TRENDS are sprouting all over the internet and garden trends are going to be featured here over the next while.  But first, here’s what my formerly pleasant street street now looks like. They are changing the 1880s sewer and water pipes and it’s like living in the ninth level of purgatory:  blinking lights from 7 am to any time they feel like quitting at night;  beep, beep, beep and the awfulness of Toronto clay walked into the house smothering carpets and shoes.

The Saturday before Christmas a group of lads showed up late in the afternoon. They got the gigantic earth movers going and then drove them off rather quickly I thought as I turned back to work. When the cop arrived on Monday he asked:  ”Did you notice anything odd over the weekend?”  Of course I had, at 4:35 on Saturday  two giant machines left the site.  ”What did the guys look like?” he asked.   Well, like construction workers: puffy vests, toques, steel-toed boots. “Where are the machines now?” I enquired.  Oh,  on a ship to a foreign land; or off to another construction site.  The contractors were convinced it was organized crime.

It certainly looked organized but it’s hard  to feel sorry for them. Apparently all Caterpillar machines have the same key. All you need is one bent person and you’ve got yourself a $120,000 chunk of metal.

TRENDS

Trends come slowly to the mind when this sort of annoying stuff is going on.  But I’m as willing as the next person to take a shot at it. We used to joke at Gardening Life magazine that whatever we declared as a trend one year, we’d say was out of style the next. Not completely true but now there are so few garden mags, I still like this pretentious little ritual–it  makes us all feel like the season is about to swing over into something new.

1. Vegetable gardening in the front yard or among the perennials is going to be as big this year as it was last. People have fallen in love with growing vegetables, not just for eating but also for the aesthetics. A gigantic fennel or edging of Swiss chard looks great among autumn bloomers such as Salvia bonariensis and other plants of its ilk.

2. Orange has been declared the colour of the year by the fashionistas,  and gardeners have been ahead of the curve on this one. We chose orange tulips, dahlias and echinaceas to marry up with purple and magenta plants a few years ago. This year, we’re trendy.

3. Fewer lazy landscaper gardens:  you know the kind–thirty hydrangeas, 18 grasses et voila a Piet Oudolph garden.  Well, not bloody likely. Oudolph is a genius at colour block planting and I haven’t seen one garden in this style that passes muster. This sort of  dreary garden is so foolproof and so boring that even the most visually illiterate of clients wants it to be replaced by something requiring both thought and individuality.  Most of our work last year at Marjorie Harris Gardens was taking out this sort of egregious mess, moving plants around and adding new and exciting ones.

4. Flowering shrubs. Instead of putting in tall perennials, smaller flowering shrubs are catching the eye of gardeners. There are some staggering beauties coming into the market place and it’s a matter of demanding them at your own favourite nursery. There are such dishy ones as my favourite plant du jour:  Calycanthus floridus an eastern native with maroon blossoms and long tapered leaves.  I’ll have a list and  pix of the new ones I adore coming up shortly.

More trends to come, I hate these blogs when they get too long. I also apologize for having been absent such a long time but between our tour to Italy last autumn and recovering from  knee replacement surgery immediately after, I seem to have been totally preoccupied. I’ll keep this up on a regular basis from now on. And I’ll be sending out the free midwinter newsletter next week. If you’d like to receive it and are not on the mailing list,  just get in touch. And we’ve got the new itinerary for this year’s trip to Italy just hit the button up on the banner and you’ll find it in all its glory.

I have been so remiss because I’ve been trying to finish THRIFTY GARDENING FROM THE GROUND UP.

On CBC’s Fresh Air this morning, I mentioned the newsletter.  If you get in touch with me I’ll put you on the list and send a link to the old one and I guarantee I’ll have a new one this week.

I also mentioned a shrub called Lespedeza which I think if a wonderful autumn blooming shrub. I’ll try and take a decent picture of it and put it up here.

There will also be a new batch of videos on the Globe and Mail web site  called Gardening 101.  I’ll also be better at putting things up her from now on. I cannot be working harder than I am right now. It’s crazy.

I’m on my way to Victoria on the 7th of September. Here’s what’s on the master gardeners web site:

Go to   <http://mgabc.org>

Or call  Hope Hilliard  at 250-589-4952.

An entertaining, educational event, hosted by Victoria Master Gardener Association, featuring one of Canada’s leading Garden authors, speakers and garden designers.   Open to the Public.

• TOPIC:  LET’S STOP MAKING UGLY GARDENS
• DATE: Wednesday, September 7,  2011
• TIME:  7:00-8:30 pm
• LOCATION:  Alix Goolden Performance Hall, Conservatory of Music.  907 Pandora Ave, Victoria
• COST:  $15.00

Please come and say hello.  I LOVE going to Victoria. I intend to drown myself in looking at gardens and talking to gardeners.

Restoring a garden after a landscaper has had his hand on it is a tough job. We’re in the middle of that now.  No prep, plants plunked in, burlap and metal still intact, and where’s the expensive  soil?  We couldn’t find any and the whole place is covered up  with dyed black mulch. Not a pretty picture.

But here is one:  my garden this week.  

The summer has winged by. Last week in The Globe Plant of the Week was Clematis ‘Meine Belle’  a gorgeous vine which I longed for myself. Well forget about it. Gardenimport was so swamped with orders that they are out of it already and will be even when the next catalogue comes out. It touched a nerve that plant.

We all want lovely little clematis, different species. But what are we getting:  the great big cultivars that the growers have decided are all we can get. It’s been appalling. So only a few outlets have interesting clems. Gardenimport has others so give them a try as well, as does Lost Horizons.  And put some pressure on your local favourite nursery to search out more clematis for you next year. If they know they can make money on these plants, they will stock them. So they will put pressure on the growers to try the better ones.

Clematis ‘Betty Corning’ is going bananas in my garden in two spots. Nothing holds back this beauteous lady. But you can’t buy it anywhere anymore.  

The Globe and Mail has more videos up of me furbling on. It was a lot of fun doing them so I hope you enjoy watching them .

Gardening Basics

A new free newsletter is being worked on so if you’d like to sign up, I’d like to send it to you.

Perennials are popping up where I’d forgotten I’d planted them, spring flowering shrubs are just about over and there’s been a huge opportunity on the perfection of these June day to whack the place apart.

Some day I’ll go into the garden and not be critical of each and every plant.  What’s missing from the photograph below is a giant Rosa glauca and that left  the path a little easier to manage, a seedling of the mother plant will flourish and it will continue to live here.

I’ve never ever seen a year like this one for weeds and diseases.  Unbelievable. That warm winter didn’t kill off a lot of offenders, the humungous amount of rain that never seemed to end lead to fungal diseases. I had one tree so infected, so covered in aphids and ants farming them that I had to whack it right back (it was a Heptacodium miconoides). Derek Welsh the arbourist says it will probably come back all right. My soil is good. So take courage with your own plants. It might not be the end of them.

In the background you can see a tricoloured beech. This year it’s glorious beyond belief. Makes me want to change one of the Japanese maples in the foreground.  Gulp.

Over the next few weeks I’ll get out a summer newsletter.

And I thank  those who’ve asked about my husband Jack Batten. In the past week he’s starting improving. The man I love has returned and feels so much better. It’s been a hellish couple of months but I feel as if life is going to return to something close to normal.  Yeaaaaaa

Sign up for the free newsletter:  marjorieharris@rogers.com I’ll welcome you joining us. I apologize for not answering you really terrific comments. I am expecting any day that all this media stuff will actually become very clear to me and I’ll know what to do instinctively.

Here’s a fantastic annuals list. It’s one I ordered from Mason Gardens for my clients and am still in the process of getting together for them. I mentioned I’d have this up on Fresh Air on Sunday. So I’m late. Everything’s late.

Agapanthus ‘Black Buddha’
Alternanthera ‘Purple Knight’
Angelonia ‘Angelface White’
Canna ‘Durban’ (African Sunset)
Coleus ‘Purple Duckfoot’
Dahlia ‘Bishop of Llandaff’
Dichondra ‘Silver Falls’
Ipomoea ‘Midnight Lace’
Ipomeoea ‘Sweet Caroline Bewitched’
Plectranthus ‘Mona Lavender’
Salvia guaranitica ‘Black and Blue’

I’ve done a bunch of videos for the Globe and Mail and the column starts on May 28th. Monique Dobson took this picture of  us working away.  I must say we had fun and they should be on the Globe’s web site this week.

Here’s a really piece that was in the Edmonton Journal:  

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/life/Lessons+from+Marjorie+Harris+garden/4801463/story.html

I’ve got a new e-letter prepared and Anna as usual has done a fantastic job on it. Full of lovely plant suggestions.
Just e-mail me and I’ll send you the link.

The garden is popping incredibly and every day seems to bring new ephemerals into view.  But here’s a scene I like very much:

It’s hard to believe this was mud city a few weeks ago. The scilla blanket the whole garden now and what a pleasure they are:  they look great for a while in spring just when we need them,  spread around and then disappear in summer making way for all the other plants around them.

The Cornus mas behind the viburnum is just coming into glory. I like this composition  because there’s an old Chinese vase, broken long ago, which humps up like a small whale in a sea of green. And the compost is sitting back there needing a good turn. I’ll keep shooting from this exact spot for the rest of the year.

If you want a copy of the piece that was in the Life section of the Globe and Mail this week, let me know and I’ll send it onwards.

The garden has popped. It’s crammed with  perennials and  bulbs; buds bursting on shrubs and trees. I have been  in the hospital with my husband Jack who has just undergone heart surgery. I can now truly celebrate spring:  spring for him with a new valve and by passes; spring for the garden that has this going on.  

That’s a Viburnum bodnentensis which I swear did not look like that a few days ago.  It’s  going crazy.  And a  Cornus mas behind it is starting to look golden. And i n the outside world the sun shines. The bubble of being in the hospital is broken once I see the garden. It never disappointed. Mud has turned into a carpet of green and blue and white:  scilla, chionodoxa, snouts of everything pushing up.

But last night temps dipped down to -2C so we’re are not in a safe zone yet.

I will be talking to the Edmonton Hort on Easter Monday:  LET’S STOP MAKING UGLY GARDENS.  Really looking forward to this.  Monday 25th at 7 p.m.

I was on Fresh Air this morning and absolutely mumbled the name of my favourite plant:  Hellebore

I suggested using them as houseplants for the nonce and then plant them out in the garden in May when the soil warms up.

This one is just opening up in my garden.

More later today.

I don’t know if this is a sign of spring, but I was riveted the other day when a hawk, a HUGE hawk settled in the garden right in the centre on the Japanese maple. I didn’t dare move because I could feel him looking at me so I have no proof of this. We’re used to the red-tail hawk swooping through on his daily hunt but this behaviour was really unusual. When he hopped into the vines on the fence he became completely invisible.  His pale breast covered with dark brown stripes looked exactly like a shrub.

He was either looking at the little squirrel bashing about next door, or had his eye on anything fallen from the feeder which had been filled that day. When he took off it was breathtaking. How can they do that?

It was cheery this week to make my way to Canada Blooms and actually see and smell plants in bloom. They have an amazing track record of forcing plants and it made slogging around on the those cement floors worthwhile. I like the show very much and there’s lots to see without it feeling smooshed together.

My highlight was talking to Ben Heppner the great Heldentenor. He was standing in his garden named Parisifal (designed by Judith Wright). He was ever so patient being interviewed and I couldn’t resist speaking to him.

Parsifal is the opera that changed my life. Turned me into an opera nut. I also has actually met Mr. Heppner years ago. It was up at the Red Barn on Jackson’s Point when Peter Gzowski used to have fabulous fundraisers for his literacy campaign.  I was doing a small gig on gardening;  and Ben Heppner was the surprise star of the evening. So I like to think I once sang with Ben Heppner (he at the mic me at the back of the stage belting out Oh Canada!).

So we chatted on amiably.  I am his slave forever he is so kind and patient. I didn’t ask if he was a gardener which was fairly stupid.

All  of this  took my mind off the flood that’s begun and will continue until the ground can absorb the snow melt and the water coming in from all around (and rising from Taddle Creek our underground stream). There are snow drops up everywhere. And it really is beginning to feel like spring might make an appearance soon.