This lovely double orange daylily is a vigorous grower in moist soil but is easily kept in check in my un-watered garden. A neighbour gave me a few fans many years ago and now I have several large clumps in the garden. It blooms later than most every other daylily, helping provide vibrant colour in […]
Tag: Prince Edward County
of wasps in gardens…
I’ve noticed that often when someone says the word ‘wasp’ in a conversation or posts the word ‘wasp’ on social media, a general frenzy, almost hysteria, breaks out. Almost immediately stories will erupt about a friend of a friend or a second cousin or a neighbour being stung by a wasp, or by a whole […]
Highs and Lows
An e-mail last week from my dad on Vancouver Island had a photo attached of his gigantic Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus) – its first flower had opened, a lovely pure white with a burgundy red eye. Three days ago my own Rose of Sharon bloomed for the first time ever, and it’s remarkably similar […]
mid summer report – happy happy joy joy
Nothing has died. That kind of says it all. This time last year the fields were brown, the Larix were dead, the Rudbeckia was just not flowering. Copious amounts of rain this spring and an average amount so far this summer has brought in the garden great joy to all things growing and, I suspect, […]
Directions from Nature
When early pioneers were rolling their way across the tall grass prairies of North America, sometimes, in mid summer, they would come across a towering plant with huge basal leaves that often were oriented on a north-south axis. They called it a Compass Plant. In later years scientists speculated the leaves point that way to […]
Spring into July
Is it too early to start thinking about what the garden will look like next year? Sorry (I am Canadian, after all), but I just can’t help it. It’s the hottest week of the year, the garden is lush with annuals and summer blooming perennials, the veggies are starting to be harvested, pole beans and […]
Daylily Dreamin’
Daylilies (Hemerocalis spp) started to bloom in early June in my back garden. Well, one lovely tall spidery lemon yellow variety of daylily anyway. The common orange ‘ditch daylily’ started to open July 1, as they do every year. Stella d’Oro about three weeks ago and the rest, large brash colourful varieties, just this past […]
Tale of Two Echinaceas
I have to confess I don’t have just one favourite plant – I have dozens. And the list changes every year depending on things as mundane as the weather (too dry to produce many flowers, or, so dry the whole plant just dies) or as esoteric as did I grow it from seed (or it […]