parahebe haircuts and Rhodos

A Parahebe (syn. Derwentia Schrophulariaceae) hails from New Zealand, Australia, and even Papua New Guinea.  They are not commonly found in gardens in the NorthWest, but I saw one at the Seeds of Milawi plant sale two years ago and liked their goofy leaves and I’m glad I bought it.  (The Seeds of Milawi plant sale is undertaken by some local master gardeners and senior plantspeople and a significant portion of the sales is sent to Milawi in Africa to assist in childhood education, horticulture education, etc. An excellent endevour which will take place in Mill Bay this year on April 24, 2010.  Contact Elaine Scott at thescottrogers@aol.com for details)

As always, there are many different types of parahebes.  Mine is prostrate, loves the very sunny, pretty dry exposure it gets and the leaves look quite a bit like something that should be growing in Mexico.  They are gray green in colour and are perfoliate with the individual branches growing to 2-3 feet.  I think mine is a Parahebe perfoliate syn. Veronica perfoliate (Digger’s speedwell).

In two years I haven’t pruned it and there were dead branches, blackened leaves, etc.  You need to cut whole branches out – it doesn’t work to give them just a clip off the ends of the branches to the next viable bud.  By now in this uncommonly mild winter, new shoots are coming out from the centre of the plant.  After I was done it looked a little bedraggled – but I’m hoping it will be flourishing with new green leaves by June 6th and the garden tour.

We have over 225 Rhododendrons in our garden.  It is the perfect setting for them, dappled shade in many areas shaded by conifers, high water table except in rare spots so lots of moisture, and the river that runs through the property somewhat reduces the level of high frost.

The Rhodo care and attention falls to my husband who is a rhodoholic and an avid member of the Cowichan Valley Rhododendron Society.  He is becoming one of those propagating types who can rattle off hyrid mixtures with odd names.  There aren’t many rhodos in the long bed and I am STILL working on, but there is 1,000 Butterflies (lofthouse bred, I think), and Lodei (not sure which one).  This isn’t the time of year to prune rhodos and most who do prune them do it lightly and with great care.  I do know, however, that next week we will put a small handful of epsom salts on all the rhodos, all the roses, lilacs and camellias as acid loving plants like those need the epsom salts to open up the soil to accept the fertilizer 3 weeks later.  Works every time.

Tomorrow I will FINISH PRUNING AND WEEDING AND CLEANING UP the darned long bed.  And I’ll take some pictures and next week move on to clean up my special bearded iris bed.

A reminder, this blog is attempting to describe the steps I’m taking in my garden to prepare the garden for display on the Cowichan Family Life Association’s annual fund-raising Garden Tour.  As often mentioned, the tour takes place on June 6, 2010.  Here is the website address with all the details:

http://www.cowichanfamilylife.org/events/gardentour.htm

Salal versus flowering shrubs and parahebe

A quick blog today as it took me over 2 hours to just go about 10 feet along the long bed trying to beat back the salal.   Salal   (Gaultheria shallon) is a native plant for British Columbia and much admired by florist and flower arrangers and designers for its sturdy, glossy leaves and long life in an arrangement of vase.  It can also be a lovely addition to a woodland or native garden.  But really, it has no place in a perennial border.

But, I have a patch there nonetheless.  It is so persistent a patch that we literally had to build the fence around it to accommodate it.  Honest!  We build the very long fence against one of our property lines to disrupt a deer trail that went between our neighbours and ourselves.  Both properties suffered greatly from greedy plant-chomping deers.  So a very long fence (I know, I know, I will measure it very shortly) was built.  But one panel had to have a hole cut in the bottom of it to accommodate the roots of a big fir tree with a huge salal patch entwined within.  No one can figure out how to eradicate it without seriously damaging the root system of the fir tree.  I’m OK with that as the fir tree provides too much shade and drought conditions for many of the plants I favour, but the neighbour likes the fir tree.  My husband says I have to sometimes play nice, so the darned fir tree remains on his side of the fence along with some of the salal, but some of the salal is on MY side.

Without much ado, please let me report that salal is also invasive with strong branching roots and to even cut it back enough to deter it for a year takes a lot of pulling, clipping, digging, etc. and I surely didn’t get it all.

Gardening is a mixture of joyful tasks, beautiful nights with the scents of the garden surrounding you, glorious mornings when you can gaze on a planting combination with something approaching pure happiness.  But today wasn’t one of them – 2 hours of hacking salal – but I think I may have got enough to prevent a total invasion for another year.

Tomorrow – parahebe and some rhodo treatment.  Let’s hope our Ice Dancers don’t get that dreaded 4th place finish flu that plagues so many Canadian athletes.

Guest Blog – brilliant piece on the Olympics from a volunteer’s perspective

Guest Blog- brilliant piece on #Olympics so far from the perspective of a volunteer. Canadians will want to read this- http://wp.me/pBNvj-1i

Who doesn’t read SmartBrief on SM?RT @p

Who doesn’t read SmartBrief on SM?RT @paulbarron:The 5 most-clicked links in SmartBrief on Social Media this past week: http://ow.ly/16CtCk

Moss Roses and Katsura tree

In British Columbia today there is a quiet, almost an eerie feel as the entire province (indeed the country) awaits the outcome of the US versus Canada hockey games this afternoon.  Think I’m kidding?  Well, certainly there are full-blooded Canadians that don’t watch nor enjoy hockey.  But it’s probably fair to say that if you aren’t watching, then you live with someone who is.  I am an avid watcher, my Dad played for the Trail Smokeaters and he raised his two girls to enjoy the game!

So, heading out to the garden early and this will be short.  Today I will complete the long bed and begin tomorrow on the Iris bed.  We are into a drier, sunnier part of the long bed and it is populated with more drought tolerant types like lavender and a big moss rose.  They aren’t the beautiful, elegant blooms nor plants of their Rosa family.  There are really prickly, old-fashioned looking, quickly-spreading varieties that have smaller blooms literally piggy-backing on each other.  the individual branches almost seem to come up individually out of the ground and its easy to prune because some have new growth at the top and some don’t, so off with their heads to the stems that don’t.  The scent of a moss rose can be wonderful and this is a plant that does.

Believe it or not, my husband cut our grass yesterday.  Imagine, February 20 and we are cutting grass.  Its quite an ordeal to get the ride-on mower out for the first time – check the oil, add oil (maybe, who knows??), but it fired up right away.  The lawn has actually been growing for about 3 weeks now and we want to lime it shortly.  The neverending and relentless set of necessary chores for a west coast garden are beginning early.  I intend to epsom salt the lilacs, rhodos, and roses next week.

I didn’t prune the Katsura tree this year.  Its just a juvenile in its second year and seems to have settled in nicely thanks to the mild winter.  Go Canada Go.

Hellebore Hurrah

No, I am not being paid by Phoenix Perennials to publicize their upcoming Hellebore Hurrah. They don’t even know me.

But, I may as well do a little promotion on this brand new blog as several of us from the Mill Bay Garden Club and other areas of southern Vancouver Island will be heading over there to check out the latest and greatest in new edition Hellebores for sale.

My carpool has decided to actually catch the March 5 7:30 a.m. ferry over (that means leaving house at about 6:30 a.m., getting up at 5:45 a.m.) but its all worth it to have the best selection of those gorgeous hellebores.

Here’s some info about the event, but first, here is a beautiful selection of pictures of the new Helleborus x nigercors ‘Vancouver Medallion’.  This was originally marketed as Helleborus x nigercors ‘Candy Love’, but The Garden Club of Vancouver decided to re-introduce it as ‘Vancouver Medallion’ to celebrate the 2010 Winter Olympics as its multi-coloured flowers sort of resemble Gold, Silver and Bronze.  Great idea and Phoenix Perennials and many other nurseries and garden centres are selling them to beat the band – here’s the link to the pictures -

http://tinyurl.com/ybch4ua

To download the Hellebore Hurrah catalogue and for all details about the event, you can visit Phoenix Perennials at

http://www.phoenixperennials.com

or you can become a fan on their Facebook page at

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=156870&id=290859258969&ref=nf#!/pages/Richmond-BC/Phoenix-Perennials/290859258969?v=wall

Looking forward to our March 5th adventure.  Do you think this marvelous publicity is worth Marietta O’Byrne Helleborus x hybridus WJ Golden Lotus??  Just Kidding, Ha!

Pruning, pruning, and Julia Child and Gertrude Jekyll

I promised that I would actually measure ‘the Long Bed’ but I haven’t yet.  Its taken me 6 days at between 2-3 hours each day to move through the bed, weeding, trimming, and pruning along the way.

As you’ve already read, I’ve pruned lilacs, phydocarpus ‘diablo’, phydocarpus ‘green giant’ several grasses, misincanthus, himilayan honeysuckle, BC dogwood, three different colours of smoke bush, 5 floribunda roses, three triploid apple trees, two Graham Thomas roses, potentillas, and more to come at the final end of the bed.

I think, in my rabid requirement to rid the bed of every type of weed and invasive plant I have probably also dug up a perfectly good peony and maybe one or even two beautiful Siberian Iris.  The ‘long bed’ is a mixed border of the most mixed and by the time I have it totally cleaned and pruned I will either have a brilliant example of shrubs, perennials, and a few annuals or I will have dead shrubs, weak perennials and a one way ticket out of the gardening community on Vancouver Island.  Ha.  Let’s hope the former and not the latter takes place.

Nothing exceptional today except the section I was pruning included 5 roses.  I really prefer big, cabbage type Graham Thomas roses as opposed to single blossom, although all over the property we probably have a few of nearly every variety.  I am trying to get better at recognizing them, buying them better for the locations we have (we need climbing roses for our rose arbour called The Parthenon, but the sun isn’t strong enough for most climbers.  Hard to choose just the right one which can ramble and rumble over the beautiful supports.  Any suggestions for a fragrant, strong coloured, aggressive climber that can thrive in part-shade with a good dose of midday sun thrown in??)

No one would call me a timid or shy person.  No one.  But I am a bit hesitant about pruning roses with the aggression I’ve seen others do.  I’ve attended some excellent rose care and pruning classes over the years and I am looking forward to attending another one at Glendale Gardens with Dion Latavniks on March 14th in the afternoon.  Check it out at www.glendalegardens.ca if you are interested.   BUT, even though all the great instructors like Dion advocate very aggressive pruning on all roses, I still am a little hesitant to give them such a severe hair cut.  I am happy to take out the side shoots that confuse the center, I am happy to clip off anything dead or not looking vibrant, but I just can’t cut down to the bottom 3rd viable bud.  Sigh.  Everything is progressing so much in advance this year that my Princess Diana rose is almost leafing out, with buds on all stems.  And my precious Julia Child which is a very sturdy, hardy deep yellow floribunda rose that is darn near carefree – everyone should have a Julia Child -  and a Gertrude Jekyll (highly fragrant, deep pink) – both are brilliant, consistent, fragrant bloomers – is so far advanced in this unbelievable February weather that this morning’s very light frost didn’t even touch her.  Wasn’t that a world-class run-on sentence??

Tomorrow, probably the final section of the long bed.  Along the way I have done a little diversion to prune buddelias, admire my Hellebore collection, and spread a near-ending amount of new compost soil on top of all of the beds.  I haven’t dared to look at my special Iris bed – it looks from the house like we’ll have bearded blooms in the next few days!

Going to slump on the couch tonight and be a real Canadian.  We are all TOTALLY into the Olympics!

Prostrate Willow and Gingo Bilboa

Only a gardener would have a clue what I was referring to in the title of this blog!

Today was another beautiful day on Vancouver Island.  It’s February 17th and the afternoon temperatures were in the 60′s and I gardened for over 2 hours in a light sweatshirt.  Unbelievable.

I continued along the long bed today which seems to be getting longer every day.  I have a goal to have it all weeded, all applicable shrubs, bushes, perennials pruned and trimmed and about 2 inches of top dressing/compost mix applied to all by the upcoming Sunday – February 21.

I’ve been at the long bed already for about a week but can’t get much more than 2-3 hours in any one day due to an odd combo of either body conditioning that is improving a little every day, or bad knee that really needs a doctor to have a look at, or the darn day job which provides funds to indulge in my wild plant buying habits!

The section I tackled today is dominated by prostrate willow.  Every gardener has a weakness – eg. I just don’t know much about trees – or has trouble growing certain groups – eg vegetables – or specific plants – I can’t grow basil.

But, my big, seemingly enduring weakness is that I continue to fall prey to invasive plants.  I could fill this blog and 10 others with examples of things I have happily planted only to have them completely run amuck and dominate perfectly nice beds before their arrival.  Can I tell you the sad, sad stories of the ribbon grass, the cransbills (still and issue), the aquilegea, the firestorm Euphorbia, etc. etc.  Well, this is a perfect segue into todays blog…..

The prostrate willow.  Prostrate Willow is what is sounds like.  Think a weeping willow tree with slightly wider leaves that spreads over the ground instead of upright in a tree and you’ve got a good picture.  I saw a beautiful prostrate willow display at a friend’s garden three years ago and, as all gardeners seem very happy to do, as soon as they saw me admiring it they offered me a cutting.  Now, never mind that it was on a HUGE property, near a big pond that would contain it, I just couldn’t wait to go home and plant the little cutting smack in the middle of the Long Plot.  It took a year but within year two it was spreading at a rate of about three feet from the original planting and when I encountered it today it was about at four feet despite a real hacking back in the early spring of 2009.  Today it took me a solid 2 1/2 hours to just about whack it back to nothing.  I left a little bit to create some interest in the garden tour that all this work is in aid of, but after June 6th this year, I’m going to dig it out completely.  I may take some rooted cuttings to the garden club with stern warnings its only good for big large areas you want to cover with attractive, willow-like leaves and pussy willow type blooms in spring.  But, the rest will be bagged up and thrown in the non composting trash.

One quiet winter day next year we’ll discuss invasive plants.  They steal nutrients and ground space from the good guys while trebling the work of weeding, pulling, cutting back, killing, etc.  Beginner gardeners will find it hard to distinguish an ‘invasive plant.’  Membership in your local Garden Club will help or an occaisonally read right here.

After I had reduced the prostrate willow to about 1/5th of its original size, and cut back all the stems even close to the Gingo Bilboa that has been trying to grow in a spot near the prostrate willow, I checked out my GB friend.  I planted this little tree – it’s still only about 3 feet high – about 3 years ago.  I love Gingo Bilboa’s leaves and the growth pattern – its a lovely addition to any plot with its bright green (almost lime) foliage.  It’s never gotten any bigger than what it is when I bought it, but its never died.  Ok, maybe it’s been hindered by the addition of the prostrate willow, but has anyone any suggestion on what I’m doing wrong with this little fellow?  The exposure the nearly full sun in good, well drained soil.

Today I also pruned back a Japanese Snowball Tree that hadn’t had any pruning in its first two years on the property.  I love the big snowball-like blossoms and I’m hoping this harder prune will produce a bushier tree with a bigger bloom.  So far, I haven’t fertilized everything.  After all, its still February and last night we had a light frost.

All the way along the ‘long bed’ I have several grasses – I love them and really – they are all over the property.  I am cutting them all back now and may regret it.  But, the weather is perfectly appropriate for giving grasses haircuts.  Tomorrow, it’s several different types of rose pruning, including last year’s Rose of the Year, Graham Thomas.  We have no ivy on our property, but we have Ivy.  Here she is:

No, this isn't the invasive type of Ivy

Pruning and poking

Today begins what is supposed to be 3-4 sunny days with temperatures in the early to mid 60′s.  Can you imagine that for February 16th.

Today I continue weeding and pruning in what I call the ‘long bed’.  It has good sun to part-sun western exposure, is up against a fence and probably is the ‘hottest’ bed on the property.  Like most plots on the property, there wasn’t a lot of digging down to create the plot, but lots of good soil was brought in and at least there is none of the dreaded landscape material so favoured by my husband.  (That’s another story for another blog).  The plant material in this bed is VERY varied and ranging from a nice selection of grasses, to Floribunda roses plus delphiniums, peonies, a great, big cardoon, three espaliered apple trees, phydocarpus diablo,  barberry, cictus, heucheras, hellebores and Siberian Iris (and more!).  There are five huge mounds of Nepeta Dropmore Blue which, viewed on an angle and in bloom, make nice anchors along the plot.

Its a challenge to keep weed free, but I try.  Due to a bad knee and poor conditioning, I can only handle about 2 1/2 to 4 hours in the garden on any one day and today I spent about 3 hours cleaning a 15 foot expanse of the long bed which included some pretty severe pruning of three barberries, a phydocarpus diablo, trimmed up a few nepetas and maroon Joe Pye Weed and hacked back the dead stalks from a beautiful Misacanthus Gigantium.  (as time goes by I’ll learn to keep my plant dictionary near by to check the spelling.)

And, dug and pulled more weeds, particularly a slightly invasive strawberry vine that has got itself going in that bed and TOO MUCH CRANSEBILL.  I like cransbill and have several varieties, but one with almost maple-leaf shaped leaves really spreads and I have dug up literally hundreds of little sprouts ready to take over the bed.

And, I planated a Vancouver Medallion Hellebore (Helleboris x nigercors)  It was a gift from my friend Deb and is actually ‘Candy Love’ but renamed by The Garden Club of Vancouver to commemorate the 2010 Olympics.  This is a wonderful hybrid (H.niger and H. sternii) and is sturdy and vigourous.  The Garden Club donated enough of these to fill a feature garden at Prospect Point in Stanley Park.  The leathery everygreen leaves develop redish veins during early spring.  Big, outfacing ivory blooms are tinged with pink, gradually ageing to dusky cocoa-chocolate.  The colour lasts for many months.  If you squint your eyes, it sort of looks like Gold, Silver, and Bronze combined.  Don’t you wish you had one of these?  Here’s a picture of mine before planting:

Hebbeborus x nigercors 'Vancouver Medallion' (Candy Love)

Seettling back to watch Canada play Norway in Men’s Hockey – I’m a big hockey fan.  Tomorrow – more long bed including what to do with the prostrate willow and roses.

Preparing a garden for a garden show

This gardening blog may really only be for myself to serve as a useful record of the progress of my garden from the first of the year through to June.  It may also be a worthwhile read for gardeners of the Pacific Northwest as a reminder of ongoing duties in the garden from the time period January to June OR it may be a good source of education and fun as I stress about getting my garden in tip top shape as a participant in the Cowichan Valley Family Services annual Garden Tour on June 6, 2010.

To start, I garden on a small acreage (just under 2 acres) that includes the Shawnigan River running through the property, a rather large natural pond, a beautiful winding driveway, a conifer rim, and small, soggy forest.  In times of heavy rainfall, there is also a little river that runs from the natural pond into the larger river as a drainage requirement.

Throughout these blogs I’ll include some pictures of the property and individual beds so you’ll have an understanding of the scope of the garden.  This is the west side of the property looking back over one of the three outside areas towards what I call the Parthenon (rose arbour) and the river which is to the east of the Parthenon.

This looks north to the front of the property.  You can see that no matter what I do with the garden, the lovely aspects of the property make it a pleasing walk-through.  When we were searching for a house with a little property in the area (Cobble Hill, Mill Bay, Shawnigan Lake, on Vancouver Island) in the summer of 2003, the moment we drove over the bridge and up the driveway we knew this would make a spectacular setting for amateur gardeners to go wild!  The real estate market on Vancouver Island was very hot at that point and we didn’t get much of a bargain on the selling price, but we’ve never regretted it.

A picture of the river.  There is lots of potential to develop the slopes along the river but I haven’t tackled that as yet.  Also, when we arrived in 2003 we came from the city.  City Slickers who didn’t really believe that those lovely bambis would dare eat our lovely plants.  It took us 2 years to fence 1 1/2 sides of the property, another year of chomped up plants to finally fence a full 3 sides of the property and finally, after a particularly aggressive chew-up of some of my most favourite roses, we finally fenced all sides of the property including along the river.  The river has that black chicken-wire looking deer fence so it doesn’t prevent the viewscapes along the river.  It does, however, change the ‘completely natural’ look of the place and its a compromise I mostly live with but occasionally regret.

I would call myself a decent gardener.  I am certainly not a complete amateur but neither am I a master gardener.  I can identify a decent number of plant species (some even in Latin!), I know the growth habits and pruning requirements of some, but not all, shrubs and trees, and I am very familiar and a fan of herbaceous perennials.  I have too many hellebores (can you ever have too many of any plant???), hostas and heucharas. (sp?) I am an Iris manic, my husband has totally overloaded the property with rhododendrons.  Did I mention I love roses??

This year I am serving as President for the Mill Bay Garden Club after six years of serving as Flower Show Chairman, Secretary, and Vice President.  I am the Host Garden Coordinator for the 2011 American Iris Society’s Convention in Victoria, BC, and a member of the BC Heather Society.  I have an entirely different career that involves retail recruitment consulting and I’m an avid Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn user – but my real passion is gardening.

So……………here goes.  My garden has been chosen as one of 6 gardens on the Cowichan Family Services Association fund-raising garden tour.  It’s a very well known tour always featuring excellent gardens.  For $15 on a self-directed tour, visitors enjoy the gardens, can interact with the owners, have Master Gardener advice, and overall enjoy a lovely day.  The gardens have to be SPOTLESS in terms of trimming, weeds, etc. and because my garden is by far the largest on the tour, I will indeed be the most stressed – maybe.

I know blogs should not be this long, but if you are still with me, here is a bit more information so you can fully enjoy and understand future blogs.

Firstly, I am regularly out in the garden pruning and weeding now and its only February 15th!  This will be shocking to anyone that doesn’t reside on Vancouver Island or southwest BC.  We had a hideous winter last year and at this time last year we were still staring at 2 feet of snow.  My precious hellebores (I am going to count them tomorrow) were still huddled under the leaves.  Today the hellbores are blooming to beat the band, the snowdrops (galanthus) are nearly over and just about everything is sprouting or poking up.  The 2010 Olympics in Vancouver are taking place to the pure delight of every Canadian and visitors from around the world are stunned that the same locale where downhill skiing can be competed is close to the same place where there is a beautiful bed of tulips!

I’ve already done a fair amount of pruning, weeding and clipping but starting tomorrow I’ll record the ongoing progress.  The pcitures in this blog are just scene-setters.  We’ll talk bed by bed and preparation by prepartion.  Not everybody’s fun way to read a blog, but if you’re into NorthWest gardening the journey will be educational and fun.  And, I’ll be looking for opinions,

Still LOTS of weeding left to go!