Category Archives: My Garden

Fairy Crown #10-June Blues

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My tenth fairy crown for June 10th created at the cottage on Lake Muskoka features an array of flowers picked from my meadows and wildish garden beds. If it’s a little quiet-looking, that’s because it’s still very green in the meadows, and the plants that predominate, such as lupines and blue false indigo (Baptisia australis) are, well, solemnly blue.  Along with those two, my crown has golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea), white nannyberry flowers (Viburnum lentago), white oxeye daisy (Leucanthemum superbum) and the tiny pink flowers of black huckleberry (Gaylussacia baccata). And, in an effort to reflect the bad with the good, there are some caterpillar-chewed oak leaves, courtesy of the spongy moth (LDD or gypsy moth) caterpillars.

In fact, it’s a time of year I think of as ‘June blues’; in reality, it’s more lavender-purple, but it’s remarkable that so many plants with similar flower color bloom simultaneously. I fashioned a bouquet one June, setting the finished product in the meadows where the lupines grow. In it were the lupines as well as false blue indigo (Baptisia australis), blue flag iris (Iris versicolor), pale lilac showy penstemon (Penstemon grandiflorus) and a few of my “weeds”, oxeye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare) and buttercups (Ranunculus repens).

I grew the lupines from seed – a fairly complex operation that involved soaking the seed in warm water for 24 hours, then planting them in my sandy, acidic soil in a spot at the bottom of a slope that stays damp all the time. Fortunately, it worked and plants that were carefully transplanted and kept watered the first year have self-sown successive generations of new lupines that are very drought-tolerant. This is how they looked in the first few years, though now the big prairie species in the meadow have elbowed them to the margins. Though marketed as the eastern native wild lupine, L. perennis, my plants were in fact likely hybrids with L. polyphyllus from the west coast.  

Nevertheless, they attract numerous queen bumble bees seeking to provision their nests in spring. 

There is something so enticing about lupine flowers, so I like to focus on them with my camera to see what might be hanging out there, whether spiders….

…. or baby grasshoppers. 

Blue false indigo (Baptisia australis) is a North American native plant whose pea-like flowers resemble those of lupine. 

Bushy, it grows to about 4 feet (1.2 m) and is happy in my gravelly, sandy soil on a slope that gathers a little moisture. In autumn, the foliage turns an amazing gunmetal-gray and the seedpods shake with a noise like a rattlesnake’s tail. Its common name derives from its use by Native Americans and settlers as a substitute dye plant for true indigo (Indigofera tinctoria).  So far, it has spread very slowly nearby.

Bumble bees and many other native bees are very fond of Baptisia australis.

If I admitted to liking a plant that is on every state and province’s invasive plant list, I would get into trouble. So I’ll just say that since oxeye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare) is on every Muskoka highway margin and dots the old fields in the area, I don’t mind at all if it pops up here too.

It cannot compete with my prairie grasses and perennials in the meadows, but it likes to hang out in spots of unplanted earth and at the edge of the path in front of the cottage, along with weedy buttercups (Ranunculus repens).  There’s a childhood memory of oxeye daisies. I remember sitting in the hayfield across the street from my house in Victoria, British Columbia, pulling the white petals from the flowers as I recited “he loves me, he loves me not” – and, of course, being delighted when I sat with a sad, petal-free flower convinced the boy across the street was my Prince Charming. Buttercups were part of my childhood too; we’d hold them under each other’s chin to see if we liked butter. Yes, butter.  There were no grownups around to tell us it wasn’t the predictive ability of a flower, but the reflective quality of its shiny yellow petals to create this magic.

Sometimes the oxeye daisies pop up near the lupines.

Native hoverflies, short-tongued bees and butterflies often visit the daisies as well.   

But path-cutting through the meadows – a necessity in early summer – quickly makes compost of the weedy buttercups and oxeye daisies… until next year.

I grew my golden alexanders (Zizia aurea) from seed and though quite particular about adequate soil moisture and a location out of hot sun, they are self-sowing here and there.  A short-lived native perennial from the carrot family, they prefer moist prairies and open woodland and are a host plant for black swallowtail caterpillars.

Though nannyberry (Viburnum lentago) is native to woodland in much of the northeast, I planted it behind the cottage in a spot with moist soil where it is shaded during the hottest part of the day.

Each spring, it bears clusters of white flowers that the bees adore, producing dark-blue summer fruit that the birds eagerly consume. Multi-stemmed, it grows to about 15 feet tall (4.6 m) and 10 feet (3 m) wide with glossy leaves (you can see them on my crown) that turn bright red in autumn.

There is a tiny sprig of pink, lantern-shaped flowers sticking up from the top of my fairy crown; they belong to black huckleberry (Gaylussacia baccata), a native shrub that grows near the lakeshore where its roots are periodically saturated with water from spring floods. Bumble bees nectar in the flowers, and in August….

…… the shrubs yield dark-blue berries that are sweet, though a little seedy. 

Finally, my crown bears a few oak leaves with and chewed edges.  I made it at the beginning of June 2021, when gypsy moths, aka spongy moths or LDD moths (Lymantria dispar dispar) were beginning to consume the red and white oaks, white pines and many other plants on our hillside…..

….. including my beautiful nannyberry.

It was a devastating and historic predation; by mid-July, the woodlands in our region looked like February, so bare were the deciduous tree branches, below.  (You can read last year’s saga with the gypsy moths on my blog here.)

But abundant summer rainfall nurtured the tree roots and they leafed out again with full canopies in August, though the moths laid abundant eggs on our poor trees once again. This year, we’re in a wait-and-see mode, given our cold days this past winter and the chance that a virus might decimate their population. But I sprayed all the egg masses I could reach on the oaks and pines on our acre a week ago, using my homemade cooking-oil-and-soap spray. Fingers crossed.

But let’s not leave on a sad note.  Here is my deconstructed #10 crown, with its familiar components:  lupine, blue false indigo, oxeye daisy and black huckleberry flowers. And here’s to June!

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Here are all my fairy crowns to date:
#1 – Spring Awakening
#2 – Little Blossoms for Easter
#3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths
#4 – Spring Bulb Extravaganza
#5 – A Crabapple Requiem
#6 – Shady Lady
#7 – Columbines & Wild Strawberries on Lake Muskoka
#8 – Lilac, Dogwood & Alliums
#9 – Borrowed Scenery & an Azalea for Mom

Fairy Crown #9 – Borrowed Scenery & an Azalea for Mom

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My crown for June 5th was simple and a little bride-like – or so my friends told me. It consists of two flowers only:  palest-pink beautybush (Kolkwitzia amabilis) and azalea ‘White Cascade’ (Rhododendron hybrid).

The Japanese have a special word for the view in the distance, the landscape framed by your property, the elements that exist outside your own space: they call it shakkei.  For most of us, our borrowed scenery is not a distant mountain range or a bucolic meadow rolling to the ocean, but the plants and trees growing in properties adjacent to our own gardens.

My shakkei is a pair of large beautybushes (Kolkwizia amabilis) belonging to my neighbour Claudette that cascade over my own fence and dominate the view along my side garden path, sometimes in late May but usually in early-mid June.

I thought Claudette — my neighbour for 39 years and a former French teacher — should be photographed for this blog with one of the progeny of her original shrub, and she kindly obliged.  Merci beaucoups, madame.

Beautybush is often called ‘old-fashioned’ but I rarely see it in residential gardens, or botanical gardens, for that matter, which is a shame because it is a majestic shrub in bloom. A member of the honeysuckle family and a cousin to weigela, it typically grows to 10 feet tall (3 m) with a vase-shaped, arching habit that you can see in my photos. Here it is in my friend Rob Proctor’s fabulous garden in Denver, which I blogged about a few years ago.

I love the story of the 1901 discovery of Kolkwitzia amabilis by legendary plant explorer Ernest ‘Chinese’ Wilson (1876-1930) while collecting in the mountains of Hubei, China for Veitch’s Nursery of England. The shrub was about 5 feet tall and out of bloom, though he recorded in his notes that it had spinose fruits. He collected seeds which Veitch’s grew on until, six years later, small plants labeled as “Abelia” were sent to Boston’s Arnold Arboretum where Wilson had been employed. Finally, in June 1915 the shrubs flowered for the first time. According to a story in Arnoldia, the Arboretum’s newsletter, “Their early-summer displays of pink blossoms, profusely borne on arching branches, so impressed Wilson and others that it was christened beautybush.”

Photo courtesy of Arnold Arboretum – Copyright President & Fellows of Harvard College-Arnold Arboretum Archives.

Seeing it in Claudette’s garden in full flower with swallowtail butterflies…

…..and bumble bees competing to forage in the pale-pink blossoms flecked with amber nectar guides, I cannot help agreeing with its discoverer.

Here’s a little video I made of insects enjoying the flowers:

And though I wouldn’t consider it a prime candidate for floral design, here’s a very tiny bouquet that shows the inner markings of the corolla.

Much of my love of gardening came from watching my mother tend her garden in the suburbs of Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada’s mild ‘banana belt’. She grew camellias, magnolias, flowering cherries and a collection of brilliantly-colored Japanese azaleas – and I was her willing student.  Though I garden in a much colder climate, in her honor I planted the ultra-hardy ‘Cascade’ azaleas (Rhododendron ‘Cascade’) beneath my sundeck.  It is the sole survivor of many rhododendrons I planted over the decades, most of which eventually succumbed to imperfect conditions or summer drought. But ‘Cascade’ kept ticking along, and is an important color component of this little white-and-green-hued area, along with old-fashioned, white-edged Hosta undulata var. albo-marginata.    

Here it is with my romping Siberian bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla) peeking through the flowers.

The fairy crowns are coming fast and furious now – it’s a job trying to keep up! Want to see more from earlier this season?
#1 – Spring Awakening
#2 – Little Blossoms for Easter
#3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths 
#4 – Spring Bulb Extravaganza
#5 – A Crabapple Requiem
#6 – Shady Lady
#7 – Columbines & Wild Strawberries on Lake Muskoka
#8 – Lilac, Dogwood & Alliums

Fairy Crown #8 – Lilac, Dogwood & Alliums

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My crown for May 31st wafted its fragrance around my head and made me wish I could bottle its sweet perfume.  That would be the scent of the Meyer lilac (Syringa pubescens ‘Palibin’) that I planted in my fragrance garden long ago. The white flowers are from my big alternate-leaved dogwood (Cornus alternifolia), an Ontario native shrub. And the fluffy spheres are an ornamental onion, Allium hollandicum ‘Purple Sensation’.

Much of the joy of lilac time is that it only lasts a week or so – if you just grown one type – so I’ve learned to savour that scent on the air or in a vase on my kitchen table, along with dame’s rocket (Hesperis matronalis).

Unlike the towering common lilac (Syringa vulgaris) which, if left unpruned, grows so tall that it flowers out of nose range, my Palibin dwarf lilac is just the right height to sniff at 5-6 feet (1.5-1.8 m) and a little wider. Some people grow it as a tightly-clipped hedge, but I prefer to let it have its natural shape.

True, it has a light scent, not the old-fashioned perfume of the Hyacinthiflora hybrids or common lilac, but it is nonetheless an ultra-hardy and low-maintenance fixture in my fragrance garden, and swallowtail butterflies enjoy nectaring on the tiny florets.

Its ancestor was found as a cultivated plant grafted on privet roots near Beijing, China in 1908 by Frank Meyer, who brought it to the U.S. It was named in his honour, Syringa meyeri, before being reclassified as Syringa pubescens subsp. pubescens ‘Palibin’. (Despite the fact that it was never found in Korea, it is often confused in the trade with the Korean lilac species, S. patula and its cultivar ‘Miss Kim’, as well as littleleaf lilac, S. microphylla.)   

No such taxonomic confusion surrounds one of my favourite garden plants, the alternate-leafed dogwood (Cornus alternifolia). Native to a large swath of northeast North America, it is sometimes called pagoda dogwood for its layered branching.  It occupies a corner of my garden that sits just a few inches lower than the rest of the back yard, and appreciates the extra moisture there.  It is approximately 18 feet (5.5 m) tall and almost as wide.

It derives its Latin and common names from the fact that, unlike other dogwoods, the leaves are arranged alternately, rather than opposite. Some people refer to it as “pagoda dogwood” for its layered branching.

When it blooms in late May or early June, it is completely covered with creamy-white clusters of tiny flowers that attract native bees. I now have a few offspring of my original shrub seeded throughout my garden, which fills me with joy. And this morning I noticed the familiar flowers reaching over the fence from my next-door neighbours’ yard. I’m not sure they’ll know it was a gift from me, but it seems that my dogwood is intent on taking back native habitat from boring back yards! Hurrah!

In late summer, birds and squirrels make quick work of the blue fruit clusters….

….. and in October, the foliage turns a lovely rose suffused with gold.

Then there are the alliums, or ornamental onions. When I first planted Allium hollandicum ‘Purple Sensation’ a few decades ago, I didn’t expect that it would be quite so exuberantly happy in my garden. Translated, that means it seeds itself around vigorously, especially in spots that dry out in summertime. 

The good news:  the bees love the violet-purple globes on 3-foot (90 cm) stems; the bad news:  the plants look seriously ugly as the leaves turn yellow.

Rather than let them grow in a thicket, like I do in places, the best approach is to intersperse them among herbaceous plants, such as Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum), below, with old fashioned dame’s rocket (Hesperis matronalis). The latter is a biennial that took decades to creep under the fence from my next-door neighbor’s garden. It is native to Eurasia and considered an invasive in some parts of North America where early settlers brought it to grow in their gardens. Driving home from New Jersey last week, I saw it growing in drifts along the side of the highway in Pennsylvania and upstate New York.

Perhaps no other weed has as many common names:  dame’s rocket, damask-violet, dame’s-violet, dames-wort, dame’s gilliflower, night-scented gilliflower, queen’s gilliflower, rogue’s gilliflower, summer lilac, sweet rocket, mother-of-the-evening, Good & Plenties, and winter gillyflower (Wiki).  As for its Latin name, Hesperis comes from the Greek word hespera, meaning evening, referring to the plant’s nocturnal fragrance.

In my front garden, Allium ‘Purple Sensation’ pops up, along with the hybrid Allium ‘Globemaster’, amidst the emerging foliage of grasses and summer perennials.   Dramatic purple exclamation points in a sea of green, they offer a charming interlude in this quiet, green period between the last spring bulbs and the sages and catmint of June.

And then there’s an unassuming little native perennial that most of my neighbours would consider a weed. Virginia waterleaf (Hydrophyllum virginianum) grows in shady spots in my garden and, unlike the European weeds that like to colonize every square inch of freshly-dug soil, it picks its spots carefully. Its name comes from the white patterns that adorn the foliage of many, but not all, plants.  When its tubular, white flowers bloom above the lobed leaves in late May, they are very popular with bumble bees and other native bees.

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Want to see more of my Fairy Crowns?
#1 – Spring Awakening
#2 – Little Blossoms for Easter
#3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths
#4 – Spring Bulb Extravaganza
#5 – A Crabapple Requiem
#6 – Shady Lady
#7 – Columbines & Wild Strawberries on Lake Muskoka

Fairy Crown 7 – Columbines & Wild Strawberries on Lake Muskoka

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My 7th fairy crown for late May was created at our cottage on Lake Muskoka, a few hours north of Toronto. It features native wildflowers and fruit: red-flowered eastern columbine (Aquilegia canadensis), common blue violets (Viola sororia), wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana), lowbush blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium), the poet’s narcissus (Narcissus poeticus var. recurvus) and a little weed for good measure, yellow rocketcress (Barbarea vulgaris).

If my city garden takes a somewhat naturalistic approach to gardening, it is nonetheless situated in a traditional urban neighborhood. It might be the most flowery front garden on the street, but I’ve worked to make it fit in with the lawns up and down the block by having a hedge as a side boundary; by retaining old clipped boxwood shrubs on either side of the front stairs; and by paying attention to pleasing floral succession, from the earliest snowdrops to the last asters. And my neighbors do love it. In contrast, the meadows and garden beds I created atop Precambrian bedrock at our cottage on Lake Muskoka a few hours north of Toronto are truly wild-looking – and there’s no need to fit in with any neighbors. (I wrote about gardening at the lake in my extensive 2017 blog titled ‘Muskoka Wild’.)

I don’t grow tulips there — they’re just not right for the lake — but my fairy crown for May 20th features the last daffodil of the season, the poet’s daffodil (Narcissus poeticus var. recurvus).

Daffodils grow amazingly well in the acidic, sandy soil here since they love to dry out in summer, popping up each spring amidst the big prairie grasses and forbs.

Besides the poet’s daffodil, one of my favourites is the highly scented Tazetta variety ‘Geranium’, below. 

My grandchildren have all experienced nature on Lake Muskoka. This is Oliver exploring another perfumed daffodil, ‘Fragrant Rose’.

And there is nothing more satisfying than a bouquet of perfumed daffodils on the table in April or May.

On many occasions, I’ve tucked a bunch of daffodils in my bag as I head back to the city.

Daffodils flower concurrently with our little native common blue violet, Viola sororia.

Viola sororia is native to Muskoka, as it is to much of northeast North America. It doesn’t take up a lot of room and grows wherever it pleases, but always with a little shade and moisture at the roots.  

Apart from violets, the landscape here features a large roster of native plants, including the lovely eastern columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) that pops up in the lean, gravelly soil where many plants might struggle. I try to sow seed of this species, being careful to leave the seeds uncovered since light is necessary for germination.

But wild columbine is very particular about where it wants to put down roots, and always surprises me when I see the first, ferny leaves pop up in a new location in spring. 

Hummingbirds are said to enjoy the dainty flowers of eastern columbine, but I confess I’ve never seen them doing so.  I would have to lie in wait on rocky ground by the shore, not as much fun as sitting comfortably on my deck watching them fight over the ‘Black & Bloom’ anise sage (Salvia guaranitica).

Muskoka and wild blueberries just go together naturally, and somebody’s grandmother always made the very best wild blueberry pie in August. In our family, it was my husband’s mother, and she taught her grandkids her secret recipe, including my daughter. So I’m always happy to see the queen bumble bee pollinating those first wild blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium) flowers in May.

But just in case the chipmunks find our berries before we do, we always make a stop at the wild blueberry stand on the way to the cottage from town.

Wild strawberries (Fragaria virginiana) bloom in Muskoka now, too, and on parts of my path above the lake they form a perennial groundcover so dense that I am sometimes afraid to step into their midst, lest I damage them.

But there are always enough strawberries ripening months later to make my grandkids pause on their way to the lake to sample the fruit…

…tiny, admittedly, but oh-so-sweet and juicy.

Similarly, May is when the dark-pink flowers of black huckleberry (Gaylussacia baccata) adorn the shrubs in the shade of the white pines along the lakeshore.  The deep-purple fruit will ripen in August and though somewhat seedy, it is sweet and good for eating raw or baking.

There’s a native serviceberry here at the lake too, but don’t expect to see billowing clouds of white flowers like those big species further south. Its Latin name Amelanchier humilis gives a clue as to its shape, “low, spreading serviceberry”.  Still, native andrena bees love nectaring on it in May, as do the bumble bee queens, which nonetheless must remain wary of  crab spiders looking for their own meals.

My crown’s golden jewels are flowers of the common European weed in the mustard family, yellow rocketcress (Barbarea vulgaris). In Europe, it’s called ‘rocket’ or ‘bittercress’, suggesting a strong-tasting, edible green. Indeed, my foraging friends would recommend picking the basal leaves as they emerge in spring or the rapini-like flower buds (raab) to cook in recipes.  Failing that, just wait for the mustard-yellow flowers to appear and wear them in your fairy crown!

I use my smallest vases to display these delicate blossoms of spring on the table – a welcome celebration of nature’s return to the shore of a lake that was thick with ice just weeks earlier

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Want to see more of my Fairy Crowns? 

#1 – Spring Awakening
#2 – Little Blossoms for Easter
#3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths
#4 – Spring Bulb Extravaganza
#5 – A Crabapple Requiem
#6 – Shady Lady


Fairy Crown #6 – Shady Lady

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If my fairy crown for May 24th makes me look like a shady lady, blame it on the woodland plants now emerging under deciduous trees freshly leafed-out in my garden.  Most prominent in my crown is lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis), which I have nicknamed “guerilla of the valley” for its invasive nature. Native Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum) with its pendant, green-tipped, white flowers is visible over my right eye. The fuzzy white flowers are fothergilla, from the shrubs in my front pollinator garden. The lavender-blue flowers are Camassia leichtlinii ‘Caerulea’, and since the fragrant snowball viburnum (V. x carlcephalum) was still perfuming the air, I added one of those, too.

Most prominent of my woodlanders is native Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum). I love this plant – for its tall, elegant stems that always arch in the same direction, its pendant, pearl-drop flowers, its brilliant, gold autumn color and its absolute ease of care.

Each year, my drifts get a little bigger but it is easy to pull out by the roots if it meanders too far down a border. It thrives in a partly shaded location in my side yard garden where, along with other woodlanders, it flanks the winding entrance path under my massive black walnut tree and is a joy from spring to fall.

Alas, the same cannot be said of my lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis).  I suspect many gardeners have come to regret the day they bought a certain plant or ignored one already growing in their gardens. Since we’ve lived in our house for almost 40 years and there was not much here in the way of gardens when we bought it, I suspect it was hiding under overgrown shrubs along the property line. So when I began to dig out new beds and borders, enriching the soil with amendments and adding a big roster of desirable perennials, the lily-of-the-valley began its territorial march. So stealthy was this invasion and so quickly did it change the dynamic of my garden that I renamed it ‘guerilla-of-the-valley’.  You can see it as a green carpet under the bulbs in this photo of my grandson tiptoeing through the tulips.

Not everyone has this problem; indeed many friends find it difficult to grow and would love a few pips; some garden writers even call it a “useful groundcover”. To that, I point to their dense, mat-like roots so tough to dig out and mutter Caveat emptor. 

Nevertheless, the fragrance from my front garden in mid-May is enchanting and I always enjoy cutting the stems for little bouquets, either on their own or combined with other flowers in bloom now, including the fragrant viburnums, blue camassia, common grape hyacinth and small daffodils, including amazing, long-lasting ‘Golden Echo’, below.

I once even created a perfumed lily-of-the-valley hat for a garden party, and gave the how-to instructions in this blog!

In my front yard pollinator garden, the fothergilla shrubs (F. ‘Mount Airy’) come into flower now with their scented, cream-white, bottlebrush inflorescences.  Depending on the amount of summer sunshine and rain or irrigation my garden receives (and fothergilla does prefer adequately moist soil), the leathery leaves take on vivid fall colours of yellow, gold, apricot, scarlet and purple.

I love white and blue combinations in the garden and this fothergilla-camassia duo is delightful.

Camassia leichtlinii ‘Caerulea’ is such a lovely spring bulb, a cultivar of Pacific Northwest native Leichtlin’s camas or ‘quamash’ that is surprisingly hardy in the east.  My camassia clumps expand each year, as they do in the camas prairies of British Columbia, Washington and Idaho where their edible roots which were a food staple for native peoples. The gorgeous blue flowers offer nectar to queen bumble bees, below, and honey bees provisioning their nests; they also make beautiful cut flowers. 

Camassia has a place in my lily pond garden in the back yard as well.

Like tulips and daffodils, camassia foliage should be allowed to turn yellow to feed the underground bulb. If camassia has a fault, it’s that the blooms last such a short time, but for me, a brief, utterly memorable scene is better than one that lasts so long that you stop noticing it. Here’s a little musical video tribute.

Along with the camassia, the weeks-long parade of tulips culminates now with the Single Late tulips featuring elegant flowers on tall stems.

Among my many favorites are purple-black ‘Queen of Night’….

….rose-pink ‘Menton’…..

….and orange-scarlet ‘El Nino’…..

… with its cyclone swirls of salmon, orange, yellow and pink.

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Want to see more of my Fairy Crowns? 
#1 – Spring Awakening
#2 – Little Blossoms for Easter
#3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths 
#4 – Spring Bulb Extravaganza
#5 – A Crabapple Requiem