Show from April 23, 2006

Garden Living

Good morning gardeners. Another gorgeous day in beautiful Manitoba. The leaves are popping out all over and the grass is greening up. At home, the daffodils are in full bloom and the tulips are just opening. What a spring!

Yesterday I was in Gimli to speak to the Gimli garden club. What a lovely group of people and I'd like to say thank you to all of them for being such a warm audience. We had a good time in the shops of Gimli and left with our pockets a little lighter, but our hearts a lot fuller.

By the way, the lake is still covered with ice, yet it was very warm in town and the grass and leaves are well advanced.

And both there and here, people are moving into their gardens. Last weekend, we sat outside for dinner for the first time this year – at least a month earlier than last year. Barbecues are going and the summer furniture is coming out of storage. Ponds and pools are being readied for the summer. We are moving, en masse, to the place we Manitobans love best of all – out doors in our gardens.

Even those who don't love the art of gardening the way you and I do, dear listener, are hooked on the summer feeling and the pleasures of garden living. These are the folks who need easy-care garden advice, wanting to surround themselves with the loveliness of the garden without having to know all the details or having to spend more than a few hours getting things ready in the spring.

For you folks, and I know you're listening, we have some great ideas to pass on this morning. We're going to talk about some design ideas and some of the new plants that are perfect to carefree gardening. Take some of the glorious shrubs that are on sale for example. One I just have to have is called Ilex verticillata or Winterberrry. This beauty, which can grow 15 to 20 feet tall has the habit of growing clusters of brilliant red berries that cling to its black branches through most of the winter.

Another fabulous shrub is the elderberry, which now comes in many varieties including with purple leaves. Elderberries start the summer with huge clusters of white or pink flowers and end the year with cluster of black berries.

And then there are the grasses: Just pop them in the ground and leave them alone. they don't even need to be watered. There are lots and lots of flowering perennials that are easy care, too. The Echinaceas or purple coneflowers are all hardy plants that like it dry and there are so many interesting varieties now. There's a yellow one called Sunrise, an orange one called Sunset, and another melon coloured one called Art's Pride. There's the double decker Doppleganger and the new Easter bonnet shaped one called Razzmataz.

And just like the Echinaceas, gaillardias are native to this part of the world so they don't need fussing. New varieties include Fanfare, with its tube-shaped, trumpet-like petals, and the Torch Flame and Torch Yellow series.

Finally, no garden would be complete without Rudbeckia, another native. These cheery little black-eyed Susans now come also come with green eyes and another one has variegated, green and white leaves.

For shade, there's a whole host of hostas and heucheras and ferns and astilbes.

And to give all this substance and a framework – a place for us to live in, we need the hard features – the patios and raised beds and furnishing and ponds –even waterfalls. To talk about this, I have Keith Lemkey with me this morning. Keith is the owner of one on Winnipeg's foremost landscape design companies. He is a man who loves his work as you'll soon see.