Scream-Inducing Garden Event

I knew it was too good to be true. All this week I had been marvelling at my backyard serviceberry tree. I planted it last summer. It produced a handful or two of berries, most of them quickly devoured by racoons, squirrels and birds. Oh well, I thought, next year will be better. Sure enough, this year the serviceberry branches are just dripping with berries. I spent many a minute standing before the berry-laden branches, picking one here and one there and basking in the glow of success.

So perhaps I jinxed myself by sharing this great garden news with a fellow green-thumb. "I have been having such luck with my serviceberry" I said to my colleague. "Last year, the raccoons picked it clean. This year, the berries haven't been touched." Even as I was saying the words, I wanted to take them back. They seem like an invitation to disaster. So you can imagine my horror when I stepped out into the backyard to find this.

My tree had been decapitated! Something had snapped the main horizontal branch and a side branch right off. (I imagined a big fat raccoon leaping from the top of the fence to land on the top branch.) There was a scream when I saw the damage, not a very loud one mind you, but a sad, defeated scream. It was followed by several minutes of angry mutterings peppered with profanity.

Shifting into damage control mode was the only option lest I sink into a pit of all-consuming bitterness and rage. I cut back the damaged branches and then summoned the family to the back deck telling them to start picking. Something's after our berries, I declared. The best revenge was to get to the berries before the critters did. And what a tasty revenge it was.

Summer's Arrival in the Garden

What better way to welcome summer than with the first daylily bloom of the year. The blazing orange of the blooms reminds me of the sun at high noon (not that we've had much sun).

The lavender was looking pretty woody and straggly this spring. I thought it might be time to replace it but in full bloom it looks amazing.

The foxglove is new to the garden this year. My daughter picked it out last year after I relayed the often-told tale that the blooms make the perfect-sized gloves for foxes.

While the foxglove is standing at about four feet tall, the foxtail lily is towering at upwards of six feet. Whereas last year I had only one spire of flowers, this year I have two.

While I can't help but be impressed by the heights reached by the foxglove and foxtail, one of my favourite plants of all time prefers to stay a little closer to the ground: the veronica spicata "Royal Candles" (shown here with some geranium clambering up its side). All in all, it has been a fabulous start to the summer.

City Street Planter Review: Awful!

I was just starting to wonder when the city was going to get around to filling the tree planters that line the sidewalks when ...voila! The flowers have arrived. The selection of plants isn't exactly awe-inspiring. Instead, there's a lot of the tried and true: petunias, begonias, potato vines. It's hard to go wrong with these plants in a tough, unforgiving, urban environment.

This year, however, there is something distinctly different. The flowers aren't planted IN the planters. They are sitting on top of the planters in lined wire baskets. Those baskets, in turn, are sitting in plastic garden trays. The whole contraption is held in place by a metal frame that wraps itself around the tree trunk. Let me pause here to give you my impressions: Bleechh! Ugh! and Bleechh! This is truly an eyesore.

What were they thinking? Money must be factor: I suppose it's more cost effective to drop off a pre-fab garden display and bolt it into place than to individually address each street planter. Over time, I suppose the plants will fill in and hide the framework. That takes time, though. In the meantime the view is hideous. The plastic trays are no doubt meant to collect rainwater to keep the plant baskets moist. In a city that's been drought-ridden for the past few summers, I say good luck. Even with a normal amount of rainfall, every gardener knows that these types of baskets need extra water. Without some added help, they'll be fried by the end of July. Is there a plan to keep these plants alive?

I don't know if this is a city-wide initiative or a move by the local business improvement group. Whoever is responsible, I suggest a re-think. If beautifying the streetscape is the objective, this is a step in the wrong direction. There is nothing beautiful about this. If saving money is the objective, wouldn't a one-time expense on a planting of hardy perennials be a better choice, one that could provide beautiful blooms for years to come?

Maybe, come August, these planters will prove me wrong. Maybe they will be lush and overflowing with blooms. After all, at just the right distance and just the right angle, they don't look that bad, do they? Yeah, right. "The devil is in the details," goes the saying. The details of these baskets, metal frames and hideous, hideous plastic trays add up to one big mess. Here's my review: awful. Just awful.

What do you think?

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

April 20, 2008: It's hard to believe that just over six weeks ago the garden was struggling along in a very cool, very wet spring. It seemed the sunshine would never arrive. So did the cool start hurt?

June 6, 2008: Not a chance. The garden is thriving. Hate to say it, but it is even a little out of control and overgrown in some spaces. I'll attribute that to my preference for the slightly wild and naturalized look as opposed to the fact that I sometimes ignore my responsibilities as a gardener. Realistically though, maybe some plant division is in order this fall. Ha! I'm thinking about fall just as the first major heatwave of the year hits (it arrived out of the blue, literally overnight, like a stifling, wet, blanket of smothering air.) As a gardener I would benefit from time travel. I could zip back to April to see where I need bulbs and then zip further back to the previous fall to plant them. And while I was there I could cut and hack and divide the garden back into a more tame state. Since time travel is unlikely, I'll just have to live in the moment, looking back and looking ahead at everything that could have or should have been done in my ever-changing garden.

A Most Pleasing Combination

I have cursed the day I planted Mountain Bluet more times than I care to remember. I can't recall where it came from or why it appealed to me in the first place but I do know that I have been pulling up its seedlings for about a decade. This plant spreads like crazy and by extension tests my sanity as a gardener. Each spring I vow to get rid of it once and for all. Then it blooms and wins me over once again. Last year I planted a Salvia "Blue Queen" next to it. I needed to fill a hole. What can I say? The combination really works for me. For once, I'm not singing the mountain bluet blues.

Let the Harvesting Begin

May I have a dumroll please? The novice potager gardener is very proud to present the first radish of the season. Not only is it the first radish of the season but it is the first ever vegetable produced in my newly installed backyard veggie plot. Whoohoo! It's working. It's really, really working. This is just the kind of success a newbie vegetable gardener needs. It's a real confidence builder. It's nice to be harvesting a good crop of radishes just as some of the more challenging late season vegetables are going into the ground. In other potager news, eight Petitbec tomato plants grown from seed starting on March 15th have been transplanted into the garden. The potatoes have sprouted. The snow peas are about three inches tall and starting to climb their trellis. The leeks and onions are standing tall in their rows while the carrot tops look like a mohawk haircut cutting across the soil. The bush beans and the nasturtiums have just started poking through. If all do as well as the radish, it will be a very good harvest indeed.

Everything I Ever Planted

I have a cookie tin that sits on top of my microwave. Everytime I put a plant into the ground, the plant tag goes into the cookie tin. It is filled to bursting. I noticed this as I crammed another four tags into the tin this week. With very cool temperatures and a steady supply of rain keeping garden work to a minimum, I saw the opportunity to document everything I have ever planted. So here it is complete with bonus notes on plant performance. (The purple coneflower pictured is from last year's garden. Right now, it's still months away from blooming. Have I ever mentioned how envious I am of southern gardener friends who have been enjoying them for weeks already? Sigh.)

FRONT YARD WOODLAND GARDEN
Amelanchier Canadensis/Serviceberry
Astilbe/Astilbe x arensdsii "Fanal" (totally neglected but it persists)
Bloodroot/Sanguineria canadensis
Blue Cohosh/Caulophyllum thalictroides
Canada Anemone
Eastern Redbud/Cercis canadensis
Plantain Leaved Sedge
Rattlesnake Master/Eryngium yuccifolium (needs to be moved to a more suitable location, a better fit for a meadow than a woodland)
Red Baneberry/Actaea rubra
Starry False Solomon's Seal
White Snakeroot/Eupatorium rugosum
Wild Columbine/Aquilegia canadensis
Wild Ginger/Asarum canadense

BACKYARD GARDEN
Acer Palmatum "Bloodgood" (beautiful colour and shape)
Clematis "Ernest Markham"
Clementine Red Columbine/Aquilegia vulgaris "Clementine Red"
Cotton Lavender/Santolina chamaecyparissus (hated this plant at first, now I love it. It's a charmer.)
Creeping Thyme/Pseudolanuginosis or Thymus praecox
Daylily/Hemerocallis "Stella de Oro"
Dwarf Calamint/Calamintha nepeta ssp. nepeta (planted in full sun, average soil, this is a garden all-star.)
Geranium "Rozanne"
Giant Big Blue Lily Turf/Liriope Muscari "Big Blue"
Helleborus "Ivory Prince" (longest bloom time ever)
Heuchera "Hollywood"
Heuchera sanginea "Splendens"
Hosta "Golden Tiara"
Ilex "Jim Dandy"
Ilex "Red Sprite"
Japanese Forest Grass/Hakonechloa "All Gold"
Ludwig Spaeth Purple Lilac/Syring Vulgaris "Ludwig Spaeth" (outstanding deep purple colour/fragrance)
Nepeta Grandiflora "Dawn to Dusk" (lots of maintenance work but I like it)
Mother of Thyme/Thymus serpyllum
Perennial Pansy/Viola "Blue Heaven" (warning: spreads like crazy)
Perennial Sage/Salvia x syvestris "Blue Queen"
Pulmonaria "Silver Streamers"/Lungwort (I love this plant more every year)
Purple Labrador Violet/Viola labradorica
Roma Masterwort/Astrantia major "Roma"
Sedum Sieboldii/Stonecrop Siebold
Sedum spectabile "Neon" (I always assumed I had an "Autumn Joy", thank goodness fo plant tags)
Scotch Moss/Sagina subulata "Aurea"
Veronica Spicata "Royal Candles" (among my most favourite)
Wherry's Foamflower/Tiarella wherryi

THE DEARLY DEPARTED
Blue Star Creeper/Isotoma fluviatillis (don't even remember having this one)
Helenium "Rotgold" (destroyed by construction workers)
Heuchera "Peach Flambe" (killed this by planting it in full sun)
New Zealand Burr/Acaena saccaticupula "Blue Haze" (pretty sure I pulled this one because it was a poor performer, looked weedy)

TAGLESS PLANTS AND PASSALONGS
Asiatic Lilies
Balloon Flower
Balsam Fir
Bearded Iris
Burning Bush (nothing it beats it for fall colour)
Chinese Lantern (super aggressive)
Chives (can't get enough chives, the more the better I say)
Creeping Jenny
Ditch Lilies
Foxglove
Foxtail Lilies
Globe Thistle
Jerusalem Artichoke
Mountain Bluet (spreads everywhere, can get weedy, have vowed to get rid of it for years but can never say goodbye)
Mystery Ferns
Mystery Giant Hosta (an absolute favourite, perhaps never to be identified)
Purple Beech (this tree brings me more garden joy than any of my perennials. It has been a thrill to watch it grow over the past four years.)
Purple Coneflower
Rose of Sharon
Serbian Bellflower
Solomon's Seal

Okay, so I may officially qualify for "Crazy Plant Lady" status especially because this list doesn't, in fact, represent everything I have ever planted. I can only imagine how long the list would get if I started in on the bulbs. My "Kill List" is WAY longer than the dearly departed plants I have tags for. I confess to having destroyed at least one hydrangea and butchering a butterfly bush in my time (but I really don't want to talk about it.) Making this list public might lead some (husband, child) to suggest this gardener should reign in her passion for planting. I think it would be way easier to get a bigger cookie tin.