Too Much Color

My drive back from a quick trip to Saskatoon this week was accompanied by the audiobook version of Michael Pollan's "Second Nature: A Gardener's Education". After some chapters on the author's early experiences in gardening and the clash of culture vs. nature, there was a chapter on the history of roses (not a complete history by any means, but a few tidbits of interest). As I drove into Prince Albert, I found my car steering towards John's Garden Center, where hardy roses are likely to be found. Not much later, I walked out with "Prairie Celebration", a sub-zero Parkland hardy rose out of Morden, Manitoba. It is a shockingly bright pink, but at the time I felt less interested in pale pastels. I'm not sure it blends with the existing colors, as it is quite a showy color. Thinking about it more, I wonder if I should have bought three, and made a nice cluster of hot pink roses?
New rose "Prairie Celebration" is the hot pink flower on the right:

Blue Forget-Me-Not which now is naturalized in masses in my flower beds:

Pink Forget-Me-Not to complement the blue:

As a rule, roses for La Ronge (zone 1b) need to be one of the Parkland (Morden) roses or an Explorer rose (named after Canadian explorers, eg. John Cabot, William Baffin, etc.). For some reason, John's also had a significant number of hybrid tea roses, but I turned up my nose at those more tender roses and moved on to the hardy ones. "Prairie Celebration" is one of the newer Parkland roses, introduced in 2003. I read online that there is also a new one this year called "Prairie Snowdrift", which is white. That one wasn't available at my local garden center.
My pink Lily of the Valley spreads very slowly in my shady patch under an ash tree

I assume that its bad reputation for spreading aggressively probably comes from milder climate zones. I have waited years for this bunch to become more than a few lonely leaves. It is a great idea for planting under deciduous trees.
My first daffodils of the year:

Lots of Northern Blooms

We've had some nice sunny weather and mild biting bug levels this week. The raised beds are finally looking more green than brown, and the flowering bulbs are showing themselves. I had these grape hyacinths marked as daffodils, but they look great there nonetheless:

Primula auricula in the shaded flowerbed, a dainty yet striking hardy perennial flower:

I planted up my Escheverias in their concrete pot last night. I remade my monochromatic container planting of last year from the leaf cuttings of last summer's plants:

A wild shrub just behind our house produced these interesting flowers. It looks like a wild berry by the foliage (we have various wild Ribes and Rubus shrubs around here), but I'm not sure what it is:

My Fritillaria meleagris is still showing its artsy checkered flowers. This plant nevered flowered after 2009's horrendous winter, but clearly is still alive and well.

My rugosa rose suffered major damage in the winter of 2009 and now seems to be producing only new growth from near the ground. If it looks embarrassingly unattractive at the end of this season, I might think of replacing it.

Dryas octopetala "Alpine Carpet" is one the nicest plants in the alpine bed. It has glossy evergreen leaves, and creeps slowly, forming a nice low mat between the rocks:

We took a little drive around some newer properties in town last night. One large and very attractive house was for sale, with a yard consisting of dirt, weeds, and rocks interspersed with junk. Resident-lawnmower-man pointed out how some modest landscaping could add a significant value to the house, and why hadn't the homeowner thought of this? Sometimes I feel that "landscaping deficiency" is a new epidemic. I wonder if more and more younger folks just have no interest in landscaping their yards or spending time in the upkeep of a yard. Only marginally better are the houses with only a lawn that extends from road to the house, with nary a shrub or perennial or flower bed of any sort in sight. I could understand that older folks might not have the ability to maintain a yard, but I know that a lot of these places are inhabited by young people in our town. RLM is hoping that landscaping is somehow infectious, and that our yard is inspiring other folks to enhance their own properties. I'd even donate divided perennials to anyone who wants them! Here's to a beautiful town this summer.

Garlic Grows Here!

We just got back from our visit to the southern parts of the province. I could detect our northward travel with my eyes closed: the splatting noise of insects hitting the windshield got both more frequent and louder. The windshield was covered in yellow and brown goo by the time we got back to La Ronge. Ahhhh, welcome to summer, northern residents!

Large raised perennial bed:

Alpine garden, with white flowers of Cerastium alpinum (foreground) and Erigeron compositus:

In another hardiness experiment, I planted hardneck garlic in the vegetable raised bed last fall. This was new to me, and I wasn't entirely sure how to do it, but I must have done something right. There are two garlic plants sticking boldly out of the soil, which is so exciting! It is a variety called "Music". I can't even recall why I picked this type of garlic, if indeed there was a reason. I received a few whole garlic bulbs and broke these into single cloves, careful to leave a bit of the base plate attached to each clove. I planted them in my vegetable raised bed, which is some soil contained by a rectangle of 10" high lumber.
White Pulsatilla vulgaris growing in part shade:

I am also quite pleased that most of my strawberries overwintered well. They were planted in the vegetable raised bed and covered with a bit of leaf mulch for the winter. They only came up and showed some leaves this week, reassuring me that they are still here. Previously, I had only been aware of the everbearing and June-bearing strawberries. The new day-neutral types were recommended by several sources, including the University of Saskatchewan gardenline. I'm hoping for a great crop this year.
Strawberry "Hecker", purchased last year at Dutch Growers in Saskatoon: