Show from Aug 12, 2007

Good morning Gardeners. What a beautiful morning. The gardens still look wonderful, although there’s a bit of a nip in the air at night now and you can feel that summer is on the downward side.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of conducting a mini tour for some lovely folks from the Misericordia Hospital Foundation, who have been raising funds for the new facility that will apparently replace the hospital beginning this fall. I’d like to thank Mary Dixon, Jan Pedersen and Jack and Elaine Sine for allowing us to visit their gardens on short notice. It was a lovely day.

And as I was saying, the gardens look absolutely beautiful. There is a lot in bloom right now – the echinacea is out in full glory and the chrysanthemums are starting to show colour. The white David phlox is just emerging, while the purple and red varieties are already on the wane. And my favourite double helianthus, that very tall sunflower with the pom pon blooms, is spreading sunshine in many yards. If you planted your gladiolas early enough, they should be starting to put up their gorgeous spikes by now and the dahlias will also be in bloom.

In my garden, the ligularias are flowering. I finally moved the Rocket, the ligularia with the serrated leaves and yellow spikes, to the wet side of the garden where it has begin to thrive, because ligularias need lots of water. And the Ligularia Desdemona. with the round, purple leaves thie scalloped edges is thriving, too. I planted this at the edge of the garden with a bed of coir at the base of the planting hole,. The coir is keeping the ground moist enough to keep this lovely plant, with its daisy like yellow flowers, happy.

The obedient plants are also in bloom. Sometimes they wait until September, but whenever the decide to put out their spikes of mauve flowers is a good day. These flowers are very nice in a bouquet. Their square stems allow the flower arranger to bend the stalk and it will stay put -- hence the name obedient plant.

Much to my envy, I see the beautiful hydrangea is putting on its show throughout the city. At Misericordia Place, the care home across the street from the hospital, the gardens are filled with giant Pee Gee hydrangeas and their cousins, the Annabelles.
I would die to have just one of those. I really must try again and see I I can grow one of these beauties. From what everyone tells me, all they need is lots of water and a lot of neglect so I don’t know what I am doing wrong!

Finally, the roses are in their second flush. That includes, in my yard, the four roses that were sucked dry by what was probably canker worms last spring while I was away in Malaysia. I came home to find these bushes completely beige – every bit of chlorophyll had been siphoned into the stomach of some leaf hungry insect and I thought they were dead. But lo and behold, the leaves re-emerged and now these roses are even bravely putting out blossoms.

Well, the garden is not the only thing that has been commanding my attention these days. I have been lucky enough to have my grandchildren, Clair and Julia, in from Toronto and this past week, my daughter Shauna joined them. It was in her honour that we held that family party last week that got rained on – but nobody seemed to mind! At any rate, with me this morning as my guest is Shauna Dobbie, the publisher of our Ontario Gardener.