Fall, Fallen, and Falling

One thing I've often said is that if a tree falls in the forest, and there is nobody around to hear it, it will fall across your trail. Not that it won't do this if you are around to hear it, but the point is, it will fall across your trail.

Or on to your best patch of Trailing Arbutus.

I happen to have three nice patches of Trailing Arbutus, Epigea repens, one of which is right beside one of my trails and is much larger and lusher than the others. Of course the dead Spruce fell right on it. It happened a few weeks ago in one of our wind storms. I inspected the situation, tsk'ed and walked around it.

So today I asked myself, 'self, what would you like to do with this fine cold windy afternoon' and the answer was, 'get that d... spruce off the Trailing Arbutus'. Right. I got out my old shabby green coat, which is warm and can't get any worse no matter what I do to it, my work gloves, my old saw and my trusty axe. I grabbed the biggest and reddest apple out of the fruit bowl, and set off for the woods. There were a few other things to clear along the way: a dead Balsam Fir top blown across the path, a large Cedar bough standing straight up as though it was a tree, and some Maple branches right at hair-snagging height. Once I got to the Arbutus patch I got right at it and hacked all the branches off the Spruce and moved them on to an existing brush pile. That left a long bare log lying on the ground, clear to view. A rather daunting view, given that it was about 15" across at the base, and me with no power saw. I'm scared of those things so I don't have one.Besides, it would be one more thing to store and maintain and anyway I hate power tools.

For no real reason, I jumped on the log near the top end. To my amazement, there was a loud cracking noise, and the log broke into three pieces! I was able to drag all three to the brush pile!

Then I stood quietly under the Maples nearby and enjoyed the yellow leaves planing down around me, mixed with some fat white snowflakes that were starting and finished my apple.

October Observations

There's a lot to be said for October. Spring may be a fine sweet song, but in Autumn we can let go and find some peace. We've come through the frenzy of September, when we were assailed at every turn by chores not done, ideas not realized, plans not achieved, and now we are ready to let things be, do a little here and there, and just appreciate what the summer has left with us. Instead of thinking that maybe we can squeeze in a few hours of work tomorrow and get some particular mess tidied up, we are ready to say, well, I'll get to it next year.

The grasses on the Sand Hill have not been cut down. I'll just have to do them in the Spring. Meanwhile the waving seed heads, including one on the Miscanthus which isn't supposed to set seed, look thrilling sprinkled with raindrops and the occasional red Maple leaf.

Along the Marsh edge the Cinnamon and Interrupted Ferns have turned various shades of yellow and, well, cinnamon.

There are a couple of Royal Ferns which have appeared, tucked in among the Cinnamons, which I really should move. They were very small last year but have gotten a good bit bigger this year. The beavers chewed down a couple of small Maples nearby (you can see part of one trunk lying here) and the added sunlight has given the ferns a real boost. I'm trying to see the good side of beavers, and the way they keep the marsh edge open is probably good. I'll have to move the Royal Ferns, though. Next year.

A few things are very late bloomers. Sometimes it is because they are in too much shade, or in a spot too dry for them, but sometimes they are simply things that bloom late. A native Aster that is always late is Heath Aster, Symphyotrichum ericoides. I've been wanting one ever since I saw a plant at the Fletcher Wildlife Garden. It was huge -  about 3' tall and 6' across - and an absolute magnet for bees and wasps. I kept looking around the Valley, expecting to see some, but I didn't until a few weeks ago when I happened to be driving to Kingston. Near Carleton Place I found a small field, really a meadow, with many Heath Asters. Several were growing right up near the road... and there were ripe seeds on many of them.

Heath Aster is easily recognized, unlike the other Asters, due to its thickly filled flowering wands, tiny florets, and many very small leaves up and down the stems.

I've got seeds in pots, ready for next year.

Something else that often blooms late is Japanese Anemones. All the ones available at nurseries are cultivars, mostly of Anemone japonica. Many were developed in Europe where the summers are longer and warmer, and when they emigrate to Canada they have a hard time blooming before it gets too cold. So we end up with Anemones in October. The basic A. japonica blooms much earlier, July, but many of the varieties seem to be later.  There are white ones, pale pink ones, pink ones, single ones and double ones. It pays to try a few kinds and to move them around until you get what you want.

But be warned! Japanese Anemones always remind me of  those bold-eyed boys that foolish girls like, dangerous and exciting, but impossible to live with. These plants put down massive roots and can lay claim to entire  gardens. Unless they are in a spot they don't care for...  like the double white one I accidentally put under a Crabapple tree and which can't seem to get its feet under itself. Guess I'll move it. In the Spring.

Last but not least of the things I've been admiring today are a couple of the New England Aster varieties sold in nurseries. Again, they were developed in Europe, Germany in this case, and they bloom too late for us here. By the time 'Andenken an Alma Potsche' and this unamed dark purple one bloom, they are alone in the border.

I've already moved bits of Alma (as I call her) to better spots - one in front of the Yuccas on the hillside, and one to a sunnier spot, but I'll move the main plant next year as well. Maybe put it in front of some pale Japanese Anemones, and put the dark purple aster nearby. If they bloom together, they should be a nice spot of colour in the mainly yellow and orange of Autumn.

Next year.

Diggin' It

One of the best parts of gardening is digging! It's hard, or can be, it's messy, or can be, it's hot sweaty work, or can be, but it's fun! At least when you are done you can feel you've actually had an effect on something. Not like spending 2 hours on the computer trying to pay your phone bill (this morning's entertainment, not) or glazing pots in the studio (good useful work but no payoff until they are fired) or phoning people who really don't want to talk to you... just get out there and dig something up!

It was gorgeous today, sunny, cool, leaves turning red on the maples over my head, and I just felt I had to work off some of the cobwebs I'd picked up the last few days. So I attacked the bit of terracing at the back of the Hillside Garden today. The path, at Studio level, takes a right-angle turn around the Studio to the bottom of the Sand Hill Garden with a steep slope to the left. Under this bit of slope is the huge granite intrusion the builders found when they were digging for the Studio footings. In fact, this lump of granite is why the Studio is slightly off-square in relation to the house. It was either move the rock, tricky since it is attached to China, or move the Studio. Anyway, there isn't much soil there and what there is, I brought in, by wheelbarrow.

Right at the beginning of making this garden I stuck some rescued Yucca plants up there - they seemed to suit. And they've been very happy there, blooming magnificently in June and July and being a good dark focal point in the border. Unfortunately, some Lily-of-the-Valley pips must have come with them and they have been happy there too. Not to mention some seeded in Asters, Japanese Anemones, one lonely Helenium, and any number of weeds. A spurge of some kind went a bit mad there too. So it was a mess, not to mention that a rather nice Bearded Iris, with a soft yellow flower, was looking sad and neglected in among the jumble.

It took me a few hours, but a small section of this area now looks much better:

The bit I planned to work on is the lower of the two dug-over strips you see here. It was about 6' long and 2' wide, so not huge. It was hard going, though, because the soil there is solid heavy clay and it was packed with Lily-of-the-Valley pips and roots. My plan was to get it ready, then lift the Iris and re-plant it in the new space. But when I came to do it, I realized it would look wrong anywhere but one level higher up, so I had to dig over a second bit the same size. I had a time getting the rocks out, but they lined up nicely and they'll hold the soil back just perfectly. Remember that under all this there is a huge rounded granite outcropping!

Now tomorrow I'm planning to move a brighter yellow Iris over to the left of the pale one, behind the aster you can just see, and then maybe, maybe, add in a bit of a beautiful white Iris I have. Not sure if that won't be entirely too pale, but it might also be quite dramatic. Then I need to think of some short leafy things to put in between the irises and the other things for next year. I don't like looking at the iris foliage in the summer, too shabby. I hadn't planned on having any Bearded Iris, told myself, definitely NO IRIS. But then a friend arrived and said she was splitting her Irises (she's serious about Iris) and here were my share... (She also brought me a pail of strawberry plants and I dutifully planted them and they were doing fine but a bear came and ate the plants so that solved that problem. Bears don't seem to eat Iris.)

Now just so you don't worry that I might run out of digging opportunities, here's a view of the whole 'bit':

Two more levels to do! But no more Lily-of-the-Valley, whoo hoo!

Words for Kip

       We walked our woods,

          Cedars stitched with rain,

    Pines edged in mist.

                        You had today, and were content.

         I, still having yesterday,

       wanted tomorrow too.

 

        

        We walked our fields.

                                             Arches, steeples, songs and bright windows,

All were grass.

          The pale wind brings,

   And takes away.

These Words for Kip are for my beloved dog, Kip, whose life ended yesterday. Good-bye, dear companion, your today was too short.

Two Solidagos and a Turtle

Well, a Turtle-head. Chelone glabra, White Turtlehead, seems to be having a good year. Not sure if it is a perennial or not, but most years I only see a few along the marsh edge, and this year there are many. One of the best plants is this one:

You can see the water to the left - these things are tricky to photograph if you are wearing sandals. There were actually a number of stems and each had quite a few flowers, but I was reluctant to step into the water. I just did not want to risk sinking to my knees and losing my sandals on the way out! The name, which is a little puzzling, could be a reference to the flowers' profile, but looking at this group of four flowers, I'm wondering if it isn't really a reference to the shape of the flowers as you look straight down on them. Don't you think they look a lot like tiny white turtles heading off to the four different directions?

Chelone glabra, and its (non-native) cousin Chelone lyonii, are both good garden plants. White Turtlehead needs a bit more water - a damp area will keep it happy - while Pink Turtlehead does fine in normal conditions. Both like a sunny spot and both are about 30" tall.

In a shadier area, two Solidagos are starting to bloom. One is S. caesia, Blue-stemmed Goldenrod.

One plant I put near some hostas has filled in beautifully and is starting to show real presence and personality. I love the way the stems arch over to fill their space, and the way the leaves hang down below the flowers. The tiny curls on the ends of the leaves are charming too. S.caesia is easy to grow - a dependable perennial, not fussy except it doesn't like too much sun (half a day, or dappled by a high tree is fine) and not too 'spread-ish'. It does expand, and it does offer a few seedlings now and then, but it is easy to control. A mature plant will be about 2' tall and will fill a space twice that wide.

Solidago flexicaulis, Zig-zag Goldenrod, on the other hand, will attempt to monopolize more real estate than you might wish to allow it.

The plants don't seem to self-seed much, but they keep getting wider... and wider... and wider. You just have to be more determined than it is, and chop it back in the spring. The big thing about this Goldenrod is that it does well in solid shade. The plants are about 18" high, dark green, and healthy looking all summer. In September it is covered with typical Goldenrod flowers held high on ziggy-zaggy stems.

Both of these 'Goldies' are worth having in the garden - interesting form, bright flowers at a time when flowers are becoming scarcer, and extra 'garden points' for having something unusual!

Late August Walkabout

Finally had a chance to take a good look at the garden. The entire summer seems to have disappeared in a rush of work and other commitments, but now at last I can turn back to one of my favourite activities.

Speaking of summer, it does seem to be over. One of the Maple trees near the house is turning red at the top, the nights have a nip to them, and the sun is down by 8 in the evening. I'm sensing an early fall. The last few years we have had long drawn-out autumns; this year I suspect we won't.

I checked the tiny meadow where I've been trying to establish Fringed Gentian, Gentianopsis crinita. It's a biennial and actually not easy to grow. I know a place where it grows by the acre, mixed with White Goldenrod, Solidago ptarmicoides, various grasses and low shrubs. It seems to like the alvar-like conditions there: dry, thin soil, little competition from other plants. On the other hand, I also know a place where it grows beautifully in a mixed woods with seasonally damp spots. So you would think it would be flexible, but I have found it tricky. I've gotten the seed to germinate, but every time lost the seedlings when I tried to transplant them. They are really tiny! So then I tried sprinkling the seeds in what I hoped might be suitable spots and had slightly better luck. The little meadow I mentioned  had about 30 plants in 2014. This year there is one. I'm not sure quite what this means. There weren't any in 2013, so perhaps I should consider it a 100% increase over the previous blooming year, given that it is biennial, and hope for the best in 2016!


The strip behind the Studio and below the Sand Hill seems to have reverted to swamp. Purple Loosestrife (yikes), the unending Field Horsetails, various reeds and sedges, and several Swamp Beggar Ticks, Bidens connata. The Beggar Ticks are over 8' tall! They reminded me of being a teenager in Northern Ontario. We called them 'Stick-tights'  because the seeds would get into your socks, or your horse's tail. I once spent the better part of an hour combing just a few of the seeds out of my dog's fur. Tootsie sat patiently the whole time, but my orange and pink plastic comb had combed it's last. Poor Tootsie, he was a big and handsome dog, and my brothers and I gave him a big and handsome dog name, but my Mother called him Tootsie and of course that was the name that stuck. She really wasn't safe when it came to naming pets.

Coming back around to the Rockery I saw a Monarch. At least, I'm pretty sure it was a Monarch. It was quite large and flew strongly, unlike the Viceroys which are smaller and fly in fits and starts. It swooped around me and landed nearby a few times, but never opened its wings when it was sitting so I couldn't check the lines on its hind wings. But I'm pretty sure it was a Monarch. The fall migration is supposed to be going through right about now. That's only one this summer, but I guess that's better than zero.

A Hop Vine has seeded itself into the edge of the woods and has scrambled a good 30' up a pine. When I looked up I saw dozens of tiny yellow hop heads hanging down all up and down the vine as it spiraled around the tree trunk. Striking, but it is such a weed. The yellow version has pretty much taken over a bramble patch nearby and I try not to look at it, knowing how hard it will be to remove. The roots are like cables, stretchy rubbery un-cut-able cables. Tarzan could use them.

 The Asters are in full glory. One plant of New England Aster at the front of the Crabapple Garden has been in bloom for a month, very early and a long time, and I wonder if it will do it again next year so I plan to keep it and try pieces of it in other spots. If it is consistently early, it will be a useful 'find'. But it could just be a fluke. I love the aster colours, 'jewel tones' is a phrase made for asters. Most of them are lavender-blue, but a few are amethyst pink and a very few are white or pale mauve.

The other Asters are as confused as ever. I keep trying to identify them, but I think it is hopeless. They cross and re-cross, leaving me with plants that have leaves like one species but flowers like another...

One short white-flowered one, possibly a form of Symphyotrichum (most of the Asters are now Symphyotrichum) novi-belgii, is blooming merrily pretty much in the driveway. Must move it someplace as it looks worth keeping.

There are entirely too many Goldenrods... not enough Closed Gentians... the Pink Turtlehead is gorgeous... Cosmos has filled many gaps, as it does so well... we won't look at the weeds... do I dare order some Tulips?

Ah, July. Ah, Chaos

Every year, the July garden astounds me. There is so much bloom I can hardly imagine what will be left to bloom in August... or September. We've had a very 'grow-ish' summer so far, rain just when we needed it and not too much heat so the flowers are the happiest I've seen for a long time.

One could almost ignore the weeds. Not quite, but almost. Parts of my garden aren't too bad. The Sampler Garden, which is a shady woodland filled with ferns and spring wildflowers, looks fine. A few stray Fleabanes, a small patch of Enchanter's Nightshade, a rambling white-stemmed Rubus that needs to learn to behave itself, but overall it is in good shape. If anyone came to see the garden today, I could take them there and not be embarrassed.

Elsewhere, however, it's a different story. Behind the Studio the horsetails and the primroses are engaged in deadly battle and the Baptisia has taken over more real estate than many a small city garden. The Hillside, while spectacular, is dense with seedling Foxgloves, errant Phlox, and Coneflowers. But such Coneflowers!

They all started from one plant of Echinacea purpurea purchased years ago. It promptly seeded and I soon had a whole patch. The patch included some lovely white ones (and I'm a pushover for the white version of anything) which are nicer than the white one usually sold as White Swan. White Swan seems, to me, rather stodgy. The flowers just don't have grace, and a Coneflower is all about grace.

Below the pink flower you see a yellow Coneflower. This is E. paradoxa. I grew it from seed. A whole package of seed exchange seed gave me one plant, but it has become large and energetic. The flowers have unusual drooping curved petals in a shiny clear yellow. They have elegance as well as grace.

Two years ago I got four seeds from one of the heads on E. paradoxa. It either doesn't set seed much, or else the birds beat me to them. Anyway, I planted the four seeds and the following spring three of them germinated and grew into good-sized plants. I planted them out and this spring two of the plants returned. One bloomed, and I was amused to see that the flowers have the gracefully drooping form of E. paradoxa, but the colour, more or less, of E. purpurea. Actually not quite the colour, it is a bit more yellow, almost a peach colour. The plant is also tall, has narrow leaves, and flops. We can tell which block this chip is from!

The nurseries have had great fun with Echinaceas, putting such cultivars as these on the market. I like this soft pink 'fluff butt' one, but I'm not so sure about the reddish one. There are a whole swarm of orange/rust/red Coneflowers, many of them named after hot foods like Cherokee Pepper or Hot Lava, well, I guess that's not a food. I think this one is called something with Paprika in the name. It's attractive, but even harder to fit into a colour scheme than the usual Coneflowers. I'm thinking of moving it next to some yellow Daylilies. Since those are blooming up a storm now too, I can walk around and pick the one that needs a little Paprika in its life.

One good thing about these garden Echinaceas, they have fibrous roots and are easily moved. There are a number of other species, such as E. pallida, E. simulata, E. tennesseensis and others, which are quite hardy here and have seeds which the small birds relish, but they have tap roots and you'd better be very sure of where you want them before you let them get large. I tried to move an E. angustifolia and not only did I have trouble getting it out of the ground, my efforts were rewarded as they so often are and I haven't seen it since.

In addition to the E. paradoxa cross, I also accidentally got a lot of plants which I surmise are crosses of E. purpurea with E. pallida. The latter is very tall, has stunning large flowers with drooping, twisting petals, and very narrow leaves. The patch of Coneflowers which came up beside my Crabapple Garden (I probably left some gone-to-seed stalks there and the seeds tumbled out) is a grand mixture of all different plants!

The top picture is of a plant which has uniformly 'dance-y' flowers. They open flat and stay more or less so, but the petals twist a bit. The plant is fairly short (for this group) and compact.

The next one I like because the flowers are darker than most and the stems are a beguiling dark red.

The bottom picture is of a plant which has soft pink and white blooms.Their petals never droop, it stays with the crisp daisy shape throughout the flowers' lives. This one will look very good with a pale yellow Daylily and some Shasta Daisies, of which I also have about a million. They seed too, but there isn't a lot of variation in the offspring.

Shastas are a large part of the chaos of the July garden. They don't bloom for long and you'd better deadhead them as soon as they turn shabby or you'll never get to the end of them. Looking at the patch of them on the Hillside I see that discipline will be required, not in the flowers, but in the gardener. I'd better get those seedheads off and not get side-tracked into general weeding.



And now, just to relieve all that pinkness, here's a picture of one of the bluest flowers I know. I'm going to call it Willow Gentian because there is no hope of me spelling its botanical name. No matter, it's a wonderful plant, and unlike my Coneflowers, never clashes with anything.

Ah, blue. Ah, July!