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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

But this is a dangerous situation for trees and shrubs laden with snow as the sun hits them and  makes them incredibly heavy. Brittle or frozen branches run the risk of snapping. This can cause an enormous amount of damage. I hate to much this up  because the garden just makes my heart fill up when it this serene. Very hard not to spend a lot of time gazing at it and ignoring the situation as it actually is. So out I went and trammelled up the untrammelled.

Things here are a bit nasty. My adored husband, Jack, has to have heart surgery and I haven’t felt like blogging or doing anything but spend time thinking about him (and being with him).

We don’t know when the tests will begin and we don’t know when the surgery will take place, so it’s a waiting game at the moment.  It’s hard to feel like going out and being social.

So once again the garden is a solace. This fact has kept me going through a lot of crises.  Something smashes you in the face, you spend time in or looking at the garden and you can feel the beat of your heart change. You can feel the calm entering your body.  The garden does heal but of course you have to let it do its work. I can’t imagine being without a garden whether it’s what I see behind my house or having plants in pots to gaze at.

Speaking of plants to look at. The Amaryllis from Gardenimport are all coming into bloom and they are gorgeous. This is truly  looking into the face of nature. All those complex little details and the subtle striations of colour. I’d love to post a picture, but my brand new camera doesn’t work properly. So another schlep to the camera store.  I was banging away with it over Christmas and anything took was not properly in focus. Not good.

The autumn newsletter is ready to send out now it’s you like to sign up. Push the button and I’ll get it to you.

Here’s a part of  the garden this week. The Plant of the Week is this wonderful combination of plants to illustrate how many shapes and sizes you can put together for a colourful selection even though the rest of the garden hasn’t gone into flames: Hackocholoa macra ‘Aureola’ with a Chamaecyparis, Sambucus ‘Black Lace’ and a small Japanese maple. The leaves have variety in shapes which is a very important principle when you put plants together to last out this season. The bloom on the right is the fabulous Aster ‘Little Carlow’ which is incredibly floriferous

I’ll be in Booth #321 with Andrew Smith. We’ll be selling his novels, my garden books and I’m available for plant and garden information. Our little tent is on the west side of the park just above Hoskins Avenue.

This week is the last this year for my Plant of the Week column with the Globe and Mail. I’ll attempt to carry it on here, but if you have questions about the plants coming up this week, just let me know.  The bulb e-letter is ready and I’m working on the putting the garden to bed now.

Last week was my favourite smallish tree:  Acer griseum:

It grows up to 20 feet, but has a huge rootball so place it very carefully and grows in Z 5 and warmer in Canada. It can be pruned as a standard which is what we’re doing here. The bark is the pull:  exfoliating cinnamon coloured bark that peels off to show a pale pink/gray/brown new bark. It’s gorgeous. Really intense s colour which comes out as the latest of the trees in my garden to shift into autumn glory.

To add to garden enjoyment mark July 14th to go to the Toronto Botanical Gardens to hear Cameron McMaster give a talk. He is a leading expert on geophytes, he’s from South Africa and he regarded as a great speaker.  That’s at 7 p.m.  July 14th, TBG (go to their web site  www.torontobotanicalgarden.com for more information).

I’m coming back to blogging because the worst of the crazy planting season is over.  My little crew and I have handled 30 gardens in very short order (or so it feels there are days when falling over seems the only alternative) and we’ve put in some gorgeous gardens.   I’ll talk about what I’ve learned from them over the next few weeks. And will get on with a newsletter.