All about spheres

Looking at photos of the garden, you might have noticed cement balls placed in strategic spots. These are chiefly ornamental, although they also serve practical purposes. Their use is even historical.

"Cherry Garden" - Portrait of an Iris

Iris pumila "Cherry garden" is a dwarf bearded iris.

I thought I would write a plant portrait of "Cherry Garden" because what I find in various references simply does not do it justice.

These references all neglect to mention what is most characteristic of it.

"Cherry Garden" a dwarf iris

Smooth Green Snake

The previous post on slugs brought back to mind the smooth green snake, because slugs are part of its diet!

I have mentioned that snake before, but not in detail. I wish I could convince this beautiful small snake to settle in the garden, but that leads me to a conundrum - perhaps it would if I had more slugs!

Smooth Green Snake

A "maximus" we could do without

Slugs!

Through my gardening years, I have had to deal with only two kinds of slugs, both a few centimeters long (I call them the whites and the greys, not having the required competence to identify these slugs by  their proper scientific names).

Cold and Snow

The news are full of comments about how bad the weather has been in the northern hemisphere, particularly in the American Mid West and in Eastern Canada, and we wonder how the snow and very cold temperatures will affect ours gardens. Although the intense cold is not welcome, a great amount of snow is good for perennial plants, if not for humans.

A very snowy winter

Rainy Summer

I mentioned in a previous post that the summer had started rainy. Well, it still is rainy. A few drops are falling as I am writing this, and the day before yesterday a downpour lasted several hours.

Lilium michiganense - native to our area though rare in the wild and now included in Lilium canadense

Raised Beds

We have always had raised beds in the southern half of the garden, but not in the other half.
The soil is very thin here in the Bruce, and so anything that can increase its volume is most welcome.
These first raised beds were made when the garden was first created, around 2007, and are very permanent, made of stones and concrete.

The existing raised beds made of stones and concrete

A Summer of Revenants

The last four or five weeks have been rather wet in our part of the world, and hot days have not been numerous (hot days for us are above 25 C).

 Even if humans do not enjoy that kind of weather, most plants do. In fact, a good number of plants I thought dead, some for many years, have made a comeback.

I expect the extra water is the reason for these "resurrections". The most spectacular is Camassia.

Bulb Query

I have some questions about two spring bulbs that some of you might be able to help me with.

The first one has to do the small daffodil, Narcissus bulbocodium, often called hoop petticoat daffodil.

Narcissus bulbocodium

When we find ourselves in the place just right

The majority of gardening jobs have to be done in spring and one that takes a lot of time here is moving plants. Finding the right spot for a plant might seem straight forward enough, but it is much more difficult than it appears.

The herb garden on May 1st

Turnip Top - a lesser known vegetable

You might have read one of my previous posts in which I wax eloquently about turnip tops, a green I hold in very high esteem. It is a very little know vegetable and, to appreciate it, you need to realize two things: first, that turnip top is neither a turnip nor the green leaves of a turnip, and second, that you should not attempt to eat it as is recommended in seed catalogues.

Turnip top at its prime

Campanula incurva - plant portrait

One of my favorite new plants this year was Campanula incurva.- - a rock garden bellflower with large blooms, almost as big as Canterbury bells (Campanula medium), but flowering on very short stalks and all the bloms facing up, so they look good from a distance or seen close-by.

Campanula incurva

Lespedeza thunbergii

In late September this is the shrub that blooms most profusely at Roche Fleurie.  The common name is Bush Clover. Being of the pea family (Fabaceae), the flowers look very much like some clover flowers, but the plant forms a shrub, hence Bush Clover.

Bush Clover

Four-legged Johny Appleseed

September is associated with the ripening of wild apples that surround the garden. As regular readers will already know, lots of apples means that our local bear is often around.

Very few of these apple trees were planted by humans. The majority comes from apple seeds scattered by raccoons and, especially, bears.

Some of the "wild" apples

The Setting

This is a gardening blog, so the vast majority of the posts have to do with the garden, its plants or its design.

For a change, it might be useful to talk about the location of the garden in order to place it in its context and give you an idea of its surroundings.

The beach and marina in the village of Lion's Head in the Bruce Peninsula

Late August

Late August is the time when there are still some blooms, but they look rather tired. Somehow, even flowers that have just opened seem tired.

More probably, it is the gardener's outlook which is defective. Even if the days are still warm, they are getting shorter and shorter.

Here are some of the things that are blooming now at Roche Fleurie.

Hellenium autumnale

Tolerated Weeds

One of our shortcomings as a gardeners is to be too inclined to leave attractive weeds to prosper. Some years we am more strict, others more lax, depending on the situation.

This year, for instance, many of the vegetables that were planted are not going to produce much. Many had to be replanted several times after having been dug up by raccoons early in the season.

Only one cucumber plant and one zucchini plant eventually grew.   Only a quarter of the pole beans planted survived the raccoon onslaught. They are growing and we have started eating them.

However they are being invaded by Morning Glories which we decided to let grow. There might not be many beans, but at least the poles are not naked.

A Week in the Shuswap and the Okanagan

The Shuswap is a lake and area of British Columbia where we have just spent a holiday week.

The Thompson river in the Shuswap

In Praise of Blackcurrants

It has been an excellent year for blackcurrants (Ribes nigrum). In fact we had a bumper crop.

Some years there will be a late frost when the blackcurrant bushes are in bloom, which reduces yield. But not this year.

This means that we have been very busy picking berries and turning them into desserts, jam and, most popular of all in this household, crème de cassis, the delicious blackcurrant liqueur.

Blackcurrants

A True Dry Shade Lover

In this garden, the regular foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) does not do well. It is, in fact, very difficult to grow, mostly because the soil is basic and too dry.

At the moment of writing this, at the end of July, it has been very sunny for the last two months, with perhaps three rain showers in all, which means that many plants only survive provided they are watered every day.

However the rusty foxglove (Digitalis ferruginae) is blooming generously, even if it has never been watered except for the little rain we got.

Digitalis ferruginae - the rusty foxglove, an easy xeric plant