Amid the planting and general care-taking in the garden during a busy growing season, I delight in occasionally stepping away from the pressing round of routine gardening tasks to address ongoing renovations in messier parts of the garden.
That is how I came to spend part of a recent weekend weeding, cultivating and mulching a new bed, mainly of Heuchera (coral bells) plants in different foliage colours, under the strawberry tree at the house end of the driveway, close to my office window.
The space had been created when I cut back severely a decades-old Springwood Pink heather that I’d taken as a small plant from my father’s garden in Sidney.
Around the base of the strawberry tree I’ve let patches of sweet violets spread. The sweet perfume of their small flowers pervades the front garden in late winter and early spring.
Among the Heucheras is a small seed-grown Daphne alpina, an offshoot plant lifted from the side of a compact Cityline Paris hydrangea, and a Lawrence Crocker daphne moved from a back garden plot where the comely, dwarf shrub was being smothered by more aggressive plant companions.
Lawrence Crocker’s neatly rounded form and deliciously fragrant, deep pink spring flowers are impressive, and deserving of a place in the garden that better showcases the plant’s virtues.
On an earlier occasion this past spring, I turned my back on the current “to-do” list and addressed a weedy pathway that had been a niggling annoyance for a while.
The path runs from the garden shed and plum tree at the centre of the back garden past kiwi vines, a fig tree and raspberry canes on the left and an massive five-leaf akebia (chocolate vine, Akebia quinata) on the right on the way to the side fence, where a series of five compost enclosures line up.
Needless to say, that path is used often, every day. Its dishevelment was a constant bother.
I gathered together some cardboard to spread over the weeds and covered the cardboard with several layers of newspaper, which I save for pathway rehabilitation projects. It was a perfect day for the occasion. A light rain kept the paper and cardboard in place, and lying flat, while I wheeled bags of wood shavings to the path for spreading over the cardboard and paper.
The result was immensely satisfying, one could say almost divinely so, in the sense of creating order out of chaos.
Re-shaped by Nature. Sometimes it is Nature’s actions that effect changes in a garden — storms, for example. A snowstorm that broke major limbs on my Arbutus unedo tree opened its structure up enough for a new and not unattractive “see-through” look.
Not long ago, a fierce wind storm that crashed through the back garden flattened an established rosemary hedge, inviting a severe pruning that tidied the plants and gave them room for re-growth and renewal.
That same wind storm changed the shape of a Hebe glaucophylla, long established at the edge of the lawn, beside the centre path into the back garden. This is an evergreen shrub with small, grey-green leaves and short spikes of fluffy white flowers in early summer.
Over the years, the shrub had maintained its naturally upright, neatly mounded form. The storm’s winds were strong enough to separate the tightly held branches enough to change the plant’s look. Now, it is more like a waterfall of flower-dotted foliage, flowing down to the lawn. It’s a change that I find entirely acceptable.
July. In gardens, this month is about keeping everything as fresh, tidy, and productive as possible as we indulge in summertime pleasures like swimming, outdoor gatherings with friends, and creating meals with fresh, seasonal foods. Things to consider:
* Watering. Keep the vegetable garden productive and ornamental beds beautiful with adequate water. Hanging baskets and small containers will need daily watering in warm weather. Keep compost heaps fluffed up and modestly moist.
* Tidying. Remove and compost spent plantings and young weeds. Trim messy looking plants and remove dead flowers to maintain a fresh look and keep more blooms coming.
* Tomato training. To keep staking tomatoes to a single, centre stem, continue snapping off suckering growth emerging at points where leaf stems meet the main stem.
