Novelty Flowers and Old Favourites

Aren't these neat Osteospermums? They're fun to look at. The petals are like little spoons. A description of one of the spoon-type Osteospermums on the Proven Winners plant website states that they don't require deadheading for continuous blooms. I like how they put it: "Plants will bury their dead". How considerate.


Finally, I have blooms on my Siberian iris clumps. Not on all of the clumps, mind you. I am an inpatient gardener and it has taken about three years for my Siberian irises to bloom! So if you are having this problem, just wait longer.

Sweet Williams:

Multiple colors on one stem! I should feel that this Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus) is giving me such a great deal for my dollar. Once I got these plants established, they have proven to be reliable biennials for me here in the north. The ones that are unprotected at the edges of the beds don't make it through the winters, but the ones towards the middle do just fine. The colors are bright and really add alot to the mid-July flower slump (post-tulip, pre-lily).

The sloped rock garden: yellow Digitalis grandiflora is in full bloom at the top. The fuzzy grey mound on the right is Artemisia "Silver mound".

Raising the Little Gardener

I am not ashamed for not being a hockey fan. Yes, I am Canadian, but our TV is more likely to be turned to HGTV than to a hockey game. Furthermore, we won't be sending our kids to hockey camps. Not a chance. I had no idea how fanatical people could get about hockey until I moved to Saskatchewan. Some of these folks are certifiable hockey-lunatics. Instead, I am planning on raising little gardeners and hope to cultivate the love of plants and gardening in these impressionable minds. The assistant gardener (two years old) already knows "tulips", "dandelions", and "alliums". I will be proud if she knows the botanical names of half a dozen plants before going to preschool. She has three garden tool sets, several watering cans, a wheelbarrow, and a couple of gardening gloves (though they're still too large). I may not be able to convert any adult non-gardener into a plant-lover, but as terrorists and cults have shown, you can have great influence on the young. So here I am, somewhere between a hockey fan and and a terrorist..

As a part of my strategic plan: surround the child with garden-themed toys. I have found a favourite online toy store (Ape to Zebra) that sells quality non-toxic toys, such as this wooden Plan Toys vegetable garden:

I already have the Plan Toys wooden chalet dollhouse and family. Between taking baths, jumping out the skylights, and rearranging the furniture, the family certainly could enjoy tending the carrots and turnips. I see that there is also an "Eco House" with a windmill, recyling bins, and solar panels, for the environmentally-conscious wooden doll family. We have decided that children's toys should be about fun and having your child to grow up to be a good little citizen. Teaching your child to be wise with resources and grow their own food is a great thing.

Other garden-themed toys on my wishlist: the Haba baby's first soft vegetables:

Then you can teach about pests (and how they can be cute, I suppose) with the Haba Pommella apple and worm:

Healthy food goes hand-in-hand with gardening, and I love the cute wooden play foods. We have a little collection going already. This is the Melissa and Doug crate of fruit for cutting:

Finally, we have the Plan Toys "Farm wife". Hmmm. Aside from the scarf, plaid shirt, and long skirt, she looks strikingly like me! I'll wait till I find the ultra-stylish, Tilley-hat wearing "Gardener Mom".

(By the way, Ape to Zebra has really good shipping rates and I've been happy with the orders I have made.) While parents may not be able to control who their child marries or what career they choose, I'm hoping to create gardener-offspring. Does anyone have stories of success in this type of endeavor?

Digital Garden Renovation

There is a patch of flowerbed alongside our driveway that reminds me of a perpetual bad hair day. I spend a lot of time pondering what to do with this awful patch. I don't want to dig it up entirely, since it contains many spring bulbs which are just getting established as good clumps.

I need some larger plants with interesting textures to cover up the dying foliage of the early spring bulbs (mostly Siberian squill). The new plants can't clash with the dwarf lilac to the right, which I just tolerate. The cedar (Thuja) on the left has put strong fibrous roots through this whole area which make life difficult for many plants that have tried but failed to live here.

The cedar shades this spot in the morning, so the plants just get afternoon sun. I used my newly updated Realtime Landscaping Pro 5 program (PC) to get some ideas for new plants in this spot. Here is the proposed design:

The large central planting is a pale/yellow leaf Japanese barberry. Around it are Brunnera, white flowering begonias, a hosta, a green leaf coral bells (Heuchera), and another Campanula carpatica "Blue clips", since that plant already lives here and thrives in these conditions. I threw in a chives behind the barberry, since that plant thrives anywhere. Click on the photo for a closer image.
As an aside, here is my favourite columbine in the garden this year. I believe it is one of the "Songbird mix" plants I started last year. I bought the seeds from Swallowtail garden seeds, from whom I have bought many seeds and always been happy. I like this columbine because of the color, long spurs, and upwards-facing blooms. A real winner. Now I need more good pink columbines...