2012 05 24 – Itoh Peonies

When I was young, I used to help my mother and my grandmother in their gardens. One of my favourite flowers was the peony and it still is today. I get so excited when the flower buds start to swell that I check them almost daily, looking for the colour that tells me that they’re going to open any day now. Then that day comes when a number of them finally open and my lack of patience is rewarded. I’ll go out and be treated to a number of large showy blooms of pink, red and white. While looking at them, I’ll notice that I’m no longer casting a shadow, a pit will form in my stomach as I look up at the sky, knowing what I’m going to see – rain clouds. Forget doing a rain dance, if you want it to rain, plant peonies. Suddenly the heavens will open up and I’ll run for cover, stealing one last look at the perfect flowers, because I know that when it’s over, every single one of them will be lying on the ground, a little muddy, but still pretty. It’s not their fault. They were bred to be cut flowers, not garden plants, and I’ve learned that it’s better to cut them when they’re showing colour and bring them into the house.

In 1948, Dr. Toichi Itoh of Japan succeeded in crossing a garden peony with a tree peony. After years of development and breeding and selection, Itoh peonies, as they’ve been come to be known, were born. They were very expensive and quite rare at first, fetching thousands of dollars for a small division. My first Itoh, ‘Bartzella’, a huge bright yellow double peony cost $100 for a small plant that took three years to bloom. That was about ten years ago and the price of them has dropped dramatically.

Aside from the uniqueness of the colour (garden peonies didn’t come in yellow), what made me fall in love with the Itoh peonies was the fact that the flower stem was very strong. As much as mother nature tried, those flowers kept standing, and they lasted much longer than my garden peonies. One year, after a heavy hail storm, I went out to survey the damage. The hostas and hydrangeas were shredded. The first flower had opened on Bartzella and there through the middle of the flower was a perfect hole, almost a centimetre in diameter, but the flower was still upright. Five days later and that flower was still going. I was hooked and, of course, added more Itohs to my collection. I now have fourteen varieties planted in various shades of yellow, coral, pink, purple, white, multi-coloured and some that change colour as they age. I also have five waiting to go in, including my first red.

I still have my garden peonies and look forward to cutting them to bring into the house, but I no longer worry that it’s going to rain. We need the rain, especially at the moment.

2012 04 16 – More Hellebores

Nothing is more satisfying to a gardener than those first flowers in the spring. After a long winter (and even after an almost non-existent one like we had this year), we’re always out in the garden, looking for those early bloomers. Hellebores seem to have been made for us Northern gardeners. You don’t get much earlier than a perennial that sometimes blooms through the snow. A friend who lives in Toronto contacted me a while back to let me know that one of the hellebores she’d bought from me last year kept sending up new blooms all winter because of the lack of snow. How cool is that?

Back in 2005, hellebores were perennial of the year, and with good reason. They bloom very early and unlike most other early spring bloomers, the blooms last for quite a while. They grow in shade. Their foliage is evergreen, although I personally tend to cut off last year’s leaves as part of my early spring chores. The flowers come out before the new leaves and I find I get a better show. When the leaves come out, they stay nice all season. They don’t seem to have any pest problems, including those dreaded deer that love to dine on your Hostas. I also haven’t seen any disease problems, even though blackspot can be a problem in England. Another bonus is that they provide early pollen for the bees, when there is less available, but the need is quite high.

The trouble at the time that they were perennial of the year was that there wasn’t a lot of choice available. Most of the plants available were seed grown, which meant flowers were variable, and you had to buy them in bloom to get the colour that you wanted. Since then there has been an explosion of different varieties available. On Sunday, I completed the prep work for a renewed shade garden. Among other plants, there will be a hellebore collection. I’ve set aside twenty varieties and made a list of ten others that I would like to include.

Typically, hellebores have nodding flowers in various shades of pink, yellow, white, green and purple (tags never say purple; they say black or blue) and come in singles and doubles. The singles often have wonderful markings and spots on the inside of the flowers and the doubles sometimes have picotee edges.

A few years ago, one variety seemed to stand out from the rest. ‘Ivory Prince’ boasts ivory white flowers, with a hint of blush and green streaks in the flowers. It’s been a very strong grower and has proven to be very winter hardy. Best of all, the flowers face up and outwards, so you don’t have to bend over to see them. The next thing I noticed was that the flowers tended to dry on the plant and stick around, much like a Hydrangea. I’ve seen the occasional flower still on the plant when preparing for the winter.

Following in the footsteps of ‘Ivory Prince’ came ‘Pink Frost’. It was very similar in size, form and vigor, but with a much more pronounced pink colour. Then, as the flowers aged, they turned this wonderful antique rose colour and stayed on the plants for months. Again, some were still there at the end of the season. This one quickly became my favourite and looks amazing when planted in groups alongside ‘Ivory Prince’.

It’s easy to see why many people, myself included, begin to obsess about collecting these wonderful shade plants and I’m so excited to see what new ones there are this year. Some of them I’ve already seen, like ‘Moonlit Marble’ which seems to be a lot like Pink Frost, but with marbled leaves, while others I’ll have to be patient and wait for them. ‘Grape Galaxy’, at least from its pictures, has flowers that remind me of dark purple Rhododendrons. I know that some of you are laughing right now, at least those that know me. I’ll admit, I do get excited about plants pretty easily and have a few (can you tell I’m blushing) collections on the go already.

12 03 23 – Hellebores

Even we couldn’t resist the urge to get outside in the garden. A couple of days ago Oliviah and I decided to get some sun and get the hellebores cleaned up for the upcoming shows. I’ve always cut the leaves off in the past so that you get a better show from the flowers. Recently, a good friend, Marion, informed me that leaf spot (or black spot) has become a problem in the UK and that I should cut them off to lessen the chances of the fungus getting into my plants. It was a beautiful, record-breaking day and we went to work on gathering up the plants and removing their leaves. As we worked down one row of plants in two gallon pots, we were both awestruck with one variety, Josef Lemper. There were only four pots left from last year, but they were absolutely gorgeous, with lots of large, clear white flowers facing out at us. The fact that they’d only been potted up into two gallon pots in October and had spent the winter above ground didn’t seem to faze them in the slightest.

You can see in this second picture how they seem to have come through the winter better than the other varieties. Granted, it’s going to put on a better show initially than one that flowers a little later. However, the strength of the plant and the number of shoots was remarkable.

I immediately called the grower I had got them from, only to find out that they didn’t have any for this year, but he’d see what he could do. Luckily I got an email this morning saying that there would be more of them and that they’d be ready late summer.

2012 03 22 – Early Spring Chores

Can you ever remember a March like this one? Forget the lion, this one came in like a playful little kitten who scratched for a couple of days then settled in on being cute and cuddly. Because of my location, I tend to be quite a bit behind everyone else in the Spring. My snowdrops, witch hazel and some pansies I planted last Fall have just started to bloom. However, I was at a friend’s house last weekend for lunch and she had dwarf irises starting to bloom. Looking at the long range forecast, there doesn’t seem to be an end to these higher temperatures.

Of course, with this warm weather, everyone’s itching to get out into the garden. I know you are, because you’re starting to call about plants…even annuals. I’ve had three calls about annuals in the past week – and it’s only mid-March. My advice to you is to enjoy this beautiful weather, get some chores done in the garden, and think about what you’d like to do this year. Leave the planting for a month or so, and leave the annuals (other than pansies) for quite a while yet.

So what can you do in the garden at the moment? There’s raking, cutting back your perennials, pruning, pushing the odd plant back in the ground, and weeding. This is a great time to get your weeding done. There’s a short period, right after the frost has come out of the ground, when even the most stubborn weed will just pop right out with almost no effort. The same goes for some of the perennials, so be careful what you tug at and with your rakes and cultivators. If you have plants that are protected for the winter, it might be a good idea to leave them be for now. We could very likely still get some winter weather, despite the fact that my nephew was wearing shorts yesterday. I recently read that 15% of Toronto’s snowfall occurs after March 11 and we’re North of Toronto.

While working in the garden, it’s handy to have some long boards available, like a 2×8 or a 2×4 if you do yoga and your balance is better than mine. Lay these down and use them to step on. They’ll distribute your weight more evenly so you don’t compact the wet soil.

When it comes to pruning shrubs and cutting back perennials, I’m afraid there is no all-inclusive rule. There are generalizations and guidelines, but for these there are always exceptions. With the shrubs, if it flowers between now and early June, you should wait to prune it until after it has bloomed. Otherwise, you may be sacrificing your blooms for this year. You can still remove obviously dead wood, though. If you’ve protected it for the winter, I’d wait another month yet before pruning. If it’s a plant with sap that runs freely in the Spring, like maples, they should really be pruned in the fall, but if you really want/need to prune it this year, wait another month. This is also a good time to apply a dormant oil spray. With the lower than normal temperatures this winter, I’m expecting a bumper crop of bugs this year and dormant oil can reduce their numbers substantially. Dormant oil should be sprayed on a dry day, with the temperature being somewhere between 10-20ºC, and when we aren’t expecting a freeze within 24 hours.

With perennials, almost all of them can be cut back now and most can be cut down to the ground. Grasses are one group where there are some exceptions. Cool season grasses are the ones that start growing right away, the most common one being Calamagrostis, or feather reed grass. It’s the grass that looks like wheat in the middle of summer and is usually strictly upright. Cool season grasses should be cut down close to the ground now, before they start growing. Warm season grasses don’t like frost and will wait to start growing until much later in the season, some as late as June. If you cut these back now, leave about six inches of last year’s growth to protect the crown from hard frosts. If you wait until mid-May, you can cut them down close to the ground. Russian sage and butterfly bush are others that you don’t want to cut right down to the ground. Leave about six to nine inches of the woody stem from last year.

In the coming weeks, keep an eye on any shrubs and perennials that are breaking dormancy extra early this year. If we get a cold snap, which is likely, these can be damaged and that damage could be severe this year. Throw a blanket over them (if possible) on the nights when the temperature drops below freezing and cover sensitive plants, like hostas, with plastic to protect them from frost. A little prevention should keep March from going out like a lamb to the slaughter.

2011 12 17 – Christmas Sale

Just a quick note to let everyone that I decided this morning to make all Christmas items (arrangements, boughs, Christmas Cactus, etc) 50% off

2011 12 01 – Christmas arrangements

It’s hard to believe that it’s December already. This year has really flown by. We’ve been busy getting everything prepared for the winter. Michael, Braydon and occasionally myself, were lobbing 2 gallon pots twenty feet or so in order to get it done more quickly. There’s nothing quite like seeing an Astilbe spiralling through the air directly towards you. Once you catch it, you have to throw it to the next person quickly because there’s another one heading towards you. It went quite well, except for the uncontrollable fits of laughter from yours truly, which meant a few dropped pots.

While we were getting everything ready for winter, Judy was busy making Christmas arrangements.

Oliviah has also made up her first couple of containers

I’ve also been busy making containers, mostly to fill custom orders.

But I have managed to find time to make a few to have for sale:

2011 11 12 – Uxbridge Christmas Home Tour

Today is the Uxbridge Christmas Home Tour. A number of local people and businesses decorate homes for Christmas and passports are sold to raise money for local charities. This year’s recipient is Jennifer Ashleigh Children’s Charity, which works to improve the quality of life for seriously ill children and their families.  These are the arrangements I made for one of the homes.

I also did a demonstration last week for the IODE’s Mistletoe Magic fundraiser.  This black and white arrangement was raffled off at the end of the evening.