A Great Gardening Year

Huge hostas grace my garden this summer.

Wow! What a great gardening year this is. People are constantly telling me how wonderful their gardens are growing. The weather experts predicted a hot, dry summer but so far we haven't experienced much of that. Instead we have alternated between cool wet weather and a few hot dry days which has resulted in the gardens growing large and lush. The hostas are huge, the berries bountious (strawberries that is!), the grapes glorious and the weeds wicked! The gardens seem to have exploded. I haven't seen a garden season like this for a few years.

We picked strawberries at Brooklands Farm in Milford Bay a few times and the berries were large and delicious. My son Jeremy baked and decorated a cake with berries to represent the Canadian flag in celebration of Canada Day. We gorged on fresh berries and whipped cream, made jam and froze a great quantity to enjoy during the winter. Yum! Yum!

The grape arbour is covered with grape bunches and it looks like we will have a great grape harvest this fall that is if we can keep the birds and squirrels away as the grapes ripen. We're looking forward to making grape jelly to enjoy on our toast when winter sets in providing a reminder of the summer that was.

My roses were ravishing this summer. Many summers I have lost leaves and buds to caterpillars before the buds could bloom but this summer everything bloomed with fragrant aroma. The peonies were perfect too - fragrant large blooms that awakened the olfactory senses as you wandered through the garden.

But along with the burgeoning beauty are the wicked weeds and ferocious ferns that seem to have taken over too. Last year I was not able to give the garden much attention due to dealing with family health issues and now with a great garden season I am forced to tackle the weed and fern problems. So with vigour I am digging out the ferns and eliminating the weeds and putting down lots and lots of mulch. (I should have shares in the mulch companies). I have also been reworking some parts of the front garden. After spending some time on a garden tour with Frank Kershaw, I am starting to lift some of my smaller plants up to display them better as I saw on that tour. Garden tours are great for getting new ideas and summer is the time when horticultural societies across the province and country are showcasing local members gardens. Take time out from your own garden chores to check out some of these tours.

Today is cool and overcast but a perfect day for getting out in the garden to continue with my garden tasks. Enjoy your day but remember always to take time out to smell the roses and celebrate the beauty of your private sanctuary.

World Naked Gardening Day- May 14, 2011

Who would believe that there would be such an international day as World Naked Gardening Day? Well, I'm here to tell you that such a day exists and that day is May 14, 2011 this year. Now I personally can't imagine doing my garden chores naked, especially in our part of the country where May is the beginning of black fly and mosquito season. How about gardening naked protected by a bug jacket? But there are somethings a bug jacket won't be able to protect (if you know what I mean),

Personally I prefer to think about naked gardening in the same context as Jamie Oliver, The Naked Chef. For me "naked gardening" simply means just stripping away all the glitz and getting back to gardening basics, using sustainable practices like composting, integrated pest management, discontinuing use of pesticides and insecticides and the use of hertitage, heirloom and native plant material.

So celebrate World Naked Gardening Day in whatever manner makes you feel good.

O Reluctant Spring!

O reluctant spring - when will you ever show your warm spirit and bright days.

Can you believe it - these are my little crocus, frozen in the snow that fell yesterday and through the night. A few weeks ago we were lulled into the prospect that spring was just around the corner. Warm breezes brushed our faces, we scampered to put our laundry on the line revelling in the smell of clean, fresh linens. And then wham. The warm breezes were repaced with blasts of bitter Arctic air and along with those strong winds came blinding snow - yet again. Can anyone believe that it is now April 18th. Spring when will you grace us? These tiny purple petals frozen in time and space. And as Easter approaches this weekend, we can look forward not to donning a new Easter outfit as I did when I was a child but instead to get my winter coat out again.

But the signs of spring are here - these frozen crocus, my rhubarb budding up through the ground (topped by a hood of snow) and daffodils just waiting to burst. And I must remember that we gardener's are a patient lot, so patient I must be and I know that I will be rewarded when my anticipation is finally quenched with spring's warm weather and colourful blooms.

Canada Blooms - Inspiration, Ideas and Information

I can hardly believe that it is mid March already and time once again for Canada Blooms, Canada's premier flower and garden show. Winter has really been hanging on and we are all ready for a breath of spring air and Canada Blooms certainly delivers that along with plenty of inspiration, ideas and information. Some people can easily feel overwhelmed at the show but here are a few tips to help you make the most out of your Canada Blooms visit.

1. Inspiration-The show gardens are large and beautiful but can be overwhelming to some who say I don't have the funds to hire a landscaper to do all that work and it is beyond my own capabilities. Remember these are show gardens where landscapers and designers are showing you new products and their services. These gardens are meant for inspiration. Look at the smaller elements that you can take home and use in your own garden - it could be a new plant variety, and interesting colour combination or a new hardscape element like a water feature, outdoor kitchen idea or some cool accesories.

2. Ideas - The show is filled with lots of great ideas. Bring along your digital camera and a notebook and pen so you can make note and record ideas or new plants you'd like to try in your garden. If you rely on your memory, you'll lose a lot of ideas. By the end of the show your head will be so filled with ideas that when you go home, you won't remember them all. I keep a file of new gardens ideas so that when I have time and want to make changes to my garden I can readily see ideas I wanted to try.

3. Information - If you are a novice gardener just getting started or an experienced gardener wanting to find out about new plants or techniques, Canada Blooms information sessions are filled with quality education from experienced gardeners. There are many opportunities throughout the 4 day show to here excellent speakers who share their knowledge, tips and techniques. Again, bring along a notebook so you can jot down all the great gardening advice.

If you've never been to Canada Blooms, there is no time like the present. Not only will you leave filled with Inspiration, Ideas and Information but you'll leave knowing that spring is just around the corner. So celebrate spring this week at the Direct Energy Centre in Toronto at Canada Blooms.

Winter Won't Let Go

"Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own."

Charles Dickens

What a week it has been. Winter it seems just will not let go its hold on us. It's almost mid March and just when we think that spring might be on our doorstep, we are blasted with another hit of winter. Yesterday, it was rain, then wet, heavy snow and my children even had another "snow day" at home. With the extra rain and snow, it has meant flooding all around our town. We are all getting a little down with the weather these days and can only hope and pray for some sunshine, mild days and warm, warm weather. It doesn't help when our Kenyan son texts us from Nairobi telling us it is so, so, so, so, hot Mama. But still the fresh dusting of white covered up the muddy brown of spring's melt time.

And so we can only hope for spring by looking at our photos of our gardens in full bloom and perusing and picking our seeds and summer bulbs from the garden catalogues but when we will be able to plant, well your guess is as good as mine. So tonight with a light snow falling and mild temperatures, I'll grab a mug of tea and get back to my seed orders.

Roses - Symbol of Love for Valentine's Day

"In the heart of every woman
is the memory of a Rose."

Jean Gordon


Roses have been the symbol of love throughout the ages but it was the Victorians who began to write about roses in their poetry and prose extolling their virtue and innocence.



And as Liz Klose and Laura Peters recount in their book 'Roses for Ontario', "A Greek legend attributes the creation of the rose to Flora, the goddess of spring and flowers. She found the lifeless body of one of her beautiful nymphs in the forest and asked the gods to give the creature new life by transforming her into a flower, one that surpasses all others in beauty. The request was granted and the new flower was named Rose, Queen of Flowers."



Roses have been the symbol of love in my relationship with my husband and he often gives me roses for special occasions, and sometimes for no occasion at all. We have a few roses growing in our gardens, new varieties that come out on a regular basis that seem like they might like to survive in our colder winter climate. We love the ones that smell like roses should smell, that wonderful sweet intoxicating fragrance. My husband especially loves the mauve variety (name unknown) that really exudes with rosy aroma. After all, what good is a rose if it doesn't smell like a rose! In ancient times in Persia it was found that oil could be distilled from rose petals and that once bottled rose oil could last almost indefinitely. This was a real blessing as it was much easier to open a bottle of attar of roses, as the essential oil was known, than to be surrounded by bushels of roses, to enjoy rose fragrance. From this discovery, the scent of roses became a staple of cosmetics, aromotherapy and perfumes.



This Valentine's Day show your loved one you really love them with a gift of roses. And remember that the Rose is the goddess of Spring which I hope is just around the corner (and on this very snowy day we could use a few warm thoughts about spring!).



Did you know that Kenya is one of the major rose growing countries in the world that services much of Europe?

"And when the vines and stalks are empty, when the soil's been turned, and it is blowing into Winter, we sit with neighbours and compare. About who had the best luck with this year's garden. Outside, the garden's brown again. The crows are back. And we are, all of us, waiting . . . for next year's garden."

Cynthia Ryland, "This Year's Garden"

Today is one of those days that you just feel the need to have a little sunshine in your life. As I look out the window the sky is leaden grey and a light snowfall is gently drifting to the ground. Luckily it is still not cold enough for the snow to accumulate but rather it melts as it hits the earth.

It's hard to believe that it is the end of the first week in November already. Most to the garden chores have been done and the beds put to bed. The garden seems empty and dull with colourings of brown and green but the red rosehips and white snowberries add bright spots of colour. True to form, I still have tulip bulbs to plant. Hopefully we will have a slight reprieve this weekend and I can get them planted.

It seems like the time to sit back and relax but I know I must create next season's to-do list. Fix the fence, replace the lattice, redesign the front garden, divide the hosta, cut back the grapevines (do it earlier next spring because I got lots of foliage but no grapes this year)and build a waterfall for the big pond (that was on this year's to-do list but just didn't get done).

Some people like to think that gardening is an activity that can be "completed", if you can use that word. But a garden is a living, breathing, ever changing entity. Plants grow, or don't grow, and need to be moved and divided and we must always deal with Nature's blessings or her wrath. Our gardens thrive with plenty of sunshine and adequate rainfall or they suffer with cold or too hot temperatures and too much water but that is in fact the true beauty of gardening. No two seasons are the same and the garden is always in constant evolution.

But for today, I'll put the kettle on to make a cup of tea and dream of winter's depths when the land is covered with snow and as both the garden and I take a rest, I'll get my gardening fix getting caught up reading all about other people's gardening exploits.