2024-5 In Review

After taking a couple of years off from writing this blog, I realize how much it has replaced my photo albums of previous years, and so it seems appropriate to resume with an overview of the missing years. Much has remained the same, so I think one or two photos from each month will be a sufficient reminder of the highlights.

January, 2024 was a challenging time for Vancouver gardeners. Mild end-of year weather with virtually no snow, even on the mountains, was followed by below zero temperatures mid-month, and then by an "atmospheric river" that left the ground saturated with water. We missed the worst of this, having escaped to Mexico. 

A highlight of the trip was a visit with an old gardening friend, David Tarrant, whom many Canadian gardeners will remember from his time at UBC Botanical Garden or his hosting the Canadian Gardener series on TV.

 

 

 It was no surprise that David's new, small garden is already a delightful, plant-filled oasis.

 February saw us back home, enjoying the few hardy bulbs that always seem to be impervious to the weather.

I was surprised to be able to count Iris reticulata 'Katherine Hodgkin' among the survivors. In the past, I've found this little beauty quite temperamental. I'm hoping it likes its location enough to multiply and make a substantial clump.

 March felt more like February with many plants slow to recover from the winter weather, leaving me with little to appreciate other than the silhouettes of the maples on our street,

 ... and the ancient pear tree in our backyard with its cloak of emerald moss.

 April was a month for small delights, like seeing new leaves sprouting on the tips of our tree hydrangea that has now reached the balustrade of our front porch. This amazing plant stands tall and upright with no support except its own  slender stems .

 Close to its feet is another encouraging sight: a tiny shoot emerging from the roots of Hydrangea serrata 'Beni Gaku', a favourite plant that I thought I'd lost to the severe winter. I hope this is a sign that it will eventually recover. 

May is peony month and my current favourite is Paeonia obovata 'Alba'. With beautiful mahogany-infused foliage and a pure white flower it is an elegant addition to my small mostly white area. I acquired it as a wounded bit of tuber and wasn't very hopeful that it would survive, but it has put out a single flower and with luck it will continue to thrive.

By the end of the month, my sage plant had burst into bloom. Not just a useful kitchen herb, its rich lavender-blue flowers appeal to pollinators like this little humming bird.

A very different late May flower was Clematis 'Samaritan Jo' on a section of wrought-iron fence in the front yard. This is one of the smaller Raymond Evison varieties bred to grow only 1.5m.  

 

 

June is rose time and my big beauties enjoying the sun on the back fence never disappoint me. That's 'Lykkefund' on the left and'Ghislaine de Féligonde' on the right.

 

 

Although they look similar in my photo, they are actually quite different. 

'Lykkefund'  has pale pink buds opening to loose semi-double flowers and has a scent that permeates the air, especially on warm evenings. It only blooms once a year, but all those flowers produce bright red rosehips that brighten the branches throughout the winter months.

 

"Ghislaine de Féligonde' has apricot buds opening to double peach flowers before fading to white. It is only mildly scented, but it has the advantage of blooming a second time with even a few buds still struggling to open at the very end of the year.

 

 

Both these roses have been in commerce for over a hundred years and are exceptionally healthy. It's a pity that they are so rare, superseded by longer-blooming, more brightly-coloured varieties.

July brings one of my favourite combinations. Clematis x durandii has spent the previous months snaking its way through my oakleaf hydrangea, and always blooms just a little ahead of its host. A nearby lavender echoes echoes its lovely blue.

 

Meanwhile in a shady area nearby Hosta 'Krossa Regal' rules over a cloud of pink Gypsophila 'Bristol Fairy'. The dark foliage of Actaea 'Hillside Black Beauty' and a small clump of  Heuchera 'Blackberry Jam' provide contrast.

 In August the garden takes a bit of a holiday, like many of us, before gearing up again with late-blooming perennials. However, those plants that do bloom now tend to make strong statements as their colours are much more intense than the soft pastels of early summer flowers. Lobelia cardinalis 'Victoria' is particularly eye-catching with its near-black foliage and deep scarlet flowers. It is a favourite both of mine and of the hummingbirds.

 

On the other side of the garden, Helenium 'Moorheim Beauty' is almost as  striking. It would clash wildly with its companions if it bloomed any earlier, but it has this corner pretty much to itself by now with just a few pale blue spikes of another lobelia, the rather unfortunately named Lobelia syphilitica, for company.

 

September sees the flowers of last month still blooming, joined by the crisp white flowers of tall Anemone japonica 'Honorine Jobert'. In front is Amsonia hubrichtii, whose striking foliage is just beginning to turn colour. By the end of the month it will be entirely golden, as dramatic a garden accent as any flower.

 

 

By October few flowers remain, but this is showtime for one of my favourites for its late bloom. The cobalt blue spires of Aconitum 'Arendsii' command the garden all month, attracting the remaining bees and other pollinators, as well as the attention of human visitors.

 

In November, it's all about fall foliage even where you might not expect it. Rosa spinosissima, always my first rose to bloom in early May, won't flower again until next year but compensates with a remarkable show of colour as its leaves prepare to drop.

Finally, the star of December has to be the aptly-named Mahonia 'Winter Sun'. Too big a plant for the garden proper,  it occupies a corner of of our parking space in the back lane, and delights us and the overwintering Anna's hummingbirds with its nectar-rich, bright yellow flowers. Strands of rose 'Lykkefund',whose flowers I featured back in June, contribute their red berries to complete a Christmas picture and end my gardening year.

 

White Start to a New Gardening Year

After a month visiting family in Australia and fleeing ahead of Cyclone Gabrielle in New Zealand, we arrived home in late February to find the first flowers of 2023 already blooming.

Snow crocus in the shelter of the house were basking in a little sunshine among the green fronds of Sedum 'Angelina'.

The earliest snowdrops were also in bloom. It surprises me that of the kinds I have, the double varieties are always first. 

Narcissus 'Rijnveld's Early Sensation' was living up to its name as well. It always blooms with the snowdrops and crocus, at least a month ahead of any other daffodil I know. 

It's tough in other ways too, as it proved when, a few days later, the weather suddenly changed and Vancouver had more snow than we normally see at this time of year.

Overnight all my bright blooms were gone, flattened under this heavy blanket.

    But wait, what's this?

Yes, it's that determined daffodil, shouldering its way out of a drift, setting an example for other sturdy plants.

A stem of Hellebore 'Penny's Pink', only just in bud but clearly another strong-stemmed harbinger of spring, was also heaving itself upright. Behind it, where the tree canopy had taken most of the load, a clump of snowdrops was breaking through. 

As March begins, more ground is becoming visible and, while a few flowers like Crocus 'Gipsy Girl have suffered, ... 

they and most others have rebounded with little obvious damage.

I'm particularly pleased that this snowdrop is not only thriving but multiplying. It's a rare variety called 'Rosemary Burnham' named for the Vancouver gardener in whose garden it first appeared.

Summer Review

Time got away from me this year. Summer heat drove me from my desk in the dormer visible behind the roses in the first photo, and I've failed to catch up until now. When I began this entry I was looking back at some plants that not only survived the heat of this summer, but even flourished under demanding conditions.

The roses bloomed later than usual thanks to an unusually cold, wet spring, but when they did, it was an explosion of cream and apricot along our back fences. 

As I write now, 'Ghislaine de Féligonde' on the right is beginning its second flush of bloom, 

while 'Lykkefund' on the left is displaying a myriad of little green rosehips already on their way towards their winter red.

Throughout spring and summer, their unblemished foliage hearkens back to a time before size, colour and constant bloom took precedence over health and fragrance.

The other group of plants that continues to amaze me with their beauty and resilience has been the hydrangeas. 

This year my tree hydrangea (H. aspera var. sargentiana) has continued to make its way upwards, 

and we now have a fine close-up view of its flowers awash with bees as we sit on our high front porch.

In the back garden, the purple foliage of Hydrangea serrata 'Kiyosumi' was a striking feature of the spring garden.

I think I like it better as a foliage plant than a flowering one. The leaves become more green as they mature, and although the summer blooms are attractive, they're not quite as special at a time when there's a lot of competition from other plants.

My smallest H. serrata is  'Amagi-amacha', which is tucked in between two larger shrubs, a Fothergilla and an Oakleaf Hydrangea. Neither give it much competition during its bloom period, which allows its delicate little leaves and white bracts on their short stalks to have pride of place.

Amacha translates as "sweet tea". Apparently the leaves make a concoction that tastes like that.

 

Presumably, H. serrata 'Yae-no-amacha' shares the same attribute, although it's a larger specimen with soft blue double flowers. As my plant is still young, I'm not sure how large it will grow or how generous its bloom will be. I'm wondering if I have it in too much shade and may move it when it's dormant to a sunnier but still sheltered place.

Finally, I have to include Hydrangea. serrata 'Beni'. I've mentioned it before, but this year I remembered to record its transition from a white flower to a red one over just one month. I've put the dates underneath the photos to show the progress of this miraculous transformation.

June 20

 

June 30

July 7

July 17

Topiary with a Purpose

 On the way back from our weekend on the Gulf Islands (see previous post), we came across this strange piece of plant sculpture at the entrance to a lane in the small community of Deep Bay.

Closer inspection revealed the purpose of the window. 

The sign reads: 

FOOTPATH ONLY TO BEACH

NO VEHICLES

I was both amused and impressed. In some communities, local authorities would have chopped down the hedge.

Denman Island Garden Tour

 After 2 years with no garden events, the news that the Denman Island Conservancy was preparing to hold their house and garden tour in June was too tempting to miss out on: https://www.denman-conservancy.org/home-and-garden-tour/

As their website states, "Denman Island is located in the Strait of Georgia, British Columbia, Canada. it is a small rural gulf island near the east coast of Vancouver Island."

We were lucky enough to have good friends on nearby Hornby Island and fortunately Lauren and Jim were not only willing to put up with us for the weekend, but were keen to join us on the tour. 

We took the little cable-stayed ferry between the islands to get to their delightful retreat.

Amazingly, after the very wet spring we've been enduring, the weather gods smiled on Denman and the weekend was sunny.

The tour included several open houses as well as their gardens, but although nearly all the houses were beautiful examples of west coast modern style with abundant use of natural wood, I'm only slightly embarrassed to say it was the plants that took all my attention. As Denman has a large resident deer population, most gardens are protected at least in part by fencing, but many also had successful deer-resistant plantings outside the fences.

Given the Island's rural ambience and its issues with water shortages, I thought that this meadow garden approach was both practical and in tune with the surrounding countryside.

Pools were popular elements, and I was intrigued by both the colour of the water and the (home-made?) floating island at one garden.

Several properties were on sloping sites that lent themselves to landscaping on several different levels. It is not surprising that Sandy and Des Kennedy's lovingly-tended garden has graced the pages of many gardening magazines.

I'm envious of the way a large garden can have a great swath of the same plant, in this case a dramatic ornamental onion, perhaps Allium giganteum.

The garden seemed to be having a purple moment and lavender spikes of Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matronalis) scattered throughout provided a satisfying unity to a richly varied tapestry.

Along with ornamental grasses, iris and poppies, it seemed a popular choice for for many islanders. At a different garden, another similar palette complemented another appealing home.

As I was admiring the charming cottage and its adjoining perennial bed, I had an unexpected chance to make friends with a resident cat.

At the end of the day, I was surprised when I looked through my photos that I hadn't taken more. Perhaps I was spoiled because Jim and Lauren had taken us to see the garden of a friend of theirs on Hornby Island the day before the Denman tour. It wasn't just that Eva has an enviable eye for composition and colour, but she also has been tending her garden for many years and that maturity shows as it did in the Kennedy's garden.

As we sat on the beach waiting for the ferry back towards Denman and beyond it to Vancouver Island, I thought that those beautiful gardens and the natural beauty of the BC coast were a combination that few places in the world could rival.