Exactly 10 years ago today, I had one of my best spring garden visits anywhere. Except it just happened to be right here in Toronto at one of our biggest ‘tourist attractions’, Casa Loma.  But back on May 12, 2011, I didn’t bother staying inside the castle (which I had toured many times) and instead went right out to the garden. I passed by the Asian-themed garden with its pretty azaleas…..

….. and walked down the slope past the bright-magenta Rhododendron dauricum.   For geology fans, this hillside is actually the ancient shoreline of Lake Ontario’s Ice Age predecessor, Lake Iroquois.

I slowed down completely as I came to the staircase near the bottom, where native Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) were at their very peak.

Virginia bluebells might be one of the northeast’s most splendid springtime sights!  Like many of our native spring wildflowers, they’re ‘ephemeral’, meaning after they flower and set seed, they just die back completely… until next spring.

I had a destination in mind, and it was the Woodland Garden with its beautiful paper birches and a spectacular underplanting of some of the best spring natives, as well as a few delicate Asian groundcovers that added their own charms.  Here we have Virginia bluebells with lots of lovely ostrich ferns (Matteucia struthiopteris).

An ascending path made from grit and flagstone slabs takes you back up the Iroquois shoreline so you can enjoy all the shade-lovers. Here we have the three principal actors:  Virginia bluebell (M. virginica), yellow wood poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) and ostrich ferns.  (Note how much bigger the wood poppy’s flowers are than that confusing, weedy, invasive doppelgänger with the small yellow flowers, greater celandine, Chelidonium majus.)

I love yellow-with-blue in the garden, and this is one of the finest duos!

Ontario’s provincial floral emblem, shimmering-white, showy trilliums (T. grandiflorum) add to the display.

Virginia bluebells are also lovely with yellow merrybells (Uvularia grandiflora).

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I’ve never identified the buckeye seedlings that were popping up in this planting, but given it’s mostly native, perhaps Ohio buckeye (Aesculus glabra)?

There were also epimediums in this garden, like the red-flowered E. x rubrum you can see at the bottom left, below,

… and here, with Virginia bluebells.

Yellow-flowered Epimedium x versicolor ‘Sulphureum’ was featured in the woodland as well……

…. and orange-flowered Epimedium x warleyense ‘Orange Queen’.

Finally, a pure-white trillium with E. x versicolor ‘Sulphureum’.

Whoever said it was terrible to garden in shade?

*****

If you want to read more about spring designs for shade, have a look at my blog on the Montreal Botanical Garden’s fabulous Jardin d’Ombre, A Shade Garden Master Class.