My new garden boyfriend

There’s a new man in my garden and he is a little fierce looking, don’t cha think? I mean, all that long hair and what about those teeth? I’m okay with it though. Because, really, he is quite the pussycat.

Since he appears to be sticking around we have named him Lionel (after a favourite character in the show As Time Goes By.) I have a bit of a crush on him actually. He is the strong, silent type and doesn’t ask for much besides a drink now and then (like many men).

  

He brings a certain ambience to the garden and soothes us with his gentle song after a long day. To be truthful, we don’t know how we lived without him for so long.

I find myself wanting to plant at his feet. First, I moved a languishing maidenhair fern from a too shady spot to his base. It will keep the ostrich fern beside him company. Next, perhaps a silvery fern like the Japanese Painted Fern?

I don’t want the spot to get busy and plan to stick with a pretty monochromatic palette with emphasis on texture and maybe one or two stunning plants that bloom in succession. How about something with some white candle-shaped flowers to contrast against his dark complexion? Off to his side is a Limelight hydrangea which I think will look gorgeous against him later in the summer.

I am open to suggestions from all you experts with such good taste. The bed is south facing but gets dappled light for most of the day. I know he will appreciate your efforts.

I think maybe he likes to be adorned, and, um, admired. :)

The plant that makes you go 'Awwww'

I know the Internet is full of cute kittens and giggling babies doing adorable things, but really, is there anything cuter than muscari? I think not. We planted 30 bulbs of the 'magic carpet' mix last fall in our flurry of last minute bulb planting and now these little guys are popping up in the cutest bunches.

They are a mix of white, blues and combos of various blues and/or whites together. I swear if you listen closely you can hear them singing joyful songs.

If I told you I got down on my stomach JUST TO LOOK AT THEM (not even to take their pictures!) would you understand? :)

Pretty much all thirty of them have come up but it is not enough. I need more.

There is something about their miniature perfection that delights me. They make me feel like a kid again (my dolls would have loved a bouquet of these!). At the same time they are terribly romantic and old-fashioned.

I will be haunting the garden centres at the end of summer to pick up more of these cuties. I mean, really, after a long winter, don't we all need a flower that makes us go awwwww... :)

And then there was life...

After the longest winter I can remember there is life emerging in the garden.

We went on a flurry of bulb planting last fall and our efforts have been rewarded with these tiny jewels, galanthus.

I'm sure I looked like a mad woman on my stomach, in my slippers, wiggling through the wet mulch, but so worth getting close up to these beauties.

At least I didn't start singing Hallelujah...! :)

Dream a Little Dream of Green...

Are all you GWN gardeners yearning for a little green? Is the only green on your thumbs from the ink of seed catalogs? I've been perusing garden photos from the last year and dreaming of the colour green. In doing so, I came across these greenest of photos, the Japanese Garden at the Butchart Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia. We were there at the end of March last year and spent a misty (sometimes rainy) day in the garden. The rain only served to intensify the colours and give the whole day a dreamy quality as we had the place mostly to ourselves. So, please join me and get lost in a little of the green...

I was profoundly taken with this garden. In fact, it has caused me to rethink the look I hope my garden to evolve to. While I need more colour than this, perhaps because my season is so fleeting, I really enjoy the prominence of form and texture in a limited palate. Maybe also, because for many months of the year my garden is mostly white.

I've always been a big fan of moss and it was used to great effect in this garden. The moss on the branches highlighted their form and echoed the garden floor. With the green on the evergreens and the moss on the branches the vertical element lent a sense of enclosure. Although it was raining, we felt enveloped in a velvety green space.

The variations of green included spots that glowed. Even in the gloom of the rain the shaded garden made its own sunshine.

My favourite memory is of my little boy, in green, stepping in wonder back and forth across the "magic" stepping stones suspended in the water.

So, if you're getting weary of thumbing the seed catalogs and dreaming of your gardens as they will be, take a look back over your photos from the last year and remember how nice it is to dream a little "green" with me. :)  

Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises. ~Pedro Calderon de la Barca