2011 Cloverleaf Garden Tour

The garden shed seems like a secret hideaway in the garden.

The colour and layout invite  you to stay and unwind. Note the variations in colour without the use of flowers.

What a wonderful tour!  This year's Cloverleaf Garden Tour was well planned to provide two areas of concentration.  The Munden Park area was walkable, many people like to park once and walk to visit the gardens.
My favourite garden was #2 belonging to Al and Judy Hirsh in Gordon Woods. .  It is obviously a labour of love they  have spent may hours enjoying and creating. It's a shade garden and makes extensive use of hostas. But Judy has an eye for colour and paints with the plants they way an artist uses colour to create a picture.  Next to the blue leaves of a Big Daddy hosta  the chartreuse sedge, Japanese Forest grass waves and flows providing an eye catching hit of colour that draws your eye to the corner where it is nestled.

Hakonechloa macra - All gold Japanese Forest grass, provides  an  eyecatching focus. 

Judy artfully places large planters of annuals to relieve the green and to thrill you with a new colour in unexpected places.  Containers were grouped on the deck and in groups throughout the garden.

Plants carefully chosed to complement the container colour.

Interesting arrangement on the deck make you stop and appreciate the beauty. 

Her skill in filling containers is apparent and brightens green corners. 

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It's Yellow Time in the garden

King's buttercup - lysimachia

Yellow evening primose with king's buttercup in the background

This time of year the primrose bloom and take over the colour scheme in my garden.  Hardly anyone has King's buttercup in their garden anymore, but I like the old fashioned bloom. Yellow can really brighten a dark corner and I have many in my shady garden.

But yellow isn't the only colour and I planted gold flame spirea bushes and roses to fill the colour gap in June.

Frobel's spirea adds pink to the seaon

Sweet william in the front garden, the only trouble with buying items at a club garden sale is you seldom know the colour. 

A Canadian Explorer Rose  - the first year.

Carefree rose with sage spires

Bonica rose

Drat those red beetles!

I thought I had almost picked off and squashed every red lily beetle in my front garden - but no! I went out the other day and the stem of the lily was one black slimy tree of blobs on my tiger lily.  In spite of my huge distaste, I picked off every egg case, ugh!  Then I put some coffee grounds around the bottom of the plant. It seems to have stayed the invasion for the time being. Most people just end up pulling their lilies out in frustration. I read about a person who picked off 600 slugs in his garden in an effort to rid his property of them, and he didn't end up diminishing the population in any real way!  So I guess I will not eradicate the red lily beetle from my intervention.  They are obviously flying in from all those gardens where people pulled out their lilies.

Clematis

Clematis - Ramona. I think this is the 5th year for this plant.

Wow! are the clematis ever beautiful this year.  We were cursing all the rain, but this is the best display my clematis has ever shown. So finally I didn't break the vine or pull it out when I was weeding.  I had another one growing beside it which was pink with magenta stripes, but I broke it or 'weeded' it.  It did have 3 blooms for a week.
 I have a white clematis, which hasn't open yet and it is covered in blooms too. The roses in everyone's garden are covered in buds.  I think this very English like weather is responsible!

Rhodo recovery

At least it bloomed!

 I thought I was going to lose this rhodo last year, but it did come back.  I followed advice from a couple of people, one who told me to take the rocks away form around the base of the plant. the roots are delicate and don't like pressure.  Another member of the Garden Club gave me some aluminium sulfate to put around the base of the plant and it made a huge difference. I'm amazed it bloomed.  The buds held on all winter and I did doubt they would open, but actually it was quite lovely.  The blooms have almost dropped now, but I'm happy.

Size when I bought it. And it was covered in buds!

A year later - smaller, has lost almost all its leaves, but is starting  to look healthy.

I was relieved to see that the Rhododendrons at the Brueckner Garden had the same mysterious brown leaves as my plant suffered from.  They encouraged me to wait out whatever it was/  I clipped out the branches as the leaves withered and turned brown and new shoots come in nicely green. I hope it stays healthy this summer and blooms next year. 

Perennial Geraniums

I found out today the reason why the hardy geranium is called the cranesbill. Apparently the when the seed head ripens and explodes it resembles the open beak of the crane's bill. 

I hope this isn't Johnson's Blue geranium.  I do like the colour and the size right now is perfect, so I hope it stays small and doesn't sprawl like Johnson's Blue, or it will have to be moved.

My favourite geranium - sanguenium

My favourite geranium is sanguineum. It is low bushy, and the leaves turn bronze in autumn. But best of all it blooms almost all summer with magenta flowers. It benefits from a good clipping after the first flush of bloom to make it compact again and to reset bloom.  I received it from my Mother-in-law, who got it from Victoria, B.C.'s Butchart Gardens!  Now that's history!

One grows this geranium for the colour of the leaves.  The flowers are pale lavendar and don't bloom for long.

I have Hocus Pocus. It has dark purple leaves and pale lavender flowers. But you grow it for the foliage. It is not easy to grow well and once it likes a spot, I don't suggest you move it.  I had to move one out of necessity and happily it likes the new location better. It's in more shade, but the plant isn't as straggly any more.

What is it? I hope someone out there knows.

What is this plant?  It is a self seeding annul and is low growing .  I don't know how it arrived in my garden.  I like it, but ...

Rhodos in Bloom

This weekend has to be a peak for the Brueckner Rhododendron Garden in Port Credit, Ontario. I was down last weekend, but this weekend they just seem to have exploded into every colour imaginable!  Here are a few choice pics!

Each part of the garden has a different aspect and focal point.

What a lovely grouping, one in bloom and one waiting to open.

How I wish this was my garden!

What a colour!