BLOG MARCH 17, 2009

This is Canada Blooms week (www.canadablooms.com) and I?ll be down there on Saturday at 2:30. I?m giving a talk on ECOLOGICAL GARDENING and will have my books HOW TO MAKE A GARDEN and ECOLOGICAL GARDENING available for sale and for signing.
Margaret Serreo of Fiesta Gardens will also be at the show: Booth 1312 ( (close to the Home Depot display) the base of Patrick Studio. They are the wonderful people who grow a lot of plants for her. And she says, she will have Hellebores, Erythronium, Epimedium, species Iris, Fritillaria , Gentiana and other plants for sun and shade. These are all great plants you might want to consider and Margaret is always a fount of knowledge.
I hear that the show is the best they?ve had in years: lots of goodies. It should feed our desperate urge to have spring come—as soon as possible please. So if you have time, come and hear me talk (good powerpoint show) and say hello.
But don?t get so revved up that you get out with the secateurs and start whacking away at stuff. It?s still just a wee bit too early. Cut back grasses; cut down perennial stalks that are no longer useful to birds. But leave all the silver plants alone until you see lots of growth in the centre of the plant (caryopteris, lavender, woody artemisias and Russian sage). Too early for them yet. And don?t walk over the still-frozen soil, you could damage miniscule snouts poking up from the soil.
Today I was outside and saw bulbs pushing their way up through solid ice in some part of the garden; other sections are sheer mud. It looks terrible but it?s alive, it?s going to be gorgeous. But it?s going to take a few weeks.