White Alkanet

Like a lot of collector-gardeners, I like the unusual forms of things. If the plant is normally green, I want the yellow version. If it is normally yellow, of course I want the green version! (And if it comes in seven different colours, I want all of them, but that's a different story.)

So while I like the regular dark blue Alkanet, naturally I like the one with white flowers even better.

Now Alkanet, Anchusa officinalis,  an Herb sometimes used in dyeing, is not a particularly impressive garden plant. The leaves are raspy and mid-green, the stems are lanky, and the flowers are small. Numerous, but small. Still, I like it because the stems weave themselves in with other plants in the border and poke their bright blue flowers out here and there. They look pretty good with Daisies, Shasta or otherwise, or among Lamb's-ears or between stout Peony bushes. This spring, they happened to bloom at the same time as some very late tall white Tulips, and the effect was something to see. They do however seed around badly. I pull the ones I don't want, obviously, but I've been leaving some that bloomed in either paler blue or white. In one area I have white ones pretty much coming true from seed. Heh, heh.

(If anybody would like some seeds of White Alkanet, drop me a line.)

Rare Fern

Northern Adder's Tongue Fern, Ophioglossom pusillum, is a very small, 'un-fern-like', fern, which is not often found because it is so hard to see among the grasses and low vegetation it typically grows with. I have been a bit keeping my eyes open for it but never really expected to find it.

Last Sunday I went to one of my favourite natural areas, the Eagle's Nest Trail near Calabogie, and trudged up the trail well past the actual lookout. I was determined not to slow down until I was past the lookout because every other time I've gone up there I've gotten sidetracked by the rock face and the Woodsias and such and never gotten past them. This time I kept going, in spite of the heat, the big and hungry deer flies and the lure of the many small cliffs all along the way. I did side-track a bit, following a small side trail to what is likely a blueberry picking area, but didn't see much there so went back to the main trail. After a couple of hours I was getting a bit bored! The trail is actually somewhat barren because the ATV-ers damage everything in their path, and what they don't destroy they cover with mud, so very few interesting plants survive there. Anyway, by this time I was hungry and decided to stop at the next possibly interesting spot and have my sandwich. I came to a tiny bog and pushed through the undergrowth to get to it. There were some orchids, not in bloom yet, and a nice tree to sit on for lunch. The deer flies were so bad I sprayed my hands and neck (the only exposed parts of me other than my face) again, figuring that if nothing else, they might get their feet stuck in the spray, and unwrapped my sandwich. I took one bite and glanced down at my foot and saw something. 'What did I step on?' I wondered.

I looked more closely and discovered I was in a fairly large patch of Northern Adder's Tongues. What a surprise! What a shock!

The plants were mostly quite small, only about 4" high, but some were taller, and the fertile fronds extended up to about 12" in some cases. There were many plants in about three large patches. I counted to 50 in the first patch and stopped counting. They were growing  in the crevices in rocks which stuck up just above the surface of the tiny bog, and among various grasses, sedges, orchids, Twinflower and other low things. They were indeed hard to see because of being the same colour as the grasses.

I don't remember what my sandwich tasted like.

Slightly Silly Idea

What the heck is this? Good question!

A couple of years ago, a little Eastern Cedar started to grow at the corner of my herb garden. It was kind of cute so I left it. Over the next few summers it got bigger and bushier and by this spring it was crowding the rose bush on the one side and the lungwort on the other... I looked at it for a while and couldn't make up my mind what to do. I didn't want to completely remove it because it did nicely define the corner of the garden, but my rose and other things needed more light and space. In a moment of, perhaps, madness, I trimmed the lower branches right off and sculpted the rest of the bush into a sort of teardrop shape. Not sure if I like it or not, but so far it's kind of growing on me.

It's either a very large and clumsy bonsai, or a very small hedge-on-sticks!

Bracken Fern Attack

I looked at that title above, Bracken Fern Attack, and thought, 'oops, that's ambiguous. Does it mean I attacked the Bracken, or that it attacked me?' Then I decided both were true so I'm leaving it like that!

Part of my Fern Trail through the woods winds along between the edge of the marsh and the steep slope of the ridge. Every summer the Bracken surges up and threatens to engulf the entire trail, the ferns along it, and the trees and such on the slope. The only thing I can do is pull it. One good thing about Bracken, it apparently contains a bit of a natural herbicide. You can throw the pulled-out fronds on the trail and they act as a mulch and growth suppressant. I've done this every year for a decade now and while there is never any less Bracken, at least doing this keeps it from competing too much with the other ferns. It's a bit of a job, and one that needs tough gloves, but it works.

The other attack today was on the poison ivy patch on the new spring hillside garden. Naturally, as soon as I opened the area up by removing a lot of the small maples and such, the Poisonous One moved right in. I sprayed it with the last of my Poison Ivy Killer. Normally I am totally opposed to stuff like that, but I am so allergic to PI that it has put me in the hospital twice and I just can't risk it again. I once lived beside someone who insisted on burning it, and the fumes carried the oil into my lungs and I was sick for a year. My doctor couldn't figure out why my lungs were so inflamed. This was the same neighbour who built a beautiful deck on the back of his house, beautifully stained and finished, and then got out his chainsaw and cut down a huge poplar which fell, you guessed it, across the new deck.

Anyway, the trail is walk-able again and the PI's days are numbered... heh, heh, heh.

Native Plant Sale at the Fletcher Wildlife Garden

This morning I went to the Native Plant Sale at the Fletcher Wildlife Garden to sell some of my baby ferns and wildflowers. The Sale is a fund-raiser for the Garden. You can bring plants and swap for others, or buy from people like me. The Garden itself is behind the Interpretive Centre and features many native plants. You can see how they can be used in a typical home garden. There's a small pond and a winding path..... a woodsy trail, bird houses and so on. I didn't have time to walk around there this morning so I'll have to plan a visit soon. 

The Sale was quite busy, lots of visitors. I talked and talked! Dorothy Dobson from Connaught Nursery gave me a tray of baby Pitcher Plants, Sarracenia purpurea, to sell for her. (Check out their website - they sell bedding plants and vegetables as well as native plants, and have a native plant garden you can visit -  www.connaughtnursery.com) which I picked up at the Carp Farmers' Market this morning. Going out with them I walked by a vendor named David who sells wonderful cut flowers and he looked at the tray and asked me what they were. I said 'baby Pitcher plants, aren't they as cute as puppies?' and he studied them and looked at me and said, 'Well, actually, they're kind of ugly'. This made a great story to tell the people who looked at them at the Sale! Who can resist an ugly puppy?!


It was a lot of fun to catch up with other keen native plant gardeners, some of whom I haven't seen since the Fletcher Sale last year. A great boost to the gardening enthusiasm. I'm thinking we should have some sort of a native plant gardening/photographing/studying network in our area. So if you happen to be in or near the Ottawa, Ontario, area, let me know and we'll figure something out. It ought to be easy in this day of websites and email lists. Not that I know how, but I'm open to suggestions. I know we have naturalists groups here, in fact, I belong to a couple of them, but they do tend to be interested  mostly in 'fauna'. It's not that I'm not interested in birds or insects or whatever, but they seldom have programs of particular interest to us plant fanatics.


Speaking of fauna, I just saw an amazingly beautiful Leopard Frog in the rock garden. Big, and his markings were crisp and clear. Green, brown and a kind of brown-y gold. I ran in and got the camera, but unfortunately, he (she?) had moved on by the time I got back there. Maybe I'll see it again tomorrow.

Bugleweed and Glaze Idiocy

Saying about a plant that at least it stays green all summer may be damning with faint praise, but I'm not sure that Bugleweed, Ajuga reptans in its many guises, deserves even that amount of good press.

Why ever did I plant it in the Herb Garden? Wait, I didn't. It came in on some other plant and I wasn't vigilant enough to spot and uproot it at once. Now I have just spent two hours digging it out from underneath the rue and the wormwood and the Rosa Mundi, that Rose of the World, which has about the largest and fiercest prickles of any rose in the garden. Actually its the understock, I think the Rose of the World has long since moved on to a better World, but it still blooms with amazing deep carmine flowers that look just like those kleenex flowers we used to make to decorate wedding cars with back in our wasted youths. So I leave it there. Besides, it somewhat hides the telephone pole in the corner of the Herb Garden, and that's worth something.

Ajuga, as I prefer to call it, comes in a number of forms and colour phases. You can get it with gnarly twisty leaves, very ugly, with reddish leaves, somewhat less ugly, with variegated green and white leaves, even with plain green leaves. I like the plain green one best because its flowers are the bluest. All the others have flowers which lean heavily towards the mauve/purple part of the spectrum. The plain one is Cambridge Blue. The leaves are shiny and mid-green. There is a white form, but it isn't nearly as vigorous. I have some, but every spring I forget that I like that one and weed it out and then wonder where my white one went. Luckily I usually miss a few and so still have some. 

Ajuga spreads from seeds (and it produces them by the zillions) and by stolons. One plant of Ajuga sends out a dozen or more stolons, radiating around the plant like a starburst, and each one forms a new little plant, which promptly sends out a dozen or so stolons.... by the end of the summer you have a solid mat and Ajugas growing on top of Ajugas. Their roots are strong and pulling them up isn't the easiest thing in the world.

For some strange reason, I did buy two slightly different ones, though. Last summer I got one with tiny leaves. The leaves are shaped like tongue depressors, not like the usual spoons, and are only about 2" long. They are quite an interesting purple/dark green colour mix, too. I stuck it in an impossible spot on top of a small rock ledge and it has made itself completely at home there. No doubt it will soon rampage up or down from its perch and take over real estate meant for more exciting plants, but until then I admire it. It's flowers are alright, not brilliant, but alright. The pink granite sets them off well.

The other one has been around for a couple of years and I am about ready to admit it might not be as much of a thug as the regular Ajuga. It was labelled 'The Giant', and the reason is obvious. Its leaves, instead of the usual 3 to 4 inches long, reach as much as 8 inches, and the flower stalks stand up a good 14 or so. The flowers are dark blue. The leaves are coloured much like the little one and rather nice. So far it has only overpowered a few admittedly unassertive things like some mauve columbines somebody gave me. I note with amusement that it has grown carefully all around a seedling of Cirsium muticum, the Swamp Thistle.


Maybe this business with the Ajugas has affected my brain. One of my two main glazes in the pottery studio has been giving me trouble lately. Over the past three or four months it has gotten darker and shinier. So I tried mixing a completely new batch (I use laundry tubs for my production glazes and mix large batches at a time and keep adding them to the existing glaze in the tub) and tested it. It was too matte and too pale. So I added a measured amount of the old stuff and tested the mixture. That came out of the kiln looking pretty good, so I mixed the old and new glaze batches in the sink. Now suddenly it hard-panned, that is, the glaze particles all sang out 'Dive, dive!' and headed for the bottom. Even while I was stirring it, it settled. The layer on the bottom of the tub the next morning was absolutely solid - no amount of scraping or digging had much effect. I appealed to ClayArt, that wonderful list, for help. Several potters suggested Epsom salts. So I disolved some in water and, in a moment of total idiocy, added a small amount to the glaze batch directly. I should have tested it by drops in a small cup, but instead I just put some right into the tub of glaze. To my horror it turned into cottage cheese. Dark reddish brown cottage cheese.

 Back to ClayArt for more help. What an idiot I felt. John Britt came to the rescue and suggested I add sodium silicate. He also reminded me to try it first in a small amount, and then to add it drop by drop so as not to over-shoot, which I deserved. Just for fun I did try adding too much to my small amount and the result was impressive. The glaze turned into quite solid pudding. But I was more sensible this time with the large batch and only added the amount suggested by the test, and to my relief, the glaze became reasonably liquid again. I dipped a number of pots and they are in the kiln now. Fingers crossed!


If it doesn't work I'll throw the whole mess out (how does one throw out glaze?) and start over and go out in the garden and eat worms, I mean, plant Ajugas.

Real Trilliums

It must be about time for the deer to come by and eat my trilliums. They are in full bloom, although perhaps a bit short. The Spring was so early and so fast this year that the plants hardly had time to get out of the ground before the flowers opened. Usually around this time a deer or two will wander by, munching on a flower here, stepping on a plant there..... I gnash my teeth and have earnest conversations with my supposed-to-be-guard-dog but to no effect. Kip won't chase them, he knows perfectly well that they are much faster than he is. In fact, they know it too because last year when he did try to chase one it stood its ground.

Several of the plants in the Sampler Garden (a shady woodsy area in front of the house where I am trying to have samples of all the interesting native plants on the property) are pale pink. They are pink in the bud, open pale pink, and stay pale pink. They don't get quite as dark as the others when they start to fade. T. grandiflorum flowers typically fade to pink. That sounds pretty but actually isn't. They look a bit tired by then so the pink makes it worse, not better.

The rockery has its share of T. grands, too.