Look at their website.. they have some amazing tulip bulbs only available another couple of weeks, and so far, I have found nothing decent in the way of bulbs here in Ottawa. I ordered some in April as I was afraid there would be none left come fall, and that is what happened – some shipments were held up in a strike on the docks in Montréal, and others were never ordered or even grown as we remember from the destruction of millions of bulbs in the Netherlands. There will be fewer bulbs in the gardens come spring, but let it act as a reminder to order bulbs and all other things – peonies, iris – very early next year. Write to the growers and get on their mailing lists now so you don’t miss out. They will send a reminder when their catalogues are in.
Some of the tulips on offer at Roam Flora, a local flower grower….
High Noon, lutea tree peony in bloom
September 26th…
Another indication of how weird this year is…or maybe not…?
This was in bloom in the garden last night. A lutea tree peony (with very sad looking foliage) in full flower. There have been other years when this plant, an unnamed variety, has attempted a bloom this late in the season, but I’ve never seen such a beautiful effort. Brava!!
I have been trying to name this peony for several years - it’s not easy to identify plants after the label has been lost (or was wrong in the first place, as often happens), but I am now pretty sure this one is High Noon, a lutea tree peony bred by A.P. Saunders, one of the five sons (and one daughter who never gets a mention) of the first director of the Experimental Farm here in Ottawa, and one of the most prolific peony breeders of all time. I notice that it is one which sometimes reblooms in late summer, according to numerous sources, including the American Peony Society, so I think I finally have a name for this beauty.
If so, it is interesting to know that someone told me one time that this peony is planted at his grave, he loved it so much.
I can see why - beautiful in every way, and a second bloom as well!
It’s a keeper…
I had never heard of a Night Blooming Cereus before buying our house from the parents of Leslie Lahey, but when they moved out and we moved in, she had left me with a large plant of this type of cactus. A little searching taught me that, indeed, this plant blooms at night, but also, that each flower only blooms once from around 7 pm until 7 am the next day. A one-night wonder!!!
Also called Queen of the Night (along with a few other plants, so don’t mistake one for another. This is the reason it is preferable to use botanical names rather than common names), this is an unusual plant, and one you must share with others because you just don’t see them around much. This year I have had three blooms – I missed the first two (don’t blink or you’ll miss them!) and the third bloom is just about open. I am not leaving the house until it finally blooms!!!
Forgive the quality of the photos, but here is the bud forming and a few days later, when the bud turns up towards the sky. How many more days??? We’ll see…
Five days ago…
Day 5 - It bloomed!
Day 6 - Finished!
What happened???…Am I seeing straight???
I woke up very early last week and looked at the clock on my iPad. It wasn’t the time which shocked me – around 3 in the morning is not when you should be awake, but it wasn’t the end of the world. It was the September 1st, 2020 date which just floored me. How could that be? My last blog was June 18th. About peonies. Entitled ‘Peony Bouquets from my Garden…more to come…’ I had every intention of writing to you about a whole year of peonies – everything from purchasing and dividing them, to understanding how they have been bred, what the three types are, how and when to cut them to bring inside, growing from seed, and on and on……. That was yesterday, right?
And here we are now, still trying to figure out what day it is..… What is a ‘weekend’? Are you busy next week? No…nothing at all in my agenda…ever. The kids are back in school already? No, no, no!!!! I can’t process it… The time really has flown by, as witnessed by my iPad telling me that 6 months had passed while I slept, that they had just vanished into thin air in this year of Covid 19. 2020 – a year never to be forgotten…
And I am not the only one wondering where the summer went. This summer of beautiful days, then a severe drought and recently, much-needed and ground-soaking, torrential rains. (Oh, and did I tell you we have a new Grandson? That was the best part of this horrendous year, and the best thing to happen to us since our first grandson appeared almost three years ago….. Forgive me. I digress, but we need to remember to celebrate the good things this year). All this followed closely by what looks like an early fall…and then what should we expect from the winter??? Oh, my… it’s going to be interesting. Time to keep talking about plants and gardens and the joy and pleasure they bring us. I have plans to do just that with this blog. I have a list as long as my arm of things to write about. And if you would like to have me answer any questions, send off a little note to Kelly or Heather, and I’ll see if I can help out!!
Succulents ready for overwintering. (The arrangement was a gift from Pauline Yelle.)
For you, this would be a good year to try a couple of houseplants you’ve never grown before, or a planting of herbs or lettuce on a cool windowsill. Go to Google and type in your favourite flower and learn all about it. Did you always get confused about when to prune the different types of clematis? Look it up. Now is as good a time as any to learn. Try overwintering some succulents you are particularly fond of in the house and learn how to propagate them for your containers next year. It’s very easy, and your friends and family will be thrilled to receive some as gifts. There are a million things you could do related to plants this fall/winter season when it is white or grey outdoors day after day. The monochromatic colour scheme will get to you after a bit, especially those of you who are normally ‘Snowbirds’. But the vibrant greens of houseplants and the rainbow colours of some flowering plants will lift our spirits and help us get through whatever is waiting for us in the months to come! Imagine three gorgeous Phalaenopsis orchids potted up in a beautiful container with a carpet of moss covering their bases, or perhaps some cut amaryllis in a crystal-clear vase on your kitchen counter to brighten your days. Let’s all make this a happy winter despite everything! We can do this together!!!
More to come!
Too much to say and not enough time as I try to keep the garden watered. Whew! The flowers are spectacular as they have not been flattened by rain. What a year! More to come!
If you grow asters your will know that sometimes they are tall and skinny and prone to falling over. And their lower leaves are often lost to mildew, leaving the base of their stems looking kind of awful. You can improve their situation by pinching them, that is, taking out the uppermost couple of sets of leaves once in early June, and then again the beginning of July. If you do this, the plant will be slightly shorter and stalkier than it would have been otherwise. You have nipped off the top growth so they bush out horizontally.
You can do the whole plant, or the part at the front, leaving the stems towards the back to be a bit taller, or just every other tip. Try different things. And you can do this with other plants as well, although phlox is the only really suitable other one I can think of right now...( maybe I’ll come up with some others by morning...)
On the BBC show, Gardeners' World, they call it the Chelsea Chop. People who tend the plants at the famous Chelsea Flower Show take pruning shears to asters and phlox to make them lush and bushy. They have a longer season to produce bloom, and many more plants to deal with, so I would stick with pinching, if I could choose. It just feels better to pinch than to chop!
Aster leaf on left, not pinched. Aster leaves on the right, pinched from top. They will produce side growth.
I had this question sent to me the other day, after I wrote about 'a blue river' in our long border, made up of forget-me-nots.
Q: I drive by your garden every couple of days to see what is in bloom and how the garden changes over time. Several weeks ago the garden was blue with Forget-me-nots. It was beautiful. I then read in your wonderful blog that when the blooms are done and the seeds are set you pull them up and shake out the seeds for a river of blue the following year. Does this mean that you don’t cultivate the earth at all? If yes, how do you control the weeds? And can you add compost to the garden on top of the seeds? Thanks for your help!'
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A little background: Forget-me-nots are biennials. Biennials have a two year cycle of growth (an annual lasts one year and a perennial, more than two) forming a rosette of leaves at ground level as well as a good root system in the first year, followed, in the case of Forget-me-nots, by flower stalks covered in tiny blooms in the second, with the basal rosette decreasing as that second year passes. The plant is working hard early in the second season, so the rosette diminishes as it sends energy to making flowers and finally, seeds, often in early summer. At the end of year two in the garden, a biennial will have disappeared, leaving only seed behind. Have you ever bought a gorgeous foxglove which you carefully planted and tended in the summer? And then after the winter, no foxglove! That is because you were seduced into buying the plant in bloom without realizing it is a biennial, so you will not have another flower for two years, and only if you let the plant go to seed. ...Trust me...I know from first-hand experience...!
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A: Now, to answer the questions. The first thing to say is that Forget-me-nots aren't given their name for nothing! They are hard to get rid of! When their seeds are ready, you will see them sticking to your clothes - the little green calyx protecting the tiny black seed acts like a piece of Velcro so their progeny can be distributed far and wide. A good shake of the almost spent flower stalks in the garden will yield a bunch of seeds. This is when I scatter them where I want them to show up, being very careful not to let them fall into the grass or between pavers if that is not what I want. Just make sure you let those seeds mature before removing them…the seeds will have turned black and will be readily falling out of the calyx.
If you cultivate in the border after the seeds have fallen, you will dislodge the seed so that some are buried deeper than others, but, somehow, a lot of them turn up at the right level in the soil, and they grow on to be healthy plants. You can always transplant plants in the fall into places where they have not grown, either because of enthusiastic weeding (most gardeners are tidier than I am!) or having too much compost burying the small plant.
During the spring and summer, you will find little plants popping out of the ground wherever they have landed. Often they collect around the crown of plants. If you continue to cultivate the soil, you will kill some of the young plants along with the weeds you want to remove, but many will settle back into the soil and be just fine. Emerging plants vary in size and maturity vastly at this stage, so you will have everything from tiny plants to large rosettes to plants with fading flowers. Yes, cultivating and adding manure will set some of them back a little, but they are tough and you always are dealing with thousands of them. So, trust me, you will be able to have your blue river along with not too many weeds both at the same time!
Small seedlings early in spring, year 1, from last year’s seed.
Rosettes of leaves forming late spring, year 1 (plant shown next to the shiny European ginger).
Very late spring year 2. No rosette of leaves at base, only flower stems which will continue to brown and die back, leaving only seeds to germinate going forward.
A bouquet of early peonies chez nous...
I believe the parking lots are open at the Farm...worth a visit to the peony beds in the Ornamental Gardens next to the roundabout. Think as long as it is 'walking through' and you don't linger too long and are social distancing, you won't be hauled off!
Happy day!
It’s Peony Time…my favourite time of the year!
I have collected together here peony photos from as far away as China, to those currently in bloom in my garden here in Ottawa. Take a look!