Yarrows

I've always liked the tall Yarrow called, I think,' Gold Plate'. I grew some from seed and put a group of them in the hillside garden and I've liked them there. They provide a bit of muscle in what could be a flabby setting of Phlox, Shasta Daisies, blue Veronica and such.(There are also a lot of Coneflowers in that border, but they are over to the one end.) The Yarrow's fairly sharp mustard yellow is a bit jarring, but there is such as thing as too much good taste.

A plant of wild Yarrow, Achillea millefolium, wasted no time in joining its cousin. Since it bloomed a very clear crisp white I left it. It's not visible from the front of the border, but when you go around the back, up the rock steps, it's there and fits in well with it's slightly shorter stature, dusty green foliage, and rather open flower clusters. A Yarrow is of course one of the Compositae, so what looks like a flower is really a group of small flowers, called florets, each of which is itself composed of a group of even smaller flowers. Confused? Sorry. The thing we call the Flower, in a Yarrow, is a corymb, and is composed of multiple Heads, each of which is composed of two types of flowers - Ray flowers, and disc flowers. Each one is actually a tiny Daisy. There is no end to the designs, combinations of designs and groupings of combinations of designs in nature.

Just as there is no end to the hanky-panky that goes on behind the scenes.

My yarrows have now produced an intermediate form. It has the shape and size of 'Gold Plate', in fact it might even be a bit taller, the greyish foliage of the Wild Yarrow, and a colour right in between the two. It is a soft but distinct yellow. When I look at the individual heads closely, I see that the disc flowers (the ones in the centres of the flower heads) are pale yellow, while the ray flowers (the 'petals') are white.

I just checked the books. Apparently, 'Gold Plate' is a variety of Achillea filipendulina. Also listed is a plant with pale yellow flowers like my seedling called A. 'Taygetea' which it describes as 'a hybrid of uncertain origin, probably between A. millefolium and A. clypeolata'. Hmmm. I don't have A. clypeolata around, as far as I know, and in any case the leaves on my plant look different from those in the book. The leaves on my plant look exactly like the leaves on 'Gold Plate' only with the colour of the A. millifolium leaves.I can't tell whether the ray flowers of the plant in the book are white like on my plant. In any case, I guess it's safe to say my plant is 'of uncertain origin'.

The Yarrows are coping well with the drought this summer, another reason to like them.

They can be cut right to the ground after they bloom (and they stay in bloom a good 3-4 weeks), or you can cut each flowering stem off at ground level. If you have only a few plants and enough time, you can cut the individual stalks, but if you have lots of plants or little time, you can just give the whole thing a bean shave with the garden shears. My kind of plant!

The pink, red and rust coloured Yarrows, by the way, are of quite different parentage, and behave very differently, at least for me. They are much shorter, need to be divided every year to keep them from running out, and do not do at all well in a drought. I keep one clump going in the Herb Garden just to be able to say I have Yarrow.

A Word from the Trowel

Hi Folks,

This is Lis's Trowel speaking. If she's going to leave me out all night with my head stuck in the sand in the Cactus Patch, well, no more Ms. Nice Trowel, I've kept my mouth shut long enough. Who do you think does all the work around here, anyway?And don't tell me not to be bitchy, I'm blunt at one end and sharp at the other so what do you expect?

What's with this Cactus Patch thing, anyway? Doesn't She know that this is zone 4? Cactuses (yes, I know the La-di-das say 'cactii', but that's not us, is it?) are desert plants. They do not grow where snow covers them about half the year. They like to be hot, not cold. This is not a desert, except maybe a cultural desert. Mind you, She does listen to the CBC in the Studio, maybe that counts for something, but given how little classical music is left in their programming, I'm not sure that it's much. It's so bad that in the afternoon She turns the radio off, which leads to Her humming while She works.... not pretty, I assure you. But I digress. My point is, it's not cactuses that want to grow here.

Bugloss wants to grow here. Viper's Bugloss, Echium vulgare. A perfectly good plant with no airs or graces. It has nice blue flowers, too, which you can't say cactuses ever have. Oh, and it's prickly, too. So, why does She insist on pulling it out and leaving those Opuntia fragilis wusses in the ground?

Opuntia fragilis 'Potato'. Sheesh. Who ever heard of a plant called 'Potato'? Except maybe a potato, I guess. A lumpy green thing, that's all it is. Never a flower, nooooo. 

Another thing that wants to grow here is Bladder Campion, Silene cucubalis. Now, there's a name for you. Sounds like another vegetable, doesn't it. Anyway, She keeps trying to get rid of it but it's pretty smart. It has its roots down way deep and they're kind of grippy so it's impossible to pull them up. Hee hee. Even spraying them with a nasty weedkiller doesn't bother them too much. They come right back. I like those guys, tough is the word. Not like that Opuntia polyacantha that She keeps fussing over. It shrinks every winter and looks like s..t in the spring but thanks to all the fussing it does look a little better by about now. It did bloom once, too. For about three minutes early one morning before anybody was out of bed to actually see it.

Crown Vetch, Viccia cracca, wants to grow here too. It gets pretty cosy with Opuntia basilaris var. aurea, which is smart because She can't hardly get it out from between the prickles without pulling out most of the cactus pads. At least that thing blooms. Large yellow flowers, which I think look pretty good with the blue Vetch flowers. Fetching, in fact.

Oh, apparently Crown Vetch, Bladder Campion and Bugloss aren't 'native', whatever that means. Well, excuse me. 

Oh, oh. I hear we're going to weed the Cactus Patch this afternoon. Ow, my poor skin.... ow, my handle, ow....

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.