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.

The Sharpe Schoolhouse Garden, Caledon Ontario

I hope everyone had a great weekend. This week, my garden blog posts are united by a school theme. 

I begin the week, with a historic schoolhouse home and garden on Old School Road in Caledon, Ontario. Old School Road was so named because, in days gone by when children walked to school, there was a school built ever two or three miles along the road to make the distance from home to school manageable.

The heritage building has a family connection for Mr. Sharpe, its current owner. Mr. Sharpe's father attended the school for eight years and his mother later taught there. The schoolhouse is, in fact, where his parents met. The year Mr. Sharpe started grade one, the school closed, so he himself missed attending it by just a few years.

When the school came up for auction, his father bought and renovated it, turning it into a private residence. Great care was taken in the renovation process to maintain period details and keep the edition at the back of the schoolhouse in keeping with the original structure. 

At the front of the property a Union Jack flag, which is the flag appropriate to the school's founding date of 1879, flies high above a circular bed of clipped yew and euonymus.

The school bell can still be rung using a firm pull on the rope in the front vestibule.

The charming front door knocker.

 The Sharpe's have also planted a lovely garden on the property. With out further ado, let's head down the flagstone path that encircles the house to see the beautifully designed garden.

As you turn to the right of the schoolhouse, you pass under a birch tree and follow along a path through the herb garden. 

A little further along the path is a large deck.

A decorative urn filled with coleus on the deck.

 Japanese anemone

 A bridge and pond a few steps further down the path. 

(Left) The vivid orange of Mountain Ash berries. (Right) A set of stone steps lead down to a flagstone patio.

The sheltered patio at the back of the vine covered home.

Great Fall Color in a Country Garden in Eramosa Township

Heuchera blossoms in the foreground with Japanese Blood Grass in the background

The expansive roadside flower beds brimming with fall color leave no doubt that this small stone farmhouse in Eramosa township is a gardener's home. 

Tall clumps of Feather Reed Grass stand like sentinels on either side of the home's driveway. Summer flowers which include Annabelle Hydrangea and orange colored daylilies are succeeded in fall by Brown-eyed Susan, Echinacea, Sedum and large clumps of tall grass. In the winter months, evergreens take over the job of providing interest in the garden. 

River rock curves its way across the bottom of the roadside banks of perennials. Large scale boulders were brought in to add permanent, all-season structure to the flower beds. 

The old stone farm house dates from around the 1850's.

River rock was also used to frame the large oval shaped garden at the end of the driveway. A curved set of stone steps lead up into the bed of flowers. Here again sweeping clumps of tall grasses, Sedum and Brown-eyed Susan add dramatic fall color.

At the front of the house, a cluster of different varieties of Phlox, Echinacea (above), Globe Thistle (below) and the last of the pink Holllyhocks (below) were all in bloom, when we visited the garden.

In the back garden, the sea of Periwinkle must look amazing when the purple flowers emerge in spring. Even green, this mass planting is quite striking.

Also in the back garden, this Japanese Blood Grass looks amazing with sedum as a backdrop.

There are two seating areas in the back garden, a circular stone patio just off the back door and this little nook above, with its park bench and small pond (half hidden on the right).

A rustic birdhouse in the back garden

A Chipmunk with a battle-scared face pays a fall visit to the garden

For wild animals and birds, summer can be a fairly quiet time for activity in the garden. Come fall however, birds rediscover the feeders, squirrels and chipmunks scamper about the garden looking for that seed or nut, which will get them through the coming winter.