Each spring, I look with admiration on my drifts of an Ontario native plant that asks so little of me, but gives so much in return: Polygonatum biflorum, smooth Solomon’s seal. Its tapered shoots emerge in April in my north-facing back garden, where the clumps under the black walnut tree that looms over my sideyard pathway are surrounded by the tiny flowers of the bulbous spring ephemeral Corydalis solida.
By mid-late May, looking back towards my garden gate, the corydalis has disappeared but the Solomon’s seals stand three feet tall.
It’s still early in the garden when they flower, the grasses in my deck pots still just inches high.
The colony in the back corner of the garden grows near a Tiger Eyes sumac and has as its neighbour fall monkshood (Aconitum carmichaelii ‘Arendsii’), not yet visible. Both enjoy the same shade-dappled, slightly moist, humus-rich soil.
It’s a testament to the travelling power of Solomon’s seals that they do sometimes subsume other plants. This ‘Ballade’ lily tulip – one of my favourites – is resisting.
But nothing keeps Allium hollandicum ‘Purple Sensation’ from rearing its pretty head.
My garden features a number of invasive plants – some native, like ostrich fern (Matteucia struthiopteris), others enthusiastic exotics, like my lily-of-the-valley, aka ‘guerilla of the valley’ (Convallaria majalis). (I’ve written about that pest before in my blog about making a perfumed garden party hat!) But Solomon’s seal is up to the challenge and can stand its ground.
One that didn’t fare so well in competition with the Solomon’s seals was wild geranium (G. maculatum), shown below in a photo from a previous spring.
At the Toronto Botanical Garden, blue Amsonia tabernaemontana, shown in the background below, makes a pretty companion for Solomon’s seal.
I love the way the pearl-drop flower buds of smooth Solomon’s seal open, curling up their green tips like dainty skirts.
In November, the leaves turn yellow-gold.
Solomon’s seal and other woodland lovers were featured in ‘Shady Lady’, one of #Janetsfairycrowns from 2021, which I blogged about last year.
My next-door neighbour grows smooth Solomon’s seal as well; it met with the approval of the resident male cardinal.
Finally, speaking of cardinals, here’s a tiny video made in my garden featuring smooth Solomon’s seal with my regular choristers, cardinals and robins.
For me, autumn is a time of richness as the gardening season nears its end in an explosion of pigments and seedheads. Those pigments, in particular, have always fascinated me and I made a concerted effort to use brilliant fall foliage colours in my own garden design. So today’s fairy crown, the 26th, features the fall leaves and fruit of shrubs and trees in my Toronto garden in early November, including Japanese maple (Acer palmatum), Washington thorn (Crataegus phaenopyrum), burning bush (Euonymus alatus ‘Compactus’), barberry (Berberis thunbergii ‘Rose Glow’) and, draped down my front, a compound leaf of my black walnut (Juglans nigra).
Every year is a little different in terms of the parade of colour. Here you see my Japanese maple showing off its regular autumn leaf change as the burning bush hedge turns colour. In the pollinator garden, the ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum seedheads are ruby-red, but the fothergilla haven’t begun to change yet. The columnar red maple (upper left) that the city chose for my boulevard (I asked for one that turns red) has taken on its disappointing dishwater-yellow. Red maples, of course, don’t always turn red in fall.
In this photo taken a different year, the fothergilla in the pollinator garden is a rosy-apricot. That’s catmint in the front giving a nice glaucous contrast with Russian sage and echinacea seedheads adding structure.
From across the street, my neighbours see my garden through the fan-shaped yellow leaves of my second boulevard tree, a ginkgo (G. biloba).
The Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) I planted in front of my living room window decades ago is a great joy to me. It’s the straight species with green leaves – in Japan it would be a common forest tree. But in my garden, since there are no drapes on my front window, it forms a lacy curtain from spring (when bees buzz around the tiny May flowers) to fall. In very late October or the first week of November, the foliage turns a range of rich hues from yellow to apricot, scarlet and crimson.
The leaves are delicate, their branching exquisite. It’s no wonder they were the subject of the renowned Japanese woodblock artists like Hiroshige and Kuniyoshi.
As I’ve written before, my Japanese maple’s brilliant autumn colour lights up my living room in early November….
….. enhancing the glass witches’ balls I’ve suspended from the window frame.
And, of course, the leaves also provided me with an appropriate costume and landscape for my little geisha.
If there’s a saying that “good fences, good neighbours make”, it can also apply to hedges – which was how I ended up making this hedge in my front garden more than 30 years ago. (My current neighbours are lovely!) Today, environmentalists tend to shun burning bush, given its invasive tendency in milder regions, but my hedge produces very few seedlings, unlike the Norway maples in my neighbourhood which are a scourge. And this neon display in autumn is truly amazing.
My belly dancer’s costume was made from the leaves of my burning bush hedge.
Though there’s no fothergilla in my crown, it is definitely a big part of the fall colour in my front garden. In this photo made just before Halloween, you can see one of my shrubs has turned a rich burgundy-red beneath the Japanese maple.
The richer, more moisture-retentive soil in my pollinator island tends to produce orange and gold colours in the three fothergilla shrubs there.
Look at those colours! Who needs the spring flowers….
…. though they are lovely, if short-lived, in late May.
And, yes, I did harvest my flamenco dancer’s multi-colored skirt from my fothergillas.
Turning colour a little later in the front garden is my paperbark maple (Acer griseum) with its red trifoliate leaves.
Moving into the back garden, you see Boston ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata) cloaking the driveway gate. I didn’t plant this vine, nor did I plant all the Virginia creeper vines that pop up throughout the garden. That’s Mother Nature’s role and she’s very enthusiastic about it (!)
I confess that I wanted the Washington thorn tree (Crataegus phaenopyrum) in my garden long ago purely for its multi-hued fall leaves.
But it turned out to be a wonderful tree for bird life – IF the birds can out-compete the squirrels for the fruit. The robin, below, managed to do that, but so have cedar waxwings and cardinals.
Here you can see the range of autumn colour in the foliage of Washington thorn.
When we bought our house in 1983, the native black walnut tree (Juglans nigra) on the property line between us and our next-door neighbour was already mature. In the 39 years since then, it has hosted raccoon families in the crook of its trunk, carpenter ants in its bark and countless cardinals practising their song in its branches.
Our bedroom sits right under the tree, but we seemed to have missed the obvious ramifications of putting a skylight in our ceiling – particularly when windy nights in September roll around and the roof is pummelled with billiard-ball-sized nuts. Though the skylight has proven strong, we’ve replaced two car windshields since the tree’s branches — and nuts — extend far over the driveway.
The walnuts are enjoyed by the neighbourhood squirrels….
….. but the natural dye in the husks creates an unbelievable mess.
The arborist has told us the tree has rot in the trunk, but my neighbour and I have had it cabled and pruned away some of the branches over our houses to reduce the nut fusillade. It is our tree, after all, it gives us shade and we feel a duty to keep it – thus its inclusion in my 26th crown.
I don’t really notice the ‘Rose Glow’ barberry (Berberis thunbergii) in my back garden until it turns rich crimson-red in autumn – then it’s a show-stopper. It’s another one of those shrubs that environmentalists shun – especially in milder U.S. regions where it seeds around freely. I haven’t seen one seedling in my Toronto garden.
I have a fairly new addition to my back garden: a little sassafras tree (S. albidum). which I wanted especially for its fall colour. This autumn – admittedly one of the best for colour in many years – it has begun to display the reds, corals and yellows for which it is known.
Those colours, by the way, are on leaves that exhibit three distinct shapes: elliptical; mitten-like and three-lobed. This is what they look like on my light table.
Designing with and celebrating fall-colored plants and shrubs is my way of expressing my appreciation for nature’s yearly preparation for winter, as it cycles through the yellow/orange “accessory” carotene pigments in the leaves of certain species to harvest and synthesize as much sunshine as possible, once the ‘green’ pigment chlorophyll breaks down in cooler temperatures. Red colour is from anthocynanis. According to the USDA, “Anthocyanins absorb blue, blue-green, and green light. Therefore, the light reflected by leaves containing anthocyanins appears red. Unlike chlorophyll and carotene, anthocyanins are not attached to cell membranes, but are dissolved in the cell sap. The color produced by these pigments is sensitive to the pH of the cell sap. If the sap is quite acidic, the pigments impart a bright red color; if the sap is less acidic, its color is more purple. Anthocyanin pigments are responsible for the red skin of ripe apples and the purple of ripe grapes. A reaction between sugars and certain proteins in cell sap forms anthocyanins. This reaction does not occur until the sugar concentration in the sap is quite high.” Because the reaction requires light, you often see leaves (or apples) fully exposed to sun that are red while those parts that are shaded stay green or yellow, like these Boston ivy leaves on my fence.
I love making the leaf montages that celebrate these pigment changes, like the one below from leaves in my garden.
A few years ago I even held a photography show called “Autumn Harvest” featuring a number of my leaf montages.
Finally, this week as I walked out onto my front porch and gazed into my garden, this is what I saw– a multi-hued tapestry that shows that nature is the best designer of all. It’s my reward for a gardening season that began seven months ago with the first snowdrops and will soon come to an end with the first hard frost.
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My year of fairy crowns is soon drawing to its wintry finale. If you missed a few, here they are:
When I jotted down a list of songs for #mysongscapes, a second ‘psychedelic’ song by Tommy James and the Shondells (after Crimson and Clover in my previous blog praising the pea family) easily made the list. It hit the charts when I was in my early 20s and became a kind of symbol of the anti-war, drug-fuelled, free love, counter-culture atmosphere of the late 1960s. It had an infectious introduction with its bongo drums and flamenco guitar and the lyrics seemed to me just a hippie-dippie celebration of everything that was changing in Vietnam era society. It wasn’t until I looked into the meaning of the lyrics this winter that I discovered what Tommy James intended – which was likely the direct opposite of the pastiche of images in the music video below (viewed more than 11 million times). I’ll get to the real meaning at the end of this blog. Meanwhile, the song offers a great musical introduction to my own version of bewitching ‘crystal blue persuasion’ in the garden.
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Blue in the Garden
I’ve never had to be persuaded to use blue flowers in my garden. That colour is a favourite of mine as it is for many gardeners. Crystals… now that’s a different thing. The closest I’ve come to coveting a crystal is an indigo-blue gazing globe. (And yes, that’s me reflected with my camera.)
As for flowers, a burst of blue hits my garden pretty early in the season, when the little Siberian squill (Scilla sibirica) comes into flower. I try to appreciate each little blossom…..
Around the same time as the Siberian squill flowers, drifts of blue glory-of-the-snow (Scilla forbesii, formerly Chionodoxa) also begin to bloom. I love it when they nudge into my pink ‘George Baker’ Corydalis sempervirens.
If you have a shady spot, it’s easy to ‘persuade’ blue lungwort to take up residence. This is the very cultivar Pulmonaria ‘Blue Ensign’.
Grape hyacinths always bring a grape-scented touch of blue into the spring garden, but Muscari aucheri ‘Dark Eyes’ combines all the blues.
The veronica or speedwell clan boasts a lot of blues into lavender-blues. Among the earliest to flower is the groundcover Veronica umbrosa ‘Georgia Blue’. It is often seen in rock gardens.
Where would the spring garden be without the frothy supporting role played by blue forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvatica)? Answer: nowhere near as beautiful!
I often wish I still lived on Canada’s mild west coast (for a lot of reasons), but the ability to grow the various Ceanothus shrubs (California lilac) is a compelling one. This blue lovely is the bee-friendly hybrid Ceanothus ‘Dark Star’.
Speaking of bees, there are lots of blue flowers that attract bees and I’ve had fun capturing the buzz.
Soon after the “little blue bulbs” of spring, there are a few blue-flowered perennials. One that has become deservedly popular is Siberian bugloss or Brunnera macrophylla. This is ‘Jack Frost’.
It makes a good companion to a host of mid-spring bulbs and perennials. I liked this pairing with the white form of Greek windflower (Anemone blanda ‘White Splendour’).
Speaking of “blue and white”, I’ve also spent time focusing my lens on some crisp, seersucker-like combinations of blue and white flowers from spring to autumn, below.
Top row, left to right: Anemone blanda ‘White Splendour’ with Siberian squill; Narcissus ‘Thalia’ with grape hyacinths; star-of-Bethlehem (Ornithogalum nutans) with forget-me-nots; white bleeding heart (Lamprocapnos spectabilis ‘Alba’). Second row: blue false indigo (Baptisia australis) and ‘Duchesse de Nemours’ peony; Evolvulus ‘Blue My Mind’ with white verbena and Thunbergia alata ‘Sunrise White‘; white spider flower (Cleome spinosa ‘White Queen’) with Salvia farinacea ‘Victoria Blue’; dropwort (Filipendula vulgaris) with catmint (Nepeta x faassenii ‘Blue Wonder’). Third row: Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) with white blazing star (Liatris spicata ‘Floristan White’); white swamp mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos ‘Blue River II’) against a blue wall; Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) with flowering tobacco (Nicotiana alata); fall snakeroot (Actaea simplex) with fall monkshood (Aconitum carmichaelii ‘Arendsii’).
A groundcover spring perennial that is not very hardy in my climate but seen a lot in milder regions is Cappadocian navelwort (Omphalodes cappadocica).
Similarly, I enjoy photographing sky-blue Lithodora diffusa ‘Grace Ward’ in Vancouver in the spring, but wouldn’t chance it in my own cold Toronto climate.
An azure-blue star of mid-late spring borders or wildflower plantings in the northeast is Virginia bluebell (Mertensia virginica).
Though a spring ephemeral (it disappears after blooming), it makes a big impact when in flower, as it is here with yellow wood poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum).
On a June garden tour one year, I was entranced by this semi-shaded planting of indigo-blue columbines (Aquilegia vulgaris) and Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium caeruleum).
For those in cool summer regions (Alaska, British Columbia, Maritime Canada and the U.S.), there is nothing more alluring in part shade than the brilliant, blue flowers of the Himalayan blue poppy (Meconopsis baileyi).
When I was at New York’s High Line one June, I was impressed with the tidy, mounding manner and clear-blue flowers of Amsonia ‘Blue Ice’. It also turns a nice golden-yellow in fall.
Nothing says ‘romance’ in the early summer garden like delphiniums. They come in a range of heights and colours from pure white to dark purple (often with contrasting “eyes”), but for a hit of sky-blue you cannot beat the ‘Blue Bird Group’.
Many veronicas or speedwells range into blue hues but none is as vibrant as June-blooming Veronica austriaca ssp. teucrium ‘Crater Lake Blue’.
When I was in Denver last June, I was mesmerized by this foothill penstemon cultivar (Penstemon heterophyllus) called, appropriately, ‘Electric Blue’.
Although they don’t last long in my garden (they’re known to be “short-lived”), I do adore the silky, little flowers of blue flax (Linum perenne var. lewisii).
People who live in Texas might ask “where are the bluebonnets”. Indeed! Though I wouldn’t recommend a species so niche-specific, even if it’s a gorgeous spring wildflower, I will say that, generally, there are lots of lupine species that kick up the blue quotient in any garden by several notches. And yes, depending on where you live, there is probably a native lupine for you. Wild lupine (Lupinus perennis) is mine, and though they’re usually more purplish, sometimes I get a sky-blue one in my meadows — and the bumble bees adore them.
They’re a reason we have a colour called gentian blue…. If you look at the intense colour of trumpet gentian (G. acaulis), it’s easy to understand why. In fact, many gentian species make wonderful ‘blue garden’ stars.
In my own Toronto pollinator island garden, I like the soft effect of long-flowering, lavender-blue Nepeta x faassenii ‘Blue Wonder’, shown here in June with purplish meadow sage Salvia nemorosa ‘Mainacht’.
Although the globe thistles often read a little too lavender-blue for me to include here, there is one I like called Echinops bannaticus ‘Blue Pearl’. Isn’t it lovely?
And here it is at Montreal Botanical Garden in a soft, blue cloud of Greek catmint (Nepeta parnassica).
The sea holly hybrid Eryngium x zabelii ‘Big Blue’ is very striking, and easily-grown in well-drained soil in a sunny spot. Don’t overwater it or it will sprawl.
The sub-shrub Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) has become deservedly popular over the past few decades with its small, light blue flowers. Here it is with ‘White Swan’ coneflower (Echinacea) in the background.
I grow tender and borderline-hardy sages in pots to attract hummingbirds and the hybrid below was new for me last year. Bred by Betsy Clebsch, it’s called ‘Big Swing’ and my ruby-throated hummer gave it the seal of approval (but not as popular as the Argentine sages, especially S. guaranitica ‘Black and Blooms’). For such men who still feel embarrassed about their sexual inability can head towards the online drug stores sell cheap Kamagra jelly but this is more preferred than that medicine as this click this site buy generic levitra problem is common in young too. It boosts http://icks.org/n/data/ijks/1482467798_add_file_3.pdf generic cialis tadalafil kidney, liver and cardiac functioning. Lack or excess of sleep underplays function of organs, impacting the nerves, blood circulation, generating greater stress hormones. cialis order levitra Too much nightfall can purchase cheap levitra http://icks.org/n/bbs/content.php?co_id=Mission&mcode=10&smcode=1020 invite the problem of lethargy, low libido, and lesser sensation around the genital region.
Gentian sage (Salvia patens) is not hardy for me, but it’s perennial in warm places. This is the sky-blue cultivar ‘Cambridge Blue’.
Bog sage (Salvia uliginosa) is a wonderful late summer perennial for soil that can be kept reasonably moist. It’s also a bee favourite!
The late summer-early autumn blue of leadwort (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides) is almost startling in its intensity, thus its other name hardy plumbago.
The latest perennial to flower in my garden is autumn monkshood (Aconitum carmichaelii ‘Arendsii’). In fact, I have one clump that reaches its peak bloom just as my Tiger Eyes sumac (Rhus typhina ‘Bailtiger’) is changing colour from chartreuse to bright apricot. Autumn monkhood flowers are “indigo-blue”, a deep shade of purplish-blue that gets its name from the natural plant dye originally used for blue jeans.
Beyond perennials, there are a few hardy shrubs that can add a touch of blue to the garden. In late summer, blue mist bush (Caryopteris x clandonensis) makes a beautiful companion to pink border sedums and goldenrod. And the bees love it!
Mophead hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla) are familiar to gardeners and feature many blue-flowered cultivars. In milder regions, you see them as beautiful hedges but they can be stunning in planters and urns, as well – especially at Easter time when every greengrocer has pots of them, along with Easter lilies. This is my beautiful neighbour Judith’s blue front door in spring. She keeps her hydrangeas watered for months as they age to delicious shades of olive-green and deep navy-blue.
Then there are all the tender plants…. bulbs, annuals, tropicals with blue flowers. Lily-of-the-nile (Agapanthus africanus) is a bulb that makes a strong exclamation point in the summer garden. Sadly, it’s not hardy for me – unlike New Zealand, where it’s considered an invasive weed!
If you’ve grown borage (Borago officinalis) in your herb garden, you’ll know how crazy the bees are for the nectar in its sky blue flowers.
Another bee-favourite summer annual is also the ingredient in a lot of wildflower mixes, along with corn poppies and other European natives. Blue cornflower (Centaurea cyanus) has intense, azure-blue flowers atop willowy stems.
I photographed Chinese forget-me-nots (Cynoglossum amabile) in spring at UC Berkeley Botanic Garden, where they combined nicely with the little yellow Kamchatka stonecrop (Sedum kamtschaticum).
Who doesn’t love morning glory? Especially the bluest of them all, Ipomoea tricolor ‘Heavenly Blue’! Yes, the flowers do close in the afternoon, but for the cost of a few plump seeds, you can have a twining treasure like the vignette below.
I’ve never had much luck with blue pimpernel (Anagallis monelii), even as a pot annual. I’ve seen it used in springtime in California, which tells me our hot, humid summers do not agree with it. But those navy-blue flowers…. swoon!
Lobelia! Even your grandmother loved annual lobelia (L. erinus). Nothing adds a shock of blue to a pot or basket like this frothy annual. But keeping it looking vigorous for a long time is a challenge. It likes regular feeding and a summer cut-back to revive it. Here it is with salmon ivy geraniums (Pelargonium), frothy yellow bidens and white bacopa (Sutera cordata).
Baby blue eyes (Nemophila menziesii) has all the colours of a summer sky. It’s another cool weather California native annual that turns up its toes in a hot northeastern summer.
Not only does it have the prettiest common name of any annual, love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena) has intricate blue (or white) flowers that self-seed in conditions they like. Its seedpods are pretty in dried flower bouquets.
If you’ve spent time in tropical climates, you will undoubtedly have seen blue plumbago (P. auriculata) clambering over walls or trained as a vine. Though an evergreen shrub in warm regions (it’s native to South Africa, thus its other name, “cape leadwort”), it also makes a good container subject in summer gardens in colder regions.
I’m going to close my blue flowers ‘persuasion’ with a Texas species whose many selected varieties range from powder-blue to deep indigo-blue (all with a touch of purple), mealycup sage (Salvia farinacea). But the one that says “blue” most clearly to me is the light, lavender-blue one in the photo below, from Montreal Botanical Garden. It’s called ‘Fairy Queen’, and it is combined with S. farinacea ‘Evolution’ (dark purple-blue), fragrant purple heliotrope (Heliotropium arborescens) and brilliant chartreuse sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas ‘Illusion Emerald Lace’)
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And now for those song lyrics. In 1969, like a lot of 60s era rockers, Tommy James was in the grips of addiction, both to alcohol and drugs. His bottom, he said in an interview, came in a Holiday Inn motel when he opened the desk drawer to find a Gideon bible. He opened Ezekiel and, as he said, read the greatest UFO story in history. He said he knew “God was talking to him”, that God was “in the now”. He took the bible away and three months later wrote a song while listening to Billy Graham on television, He said he “got saved” that night as he “found Jesus”. In 1986, he went into the Betty Ford Center to dry out from pills and alcohol. So my song today, to my surprise (as a formerly religious person, now an atheist) is actually a psychedelic ‘hymn’ about “becoming a Christian”. Here are the lyrics.
CRYSTAL BLUE PERSUASION (Eddie Morley Gray, Mike Vale, Tommy James, 1969)
Look over yonder What do you see? The sun is a’rising Most definitely
A new day is coming, ooh, ooh People are changing Ain’t it beautiful, ooh, ooh Crystal blue persuasion
Better get ready to see the light Love, love is the answer, ooh, ooh And that’s all right
So don’t you give up now, ooh, ooh So easy to find Just look to your soul And open your mind
Crystal blue persuasion, mmm, mmm It’s a new vibration Crystal blue persuasion Crystal, blue persuasion
Maybe tomorrow When he looks down On every green field, ooh, ooh And every town All of his children And every nation They’ll be peace and good brotherhood
Crystal blue persuasion, yeah Crystal blue persuasion, aha Crystal blue persuasion, aha Crystal blue persuasion, aha
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This is the 17th blog in #mysongscapes series of winter 2020 that combine music I love with my photography. If you enjoyed reading it, have a look at the others. And please leave a comment if you enjoyed any of them.
Let’s stick with Sir Van Morrison in this, the ninth blog of #mysongscapes. The year before he recorded ‘Astral Weeks’ with ‘Madame George’, my favourite song and the subject of my last blog, he had a smash hit with the pop-infused ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ of 1967. As usual with Van, however, the song’s meaning was confusing. He originally wrote it, he has said, with a calypso flavour as ‘Brown Skinned Girl’… “kind of a Jamican song”.. but changed the words to make it more radio-friendly. The lyrics were racy for the time (even though 1967 was the hippie-flavoured summer of love). “Making love in the green grass/behind the stadium with you/My brown-eyed girl” didn’t make it past the censors for a lot of radio stations, who substituted different chorus lyrics when they played it. But it’s still the song that gets entire tables of women of all ages up dancing when it’s played by the deejay at that wedding reception. Because who doesn’t want to be Van Morrison’s “Brown-Eyed Girl”?
BROWN EYED GIRL
Hey, where did we go? Days when the rains came Down in the hollow Playin’ a new game Laughing and a running hey, hey Skipping and a jumping In the misty morning fog with Our hearts a thumpin’ and you My brown-eyed girl You, my brown-eyed girl
Whatever happened To Tuesday and so slow? Going down the old mine With a transistor radio Standing in the sunlight laughing Hiding behind a rainbow’s wall Slipping and sliding All along the waterfall, with you My brown-eyed girl You, my brown-eyed girl
Do you remember when we used to sing Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da Just like that Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da, la te da
So hard to find my way Now that I’m all on my own I saw you just the other day My, how you have grown Cast my memory back there, Lord Sometimes I’m overcome thinking ’bout Making love in the green grass Behind the stadium with you My brown-eyed girl You, my brown-eyed girl
Do you remember when we used to sing Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da, la te da (Bit by bit, by bit, by bit, by bit, by bit) (Sha la la la la la la, la te da, la te da Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da, la te da (La te da, da da da da da da da da)
********* My Brown-Eyed Girls
Okay… you knew where this was going, didn’t you? Yes, I do love my rudbeckias, whether they’re called black-eyed susans or blackeyed Susans or brown-eyed suzies or coneflowers.. whatever. In fact, at our cottage they were once the only flower I grew. Seriously. In 2002, when we were trying to keep the freshly delivered soil from sliding down the hillside at our newly-built cottage on Lake Muskoka north of Toronto, I mixed a few ounces of the tiny seeds of the native Rudbeckia hirta or wild black-eyed susan, into a sack of red fescue (Festuca rubra) seed and raked it in. Because this species is biennial, that first summer the little rosettes of foliage formed. But the following year, they flowered in golden profusion and my hillside looked magical.
Every time I walked down my stairs, it was into a sea of black-eyed susans.
I spent a lot of time crouched down photographing them.
That summer of 2003 was so magical (and I knew it was once-in-a-lifetime) so I did some impressionist stuff like this….
…. and this….
…. and this butterfly. And the following year I had a photography show to celebrate my “black-eyed susan summer”.
I asked my 92-year-old mother-in-law (then still living down the lake shore from us) to hold a little bunch of them in her hands. Ten years later, it became the final image in the slide show at her funeral service.
The black-eyed susans attracted lots of pollinators to the true flowers, the little yellow specks you can hardly see arrayed around the brown eye or cone.
Rudbeckia hirta’s botanical name means “hairy”, and you can see the hairs on the sepals and involucre, below. They also line the stem and leaves.
With so many thousands of black-eyed susans in my meadows, it was fascinating to explore them carefully. Doing so allowed me to see that nature often makes mistakes, like this mutant double flower.
And I was fascinated with the difference in size and vigor between plants grown from seed I had sown in rich, moist soil and those I’d sprinkled in dusty, dry soil near the roots of white pine trees. This phenomenon is not part of the evolutionary journey of the species, but is the result of “phenotypic plasticity”, i.e. the ability of a species to adapt to conditions without any mutational change in its genetic makeup.
As the years passed, the black-eyed susans became just part of the cast of characters in my cottage flora. They looked lovely with butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) and pink musk mallow (Malva moschata) …..
….. and hoary vervain (Verbena stricta)……
….. and peeking around the big, fragrant blossoms of the Orienpet lily Lilium ‘Conca d’Or’.
Rudbeckias are part of the massive Asteraceae family of composite species evolved to offer compound inflorescences composed of colourful, insect-attracting ray petals and masses of tiny “true” flowers. In my meadows I grow several of these yellow composite “daisy” flowers, including Rudbeckia hirta and Rudbeckia subtomentosa as well as Heliopsis,Silphium and Ratibida species. Not shown in the tapestry below are Coreopsis and Anthemis, also in my meadows.
For late summer, I love sweet blackeyed susan (Rudbeckia subtomentosa). This species gets its name from the subtle fragrance of the flowers that appear in clusters atop tall stems. Its newly-emerging central cone is truly brown, unlike the very dark cone of Rudbeckia hirta. Later it turns black.
In my meadows, it flowers at the same time as New York ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis), below and also Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium maculatum).
Throughout summer I gather blackeyed susans for bouquets. One year, I photographed a vase in my meadow filled with what was in bloom there in mid-July. Apart from Rudbeckia hirta, there’s pink Monarda fistulosa, lilac Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Fascination’, orange Asclepias tuberosa and yellow Heliopsis helianthoides and Coreopsis lanceolata.
One rainy August day, I lined up some vintage apothecary bottles filled with what I found in bloom or fruit. Black-eyed susans were just a small part of that lovely abundance.
By September, the meadow has fewer species in flower but in the tiny bouquets below, sweet black-eyed susans (Rudbeckia subtomentosa) looked lovely with long-flowering Heliopsis helianthoides, ‘Gold Plate’ yarrow (Achillea filipendulina), goldenrod (Solidago rugosa) and the native asters, including lavender Symphyotrichum azureum, purple New England aster (Symphyotrichum nova-angliae) and white lance-leaved aster (Symphyotrichum lanceolatum).
Another year, I combined Canada goldenrod with New York ironweed and sweet black-eyed susans for a September bouquet. These all tablets, soft tablets, jellies have short amerikabulteni.com generico cialis on line response time as well as long-lasting results. Alcohol related deaths a potential hazard According to reports sildenafil in usa there are approximately 2.3 million years of potential life lost in the United States owing to alcoholism. Treating ED and expanding cialis free samples the period of time. More to You: It is quite natural that you get anxious during you first sexual act, but if you facing this problem every time then this is a time when he should act better than investing time in mere thinking about what’s going wrong? There are no versions, generic or otherwise available for tadalafil in canada .
In my front yard pollinator garden in Toronto, I use the ubiquitous, award-winning perennial black-eyed susan Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’. It likes to seize ground so I occasionally pull it out when it wants to invade its less aggressive neighbours…..
…. but I like the rich gold as an easy, long-flowering filler plant with the pinks, blues and purples of echinacea, perovskia, liatris and sedum.
Here it is with late-blooming rough blazing star (Liatris aspera).
‘Goldsturm’ black-eyed susan is a mainstay in my friend Marnie Wright’s beautiful Bracebridge, Ontario garden, along with summer phlox and hydrangeas. (Have a look at this blog I wrote about Marnie’s garden.)
When I travel, I take note of different black-eyed susans used effectively in designs. This is sweet black-eyed susan (R. subtomentosa) in an exuberant display on New York’s High Line.
…. and here with a cloud of white mountain mint (Pycnanthemum tenuifolium) and orange butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa).
Here it is with purple dense blazing star (Liatris spicata) at the front, tall vervain (Verbena hastata) in the middle and gray-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata) at right.
Native grasses can be good partners for black-eyed susans. At the Toronto Botanical Garden (TBG), I photographed Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’ with little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium).
But the TBG has lots of gardens and here we see Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium maculatum ‘Gateway’) partnering with ‘Goldsturm’.
Another summer, I photographed ‘Goldsturm’ with tall, pale-yellow Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’ behind it and smoke bush (Cotinus coggygria ‘Purpurea’) beside it. The spike seedheads are from ligularia.
Another late-summer perennial at the TBG is great blue lobelia (L. siphilitica), which looks beautiful with R. ‘Goldsturm’.
The TBG also uses a quill-petalled cultivar of Rudbeckia subtomentosa called ‘Henry Eilers’, combining it nicely with rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium).
I adored this lighter-than-air combination of R subtomentosa ‘Henry Eilers’ matched up perfectly with the dark bottlebrush flowers of Japanese burnet (Sanguisorba tenuifolia ‘Purpurea’).
But the best design I saw using ‘Henry Eilers’ was at Terra Nova Nurseries in Oregon, where it was combined with the snakeroot Actaea simplex ‘Black Negligee’, its dark foliage accenting those dark cones perfectly.
Breeders continue to work with black-eyed susans, especially at Chicago Botanic Gardens where numerous taxa are assessed in the Bernice E. Lavin Plant Evaluation Garden, below.
There are other species of Rudbeckia native to North America that are often seen in gardens. This is brown-eyed susan (Rudbeckia triloba), below, a short-lived perennial which is often described as weedy or invasive, but its small flowers can be a good addition to a rich, moist meadow.
Rudbeckia nitida or shiny coneflower is tall with reflexed yellow petals, prominent greenish cones. The cultivar ‘Herbstsonne’ is the one most often available (though some experts believe this cultivar is actually a hybrid between R. nitida and R. laciniata).
Rudbeckia laciniata or cutleaf coneflower is usually seen in its old-fashioned double forms, ‘Hortensia’, below, or ‘Goldquelle’.
Among the showiest black-eyed susans are the gloriosa daisies, which are tetraploid versions of Rudbeckia hirta. That means they have twice the normal chromosomes, a condition created by treating them with colchicine (from autumn crocuses) or radiation. Tetraploidy results in larger flowers than normal, and the condition persists in seedlings so gloriosa daisies come true from seed. Like regular R. hirta, gloriosa daisies are usually biennial, but may flower the same year if seeds are sown indoors in winter. Gloriosa daisies exhibit myriad colours or streaks of colour. Or they might have doubled petals.
At the Montreal Botanical Garden (MBG) one summer, I photographed a delightful meadow of gloriosa daisies – a wonderful variety of cultivars mixed with blue cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus) and orange cosmos (C. sulphureus).
Along the central strip in MBG’s magnificent perennial garden, they had planted rainbow chard with the dwarf gloriosa daisy ‘Toto’ and a curly carex edging.
At the Royal Botanical Garden in Burlington, Ontario, I liked seeing native bottlebrush grass (Elymus hystrix) interplanted with gloriosa daisies.
I’ll finish my Van Morrison-inspired musings with a few gloriosa beauties. This is ‘Autumn Colors’ (which is a very variable cultivar)…..
…. and ‘Denver Daisy’….
…. and ‘Cherry Brandy’…..
….. and ‘Irish Eyes’ with its lovely green cone.
Speaking of Irish eyes, mine happen to be green. The genetics of eye colour is incredibly complex, but depends on alleles in your parents’ genome and the concentration of melanin in the iris.
I am the only one in my family of six to have green eyes – my parents both had blue eyes, and my children all have blue or greyish-blue eyes. If I wanted to be Van Morrison’s brown-eyed girl – laughing and a running hey hey/skipping and a jumping – I’d have to buy tinted contact lenses, something that makeup artists frequently use in film. I didn’t want to go that far, but I do have Photoshop. What do you think?
*********
This is the ninth blog in #mysongscapes series of winter 2020 that combine music I love with my photography. If you enjoyed reading, have a look at the others beginning with
What a treat I had back in June, along with more than 70 other garden bloggers during our annual “Garden Bloggers’ Fling”, to visit the beautiful garden of Rob Proctor and David Macke in the Highlands district of northwest Denver – and then to visit it again in softer light, the following morning! So in the midst of a very busy summer up here on Lake Muskoka (during which I’ve scarcely had a moment to revisit my photos) I nevertheless wanted to share images from my visit. If you arrive in June, this is what greets you even before you open the charming front gate.
In front of the house is a “hellstrip” from heaven, below, filled with a drought-tolerant symphony of plants in purples and soft yellows. It’s your first clue that the plantings here have been designed by a master colourist who is also a painter and botanical illustrator. Rob now appears on Denver’s 9NEWS twice weekly as a garden expert, but at one time he was co-director with Angela Overy of the Denver Botanic Gardens School of Botanical Illustration. He also served as the DBG’s Director of Horticulture from 1998 to 2003. As his friend and former colleague, DBG Senior Curator and Director of Outreach Panayoti Kelaidis said in an interview once: “He transformed a sleepy, provincial research garden facility and made us one of the great display gardens in America.”
Bloody cranesbill (Geranium sanguineum) creates soft cushions of magenta blossoms in front of lavender-blue meadow sage (Salvia pratensis), middle left. At middle right is purple woodland sage (Salvia nemorosa).
Bees were everywhere, including this honey bee nectaring on the woodland sage.
Two unusual xeric plants are lilac-purple Kashmir sage (Phlomis cashmeriana) and golden drop (Onosma taurica), below.
At the eastern end of the hellstrip, a brighter colour scheme featured….
….. apricot desert mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua) with basket-of-gold (Aurinia saxatilis).
A metallic green sweat bee (Agapostemon virescens) was nectaring on the desert mallow, while….
….. nearby, showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa) was awaiting monarch butterflies.
The word “hellstrip” is usually attributed to Colorado garden designer Lauren Springer Ogden, author of the acclaimed book The Undaunted Garden, among others. She and Rob also co-authored Passionate Gardening: Good Advice for Challenging Climates. In an article she wrote for Horticulture magazine back in 2007, Ogden wrote of the Water Smart Garden she designed for Denver Botanic Gardens, shown in my photo below: “The Denver Botanic Gardens’ former director of horticulture, Rob Proctor, played a crucial role in developing the full potential of the garden. The first couple of years it floundered—a good number of the called-for plants were not actually put in, and it fell under poorly trained and often careless maintenance. When Rob took over, he made it his priority to support the richness of the planting and the high level of care the garden deserved. He let me shop personally for many of the missing plants and add the beginnings of a collection of fiber plants that now brings so much to the dynamic year-round textures of the garden: nolinas, yuccas, agaves, and dasylirions—plants that just a few years ago were rarely used in Colorado gardens and often thought not to be hardy.”
Though I could have spent an hour exploring the luscious hellstrip, I was ready to find what waited on the other side of the gate in the ebullient gardens that surround the 1905 “Denver square” brick house that Rob and David moved into in May 1993.
I was invited in to look at some of Rob’s art. I loved this botanical rendering of a passionflower, one of many of his works hanging in the house.
But I was anxious to see what was out back, so I made my way past Stranger, the stray cat that hung around Rob and David’s garden for such a long time that he first got the nickname, then his new home.
Though Stranger elected to stay behind on the sunroom table, Mouse accompanied me out onto the brick-paved patio.
And what a patio it is, nestled into its own little garden spangled with lilac-purple Allium cristophii. Here we see the first wave of hundreds of containers that Rob and David fill with annuals each season, adding to pots containing tropicals, bulbs, succulents or perennials. Pots with tender plants are lifted outdoors each spring, nurtured and watered all summer, then transported back to the basement in autumn before Denver’s Zone 5 winter winds blow. Cobalt blue – a favourite colour – is the unifying hue here.
Teak benches and comfy cushions abound here and throughout the garden.
Tropical foliage plants mix with colourful annuals and succulents like Sedum rupestre ‘Angelina’ pair with potted lilies. Incidentally, Rob is an expert in bulbs in pots, having written The Oudoor Potted Bulb: New Approaches to Container Gardening with Flowering Bulbs way back in 1993, the year they moved here. It’s one of sixteen books he has authored or co-authored.
Though their property is more than a half-acre with several discrete garden areas, the patio is a lovely intimate extension of the house.
When I visited the first time, Rob, left, in his trademark vest and David, a retired geologist, right, held court out here.
I was impressed that David was able to reach out and pick a succulent pea….
….. from a pot of dwarf ‘Tom Thumb’ peas on the coffee table.
However on my second visit, it was just Mouse and me.
I enjoyed the sound of water from the raised goldfish pond….
….. and the splash of water from a unique watering can fountain set among pots on the stairs to the house.
But I was anxious to head out to explore the garden. When Rob and David moved in 26 years ago, the first thing they did was cut down eight “half-dead Siberian elms”. Said Rob in a 1995 article for American Horticulturist, he wanted to build perennial borders. “Because of the relatively formal look of the late Victorian Italianate house, I chose a strong, geometric layout of long borders. Occasional half circles soften the straight lines. Within this framework, I indulge in the controlled chaos that we associate with traditional herbaceous borders.” He carved out two rectangular beds each measuring 16 x 60 feet (4.9 x 18 metres) with an 8-foot wide strip of lawn in between. He then designed a backdrop of 12 brick columns – six per bed – connected by lattice screening and had a mason erect them on deep concrete footings. That resulted in four 8 x 60 foot perennial beds, two of which are visible below. At the far end on the property’s south boundary line is the gazebo, built atop an old carriage house and featuring a winding staircase to the flat roof and a shady dining area within. “Climbing the staircase,” wrote Rob, “it’s possible to view much of the garden from above.”
Mouse followed me dutifully out into the garden.
The colours here in June were exquisite, with purple and blue catmints, campanulas, cranesbills, meadowrues, salvias and veronicas enlivened by brilliant chartreuse. “Borders are like paintings,” said Rob. “Each one starts as a blank canvas. Working with a palette of plants, rather than paints, the possible combinations are limitless. The twin borders that cut through the middle of the garden contain the colors that I naturally gravitate towards – the blues, purples, and pinks.”
Each border held dozens of ideas for combinations. When I visited on June 17th, star-of-Persia onion (Allium cristophii) looked perfect with Kashmir sage (Phlomis cashmeriana)…..
….. and softened the flowers of broad-petaled cranesbill (Geranium platypetalum).
By the way, if you ever want to go down into a taxonomic rabbit hole, take a look at my blog on Allium cristophii.
The bold foliage of American cow parsnip (Heracleum maximum), below, offers a strong contrast to the soft colours and shapes of the central border. Later in summer, the white flower umbels reach up to 8 feet (2.5 metres). In one of the 2018 video clips from 9NEWS, Rob gives some pithy advice on how to handle this phototoxic native – just don’t! Clambering over the lattice in the back of this photo is golden hops (Humulus lupulus ‘Aureus’), one of a number of vines that Rob encourages for its lovely effect. As he wrote: “The golden hops vine needs little encouragement to thread through five or six feet of pink and blue flowers in this border, providing fresh, almost springlike foliage even in midsummer.”
Rob has used the red-leaved rose Rosa glauca as a background feature in one border, less for its single June flowers than for its strong foliage accent in order to enhance the massive beauty bush flowering in the background.
This was the view north along the twin central borders back to the house.
The third long border to the east featured white roses and the tall spires of Verbascum bombyciferum ‘Arctic Summer’….
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…… nestled in a snowy cloud of sea kale (Crambe cordifolia).
The fourth long border on the west side is a confection of pinks and burgundies – peonies, roses and cranesbills in June. As it turns west near the immense beauty bush (Kolkwitzia amabilis), Rob gave special consideration to the unique colouration. “The beauty bush, its pale pink blossoms tinged with coral, inspired the color scheme of the surrounding plantings as the border turns to the west”. For the garden nearby, he chose sunset colours in lilies, red valerian, red sunroses, salmon pink nicotine and coral bells mixed with chartreuse and bronze foliage, to name a few.
In fact, he captured all three tints of beauty bush flowers in the cushions on the chairs placed strategically under its flowery boughs. This is colour perfectionism! Because of its size, Rob estimates the shrub was planted fairly soon after it was introduced to the west via Ernest “China” Wilson, who sent seed to Veitch’s Nursery in England in 1901. Flowers did not appear on the first seedlings for nine more years. It became very popular in gardens in the mid-20th century but deserves to be planted in gardens where its size can be contained.
This view melted my heart. And there were bees in that pink rose… scroll down to the video at the end of my blog and you’ll see them.
Clematis recta is a superb June-blooming herbaceous clematis. I’m not sure how Rob manages to keep his upright, but it does benefit from some kind of support, like a peony ring.
Further along, near the nuts-and-bolts of the garden (compost bins, potting shed, etc.) I noted one of Rob’s favourite strategies to introduce a splash of colour into the borders: a well-positioned pot with a bright red annual coleus. He does the same thing with red orach (Atriplex hotensis ‘Rubra’). Later there will be larkspur here.
We’ve arrived at the back where the gazebo is sited on the foundation of an old carriage house. A spiral staircase climbs to the top; it must be a lovely spot to sip a glass of wine and look back on the borders.
Down below, there was a table and chairs under the roof, providing a nice view and much needed shade in Denver’s notoriously hot summers.
Luscious tuberous begonias thrive here.
What a great spot for al fresco dinners – surrounded by tropicals and foliage plants. I loved the louvered panels at the back. And what do you suppose lies behind that dark picket fence?
Well, it’s an alley. A place where most gardeners would be content to create a couple of parking spots and leave it at that. But not David and Rob…. all that sunshine! So they not only reserved places to park their cars, but….
… also designed a potager divided into eight Native-American-inspired “waffle” beds, which are dug down below grade to capture precious rainwater, just as waffles collect syrup.
Bordered in thyme, the beds contain different types of seed-grown vegetables. At the centre of the potager is an artful cluster of pots.
As with every part of Rob and David’s garden, there is a comfy, colour-coordinated place to sit and relax – even in the alley!
Biennial clary sage (Salvia sclarea) is one of many plants allowed to self-seed here.
I loved this succulent-filled strawberry jar in the midst of the vegetables.
I headed back into the garden and made my way down the east side, where an old driveway has been re-imagined as the “gravel allée”. It’s a series of tableaux: sitting areas with colour-matched accessories and plants. Periwinkle blue and rusty-orange… sigh. You can imagine how enchanting this is for someone who called her blog “thepaintboxgarden”!
Such an inviting scene……
Double clematis are often less hardy than small-flowered species and varieties, so Rob pots them up and takes them to a less exposed area for winter.
Under the mature trees here was another semi-shaded sitting area set in amongst shrub roses with yet another bench. I loved the row of potted aloes!
Now I was gazing at the house through a delightful thyme parterre herb garden.
I walked around to the south to see the view….
…. and then from the corner nearest the house. This is such a classic design – also created in the lowered waffle bed manner – and so lovely when the thyme…..
…. and the rose are in flower together.
I had a plane to catch later that afternoon, so gathered up my things and headed around the house to the front. There on the west side under the shade of the trees was one final treasure in Rob and David’s garden. It was a patio filled with shade-loving plants adjoining their sunken garden (down the stairs and just out of the photo below). As Rob wrote in 1995: “One weekend, while digging up self-sown tree-of-heaven saplings, we kept hitting brick. We determined that it was the foundation to a building, about 15 by 10 feet. Friends joined us for some urban archeology as we excavated it, finding hundreds of patent medicine bottles, broken china, and a waffle iron designed for the top of a wood stove. The foundation may have supported a summer kitchen or an earlier house, perhaps a farmer’s. We stopped digging at about four feet and, exhausted, decided our sunken garden was deep enough. We mixed in extra-rich compost to nurture the shade-lovers we intended to plant there.”
It was so hot that day in June, I would have loved to settle in the shade on those blue and red cushions and contemplate the lovely caladium. But it was time to go.
So, reluctantly, out I went through the gate entwined with Virginia creeper, to meet my ride.
As a bonus, I created a little musical tour through David and Rob’s enchanting garden, co-starring a selection of the bees that find nectar there:
Rob and David have shared their garden annually for many years now. It’s for a cause near and dear to them – and to Stranger and Mouse, too. And I’m so glad I was able to share their garden with you, too.
