Gordon's Garden Diary

19 Apr '07 8:18 am

Dear Gordon, I know how you feel waiting for the newcomers! I am sharing your joy! I hope the leak is nothing serious...And the beauty of....the Natural Nature of your neighborhood is priceless!! You are very lucky! Concerning your garden, it will soon be madly colourful, believe me! Prepare your camera! You'll have it --protected-- by your side while gardening....

19 Apr '07 2:13 pm

Thank you for sharing your walks with us. It's great to see the countryside and those gorgeous wild flowers. Smile

19 Apr '07 3:37 pm

Hi, everyone;

Here are some pictures that I took in the garden today. There's a gentian (new to me) on the roof garden that is ready to open its buds - I'll post another picture once they're open. Then there is one of my favourite Muscari, "Valerie Finnis", which are almost at the height of their bloom, and a close-up of one Helleborus showing the seed pods forming and another of one of my self-seeded Helleborus argutiflorus plants in full bloom. Also, i took a couple of pics of my Mukdenia, which I got about a year and a half ago mainly for its leaves, and which is just out of the ground and has flowers! However, they turned out blurry, so I'll post a better picture of it tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy them. I can hardly wait to be able to post some wider-field shots of areas of the garden, but even though I've been working at it, it's not ready yet!

By the way, my plant order arrived today and the highlight of it was a new Euphorbia characias called "Black Pearl". I'm looking forward to having it around during the winter, as it's evergreen and I planted it in a part of the garden that has nearly nothing in it all winter.

All the best, everyone!

gordonf

20 Apr '07 2:11 am

Hi Gordon, beautiful pictures. I especially liked the Helleborus argutiflorus and the pink lamium. Spectacular!

20 Apr '07 5:33 am

Hi Gordon!

Somehow I've missed ot on all the posts since the brunnera discussion on the (?) 11th!!

Advantage - I saw all your lovely river shots and spring garden at once. However I will wait till I'm on the school computer to download and view them all...

And then: I do believe a 'Gordon's pics' screensaver on my laptop whilst Liza's chateau pics fill my school computer screen. Followed by a swop of screensavers because, truth be told, the laptop is mostly either in use or switched off. On the other hand, it will be the perfect excuse to sit and think...

I am enjoying your posts more and more, as we become familiar with your dreams and the day to day story of your garden and your hometown.

In the days when I gardened professionally I learnt a very important lesson: you spill yor guts on a project, the client spends a fortune, but when you leave it is still only twigs in the (heavily composted) soil. And mostly you never go back...

It wasn't nearly as satisfying as I'd expected it to be!

I think one of the real joys of gardening and garden watching is familiarity, and an awareness of the change as gardens develop and seasons progress.

Keep enjoying, and keep sharing the joy! Oh - and a more precise map reference will help - I still have a very sketchy idea of where you are!

Regards - Jack

20 Apr '07 11:01 am

Hi, Jack and everyone else (Faith, Liza, etc.)!

I'm really glad you enjoy the pictures, as I sometimes feel that they might be somewhat boring, as so many of them are of rough wilderness, rather than manicured botanical gardens, etc. But then, I think, well they say that a change is a rest!! Very Happy

Spring has been so long in arriving here this year; everyone's been complaining about it, and so many of the flowers have been just sitting there, waiting for warmer weather.

Yesterday I said that I had taken some pics of my Mukdenia plant but that they were blurry. So I tried again today, and here it is. The plant is a Mukdenia rossii (also known as Aceriphyllum rossii), and, as I said, I really bought it for its leaves. According to the articles I've read about it, and to what the catalogue says, "Maple-like leaves emerge a bronze-green then age to a mid-green and are finally splashed with bright red in fall. Numerous white, bell-shaped flowers held in a branched panicle in mid-spring. From North China and Korea. Forms a wonderful ground cover in full shade to part sun." See for yourselves!

Oh, and Jack, I'll work on getting a map to show you where I live! Very Happy

Oh, yes, today I transplanted 18 Arisaema consaguinea "Poseidon" seedlings each into his own pot. They're the ones that I posted a month or so ago when they were just up, all in one pot. Now they're out in the cold frame where I'll probably need to shade them for a while, then move them to the shade once they have become used to a bit of wind on their spindly stems! By the way, the common name for these is "Jack-in-the-Pulpit" because the flowers resemble a person standing in a pulpit with a little roof over him, rather like an arum. These ones are supposed to grow up to 60cm in height.

Well, that's it for today. Cheers, everyone!!

gordonf

20 Apr '07 12:55 pm

Very thoughtful discussions here ,especially what Jack said about becoming familiar with Gordon's hopes and dreams -it is the caring encouragement that real friends have .
A couple of my favourites ,Gordon - the hellebores and the Lamium -though I had a couple of coloured Lamiums ,I decided to keep to the white -they make a wonderful edging for all the shady gardens here .
Dixie.

20 Apr '07 6:22 pm

Hi, Dixie-

The white lamium has become a real thug here on the Island, and it's taking over areas of bushland, at the expense of native varieties, so I've been afraid to plant it; and I keep the pink one in the picture confined to the top of my artificial "stump" by clipping it severely after it blooms.

I had to build the "stump" in order to make a raised place to plant the small flowering tree on top of it as there is an abandoned concrete septic tank just 4 inches beneath the soil at ground level. That's why I have a raised bed in that part of the garden, but the tree needed even more height so that I wouldn't be forever looking down on it! Very Happy

To make the stump, I built a mound of earth, then stood on end several relatively flat pieces of driftwood (probably old pieces of boards that had been worn on the rocks) around it. Once I had them all relatively vertical, I wound a rope around and around them to keep them in place and did a clever kind of sailors' invisible know to hold it together. Voila! If you take a really close look at the lamium picture, I think you can see a bit of the rope. And that's how some of my sailor's skills have paid off in the garden!!

Thanks for the kind comments!

gordonf

22 Apr '07 8:27 am

I wonder how come it took me so long to find your thread? I've enjoyed exchanges elsewhere but just now got here.

I enjoyed sharing your walks with Joey, what we would call an Australian Cattle Dog I think? I've admired the breed. They carry themselves with about as much authority as any kind of dog I've seen. I've inherited a male of a north american developed breed called the Australian Shepard. (We found about the heritage when Lia came back from Australia where no one knew what she was talking about.) Fletcher was 3 or 4 years old when Lia's aunt and uncle died and Fletcher came to us. He'll be 8 in June and is an extreme alpha but the only dogs that have out-psyched him were Australian Cattle Dogs. He and my 12 year-old lab/golden cross Sophie take me for walks in the hills around here and by the bay a few times a week.

I enjoyed seeing the wildflowers and countryside but even more I liked seeing your garden. The gentian in the top of the frame looks poised to burst into bloom. I've never seen powder blue muscari but they are probably my favorite bulb. Interesting how plants that are a weed one place take lots of coaxing elsewhere. Clever solution using that stump to keep it from escaping. Your greener hellebores look alot like the ones I grow. I'm always grateful to live where I do when I see what conditions you guys have learned to cope with. I don't think I have the necessary skills.

I'll be interested to see where you are on Vancouver Island. The driftwood is a clue. I wonder if you're in that beautiful sounding area you were describing along the coast where two valleys and their rivers meet before going to sea?

I for one don't care for the overly manicured look. There was probably a few hundred years ago when the extreme domination of nature in the garden was a real accomplishment. There is an amusement park we take our students to at the end of the year which is filled with that sort of perfection. Every hedge and tree is a geometric ideal. Every bed is a burst of color provided by an annual in peak bloom and every piece of open ground which isn't walkway is a perfect lawn. Seeing that cheapens the total-domination-of-man approach for me. Knowing we can have it anyway we can afford makes seeing the way nature does it, and interpreting that in our gardens, all the more interesting.

22 Apr '07 12:39 pm

Hi, Mark!

In response to your and Jack's requests, here are a couple of maps to show where I live. The first one is of all of Vancouver Island, which is just across the Straight of Georgia from the City of Vancouver, for those who have them confused. Campbell River is about halfway up the east side of the Island, where the Straight of Georgia ends and narrows to become Discovery Passage. The city sits exactly on the 50th parallel, and at the spot where tides from the north meet tides from the south, making for interesting boating, to be sure!

The second image shows the North-Central part of the Island in greater detail. I think you can see where the
Quinsam River meets the Campbell River. I live about 3 blocks from there in a trailer park set among older houses on larger, older lots.

Now, for other things. Yes, Joey is an Australian Cattle Dog, also known as a "Blue Heeler", and he is VERY good at "psyching-out" not only other dogs, but many people as well. His eyes bug out more than normal for the breed, and he has a habit of staring while letting his bottom jaw bounce ever so slightly up and down. But he's really a pussycat at heart! I call him "Joey Demento" as a result of all of this!

And the gentian still has not popped open! It becomes slightly bluer every day, though!

Once again, it is a cool, damp day here, with temperatures of only about 10 degrees Celsius. I've put my Pineapple Lilies (Eucomis) back outside, as they've started sprouting in their pots, as well as the Escheverias, which were becoming pretty wrinkled following their 6-month drought in the shed window! The buds on the flowering crabapple tree are becoming larger each day, as are those on the weeping pear. I should have more pictures to post in a couple of days, as the Auricula primulas that I grew from seed are showing colour and so are the strangely-coloured geums that a friend gsve me last year.

So there will be many more garden pics to come!!

Thanks for the kind words and good wishes, everyone; what a great forum this is, eh? Very Happy

Oh, yes, I almost forgot! Here's what the Chamber of Commerce says about Campbell River (the City):

Campbell River (Population: 31,295)
Campbell River is beautifully set between Strathcona Provincial Park to the west and the Discovery Islands to the east. On summer evenings, massive cruise ships pass between Campbell River and Quadra Island. An awe-inspiring sight, these dazzling, fully lighted ships seem to appear out of nowhere. Known for the past century as the Salmon Capital of the World, Campbell River is the perfect destination for a holiday filled with outdoor activities.

-gordonf

Gordon's Garden Diary

Parts of my garden in late April

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