The Last GBBD of 2012

We were walking along the road with the dogs the other evening when my husband took my hand in his.

"Oh, your hands are soft!", he said with surprise.

"Hmm...", I acknowledged, though with an undercurrent of sadness, "I haven't been gardening."

Usually, my hands are rough sandpaper, but the last few weeks have been busy ones with little time for pulling weeds or mucking about in the dirt.

The gardening season is almost over, in fact this will be the last Garden Blogger's Bloom Day that I can participate in this year. 

My blooms are down to a few roses, some hydrangeas and a few perennials that are sprinkled throughout the garden.

What a wild ride this gardening season it has been, eh?

June weather in April, then a cold snap that sent everything into shock, followed by a summer with relentless heat, and little, if any rain. 

Thankfully, fall rains made up for summer's lack of generosity. The garden recovered somewhat at least. Fruit and berries were sacrificed however, as tree and shrubs held themselves in reserve. 

No pretty ornamental crabapples to put in fall arrangements this year! 

I usually pick up tubs and tubs of black walnuts off the lawn. This year there wasn't enough walnuts to fill even a single bin.

Fall has not been without a few surprises as well. 

On the weekend, it was like Mother Nature was turning off and on a fall light switch. Friday night, temperatures plummeted and we had our first hard frost. 

By Saturday morning, everything was covered in tiny ice crystals. 

As if on cue, the enormous black walnut in the backyard dropped almost all its leaves in the space of a single day. By evening, the snowstorm of falling leaves had covered entire lawn in a golden blanket.

Then... just to keep us guessing as to her intentions, Mother Nature graced us with a mild, humid day on Sunday.

Will winter be this unpredictable? I guess we will soon see!

So what remains on this, the my last Garden Blogger Bloom Day of 2012? 

My velevety-red coleus and the one above perished in the cold snap. My potato vines are mush. 

On Saturday morning, I discover a dopey half-frozen bee on the blue Agastache (left). The sky-blue calamint (right) continues to bloom in the front garden, although the tiny flowers have faded to light mauve in the cold.

Up until Friday night's frost, there were still a few Lavatera flowers.

And a bedraggled clematis that I got at an end-of-season clearance sale was so happy 

to have found a loving home that it flowered late last week as a thank you.

 My harvest of carrots was again a little meagre this fall, but I am still at that novice stage of vegetable gardening where any kind of a harvest, no matter how humble, is still exciting. 

I am very glad that I grew more annuals this year, especially sunflowers.

The chickadees feasting on the sunflower seeds were a joy to watch in the first weeks of fall.

There are still a few chores to do in the garden before all is said and done. 

I have some tomato plants to remove, bulbs to plant and leaves to rake. 

Then I will have the winter to think about what worked and what didn't... 

to consider the lessons learned...

and to dream about what I want to grow next year.

Seeds are set. With or without me, the garden is preparing itself for next year.

Just a hollow husk of its former glory, this poppy has dispersed its seeds on the wind.

 Next year's garden has already begun...

I am going to link this post to May Dreams Gardens GBBD. 

To see other beautiful October gardens in bloom, please click the link.

The Last of Summer's Roses

I have always thought of roses as delicate, fussy plants- they need generous amount of water, they are susceptible to a wide range of pests and they need winter protection from the extremes of winter weather here in Canada.

In the last few weeks however, I find that I have been impressed with their persistence and their plucky determination in the face of the cold fall weather. 

Mid-summer Fairy roses were more lush

There have not been many blooms and quite frankly, the ones that there has been, are smaller and less spectacular than the generously ruffled blooms of mid-summer.

Yet, with all the other flowers faded or gone, theses late fall jewels seem very special indeed. In the last few weeks, I have been picking them, when I see them, and bringing them into the house, where I have more opportunity to enjoy them.

The Fairy rose covered in frost crystals

Now in late fall, the Fairy blooms are more petite.

Cream Groundcover rose

I love to put the roses in tiny bud vases and set them in a window, where the sunlight illuminates their petals.

the David Austin rose: L D Braithwaite

The cold weather is an unwelcome guest that is planning on an extended stay. 

We have had yet another hard frost this morning- the garden was glittering with all the ice crystals in the early morning light. 

Only a few tiny rose buds remain, shut up tight, waiting for the sun and warmth that will never come on a gray November day. 

I will have to go out later and pick them in hopes that they will open in the warmth of the house.

The Brickworks, Toronto, Ontario

Is it possible to beautify and repurpose an old industrial space?  Evergreen, a non-profit organization, dedicated to bringing nature back into Canadian towns and cities thinks that it is. 

Just take a look at their Brickworks project in Toronto's Don Valley.

Archival photo from Evergeen.ca

Four hundred million years ago, the Don Valley in Toronto was a tropical sea. A thousand years ago it was at the mouth of a glacial river. Then 12,500 years ago the glacier melted and retreated north.

In more modern times, the Don Valley was the site of three paper mills and the Don Valley Brickworks. At its peak, more than 43 million bricks were manufactured at the Brickworks.

In 1904, a major fire destroyed much of the Toronto's downtown core and new by-laws were passed requiring masonry construction for all new buildings. The Don Valley Brickworks, which produced a wide variety of bricks and other kiln-fired clay products, supplied much of the materials for the rebuilding of the downtown, as well as the materials for many major structures including Massey Hall and Casa Loma.

In 1984, the Brickwork's factory closed its doors and then in 1986, the land was expropriated by the City of Toronto and the Regional Conservation authority. The site's quarry was restored as a park and natural area. The environmental group, Evergreen focused on the site's historic buildings, revitalizing them through a process they refer to as "adaptive re-use."

The Brickworks is now a 40 acre green space and is a wonderful place to spend a fall afternoon. On the afternoon of our visit, we were lucky enough to see wild ducks among the bull rushes in the ponds and turtles sunning themselves on the shore. 

Evergreen's Brickworks is open year round. On Saturdays, there is a Farmers Market , as well as DYI Workshops. There is also a retail garden center dedicated to helping Torontonians bring nature back into their backyard or balcony.

To find out more about Evergreen and their many other green projects visit their website: www.Evergreen.ca.

Have a great weekend everyone!

A Fall Harvest Worth of Rose Hips, Berries & Fruit

The brilliant orange berries of a Burning Bush in the late day sun.

Flowers are perhaps my greatest passion, but I think that nuts, rose hips, fruit and berries can bring as much interest as flowers to the garden. 

I love, love tangy currant jam on warm buttered toast. 

In my Circle garden, I have patiently been waiting for both black and red currant bushes to mature. Next year I should have a bumper crop. 

Come spring, I will have dig deep to discover that well buried, inner domestic diva and make some homemade currant jam.

I have two Cotoneaster shrubs. Do you have any in your garden? Aren't the bright red berries terrific! (The oldest of my Cotoneasters suffered major damage last winter. This one shown is at a Edwards Gardens.)

I try to be vigilant and remove any spent roses, but the ones I miss form rose hips that I often use to add color to the evergreens that I arrange in containers at Christmas time.

I am not at all a plant snob. Even the blush of peach on the tiny cream colored berries of an oh-so-common euonymus has a delicate beauty I appreciate.

I have this Porcelain Vine in half shade on the fence to my Circle Garden. Turquoise, purple and maroon berries decorate this pretty variegated vine. 

This is the third year I've had it in the garden and it has behaved itself so far. 

This fall however, there is an abundance of berries for the first time. Though it is in an isolated central bed, it has occurred to me that I might have grounds to be worried about what will happen when all those bright colored berries drop to the ground! 

Last week, I looked it up online and notice that it is considered invasive. Yikes! Will the garden be overrun with Porcelain Vine?

What makes me kind of angry is that this is a vine readably available for purchase. Why, why, why do nurseries sell invasive plant varieties???

It is so pretty it will break my heart to rip it all out! What do you think? Should I ripe it out now before it gets a stronger foothold? 

Canada Yew

Another great red "berry". Actually the berry is considered a "false-fruit". This is on an old Yew in the vacant lot behind our home. The fruit kind of reminds me of olives. Can see the dark seed inside the translucent envelope of the fruit?

I have much yet to learn when it comes to evergreens and so I looked this one up online too. The Ministry of Ontario identifies it as a Canada Yew that is "prized by the Pharmaceutical industry" as the resource for important cancer fighting drugs. Ironically, it is highly toxic to humans if consumed. Interesting. You learn something new everyday!

Purple Beautyberry at Edwards Garden (Callicarpa dichotoma 'Early Amethyst' )

I am always on the lookout for new shrubs with berries to add to my garden. I saw this Beautyberry bush at Edwards Gardens and thought that the berries were such an outrageous color that they almost looked fake. It is so unusual, that I think I might want to invite a Beautybush to come home with me on my next nursery visit.

I looked and looked for a plant tag to identify these nuts/berries(?) on a tree that I also saw at Edwards Gardens. I have no idea what they are, but I loved their golden color. By chance, do you know the name of this tree?

Red Osier Dogwood (Cornus sericea)

Ironically, I have tried unsuccessfully for several years to get a "Snowberry" bush to overwinter without any luck. I think I might try the bush above instead, which has similar white berries. I spotted it in the local library's garden. I believe it is a Red Osier Dogwood.

Fall Clean Up

 Frost melts into tiny water droplets on my Euphorbia polychroma 'Bonfire'

I hope you have been enjoying the same wonderful weather we have been blessed with here this fall. There has been only a few really cold nights, with a light morning frost that quickly melts in the sunshine. 

Yesterday was glorious. I was out in the yard, without so much as a sweater, beginning the fall clean up of the garden. 

We have several mature trees in the yard, the oldest of which is a Black Walnut, that towers some three stories over the garden. It produces a prodigious number of walnuts, many as big as medium sized apples. These lime green, rock hard orbs can rain down with from the sky with such force, it can damage the garden fence or snap the rungs of my wooden arbor in two. 

The yard, littered with the hundreds of these round walnuts, becomes a roller rink that can send you sailing.

Burgundy Mum from the front garden

Black walnuts are supposedly a delicacy, however I have yet to figure out how to crack them open. Their impenetrable outer shell defies me!  

Picking up the walnuts is a backbreaking enterprise. First, I have to rake them into piles and then I scoop them up into an old metal dustpan. If I neglect to get the job done, the walnuts soften and turn in to papery black balls, that ooze a liquid as dark and thick as crude oil.

The water fountain in the back garden

What are your thoughts on fall clean up in the garden? Do you rake your beds clear?

In the past, I always put fall leaves into my compost pile. Then I started wondering, why I was doing this? When leaves fall in a forest, no one is there to "clean up". 

So, for the last few years I have been experimenting. 

It all started with the woodland bed, under our large maple. I stopped raking away the yellow maple leaves when they fell. 

During our harsh Canadian winters, I think that fall leaves make a great blanket that protects the plants that rest warm and cozy underneath them.

Pokeweed with frost crystals

I did not rake the maple leaves away in the spring either. 

Initially, I was worried that the new growth might rot under the leaves or be consumed by insects, who would not distinguish between the decomposing leaves and the new growth. 

But no, the new spring growth emerged from the leaf covered beds just fine. 

Then last year, when I cut down the the peonies in my front garden, I laid the spent plant's leaves right back on the bed. In June, the peonies thanked me with a profusion of blooms.

Hydrangeas

I don't know if these fall clean up experiments will backfire on me at some point, but so far so good!

Many of my roses still carry on and a few even have blooms, including this white ground cover rose that I purchased on sale at the local grocery store.