A Sneak Peek at What's New and Exciting

If you were lucky enough to find yourself in a room filled with free plant samples that you could take home and trial in your garden, what would choose?

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself in just such a happy conundrum. 

The occassion was the Annual President's Choice ® Sneak Peek Event hosted by Peter Cantley, Vice President of Floral and Garden for Loblaw Co. Ltd's chain of grocery stores here in Canada. For a single afternoon a room in the Toronto Botanical Garden was transformed into an indoor garden filled with plants; all of them available for attendees to trial.

The event proved to be a wonderful opportunity to meet other garden writers, talk with growers and get an advanced look at what new plants would be in bloom at Loblaw Garden Centres this spring.

I honestly can't think of another retail chain here in Canada that does a better job with their outdoor garden centres than Loblaw does. 

A good part of my garden is built on President's Choice® starter sized perennials priced 4/$10. All of my Japanese ferns, ornamental grasses and many of the accessories in my garden come from the amazing clearance sales in early July.

I also like the fact that they have a Recycle Program that collects empty pots and flats and returns them to the manufacturer to be ground down and made into next year's plant pots. 

The company works in close partnership with its growers to develop unique and often exclusive offerings each year. For instance, I think this newly redesigned hanging basket (available in apple green and plum) is a huge improvement on the cringe-worthy white plastic hanging baskets that you would find commonly in nurseries and garden centre in year's past.

Other items you may find interesting this spring are: Hardy fig trees (watch a short video on these fig trees by clicking the link), Haskap berries (a cross between a blueberries, raspberries and Saskatoon berries),  and the Mighty 'Mato (watch a short video on these 6 foot or taller tomato plants by clicking the link)

On a recent visit to my local Loblaw Garden Centre I was thrilled to see that they even had a nice selection of plants native to Ontario. 

I sapped up white, yellow and red flowering trilliums for $3.99 each.

Have you seen these shorter varieties of Clematis? 

They only grow to a height of three or four feet which makes them perfect for growing along a shorter fence like the picket fence I have bordering the front garden. 

I love when Clematis tumble over the top of the white pickets.

So what did I select at the Sneak Peek Event to trial in my garden this summer?

Who could resist this pretty Purple Get Mee ™ Campanula? I have never had a dwarf campanula last  for more than a few years in my garden. This cultivar is not only supposed to be extra hardy, it blooms for an extended time.

I also choose several hostas, some annuals and a few ornamental grasses from the tremendous selection of plants on hand:

The leaves of 'Rainforest Sunrise' are solid light green when they emerge and quickly develop dark green borders with radiant gold centres. The thick, glossy foliage is supposed to be slug resistant. Exposure: Sun/Part shade Height: 20 cm Spread: 40 cm

'Designer Genes' has brilliant yellow leaves that emerge from deep red/wine shoots in early spring, making it a good companion plant for spring bulbs. In comparison with the foliage of other yellow hostas, this cultivar supposedly holds its color well. Tall red scapes carry purple flowers in summer. Sun/Part shade Height: 45 cm Spread: 30 cm

These heat tolerant cultivars promise a heavy display of flowers all summer long. Geraniums require 3 to 6 hours of sun daily. Height: 30 cm Spread: 45 cm

DahliaNova ® is a neat compact plant with double, extra large blooms. Sun/light shade Height: 25 cm Spread: 30 cm  

Go-Go™ Rose Bicolor Begonias Sun/light shade Height: 20-25 cm Spread: 20-25 cm 

Fescue glauca 'Boulder Blue' Exposure: Sun Height: 20 cm Spread: 60 cm

Variegated Feather Reed Grass, Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Avalanche' Exposure: Sun/part shade Height: 120 cm Spread: 90 cm

The best news is that I am not the only one with a chance to test drive some of these exciting new President's Choice ® plants. 

Loblaw Companies Ltd. has generously provided me with two $25 gift cards. The gift cards will be given away in a draw to two lucky Canadian gardeners. Canadian readers who leave a comment below will be entered in the draw. If you are not a blogger, you can still enter by emailing me at jenc_art@hotmail.com. Contest will stay open for one week. Winner to be announced in an upcoming post. 

Good luck everyone!

P.S. I promise to announce the winners of the most recent book giveaway in the next post.

A Garden Over Twenty Years in the Making (Part 2)

We will pick up our tour of Liz Maliki's wonderful garden on the curving path 

leading into the back garden.

The plantings along the pathway include (starting along the top row on the left) a spirea, a Pieris Japonica, and a Japanese Maple. In the lower row there is also a hosta with spear-shaped foliage and two white Foam Flowers, Tiarella cordifolia.

Foam Flower, Tiarella cordifolia

Along the length of the back fence are a series of hanging baskets filled with colorful annuals.

Looking back down the pathway.

A closeup of the Golden Japanese Forest Grass, Hakonechloa macra and Jacob's Ladder, Polemonium caeruleum which you can see in the lower left corner of the last shot.

Another close-up of Jacob's Ladder, Polemonium caeruleum

The flowerbeds continue on from the back of the garden shed and run the length of the property.

I want to pause in our tour to show you something which I think was an act of brilliance on Liz's part.  I wish I had thought of this for my own garden!

Running wide flowerbeds parallel to the backyard fence is a very typical thing for many homeowners to do. The problem with this kind of layout is that weeding beds which are several feet deep can be tricky once the garden fills in by mid-summer. The plants block easy access from the front and the fence blocks access from the back.

What Liz did was to run a walkway behind the flowerbeds, right next to the fence using some recycled concrete pavers. When the garden leafs out, you barely see the hidden walkway and yet it gives her an easy way to weed the back of the garden. When we spoke on the phone, Liz also pointed out that this design trick also improves air circulation and helps with problems like powdery mildew.

One of the many things that impressed me about Liz's garden was her talent for growing rhododendrons; a shrub I have had little success with. I have always thought of rhododendrons as fussy shrubs that did not like the dry summers and the harsh Ontario winters. 

When we chatted, Liz advised me that understanding the root systems would make me more successful with growing rhododendrons. These shrubs are surface feeders and they can be damaged by planting them to deeply. 

Plant the top of the root ball at the surface of the soil and then mulch. Rhododendrons like light, sandy acidic soils which is high in organic matter.

We will end our tour in this pretty little corner of the garden.

As I wrote in my last post, Liz Maliki's garden was one of the terrific stops featured on last year's Annual Canadian Cancer Society's Garden Tour in Mississauaga, Ontario. 

This year's tour will again offer a unique opportunity to visit gardens in the Lorne Park neighbourhood of Mississauga and enjoy live instrumental music in select locations. Featured guest, Paul Zammit, director of horticulture at the Toronto Botanical Garden, will offer tips and garden advice.

For tour details and ticket information:

A Garden Over Twenty Years in the Making (Part 1)

In my area, the garden tour season kicks off with the annual Canadian Cancer Society Tour in late May. Not only does the tour support a worthy cause, it is a wonderful opportunity to see local gardens in all their late spring splendour.

Today I want to share with you a garden that was a standout on last year's tour.

The lot runs wide to the road and so it was hard to get everything in a single shot. 

This is a view of the central portion of the front garden.

In the beginning, Liz Maliki inherited a builder's beige front garden with a few rather nondescript planting beds and some basic hardscaping. What she really wanted was a garden with interesting sight lines, texture, color and a full four seasons of interest. 

To determine a new layout for her garden, Liz stood at the front of the house in the dead of winter, when there are less visual distractions from foliage and flowers, and devised her plan. 

The lot she had to work with was a wide rectangle that sloped gently down to the road. Though the plantings were initially unspectacular, Liz was lucky to have inherited some mature trees including some pines and a red maple. In her new design, Liz incorporated a sweeping series of curved flowerbeds, a fresh mix of plants, and new pathway leading to the entrance to the house.

Let's take a look at this pretty garden over twenty years in the making and still evolving to this day:

Everywhere you look there are beautiful combinations of color and texture. Even when there is little in 

bloom, this planting bed will still be colorful.

Here we are looking at the same bed as in the previous shot, but this time from the opposite angle. The pink flower in the middle foreground is the Tree Peony in the next shot.

Tree Peony

A closer look at that mix of perennials and shrubs including hosta, blue and golden colored evergreens, a maroon colored Barberry bush, a golden colored Heuchera (to the left of the Barberry) and Zebra grass (middle foreground).

Most of the planting beds can be viewed from both sides and a variety of perspectives. The plantings are not stepped in the traditional way: shorter perennials in front, intermediate and then taller perennials at the back. Instead, Liz has made a point of keeping sight lines visually appealing by varying plant heights like notes in a musical score.

A few of the perennials in this bed are hightlighted below: a mix of Heuchera (top right), Hosta (left)

the unexpected use of Chives (lower left) and a creamy yellow Tree Peony (lower right).

Hostas aren't ordinary when you combine a bright, lime-colored cultivar, a deeply-ribbed, solid green one and bookend them with two variegated varieties. 

What I think Liz has created here is visual music. The busier variegation of the Euonymous is like the lively notes of a violin singing above the deep, mellow notes of a chello or base, which in this case, are the big-leafed hostas.

This is the walkway leading to the front door. On the left, boxwood frames a flowerbed filled with Rhododendrons, Euonymus, a Korean Lilac (on the left edge of the picture). 

And this is a portion of the flowerbed on the opposite side of the front walkway.

Two final pictures of the front walkway. That is a pink Weigela cascading down 

into the picture frame on the right.

In this detail shot, Liz has planted a combination of Hosta, Heather (lower left) pink Azalea 

and a Spirea (lower right corner).

In the next post, we will head into the back garden.

More Information and Links:

Here are all the details you need to know to attend this year's Canadian Cancer Society Tour.

I am going to link this post with the Garden Party at Fishtailcottage 

and to Fertilizer Friday at Tootsie Time.