Garden Party in Upper Falmouth

Time for our Garden Club's closing dinner party, this year at the home of Roxanne, one of our members.  She and Paul have  a great property, and the evening was beautiful.  

Everyone ooohd and aaahd at the Black Lace Elderberry... and quite a few other things.

It's always fun touring a garden with the gardener.  Lots of shared wisdom, experience, successes, and failures.

The sun was bright, after a full day of dark clouds.  

Everything was quite lush.  Well, we have had a good share of rain, all spring, and a heavy shower just yesterday.

One member asked me what gardens we are going to tour this summer.  I guess I'm still on the planning committee!  I'd better get to work.  There's so much to see, in our own neighbourhoods.  

First Time Blooms

Well, I missed Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.  
Meanwhile, back at the cottage...

A few of my newer plants are blooming for the first time ever.  The plant above came from a garden club sale last year, basically unnamed.  Might be Stachys grandiflora.  The honeysuckle (Lonicera) below may have bloomed last year, but I'm counting this as its first time.  Was dug up somewhere... long forgotten, and just last year  brought these pieces to the cottage.

Finally bought a little gas plant last year, Dictamnus albus.  Nice to see it blooms the first year after planting, unlike a peony.  I've always thought of these as similar in growth and lifespan to peonies for some reason, though I've never had one of these before.  

And even the tiny kiwi vines are blooming!  Will there be fruit?  I have never seen a little berry from the hardy kiwi, Actinidia kolomikta.  Hopefully these vines will one day cover the geodesic dome, with the help of some other vines there.  

Other new plants will bloom as the year goes on... a wonderful delight of being a gardener like me: a collector.  

Seedling Survivors!

In a previous post I labelled the above plants wrongly.  Pretty sure these are Eryngium agavifolium, not yuccifolium. Whatever it is, it sure is looking great.  My tagging scheme fell by the wayside last year, and I'm still trying to identify a few things in the ground and in pots.

  Despite the wonderful season of colour, this post is rather green.  It is pouring rain today here in Nova Scotia, anyway. But this day celebrates some perennials and trees that I grew from seed last spring, and have survived!  Below is the stronger of two tiny Parthenium integrifolium, wild quinine.  At least they are alive, and even fighting off some bug that is chewing the leaves.  At least, I hope they are fighting.  I want to see those clusters of white flowers for myself - a sophisticated version of pearly everlastings (Anaphalis), I'd say, from the photos I've seen.  

The next seedlings, also in the ground at the cottage, are cup plant, Silphium perfoliatum.  They are shooting up to the sky.  I await the sun-flowery blooms, with the water-holding leafy cups around the stem.  

     Back home in the greenhouse are a few other success stories.  Another Eryngium is here; this one is likely yuccifolium, though it seems to me I planted three species last spring.  Nine tiny umbrella pines, Sciadopitys verticillata, are soaking up the sun.  In behind is a wee tree I started from seed several years ago.  Was it bald cypress, or something like that?  I gotta start keeping records!

I had a great crop of Osage Oranges last year, Maclura pomifera, close to twenty healthy sprouts that came from seed, planted in milk cartons.  This spring they did not look well.  A month ago I figured they all were dead.  Now, two are leafing out, and a third is showing signs of life.  This is a pleasant relief (dare I say "re-leaf"?).

The biggest disappointment for me has been several species of Arisaema, dear ole Jack-in-the-Pulpit.  Not a sign of life from any of them, save the moss and a couple weeds coming up. 

But wait... could that be?  Look closer.  I know, I know - not quite in focus.   But one is just now coming up!  Yeah, yeah, I know; these are not labelled either.  But look over there, on the right side of the pot...

Perhaps this is the first of many more that will resurrect in the next while.  I'm about to be away from home for a week, and I will be excited to return and see if some more miracles happen!

June in Bloom

Scotch Broom (Cytisus scoparius)

So little time for blogging, it seems, not be mention weeding, planting, trimming, and simple enjoying!  But life at the Cottage goes on with the usual splendour, not matter what I do.

Lilac (Syringa vulgaris)

The peonies are very promising this year, and amid them a few other plants compete, and bloom first.

Allium

Hyacinthoides hispanica?

Also competing is a trillium and an iris, both doing fine growing in the same spot!  I will separate these two, later.

Trillium grandiflorum, Iris pseudacorus

As we view the shadier side of the cottage, a couple azaleas are becoming spectacular.

A view of the beds shows the new and weeded on the left, the older and overgrown on the right.  

Make the most of your opportunities to tend your gardens, and also to enjoy them, whatever state they are in.