“Do you want some Rudbeckia triloba? I can dig some up for you,” said my good friend Aldona Satterthwaite last week. “Of course!” I replied, since browneyed susan is one of the few rudbeckias I haven’t grown. We made a date to meet at her house. I brought her a little plant of Salvia guaranitica ‘Black and Blooms’ that I’d grown from rooted cuttings of my favourite hummingbird plant, and she sat me down on her perfect, socially-distanced veranda, with furniture and colourful, weatherproof carpet from Toronto’s Moss Danforth garden boutique…..

…… and gave me a piece of freshly-baked Chocolate Chip Sour Cream Coffee Cake, recipe from Smitten Kitchen. It is easily the best coffee cake I’ve ever had, but it’s merely one little item in Aldona’s big culinary repertoire. When I make her kale-blue cheese pasta, my husband now says “Didn’t we just have this?” Yes, we did. And we’re having it again because it’s the perfect mix of righteous anti-oxidant vegetable, decadent fromage bleu and carbohydrates!  But I digress.

Aldona and I were born in the same year and share a love of green and growing things, not to mention food, music, travel and good gossip.  I met her in 2001 when she became editor-in-chief of Canadian Gardening magazine where I’d been a freelance contributor since the first issue in 1990.  Prior to that, she’d held key positions in the communication/creative departments at Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. After leaving Canadian Gardening in 2009, she spent 3 years as a very engaged and well-regarded Executive Director of the Toronto Botanical Garden. In short, she’s a powerhouse… and she loves to garden.

As we ate our cake and chatted, it felt like the veranda was a leafy treehouse, thanks to the little forest in her small front garden: magnolia, chaste tree (Vitex agnus-castus) and serviceberry (Amelanchier).  South-facing, it also cools the house on hot summer days.

Birds were waiting for us to finish our snack, so they could nosh on their own plump, ripe serviceberries.

After finishing my cake, I did a fast tour of Aldona’s sweet garden, heading down the stairs beside the pots of colourful begonias, which she uses in profusion.

The garden is small but jam-packed with plants in what seems at first like happy chaos, but is a very well planned orchestration of blooms. Along with a backbone of shrubs and small trees are perennials, biennials (like the R. triloba she was giving me) and self-seeding annuals like the cosmos, front, below. That pretty purple and chartreuse combination is common sage (Salvia officinalis) with ‘Worcester Gold’ bluebeard (Caryopteris x clandonensis).  

Sometimes we forget that sage is a hardy perennial – and one you can nip the odd leaf from for the kitchen. Both the sage and bluebeard attract hummingbirds and bees. (That’s browneyed susan with the 3-lobed leaves.)

Spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana) has become a little too rambunctious for Aldona, popping up here, there and everywhere.

In the main part of the front garden under the outstretched arms of the magnolia is an array of perennials with strong foliage appeal, including chartreuse Aralia cordata ‘Sun King’, upper left; variegated Solomon’s seal; ‘Gold Heart’ bleeding heart (Lamprocapnos spectabilis) and various hostas. Hiding in the shadows is goatsbeard (Aruncus dioicus) with its feathery, ivory flowers.

Also hidden in the rear is a double-flowered ‘Snowflake’ oakleaf hydrangea (H. quercifolia).

Because much of June has been uncharacteristically cool, the bleeding heart still bore a few blossoms…..

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…. and dainty pink columbines were still in bloom.

‘Jack Frost’ Siberian bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla) had shed its tiny, blue flowers but the handsome, variegated foliage is attractive all season.

The big, starry globes of Allium cristophii are always a focal point in the June garden.

In the gravel driveway flanking the house was Aldona’s “cutting garden”: a large, galvanized stock tank, i.e. water trough planter, and assorted window-boxes and pots filled with zinnias and other annuals sprouting from seed.

The back garden is bisected by a gravel pathway….

…. and has as its charming backdrop a 1930s garage in vintage condition!  It even has a bump-out for the original owner’s long sedan. Aldona has added window boxes and climbing frames for vines.

Vines blanket the fence beside a vibrant, pink sling chair and a pair of Japanese maples add a touch of elegance to the west side of the garden.

I noted a pretty Phlomis tuberosa with its lilac flowers….

…. and the first crimson blossoms of Clematis ‘Niobe’.

And at the very back of the garden, Clematis ‘Betty Corning’, that wonderful cross of C. crispa x C. viticella discovered in a garden in Albany, NY in 1932 by the plantswoman of the same name, flung her pale-purple bells here and there.

What a lovely Friday. A delightful garden, a good friend, and cake, too!