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Crystal Blue Persuasion

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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…..

….. even though it tends to flower in big carpets of blue.  I wrote a blog on how this exotic bulb attracts loads of native cellophane bees to my spring garden.

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’).
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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.

  1. Joni Mitchell’s ‘Night in the City’;
  2. Paul Simon’s ‘Kodachrome’ and my life in photography;
  3. Vietnam and Songs of Protest;
  4. Galway Bay and memories of my grandfather and Ireland;
  5. Simon and Garfunkel’s Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme;
  6. The John Denver lullaby I sang to my first grandchild, Today While the Blossoms Still Cling to the Vine.
  7. Gordon Lightfoot for a Snow Day
  8. Madame George by Van Morrison – my favourite song in the world
  9. Brown Eyed Girl(s) – Van Morrison’s classic and my black-eyed susans
  10. Raindrops – on flowers and in my gardens
  11. Miss Rumphius and the Lupines
  12. Bring me Little Water – on water in the garden
  13. Amsterdam… Spring Sunshine
  14. Both Sides Now – a reflection on clouds and Joni Mitchell
  15. Crimson & Clover and Other Legumes – a love letter to the pea family, Fabaceae
  16. Mexico – James Taylor serenades in my travelogue of a decade of trips to Mexico

Early Spring Blossoms at the Toronto Botanical Garden

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I popped by the Toronto Botanical Garden this morning for a quick look at what’s in bloom. It’s been such a long, cold winter and reluctant spring, an hour in the garden was just the therapy I needed. So what did I see?  Well, in all the years I’ve been photographing at the TBG, I’ve never spied the cornelian cherry (Cornus mas) in the hedge cages in flower. With the ‘marcescent’ foliage (persisting through winter) of the beeches (Fagus sylvatica), it made a unique and lovely entrance to the George and Kathy Dembroski Centre for Horticulture, the main building.

There were loads of hellebores doing their thing. Helleborus ‘Red Lady’ is a long-time performer and has multiplied beautifully beside the stone wall of the building. I loved the sober backdrop it made for flamboyant Narcissus ‘Tiritomba’.

I found a nice assortment of hellebores under the ‘Merrill’ magnolia just opening. This is Helleborus x ericsmithii HGC Merlin (‘Coseh 810’). Isn’t it lovely?

Helleborus x ballardiae HGC Cinnamon Snow (‘Coseh 700’) was spicing things up.

And Helleborus x ballardiae HGC Ice Breaker Prelude (‘Coseh 830’) was meltingly gorgeous.

In a protected corner of the Westview Terrace, Magnolia x loebneri ‘Leonard Messel’ was in full flower.

I could photograph magnolias all day.

Containers of spring bulbs brought a welcome note of colour.

Nearby was a little reticulated iris still in flower. Though it was labelled differently, I think its the McMurtrie cultivar Iris reticulata ‘Velvet Smile’.
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On the bank where donkey tail spurge (Euphorbia myrsinites) scrambles, the variegated Tulipa praestans ‘Unicum’ was in flower.

Incidentally, the tulip season at the Toronto Botanical Garden is very long and beautiful. I wrote a long blog last year about TBG’s tulip stunning combinations.

Hyacinths (Hyacinthus orientalis) just need a little warmth to emit their perfume……

….. and even graced the path to the TBG’s big compost piles, along with daffodils.

Speaking of daffodils, I thought this one in the Entrance Courtyard was pretty spectacular. Meet Narcissus ‘British Gamble’.

The small bulbs were mostly finished, but glory-of-the-snow Scillia luciliae ‘Pink Giant’ (formerly Chionodoxa) was fading but still beautiful.

As I walked along the Piet Oudolf-designed entry border toward my car, I saw a favourite tulip, T. kaufmanniana ‘Ice Stick’ looking slender and lovely beside emerging perennials that will soon fill the garden with blossoms that will charm visitors until autumn. And I thought how wonderful each and every spring seems, to the winter-weary gardener.

PS – I will very soon get back to New Zealand… and the Argentina part of our wine tour. Promise! (Unless spring keeps beguiling me……..)

 

An Illinois Flower Garden

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One of the joys of participating in the annual symposium of the Garden Writers Association (GWA) is the opportunity to tour local gardens. It’s especially fun to visit private gardens where the owner is clearly a long-time, passionate gardener – and the garden is big enough to accommodate a few busloads of visitors at a time. That was the case in August when we visited Susan Beard’s wonderful 3-1/2 acre garden in Oak Brook, Illinois, in Chicago’s western suburbs. Though the Beards have lived on the property for 37 years, the frame house is one they built in 1996.  And the welcome couldn’t have been more flowery!

Flanking the driveway was a sea of blackeyed susans (Rudbeckia hirta) – the old-fashioned biennials, not the fancy perennials.

The entrance to the back garden at the end of the driveway was announced by a bench, birdhouse and picket fence…..

…. and a planting of ‘Queen Lime’ and pink zinnias and butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii).

I loved this chartreuse and magenta combination!  And this was just the first of scores of birdhouses in Susan’s garden.

Inside the fence, the garden dips steeply to one side via flagstone steps.  On the stairs, ‘Margarita’ sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas) was deployed as a brilliant edging.

Down below I could see a lime-green Tiger Eye sumac (Rhus typhina ‘Bailtiger’) and a bridge over a damp part of the garden.

Here’s a closer look at the bridge.

There is dampness here…..

….. and Susan takes advantage of the moist soil with swamp hibiscus (H. moscheutos) doing its beautiful, late summer thing in shades of white….

….. and cranberry-red.

Back up near the house, zinnias are such cheerful flowers and Susan used them throughout the garden, including here as an edging.

The honey bees approved!

Around the corner flanking the house was another visually stunning edging of Japanese hakone grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’) – another one of Susan’s mainstays.  And I liked the way the flagstone pavers are set flush into the soft lawn, rather than forming just another hard surface.

Ahead was Susan’s swimming pool, set on an interesting angle and framed by a stone sitting wall and a split-rail fence with the main garden behind.  Long ago, the pool was bright blue, but she had it painted it black so it wouldn’t be an eyesore.

There’s a good patch of lawn here, but the main show is from flowers grown in a lovely, informal, cottage garden style.

The view looking into the back garden was an August tapestry of hydrangeas, summer phlox and blackeyed susans……

……… with the occasional obelisk bearing purple clematis.

This was the swimming pool view towards the house.

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We were welcomed into her kitchen with homemadc cakes and cookies!

But there was still much to see and I returned to the garden. I passed another birdhouse and more waterfall-like hakonechloa.  Although flowers create colour throughout the growing season, Susan has included lots of conifers in the borders for bird habitat and visual interest and structure throughout Chicago’s long winter.

A birdbath sits amidst blackeyed susans.

Then it was into the woods: a mature forest containing oak, shagbark hickory, ash and hawthorn……

….. and some lovely pieces of metal sculpture.

Susan has cleared away some of the understory here to create a beautiful shade garden.

There are lots of native ferns and buckeyes…..

…… and piles of firewood left in place (which attract fireflies).

Another lovely fish sculpture graces the forest garden.

When Susan’s six grandchildren were young, they played hide-and-seek on the paths through the forest and gardens.  And I’ll bet they loved this garden house.

With so much shade here, hostas are used extensively (300 varieties!), along with native plants like Solomon’s seal.

The compost heaps and nursery plant area even have their own gated section!

New plantings here are carefully mulched…..

…. with the abundant leaves shed each year.

Though the woodland is predominantly green, garden art supplies a little brilliant colour.

According to a story in the Chicago Tribune, the forest garden owes much to Susan’s late father, a retired U.S. Air Force general from Santa Barbara who needed a project when he visited long ago, so used a chainsaw to begin the process of clearing the edges of the woodland. And it was from her father’s garden that Susan brought back the naked ladies or surprise lilies (Lycoris squamigera) that were just moving past their prime in the photo below.

Soon we were out of the forest and back into the garden via another stone path edged with invaluable hakone grass…..

….. and found our way to the comfy teak tables beside the pool where we relaxed until the call to load up the buses that would take us to the next stop on our tour of Chicago’s beautiful western suburbs.

Pollen for Honey Bees in a Rainbow of Colours

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You hear a lot about flower nectar, when people talk about growing “flowers for bees”, but you don’t hear nearly as much about pollen. And given that pollen, and by extension pollination, is the principal quid pro quo in the evolutionary pact that sees bees trade sex services for food, much more should be written about pollen. It is of vital importance to the bee larvae, for which it is the protein that develops their growth. In one of my classic old books on beekeeping, Plants and Beekeping by F.N. Howles (1945), he writes: “It has been calculated that about ten average bee loads of pollen are necessary to produce one worker bee and that on an average one pound of pollen rears 4,540 bees, which works out at about 44 lb. of pollen for an average colony’s breeding requirements in a season.” Without sufficient pollen, the colony would die off.

Because I spent several years photographing honey bees (Apis mellifera) for a book idea I once had, I got to see a lot of pollen up close and personal, like the golden pollen being patiently collected from Gaillardia ‘Mesa Yellow’, below.

I saw bee faces completely dusted with sticky pollen; I watched them perform aerial dance maneuvers as they packed pollen into their corbiculae, before settling back onto flowers; and I observed them flying back to the hive, legs laden with saddlebags of pollen in all colours of the rainbow, like the white datura pollen below.

It’s pollen colour in all its wonderful variety that I want to celebrate here, from the first blossoms of spring to the last of autumn.

Let’s start with hardy perennials and bulbs. Crocuses have very large pollen grains. I’ve watched honey bees curling their entire bodies into silken crocus chalices, like C. x lutea ‘Golden Yellow’, below.

Siberian squill (Scilla siberica) produces azure-blue pollen.

Little striped squill (Puschkinia scilloides) rewards visitors with beige pollen.

Grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum) can often be seen with bees working the flowers as they open from the bottom of the spike up. Pollen is whitish-cream in colour.

Orchards are filled with bees in spring, among them honey bees, thus ensuring that there will be tasty fruit come late summer. This is the hardy ‘Reliance’ peach (Prunus persica) with light-brown pollen.

The Dutch call alpine rockcress (Arabis alpina) “honigschub’ or honey bush and it’s easy to see why. Very early in spring, before most perennials have thought about emerging, arabis is feeding the bees nectar and a sticky light-brown pollen.

Although forget-me-nots are prodigious nectar sources – especially considering the vast quantities of the tiny flowers in spring gardens – their pollen grains are among the smallest measured and from my observations, not very prominent in corbiculae (pollen baskets). But for a bee to insert its tongue into the narrow corolla of a forget-me-not, the net result will be that some pollen will dust off on the proboscis and the head, which the bee will gather for the hive. And because of that narrow opening, pollen is often mixed in with the nectar that forget-me-nots yield, and is measurable in the honey.

Though the shrubby European honeysuckles like Lonicera tatarica, below, can be invasive, they are good early sources of pollen.

The bright-orange pollen of California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) is always a great lure for honey bees.

When the yellowwood tree (Cladrastis kentukea) has a good year for bloom – sometimes just one year in three – the flowers with their tawny-gold pollen are avidly sought out by honey bees and native bumble bees and solitary bees.

Beekeepers always know when Oriental poppies (Papaver orientale) are in flower, because homecoming bees are dusted with black pollen.

Peony stamens are a rich source of pollen, with one count estimating a single peony might have 3.5 million pollen grains.  This is Paeonia ‘Sunday Chimes’, below.

The knotweeds (Centaurea sp.) are excellent plants for bee forage, and beautiful in the late spring-early summer garden.  Globe centaurea (Centaurea macrocephala) offers pollen in golden-yellow…..

….. while Centaurea dealbata ‘John Coutts’ produces creamy-beige pollen.

Southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) is irresistible to bees when the prominent stamens are yielding their creamy-white pollen, below.

Native American copper iris (I. fulva) is popular with hummingbirds, but on the High Line one day, I watched honey bees patiently working the flowers and securing ample loads of near white pollen.

Knautia macedonica is my very favourite pollen producer, yielding a rich magenta-pink pollen that makes honey bee faces look adorable and their packed corbiculae seem like airborne jewelry.

Roses, especially single and semi-double forms with prominent stamens, are often good sources of pollen, which they yield mostly in the morning, apparently. The David Austin shrub below produced amber-brown pollen.

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Certain clematis species are good sources of pollen. One that flowers in early summer is Clematis koreana – and the bee working it had packed a jewel-like pollen pearl in her pollen basket.

Filipendulas are good forage plants and native qneen-of-the-prairie or meadowsweet (Filipendula rubra) provides pollen in early summer for native bees and honey bees. This is the showy cultivar ‘Venusta’ with creamy-white pollen.

Bumble bees and honey bees are always buzzing around globe thistles (Echinops sp.), which yield a whitish pollen from the masses of tiny flowers.

To see a planting of helenium or sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale) in full sun in late summer is to see a happy bee festival. And the abundant pollen is rich orange. One source mentions the bitter nature of helenium honey, but at the point where helenium is in flower, beekeepers are often letting the bees collect nectar for winter honey stores.

Japanese anemones (Anemone x hybrida) yield neglible nectar but the yellow stamens are rich sources of white pollen.

With its masses of tiny, white flowers, sweet autumn clematis (Clematis terniflora) is very popular with bees. I watched the honey bee below doing an intricate aerial dance to pack in white pollen from a massive vine.

By the end of summer into early autumn, the various goldenrods and asters (Michaelmas daisies) offer nectar that is often vital for bees to survive winter, though most beekeepers must provide additional winter food for their bees. (Goldenrod makes a strong honey that is not generally sold commercially.) But bees also collect pollen from these late perennials, like the very late-blooming showy goldenrod (Solidago speciosa), below, with its golden-yellow pollen. This will help sustain the hive until spring.

Of the asters, I loved this image of a bee hanging from lance-leaved aster (Symphyotrichum lanceolatum), its corbicula packed with yellow pollen…..

….. and the beautiful New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) and its many cultivars, like the one below, are well worth growing in every garden – something lovely for you and the bees as the season ends.

Annuals and tender perennials and bulbs can also be good sources of colourful pollen. This is Ageratum houstonianum with lots of pure white pollen.

Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) and their many cultivars are a treat for all types of bees, especially the native sunflower bees adapted to this North American flower. But honey bees enjoy nectaring on the tiny ‘true’ flowers and gathering the yellowish pollen, too.

Single portulacas (P. grandiflora) have bright orange pollen, as you can from the bee crawling out of the silky blossom below.

I’ve seen lots of tender S. African bulbines (B. frutescens) growing in summer gardens recently, much to the delight of honey bees gathering pale yellow pollen from the feathery stamens.

Weeds like Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) are never appreciated by gardeners, and many are highly invasive and on noxious plant lists. But you will often see bees of all kinds foraging for nectar and pollen on thistles…..

….. and dusting themselves completely with the white pollen of the pretty blue summer flowers of chicory (Cichorium intybus)…..

…. and flying about with the telltale yellow ‘pollen head’ that is a sure sign that the bee has been in a toadflax flower (Linaria vulgaris).

Finally, I’d like to include a few vegetables that bees like – not for the stems or the roots, but for the flowers that have resulted from the plants “bolting”. This is what happens to a radish (Raphanus sativus) when it’s going to seed – yellow pollen much appreciated by this little honey bee.

Brassicas like broccoli, cabbage, kale and Brussels sprouts also form flowers as part of their biennial life cycle – and the bees love the yellow pollen that forms.

Last but not least, a perennial vegetable we all know and love for its tender spring shoots – but have you watched bees gathering bright orange pollen from the tiny, yellow male flowers? It is a feat of acrobatics worthy of any high-flying trapeze act!

(PS  – Are you a bee-lover? To see a large selection of my honey bee stock photography, visit my Smug Mug pages.  And you’ll find a load of bumble bees and other native North American bees and bee kin on my page as well.)

 

 

A Texas Garden with English Roots

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When I was consumed with garden fever back in the early 1980s (and finally had my “we’re staying here” house), there was a book whose pages became dog-eared from the hundreds of times I flipped back and forth gazing at glossy photos of English cottage gardens.  I dreamed that someday I’d have a garden crammed with flowers in artful combinations, yet seemingly tossed together with wild abandon. That vision informed the meadows I’d eventually have, both in Toronto and at our cottage north of the city. It was only appropriate therefore, that one of my very favourite gardens during my recent Garden Bloggers’ Fling in Austin, Texas was owned by a pair of British ex-pats and featured garden rooms full of Texas natives and self-seeding flowers that managed to give a nod simultaneously to the local vernacular and romantic English cottage garden style.

Jenny and David Stocker have gardened here at the edge of hill country in southwest Austin for 17 years since they moved into their new home, which was custom-designed by the late architect Dick Clark who’s considered to be the father of Austin contemporary style.   He also designed the garden walls, which have been painted soft mocha tones that match the house. I wish I’d paid more attention to the house itself, since his intent was to align the various windows and views with the outdoor rooms.  Let’s start under the trees outside at the street, with its lovely emphasis on drought-tolerant succulents.  In this area, landscape architect Curt Arnette of Sitio Design arranged for the placement of the large ledgestones, but everything else here and throughout the gardens – including the dry streambed, below, that becomes a very wet stream during heavy Texas rains – was done by the Stockers.

But before I go any further, I want you to see what a blank slate looks like, and imagine the work that went into creating the garden I’m about to show you – given what the starting point looked like in the Stockers’ photos below.

Alright, let’s head into the garden. I loved these generous platform steps that will take us into the first garden room, the front courtyard. They also nicely accomplish a level change, and feature just a few of Jenny’s many containers.

In the front courtyard, we see the source of the dry streambed (what Jenny calls “the wet weather creek”) that empties outside.  Many kinds of agaves are used, including the beautiful whale’s tongue agave (A. ovatifolia) below.

The millstone-like water feature at left, below, was a chance find – the abandoned base of a basketball stand – in a back alley near the Stockers’ son’s house in Dallas. It took two people to load it onto their truck, it looks stunning here.

The courtyard features a rich profusion of plants that seem to thrive in the thin soil including many succulents and self-seeding flowers.  Notice the gravel mulch and liberal use of stones (many were here before the garden was made).

The Stockers love eating and relaxing outdoors, so the garden features several places where they can do that, like the niche below.

Artichoke agave (A. parryi var. truncata) is one of my favourite succulents.

The garden walls are perfect for ornaments.

Containers – always pebble-mulched – are a mixture of succulents and English favourites like foxglove.

Can you imagine how lovely it would be to spend time under that perfumed brugmansia, perfectly placed for inhaling?

All the garden rooms feature their own collections of artful accessories. “You can’t just have plantings,” Jenny said to one interviewer.

I loved the face peering out of the hedge.

Though the rain that had fallen in torrents a few hours earlier at the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center had now subsided, plants were still wet. This is lovely Agave desmettiana ‘Variegata’.

If there’s a theme in the garden, besides amazing plants, it’s rock. As Jenny has said: “I love to work with rocks, of which we have plenty, and they form the backbone of the garden. My husband, David, is my rock man and has hunted out some amazing rocks and done some great rockwork. I was on site every day during construction, saving rocks suitable for making the drystone walls.”

So let’s go see the stone wall Jenny made in the next garden room, the English Garden.  There it is in the background, Jenny’s dry-stacked wall made from flat rock gathered as the house was being constructed.  This garden’s motif is circular, from the concentric edgings of brick encircling the birdbath garden…

…. to the circular flagstone-and-brick dining patio…..

…. to the circular paving stones and the spheres that sit in the gravel.

As in any good English cottage garden, there are lots of self-seeding flowers here, like biennial foxglove…..

….. and Texas natives such as blackfoot daisy (Melampodium leucanthum).

I’m sure that Jenny’s garden attracts a lot of birds. That’s Virginia creeper on the wall behind the sweet birdhouse.

The ornamented wall near the next room sets up a galactic theme……

…. which is expanded on in the saying above the arch.  Live by the sun, love by the moon. Indeed!  Notice the change in paver materials between garden rooms – all very subtle, but designed to enhance.

Let’s go down the stairs to yet another level, past another pretty collection of potted plants and an inviting teak bench…..

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….. into the appropriately named sunken garden, aka the pool garden. This, for me, is the full embodiment of those glossy photos I loved in those books long ago. A true cottage garden filled with a mélange of romantic blossoms that will shift and alter their companions throughout the season. The iconic Texas bluebonnets are long-gone in this photo, but that’s how things start out here in April, which you can see in this photo by Jenny’s friend and our Austin Garden Bloggers Fling co-host Pam Penick’s post from April 2015.

Sometimes, in appreciating a grand design, I forget to notice the small details. Here’s the lovely native Texan golden columbine (Aquilegia chrysantha).

It was one of the cast of May characters in Jenny’s garden, along with annual love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena), blue mealycup sage (Salvia farinacea), magenta-pink sage (Salvia sp.) As Jenny notes, “I rely heavily on self-seeding plants and am more than willing to let them grow where they plant themselves, as well as passalongs from garden friends. It’s not a low-maintenance garden.”

Most of the breadseed poppies (Papaver somniferum) had already formed their seedpods….

…. but corn poppies (Papaver rhoeas) were still announcing their brilliant presence. I loved the flowing urn feature here, which creates a bit of music with its splash.

What an inviting scene. Many gardens we saw in Texas were accompanied by a swimming pool, because as lovely as spring weather can be, summers are punishingly hot.  And since there are no trees inside the garden walls and the rocks do reflect the sunshine, Jenny says the garden becomes very hot in midsummer. The walls here, by the way, are not just decorative, but meant to keep out varmints, including deer.

Here’s another look at the flowery poolside meadow. This area was originally laid with old granite flagstones, so the Stockers laid Arizona sandstone on top leaving 1-inch spaces for self-seeding plants.

You can see in the background against the wall one of the large, porous limestone boulders native to the property.

There are native cacti in the gardens, including the spineless prickly-pear (Opuntia cacanapa ‘Ellisiana’).

I found Jenny in the sunken garden, chatting with fellow bloggers (her own interesting blog is called Rock Rose) and looking mightily relieved that the morning’s rain had stopped in time for our visit.

I waited for my blogging pals to take their leave of this beautiful dining area near the swimming pool – one of six seating areas Jenny and David use, depending on the time of year and day – so I could make my photo. There’s a good reason for being the last one on the bus!

At the edge of the dining area was another grouping of containers, this one featuring the agave relative Manfreda undulata ‘Chocolate Chips’.

Manfreda flowers are so interesting, especially post-Texas-rain.

The herb garden is tucked into an alcove created by the house walls, and looks beautifully wild..

Nearby, behind the wall of the swimming pool garden, sits the potager: a series of raised beds containing…..

… leafy vegetables like curly kale……

….and squash vines starting out under protective wiring….

….and tomato cages.

A long raised bed nearby contains flowers for pollinators. In early May, it abounds with larkspur (Consolida ajacis) and Verbena bonariensis.

Perfumed star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) blankets one wall of a garden shed in this area. How nice it must be to harvest veggies with that scent wafting by!

A galvanized water tank is a great idea for a water garden: small, manageable maintenance, yet a nice spot for a bird to bathe or have a sip of water.

Nearby were little vignettes, like this…..

….. and this. For me in Toronto, Mexican feather grass (Nassella tenuissima) is a textural annual, but here it’s perennial and adds a grace note to the garden.

As always on a garden tour, the bus was waiting to take us to our next stop, so off we went in our rain-soaked shoes down the pathway beside the spineless prickly-pears. But for me, the garden of Jenny and David Stocker had been a chance to satisfy a long-held desire to enjoy time in a cottage garden filled with masses of flowers arrayed with artful abandon.