Here’s is a version of the piece I had in the Globe and Mail recently:

Halt or, at least, slow down.  Spring may be here but it’s not going anywhere so caution in the garden is a must. It’s been a weird winter all across the country and in some places we’ve had spring for weeks now and produced a crop of confused buds and blooms.  There’s not a thing we can do about it, especially when there are huge dips in temperatures.  But we can help this strange turn of events by remaining calm and observant.

Do not get out the leaf blower and blast away at all those leaves on the ground. This is a terrible thing to do to a natural phenomenon (fallen leaves). First of all it raises dust and pollutants and if you are subject to allergies this action will move every bit of pollen straight up your nose. We won’t even go into the noise level which is appalling.  If you have a gardener or landscaper don’t let them use them, hire new gardeners if they refuse.

If you start skinning the life off your beds, you’ll also be topping emerging bulbs which may end up damaging them. You might think you are doing a good thing raking up leaves and putting them in the compost but just stick to those on lawns and paths.  Tidying should be limited to paths and lawns.

Leaves can be easily removed from grassy swards with a big ergonomic rake.  I like a twig broom or besom myself but they are hard to find.  The rest of the leaves around trees and on flower beds should be left to break down quickly over the next few weeks. Worms will be pulling them inwards and they will feed the soil which is what nature intended.

If you have an atavistic need to remove leaves, have a look at plants such as hellebores. A few species have crappy looking foliage at this time of year, so clip them off and toss them in the compost. If anything looks good, leave it alone.

The major mucky-looking plants right now are ornamental grasses.  This is a reason to have them carefully placed and not become a major visual offense of the season.  Cut them ALL back right now. And toss the detritus (or use the long stems in dry foliage designs).  You’ll see the tiny little heads of the new stems and be careful you don’t nip off the tops.

We have no idea how far the evidence of climate change—anomolous weather patterns—will go on but we do know for sure that it’s affected the ground water supply in many parts of the country.  I live on a flood plain, and so far this year it’s dead dry and we had no snow during the winter.  This is something we can do something about.

Paul Zammit, Toronto Botanical Garden’s horticulturist, says:  “Plan for plants  which can tolerate some drought.  With the low levels of water in the soil, we will all need to capture extra moisture through water-wise gardening.”  That means having rain butts to catch rain water and re-directing roof runoff  into the garden.  Go to their web site and have a look at the other methods of saving rain.  (www.torontobotanicalgarden.ca).

The other scary thing that’s going to happen with all this lovely weather:  insects and fungal diseases, normally killed off by freezing weather, have emerged already. It’s going to be a bonanza year for both. The first line of defense is to get to know what these things look like and to keep your hands off any toxic chemicals. Casual spraying can blast the good insects intended to devour the bad. If things look terrible down the road, use a soap and water concoction and do your best to keep on top of things.

We know already that the lily beetle is leaping to a lot of other plants besides lilies, and they are propagating like mad right now. Once plants have started growing, try the formula  suggested by lily specialists, S-W  Gardens in Thamesville,  Ont.:

Mix 1tsp/5ml of Neem Oil (you’ll find it under plant polish and look for Pure Neem Oil) with 1 tsp/5ml of Diatomaceous Earth  along with a 2-3 drops of dish soap in ¾ L of warm water. Keep shaking so the material stays in suspension. Spray both sides of the leaf and do it every 2 to 3 weeks.

David Philips of Environment Canada says that a warm spring doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll have a desperately hot sun.  It would seem climate change is about change.  Worry about what you can:  make sure you water deeply as the weather warms up; don’t remove last year’s mulch too early; and look to mulching plants carefully at the end of May. The plants that will survive in our gardens are the ones we care for properly.

This is Viburnum bodnantense with a  Cornus mas behind it,  blooming far too early and on this rare occasion together. It reminds me of Vancouver during its early spring blooms. You can pass street after street filled with pink and yellow blooms to the point where you never want to see them together again. This was quite unintentional on my part but nature has dished out a strange spring.

The viburnum doesn’t usually come out until the second week of  April. The dogwood is also a little early. And it’s usually finished by the time the viburnum comes out. This partnership is quite something.

Stuff’s coming up too early and it’s going to get blasted by a cruel dip in temperatures that will inevitably come in the next few weeks.

The Magnolia stellata which came out overnight and is now blooming attracted squirrels like mad and it’s going to be over before April.

Bulbs are popping everywhere:  species tulips, chionodoxa, of course masses of scilla, and the buds are plump on almost all of the trees and shrubs.  There’s not a damn thing we can do about it.

The front garden  (below) in harsh light

which is not really fair but this shows

just how many bulbs are not just rising but they

are blooming their faces off and probably out.

I will have a piece in the Globe and Mail’s LIFE section this week about what’s going on. Please look for it.

What a week: a talk at Canada Blooms was such fun and I forgot my plant list at home. So if you want the plant list let me know and I’ll send it on to you. Go to Contact me and put plant list in the subject. I’ll also put you on the newsletter (free free free) as well.
This morning I was on Fresh Air with Mary Ito and it’s now on their web site at cbc.ca/freshair.
This has been a week so full of planty stuff it’s been thrilling. The catalogues were waiting at home so garden porn has been my companions in the tub and on the subway. Can’t get enough of Larry Davidson’s catalogue for his nursery Lost Horizons (losthorizons.ca). You have to print it out (97 pp if you leave off extraneous stuff) and you can’t order plants, but you can learn a lot and the prices are a good benchmark. The choice plants just make  you drool.  Farewell to this year’s budget.
Gardenimport.ca is another great catalogue: but this is serious garden porn and you’ve got to steel yourself from temptation. Great for people who don’t have a fabulous nursery within six blocks as I do (Fiesta Gardens on Christie Street).
Happy Spring Tuesday more to come.

Everyone around here knows it’s birthing time but each week there are physical disturbances:  people walk on the beach, let their dogs run loose, the oil company boats make more noise than usual in their round the clock servicing of the oil rigs we can see not far away.  Even the train goes through whooping way too much. It’s disrespectful and it’s mind bogglingly dumb.

When you see nature unfolding in this way, you’d think the instinct would be to protect as best we can. Well here in the Carp there are wonderful volunteers out on the bluffs every during the season. Very helpful and really kind about dishing out information. I like to think they reflect the majority of the population.

Yesterday a wind came through that was so intense you could see it. I happened to be looking outside and, all of a sudden, I could see whitecaps rising on the horizon. Within minutes they were hitting the beach and sand was flying every where:  especially all over the apartment. Going for a beach walk was out of the question, even hitting the used book store was a test of fortitude and the ability of nose and hair to absorb it all.

And today, our last day, hoping for one more hit of paradise, we’re going through the destruction of the winter berm. It went from a place to sit and watch the sea to something to be knocked aside. It protects our building and all the houses built way to close to the shoreline and we love it because it makes us feels safe. But oh boy you wonder what’s going on in the ecology of all that sand being spread about.

From this sunset

:

To this:

It looks like a moonscape now and somehow things might right themselves. But I keep wondering when we’ve gone to far with this mucking about.

We’ll find out eventually. Everything in this fragile landscape is affected by human interference. And of course we want to come back and we want it to be just the same. We want it to be the paradise we’ve always known.

It’s hard to see just how many birds there were from this tiny picture but it was thrilling beyond description.

And then to watch those smart dolphins taking their cue. It was a whole sunset-filled panorama of delight.

We have been tootling around with friends going to look at gardens (and will return with a camera) and eat so very well.  The food here is astounding even more so because because  eating fresh vegetables in winter seems so privileged and yet here it is normal. We are surrounded by bounty and perfect, lovely moments each day.

The other night we were with friends in a local restaurant when I saw a very attractive man come in and sit by himself and enjoy a great meal. His pleasure in his own company was absolute and delightful. When he left I said to my friend Ralph “Look at the guy leaving the resto now, he looks sooo familiar.”

“That’s Christopher Lloyd.”  said Ralph with his adorable smile.  I’m just as glad I didn’t glom on to it immediately because he’s one of my heroes. I’ve loved just about everything he’s down from Back to the Future to Modern Family. I might have embarrassed the whole table by addressing him. Not done here.

Everyone looks like someone because they probably are someone.  Now I swear that The Great Lebowski has walked into at least two restos where I’ve had lunch. But it’s a look.  And Jeff Bridges has not made an appearance though we are going to have an evening of watching The Dude just as soon as we can organize it.

Organization isn’t uppermost on this trip.  It’s hard to be that way when all I want is to be at the beck and call of the ocean.  The new copy of ZOOMER arrived with an 8-page spread on my garden and it is gorgeous. Wow what a magazine and what a take out this is.  Have a look at March and enjoy. Tell me what you think of the four seasons in my garden.

I’m also sending out my newsletter, slowly,  painfully. It seems to be impossible to do it as efficiently (so it seems now) as I usually do. I’ll be at it for days between walks on the beach. I’m also thinking about gardens back home and what we’ll be doing with them this year. I must say with anticipation.

This is one of my favorite daily sights:  are they worshipping the sunset? are they pod people? Sometimes they come with candles and weep. That we recognize and  it is an achingly glorious  moment each day.

This combination of aeoniums and phorbiums is one you see all around. So easily done here it makes the northern gardener’s heart vibrate with jealousy.

Each walk takes around this little town brings forth new enchantment.  The houses hug the ground  to keep out of the way the wild winds that sweep in off the Pacific Ocean.

We’re on a state beach which is both magnificent and fragile. The beauties it fetches up each day are breathtaking. We are told to expect king tides (these are tides that will rise almost two storeys high). But so far we’ve only experienced  lots of wind and surf.

From the apartment this is one of my favourite views. This looks southward towards Ventura and Oxnard where there

are organic farms. We are eating so well, the need for twice or thrice daily walks has already become a necessity.  I’m also supposed to be exercising my knee which is not perfect just yet.

This particular spot on the beach draws me out inexorably but I’m still terrified of falling, twisting or otherwise mucking up my operated knee so I’m very careful. I haven’t scrambled around that pile of rocks yet, but I’m determined to soon.

Yesterday I was wandering about with my camera and, since it was Saturday, it was a day at the beach for lots of little kids.

This makes me yearn to see my own grandchildren though they’d be way too old to be having this much fun with so little. And not an electronic machine in sight.

Today in our wonderful building, Jim and Heidi are throwing a BBQ. Once again we’ll get to meet people from all over the U. S. and to be told we have real Canadian accents (aboot that…).  What fun and how lucky we are.

Winter has come properly decked out finally and I’m continuing to be fascinated by thinking about where our gardens are going in the next year or so.

5. An emphasis on trees. More conferences, more concern about their condition especially for native trees. Finally we are getting seriously worried about our canopies. Not just the urban canopy but canopies everywhere. Our trees have been assaulted by pollution, lumbering, invasions by exotic aliens.  The latter is being taken extremely seriously by those who want our native forests to survive and thrive.  Trees can’t go very far with global climate change and those that can’t adjust quickly are going to croak.  They give us so much we all have to become stewards of the forest. Forget that epithet tree-hugger, become one.

6. Sustainability has become a confusing term, but we’re going to have it slammed at us in almost everything that has to do with nature (which takes in everything not just gardening). We all need to get up to speed on what it really means and how it affects our gardening, lives, homes and what we can do about it.

7. Hellebores are my personal Plant of the Year:  a never-fail (though it may be slow to get a grip in some gardens), evergreen, glorious, magnificent plant. You can use it as a houseplant;  fill up a container if it’s out of its zone; or have a collection that will bloom pretty much year round. Here’s a wonder Helleborus ‘Pink Frost’ which landed in nurseries last year and should be in everyone’s garden.

8. Self-seeding plants. The whole trend toward having looser, more casual gardens means we’ll be using more and more self-seeding plants without being terrified of them (rampant, and invasive). Learn about a few of them that work well in your area. Start with a palette and then move into the plants that will work with what  you’ve got.  I’m going to write more on this so please sign up for the newsletter.

And here’s  what I’d really like to be doing now: glugging down a lovely glass of Italian wine and watching the sun set over an Italian villa. Join me, have a look at our Italian trip for this year.

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.

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.

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.