Plants in Context

Zoey makes a good point in one of her posts, about macro photographs versus plants in context. She wants to see what a plant looks like in the garden landscape, because she has been misled before by pretty catalog photos showing only closeups of the flowers.

I guess some of us are more information-seekers than beauty-seekers, especially when it comes to unfamiliar plants. Me, give me a beautiful close-up photo anytime. It's the beauty I'm after. Sometimes a plant is not nearly so beautiful in context, because of flaws in the landscape surrounding it. My photographer's eye wants to eliminate the flaws, and one way of doing that is to get in really close to your subject.


So Zoey, I am guilty of your pet peeve! But I am listening, and I am attempting to post more pictures of the actual landscape a given plant resides in, no matter how delicious its foliage or colourful its flowers. The photo above is my 'Lullaby of Spring' iris, in context. It shows that I have many more blooms to look forward to this year as spring fades into summer.

Next, here is a shot of the weigela bush in all its blooming glory.


And here is the bush in its garden setting. (These photos were taken by two different cameras at different times of day, so the colouring comes out looking slightly different.)


Here is a photo of my Centaurea in bloom. (The flowers are wispier than I thought they would be, but overall I still like the effect. The colour combination is always what draws me in.)


And here is my flawed photo of that plant in its garden setting. I really don't like my semi-grassless slope and I haven't yet decided what to do about it, being as anti-lawn as I am. We could resod, but it would just look like this again in another two years. So I feel I am stuck. (Though I'm sure I'll think of something eventually.)


All photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.

Morning Photos

Here is a picture of foliage in the garden in the early morning light. At the centre of the photo is a large clump of stachys (lambs' ears) that is starting to invade the walking path. I really don't want to dig it up right now and destroy the integrity of the clump. So I guess I will wait until after it has bloomed. At that point it starts to look a bit ratty anyway, so hacking it back can't make it look much worse.


In checking my records for this plant with the red flowers (Rock Rose, or Helianthemum 'Henfield Brilliant') it says it is a zone 6. I usually stick with zone 5 and under because 6 is iffy. When I planted these towards the end of summer 2004, I actually put in one red and one pink. The pink did not make it, but this one is thriving.


I have to get pictures of these rock rose flowers first thing in the morning, because by early afternoon the petals are all falling off.

Another interesting sight this morning was a bee busy collecting nectar from my 'Johnson's Blue' hardy geranium. (Yeah, it's not a great picture. If I didn't tell you there was a bee there, you might easily miss it.)


All photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be borrowed without attribution.

Lewisia Cotyledon

I have a patch of ground up by the shed that is very steep, and gets grit all over it washing down from underneath the shed. In searching for something to grow there, I have mainly fixed on stonecrop and sempervivum. But as I was looking for echeveria at Canning Perennials, I saw a similar type of plant, a Lewisia Cotyledon, that I’d never seen nor heard of before. It looked interesting, so I read the label. It was these magic words that caught my eye: “plant on a sharp slope.” Heck, it even mentioned something about grit.

Hmm, a sharp slope with grit is definitely what I have there by the shed. So I took it home and planted it.

It is a plant native to mountainous regions on the west coast of North America. In the wild it is endangered (the chief dangers are from disappearing habitat and, apparently, from people who collect the plant illegally for their own gardens). It is now cultivated from seed and available from specialty growers.

So here is what the plant looks like now in my garden. I can’t wait for it to flower.


Photo belongs to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.
Like echeveria, this is another plant that will not make it through the winter if left where it is; so if it survives until fall, I will bring it inside then. It’s not the cold that bothers these plants so much as the wet. The label contains instructions warning you to avoid letting water collect at the crown. That's why a sharp slope is recommended.

Columbine

The columbine by the east fence are blooming, perhaps a bit later than others I've seen. The ones in my mom's garden have been blooming for a couple of weeks already. These ones always seem to do well, though, giving me a set of blooms in late spring and another one in the fall.


Photo belongs to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be borrowed without attribution.

First 'Lullaby of Spring' Iris

Today my 'Lullaby of Spring' iris got its first bloom. It didn't even bloom last year.


Photo belongs to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.
Actually, very few of my iris bloomed last year, so I decided to read about how to care for them. I didn't know about having to divide them. I did that last fall with all my iris, with some success.

I'm still learning though. I just read recently that if you want them to clump, the best way to plant them is in a circle, radiating out from a centre point (like spokes radiating out from the hub of a wheel).

Guess what I'll be doing this fall?

First Poppy

Today the first poppy bloomed. It's just an ordinary orange one, but it's nice.

Photo belongs to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.

Views of the Garden

Some more views of the garden.


I am waiting for the weigela (bush on the left) to burst into bloom. I gave the arctic willow (round bush) its first trim of the season. It needs to be done about once a month to keep a nice shape. It's the only plant that requires any real maintenance, and it's hardly a chore because I love the way it looks in the garden.


This is a view looking north, standing on the stone steps with 'Johnson's Blue' hardy geranium at my feet.

We have since removed those yucca plants near the arbour bench, just yesterday in fact. Although I'm not fanatical about having a "native plant" garden, those yuccas were starting to bother me because they stood out as wrong in the woodland setting. Yet they always thrived, and I also hate to discard a perfectly good plant. I must admit that I'm happy we got rid of them though. It opens up that area more. I think I will plant something ground-hugging there, like woolly thyme.


Photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.
In this photo you can see how the bench looks with the yuccas removed. I must admit that although my husband found the best deal on bags of mulch, this kind is a lighter colour than I normally prefer. However, it also has a finer texture than some others we have purchased in the past, so it will decay quickly and enrich the soil.

Beauty and the Beast

I tried to get more container planting done yesterday. I succeeded to a certain extent, but I didn't really pull everything out until about 2:00, which is the worst time for the heat.

I wore my best gardening hat and slathered on the sunscreen, but I still have the beginning of my gardener's tan: the tips of my toes are brown where they poked out of my gardening sandals, but the rest of my foot is white. My hands and forearms are starting to tan, but there is a definite line showing the length of my sleeve.

Speaking of lines, here is that mulch demarcation line I mentioned in an earlier post:


Now I am thinking of the DaVinci Code movie, the line that says "this far and no farther" -- although of course the mulching will be finished someday soon (maybe even today!). In that picture, our red maple, looking like an awkward adolescent after a growth spurt, is kind of droopy after the rain.

Well, as I was saying, yesterday was a bit of a container planting day. Here is a picture of the work in progress:


I have an old pine shelving unit (originally from IKEA) that I have let weather outdoors to a nice aged gray. Each summer I cover it with little pots and containers of pansies and annuals. For example, I keep my old cracked teapots and use them as planters. In 2004 I also included some birdhouses from Michaels (craft store) but wasps built a nest in one of them, so I gave up on that idea even though it looked great.

Here is the shelf in 2005. I think it looked better in 2004, but did I take a decent picture? Of course not.


Unfortunately, it can get windy at the corner of our house, and there are always small mammals lurking about at night whose curiosity overcomes them. The shelf will get knocked over at least once a month, and each summer I lose something. I solve that by only putting items I'm willing to lose on the shelf.

The title of the post refers to a bit of planting whimsy I was able to accomplish yesterday. I had a big lump of an overgrown sempervivum, and I wasn't sure what to do with it. I was contemplating dividing it when I realized that no, something this ugly deserves to be planted in a bucket! So that's what I did. Then I parked it next to my new echeveria et voila -- Beauty and the Beast.


All photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be borrowed without attribution.

Garden Photos

Not too many words, because I keep making horrible typos when I blog this late. So, I will rely on visual literacy tonight and hopefully it will be enough.












All photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be borrowed without attribution.

Immortality

Remember this iris from May 15? The one some bug ate the bud on?

It finally bloomed in yesterday's rain.


See the round "bullet" holes in the petals?

By the way, the name of the iris is 'Immortality' -- which just seems too good to be true, under the circumstances.

Mmm, Colour

This is 'Gold Bullion' Centaurea.


Am I the only one that drools like Homer Simpson when I see colour combinations like these? (Don't answer that. I don't need to be told.)

I think this guy is rivalling my 'Sweet Kate' Spiderwort in my affections. I've got a real "thing" for chartreuse foliage.

Sempervivum 101

Okay, I’ll bite. Well, sip. A glass of wine, perhaps, in honour of Gardening While Intoxicated, because the question of what is appealing about sempervivum arose on her blog.

And here I am to explain it to you.


There are few garden settings where sempervivum is actually worth looking at, especially if it’s small, green, and uninteresting. Any garden it does look good in usually has rocks, though the presence of rocks is no guarantee that sempervivum will look good there.

I haven’t quite made up my mind about this display on a front lawn in my neighbourhood. The cactus seems very interesting, though I’m not sure it would live through winter. The sempervivum seems too small to make an impression.


Sempervivum looks best when it is large and artfully displayed in certain types of containers, sometimes in combination with other succulents such as echeveria or stonecrop. You can also display them in containers with “steppables” such as mosses, ajuga, or thyme.


Containers that work well with sempervivum usually have the following characteristics:

• They are shallow, but with a large area available for planting.
• They are made of concrete, clay, or something that looks similar to stone.
• They are usually bowls or troughs, rather than pots (depending on the size).


For some reason, sempervivum just begs for stone or clay containers. Plastic doesn’t cut it; although I guess a resin, stone-look container might be considered plastic in some circles.


I am lucky to have easy access to the gardens at Canning Perennials, where the owners actually do display their large personal collection of sempervivum in a garden setting, albeit in a huge raised bed that seems to be more akin to a museum case than a living garden. They always have interesting varieties of sempervivum for sale, too, along with types of stonecrop I have never seen elsewhere, and more than one type of echeveria.


You would think I found out about echeveria there, but no. My first echeveria actually came from Home Depot. It blew me away. It was a large (7 inch diameter) plant that looked like a sempervivum, but had colourful flowering stems extended from it. I was hooked.

One thing to be aware of, however. Echeveria is not winter hardy in cold climates and needs to be taken indoors before the first frost.

I've been working on updating my sempervivum planters for 2006. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of pictures through the summer.

A Gardening Day

Today was finally a gardening day. I actually put sunscreen on and tried out one of my new gardening hats.


By sitting on the deck box against the wall of the house, you can get a fairly good view of the entire back. It's just an average suburban backyard, with approximately 60 x 40 feet (19 x 12 metres) of usable space.

The remaining bags of mulch sit idly, waiting for someone to finish the job. If you look near the arbour bench, there's a demarcation line where the mulching stopped on Saturday because it was too cold to continue.


I planted my 'Peach Melba' heuchera.* It is 'Peach Melba' and not 'Peach Flambe' even though the label said otherwise. You can see the veining on the leaves. My favourite 'Johnson's Blue' hardy geranium (cranesbill) is starting to look a little ratty after the wind and rain battered it.

* For some reason I had originally typed "hosta" here.


So far this spring I have found out that cranesbill grows wild in Ontario, as does something called 'White Blue-eyed Grass' (those pretty six-petalled flowers shown in a previous post). Now, I have wild violets too. They are growing in the weed patch that is supposed to be the grassy slope in front of the shed.


All photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be borrowed without attribution.
And finally, here is a picture of a striped beetle on my rainbarrel.

Told You It Was My Favourite View

Here it is again, from a slightly different angle. This one also shows the composter next to the shed.


With this view you would think I did not have any open space in my yard at all. I guess I'm discovering all the clever angles to take my (show-off) photos from.

Here is a better picture of that little coleus. I knew I had one somewhere.


Photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be borrowed without attribution.

Slowly Reviving from the Cold

Trying to assess what's happening in the garden after the cold and the wind and rain of the past few days. Most coleus succumbed to the nippy weather, but this little one hidden in with other plants is still okay:


I didn't actually plant much of the coleus I got during the seasonable warmer weather we had mid-month. Most of my coleus is sitting in the garage right now (sheltered, but not getting much light).

There are no great changes in the garden, except for tulips dying off. I did discover a couple of these "weeds" growing amongst the vinca. They are so pretty.

Photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be borrowed without attribution.
Does anyone know what they are? Their foliage is unremarkable. It just looks like a couple of thin blades of a grass like blue fescue. I have always pulled it out whenever I have seen it. I had no idea it flowered like this.

Recently Acquired

This is a blog post about my recent acquisitions for the garden. But first, a gratuitous shot of what is now becoming one of my favourite garden views:


Photo belongs to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be borrowed without attribution.

And now I have some pictures of items and plants recently acquired.





(Click on the thumbnails to see a larger picture.)

Clockwise from top left:

1. Heuchera 'Mardi Gras'. Flower scape almost 36" (90cm) tall. Leaves as big as my hand. (I have a small hand.)


2. Heuchera 'Peach Melba'. A bit like Peach Flambe except with veining on the leaves.


3. Two new daylilies. This brings the total up to 45. Yes, I have 45 named varieties of hemerocallis in my garden. (But that's nothing. Sigrun has 60 hostas.)


4. Round concrete bowl planter, inspired by Naturegirl.


5. Sempervivum for the flat rock planter.


6. A flat rock-look planter that I received as a Mother's Day gift.

Heuchera

I have given myself a mini-journalling project: to try to photograph and identify all my heuchera.



I usually "know" which ones I have or don't have when I go to the garden centre, so I don't tend to buy a lot of repeats. In my garden, however, I can't just look at any old heuchera and know exactly what kind it is.



They change from year to year as well. Sometimes the size and shape of the leaves will change, while the colour stays true. Sometimes the colour morphs into something unrecognizable from what I originally bought.



This year I won't be cutting off the flowers as I have done in the past. Because I am a fan of the foliage, and the flowers are small and unspectacular, I found there was no need to let the flower scapes grow. Now I am realizing those flowers will be a valuable aid in identification.


Photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be borrowed without attribution.