Garden Visits: Kingston

August 14, 2013 · Filed under garden visits · Tagged Dicentra cucullaria, Pulsatilla vulgaris

Are you sick of spring yet? I showed you what was happening in my garden, and then at Marion Jarvies. Now I want to show you an amazing garden I visited when I was in Kingston.

Just north of Kingston, which is called the Limestone City, (why, you guessed it, Kingston is built on limestone,) is an area where the limestone of the south, meets the granite of the north. Here you can garden and have the luxury of choosing to plant in either an alkaline soil or an acidic soil.  And this gardener took clever advantage of that with her rock garden. 

Divided by a very low stone wall,

one side of the rock garden has granite boulders with the other side limestone. 

Can you tell Pulsatilla vulgaris is my new favourite plant?

Here she can have both acidic or alkaline growing plants almost side by side.

She also has the luxury of space and has taken advantage of that as well. Everywhere you look there is an exciting vista,

from looking through the trees and seeing the lake in the distance, 

or the woods as a backdrop to an arboretum.

Stone walls,

either built or rebuilt by the gardener,

are also an amazing backdrop to the profusion of spring bulbs. 

She has also started to naturalize bulbs in the grass, both tall like narcissus, but also mixed small bulbs. This ‘flowery mead’ is the look I am thinking of for my front lawn at Kilbourne Grove and I got lots of great ideas here.

And what a great idea,

turning some cedars into a topiary. They are very easy to get where I live, and free from my brothers farm. Another idea I am pondering for my garden.

Stone and water is everywhere in the garden,

from boulders used as punctuation points,

to birdbaths being carved into it.

However it was when we went to leave, driving down the lane to the main road that I got super excited. Lining it, on both sides were thousands of Dicentra cucullaria, or Dutchman’s breeches.

This is a native plant to the woods in eastern North America, and I have seen them over the years.

But never in that profusion, amazing. Of course I went and bought a few for Kilbourne Grove, hoping they might multiply a bit while I am living in Barbados. Perhaps one day I will be able to achieve a tiny bit of that perfection.