Black, Black, Gold

December 2, 2009 · Filed under Random Thoughts · Tagged

A busy weekend at Kilbourne Grove this weekend. The leaves are finally all down and  I had to rake them up.

A few years ago, we built two chicken wire leaf composters behind our cedar hedge. We used an old roll of chicken wire that had been in the garage, probably a mistake as it is not strong enough to hold the weight of the leaves without sagging. It will have to be replaced with stronger wire one day. We rake the leaves and pile them in one side one fall, then the other side the following fall.  Before the third fall comes along, I get to empty this black gold onto my flower beds.

You can see how full it is. This is this years leaves.

See how much the leaves have decomposed over the year.

Look at it. You can use it as it is, or wait another year for it to become finer. It is so beautiful, full of worms and smells amazing, so fresh and foresty. The garden loves it, it adds humus to my clay soil.

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Gotta Have It!-Ceratostigma plumbaginoides

November 30, 2009 · Filed under perennials · Tagged ,

I know, it is a bit of a mouthful, but just think how clever you will sound when you go to the garden centre and ask for ceratostigma plumbaginoides.  They probably won’t know what you are talking about as I find this plant is very under appreciated. 

The common name for it is Blue Leadwort, but I do not find that gets any understanding looks either.  This is a plant that I picked up many years ago at Vineland Nurseries, and not even when it was in flower.  I just thought it had very attractive shiny foliage and it was a nice edger/ground cover.  But when it flowered in late August, I was hooked, brilliant blue (think plumbago, but even more intense).  The best part was how long the blooms lasted and how in September, when we started getting some cold nights, the foliage went scarlet!  My, was it gorgeous.

Since then, I have had this plant in every garden I have owned.  It is hardy zones 5-9 and grows by underground stolons, but I do not find it invasive.  It is late to come up in spring, which means that I plant it over my early bulbs, they flower, then ceratostigma comes up and hides that ratty foliage.

Early July

Early July

 Here it is planted over muscari.  You can see that it has hidden all the foliage and I really should have pulled out those seed heads before I took the pictured.

  

I do think the colour looks a little washed out in this photo, in real life it is more of an intense blue.

This is a plant that I will never be without in my garden.

  

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A Multitude of Riches

November 26, 2009 · Filed under Random Thoughts · Tagged

I was away at Kilbourne Grove all weekend. We do not have any internet up there. There are two reasons for that, one is financial, why pay for internet all month, just to use it at the very most eight times per month, and in reality 3 or 4 times. The second is even more important. As I am sure every blogger knows, I have fallen prey to the great internet time sucker. How many times have you gone on the internet, just to check your e-mail, only to look up 2 or three hours later. As my time is very limited at Kilbourne Grove, every moment is precious. I do not have the time to “waste” on the computer, there is too much to do in the garden.

So, I was very surprised, pleasantly of course, when I arrived home on Monday to find that I had been awarded the Best Blog Award.

And not just once, but FOUR times. Thanks you to Teza, Anna, Rebecca and Gloria. You have complimented me beyond belief.

Post the award on your blog along with the name of the person who passed it on to you and link to their blog. Chose 15 blogs which you have recently discovered  and you think are great and pass it on to them. Don’t forget to leave a comment on their blog to let them know that they have been chosen for this award.

It is hard to pick 15 blogs that I have discovered recently, I have only been blogging a few months, so all the blogs that I read have been recently discovered by me! I am going to pick different blogs then the ones I chose for the Honest Scrap award.  Some of these bloggers have been writing for a while, but they are all new to me!

So please look at:

Frances-a true lady and brilliant gardener, she was one of the first to visit my blog on a regular basis and taught me to be a gracious commentee/commentor.

Helen-a fabulous Canadian/Toronto gardener, who with her sister Sarah writes a very witty and informative blog. I have found out a lot about Toronto and its gardens/gardeners through her.

Racquel-was also one of the first bloggers to visit my blog. She is also very gracious to “newbie” bloggers, and always has a kind comment. And her blog is beautiful.

Charlotte-she is lucky enough to visit the most beautiful gardens and thoughtful enough to share them with us.

Catmint-a fellow smoke bush lover from “Down Under”. It is fascinating to witness spring/summer through her blog as my garden goes into fall/winter.

Joanne-who has had some health issues in her personal life, but has risen above and inspired me with her amazing garden. Is everything in her garden grown from cuttings? It seems so!

Wendy-a fellow(in our dreams) landscape architect, she is inspiring in her very strong work ethic. I would love to follow her example and build my own wall, nah, it is easier to look at her pictures!

Jean- a fellow “cold climate” gardener. She is knowledgeable and very hard-working, and I am hoping I am in her “research”. (I always wanted to be researched!)

Mary Delle-a very beautiful soul with a beautiful garden. She is always there to encourage me.

Grace-a fellow Garden Renegade, a lover of pink! She has the most inspiring garden, and it is so well-maintained I am envious. I am looking forward to our monthly “debates” in the New Year.

Johnson-a lucky man who lives in one of the most beautiful parts of England and is nice enough to share it. (and he has a gorgeous dog too!)

Deborah-with a name like that, you know she is blessed. A new blogger with a most amazing garden. And she is so nice, (does she not have it all!)

Miss M -another Canadian!!! who lives in an even colder area then me. She is thrifty(finds good stuff at the dump), hard-working (and loves to research leaf composting, how cool is that)  and so very nice.

Linda- a gorgeous garden, of course, and we seem to have the same taste in books and movies. Her posts with her husband (he said, she said) on the evolution of their garden were fascinating.

Deborah-(are all Deborah’s geniuses, lol) she is a garden designer in Detroit, and designs the gardens that I would want to (if I was that talented). I have not seen anything that I haven’t liked! (I also want to buy everything in her shop, but that is another story).

Please do visit one or all of these blogs, I promise you, you will not be sorry!

 

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In Bed With Teza

November 23, 2009 · Filed under design · Tagged

OK, I bet that got your attention. Although maybe I should have titled it “Tezas bed”.

We completed a number of projects when we were at Kilbourne Grove on our holidays in October. One of them was to make a new garden bed at the base of the berm, that runs along the edge of our property. The property developer that owned it (for a few months between us and the doctor), had  (basically) a large ditch dug all around  the edge of the property that backed onto the Niagara Escarpment. Wow, that was one run on sentence. This was dug, on the advice of the city of Owen Sound, in order to redirect the runoff from the escarpment. In theory, the water would hit the ditch and be diverted instead of flowing towards the house.  So this left a bit of a berm approx 10 feet away from the property line fence.

On the west side of our property, this berm has been covered with self seeded trees and shrubs, but mostly has a huge thicket of snowberry. Anyone who has the species knows it runs underground, twice  now, I have been forced to dig it out as it has been spreading towards my Kitchen Garden.

I wanted to stop it in its tracks and also build a bed at the base of this berm. Anyone who has read Teza or my blogs knows that he is short of space for his kids, and is always looking for a foster home for them. I thought that he might be able to use this space.

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This is what it looked like before we began. I am standing in the Kitchen Garden and looking directly west.

We started by sinking metal strips, approx 2 feet deep, hoping that this will, at least inhibit, the snow berry from moving into this area.

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Then, using rocks that we have unearthed while gardening, we began making an edge.

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Once again, using my time proven method of laying down newspaper on the sod, and then topping with soil. We then applied a thick layer of mulch to keep the weeds down in the spring.

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Here it is, (mostly) finished. This bed measures approx 5 feet x 25 feet.

Do you think that you could fit a few kids in there Teza?

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Holy Smoke

November 19, 2009 · Filed under shrubs, trees · Tagged ,

Did I mention I love Blotanical? I find it amazing how the love of gardening brings people together from all over the world. On a daily basis, I am not only talking to people from Ontario, but also from England, South Africa, Germany, and all over the US.  But it was chatting to a lovely lady from Australia that inspire this post.

It is always heart warming  when someone admires you blog, and when catmint faved me, just out of the blue I was chuffed (see, too much time spent living in England, I have even picked up some of the slang!).  Messages were exchanged back and forth, and when 20 messages about smoke bush were sent  on Blotanical, she suggested we write a post about it.

So here it is.

Catmint,

What can I say about smokebush other than I love it? Is it not the perfect plant. Large dramatic leaves, amazing colours, I just love it. (Wait, I already said that).

This is Purple Cloak, photo courtesy of Catmint.

When I was living in Kingston, Ontario, I had a black and white garden. At that time, (almost 7 years ago), black plants were not very common. I was always looking for them, mostly they were more of a dark maroony purple. But that is ok, I could live with that. And I found smokebush, Royal Purple to be exact. Oh, I was in love (you notice I am using the word love a lot). Velvety purple leaves, it was glorious. I quickly bought two, and planted them on either side of an arbour that I had bought to divide my (tiny) garden into “rooms. These quickly grew up and gave some definition and hid the garden behind. But wait, what is wrong with my dark, velvety leaves, why were they going greeny, purple.  A bit of investigation by Sherlock Mills, and I found out the reason. The new growth has the most colour (should have been obvious just looking at it). So, I learned to coppice my smoke bush. What a difference, so fast growing, it seems that it sprung up and hid the thyme garden behind overnight. And the leaves were so dark.  However the best thing is….

OK, can you keep a secret? I don’t like the flower. I find it very messy looking and I think that it dies unattractively. It doesn’t flower on new growth so coppicing was a winning solution all around for me.

Now there are so many new varieties out, I might have to try them all. How about “Golden Spirit” a bright chartreuse (my favourite colour), or “Grace”. She is supposed to emerge a light red and darken through the summer. She sounds yummy as well. The best thing about coppicing the smoke bush is it really keeps the size in check. They can get up to 4 metres or 12 feet , big for a small garden.

Grace, photo courtesy of Catmint

I hope that you are going to give me the dirt (so to speak) on your adventures with smokebush.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon,

Deborah

Purple Cloak, photo curtesy of Catmint

Deborah,

It was great to get your letter about smokebush.  I am also a great fan of this bush. In fact I wonder whether we should start an international fan club for smokebush, if one doesn’t already exist. I would have no objections that you be the president but the problem is that people may find out your secret that you don’t like the flowers! I love the flowers, which gives it that romantic smoky haze.

In my garden I have two varieties: Purple Cloak and Grace. Grace is more orange but at times is olive green, Velvet Cloak darker and more maroony purple. They change all the year round – changing their colour foliage and then dropping their leaves. Actually I wonder whether Royal Purple  and Purple Cloak is the same plant but with different labels.

I have also found they are fast growing and Grace is getting quite big for its (her?) place. I do trim it but not as radically I think as coppicing. That’s another wonderful thing about them – they don’t mind being shaped.

Grace, photo courtesy of Catmint

I believe smokebush came originally from California, which has a similar climate to Melbourne and has plants that don’t mind migrating across the world.  So tough that they withstand transplanting and not watering. Their botanical name is Cotinus.

Smokebush are a wonderful contrast to green and grey leaved plants. We have similar aesthetics Deborah because my favourite plant colours are probably black or at least dark purple. I also love the idea of garden rooms. I have found that if you don’t see the boundary you have no idea how large or small the garden is. Unfortunately in my garden the rooms keep disappearing as the walls get shifted around.

Good to share the dirt on smokebush with you.

Cheers,

catmint

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