The Rochester Lilac Festival

Posted on May 29, 2022 by Janet

Earlier this month – on Friday, May 13^th to be exact – my husband Doug & I began a 12-day road trip through the northeast U.S. to celebrate his university reunion in New Jersey and to tour as many public gardens as we could fit in along the way. On that first day, we drove from Toronto to Rochester, New York in order to enjoy the first of three May weekends at the Rochester Lilac Festival at Highland Park. It bills itself as the largest free festival in North America and given the already-filled parking lots and hordes of people milling in the park, I can believe it. Walking towards the lilac plantings, we passed booths with huge lilac bouquets….

….. and themed t-shirts….

….. and vendors of cut flowers that were NOT lilacs.

And, yes, there was cotton candy. It’s a festival, after all.

Given the hot temperatures and sunny skies as we arrived at mid-day, photo conditions were terrible for photography – but oh-so-perfect for perfume, which wafted everywhere!

But I did manage to create some photos on the shady side of the shrubs, including one cultivar I later nominated as one of the top 3 lilacs of the (admittedly abbreviated) roster we viewed. Meet Syringa vulgaris ‘Jessie Gardner’, a 1956 introduction by the Gardener Nursery in Wisconsin.

There are more than 500 varieties (species, cultivars, hybrids) of lilacs and more than 1,200 lilac shrubs arrayed on the gently sloped hillsides of Highland Park. Because they originate in extremely cold climates in Europe and Asia, lilacs have no problem surviving winter in upstate New York and southern Canada. Other big collections are held at the University of Wisconsin Arboretum in Madison and the Katie Osborne Lilac Garden at Ontario’s Royal Botanical Garden. I have also photographed the lilac collection at the Montreal Botanical Garden and rare species lilacs such as Syringa sweginzowii from China in the David Lam Asian Garden at UBC Botanical Garden in Vancouver, below.

There are many lilac types that provide a long season of flowering, from April into June in certain climates. Flowers are officially assigned Roman numerals for colour: I-White, II-Violet, III-Bluish, IV-Lilac, V-Pinkish, VI-Magenta, VII–Purple. Interestingly, we often refer to certain flowers being “lilac coloured”, which according to its origin in the “IV-Lilac” hue of the common lilac Syringa vulgaris is neither the lavender-blue nor the mallow-mauve that people often mistake as “lilac”. In doing my various explorations on colour, I’ve grouped true lilac-coloured flowers in this montage.

Part of the difficulty of assigning a colour to lilacs is that the flowers change colour as they age, which you can see below with S. vulgaris ‘Professor Sargent’, named in 1889 by German botanist and nurseryman Franz Späth for Charles Sprague Sargent (1841-1927), first director of Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum.

I am very partial to the Hyacinthiflora Hybrids, aka the Early Hybrids, partly because I live in a place where winter lasts well into “spring” and these fragrant lilacs tend to flower a few weeks ahead of the common lilac and its cultivars, and partly because the Canadian breeder Dr. Frank Leith Skinner (1882-1967) of Manitoba had a major role in their development. They are hybrids of S. vulgaris and the broadleaf Korean lilac, S. oblata or S. oblata var. dilatata. So the second of my Top 3 lilacs at Rochester was Syringa x hyacinthiflora ‘Excel’, a 1935 Skinner introduction which performs exactly as its name suggests, with excellence!

Another beautiful Frank Skinner Hyacinthiflora Hybrid is pure white ‘Sister Justina’, below, introduced in 1956.

Nearby was a common lilac cultivar, Syringa vulgaris ‘Frederick Law Olmsted’, hybridized by Father John Fiala (1924-90) and named in 1987 for Olmsted, the man sometimes called the father of American landscape architecture, who with his partner Calvert Vaux designed many well-known landscapes including New York’s Central Park and Rochester’s own Highland Park, the site of the lilac festival! Father Fiala was legendary in lilac circles for authoring the book “Lilacs: A Gardener’s Encyclopedia”.

Father Fiala also bred this beauty, S. vulgaris ‘Albert F. Holden’, also in my ‘Top 3″, with its deep-violet, very perfumed flowers with a silver reverse (similar to ‘Sensation’, but not as crisply white-edged). It was named for the man who endowed the Holden Arboretum in Kirtland, Ohio.

Rochester features many of the so-called “French hybrids” bred by the nurseryman Victor Lemoine and his son Emile between 1870 and 1950. Among them are S. vulgaris ‘Linné’ from 1890, sometimes called ‘Linnaeus’ – the ultimate tribute name in botany.

Syringa vulgaris ‘Leon Gambetta’ with its double flowers, below, was introduced by Lemoine in 1907, its name honouring the French lawyer and republican politician who proclaimed the French Third Republic in 1870 and played a prominent role in its early government.

‘Jules Ferry’, also introduced by Lemoine in 1907, was named for a former Prime Minister of France during the Third Republic.

‘Paul Thirion’ was introduced by Lemoine in 1915 and is a popular and fairly common lilac. Lemoine named it for a horticulturist at Nancy Parks, France. It is classed as VI-Magenta in colour.

Syringa vulgaris ‘Frank’s Fancy’, bred in the 1970s by Edward Mezitt of Weston Nurseries in Massachusetts and named for his friend Frank Goodwin, looks very magenta to my eye but is classed as VII-Purple. Blame it on the light.

For me, this is a classic and beautiful lilac truss: mauve buds opening to pinkish-lilac florets on S. vulgaris ‘Frau Wilhelm Pfitzer’ introduced by Germany’s Pfitzer Nursery in 1910.

Syringa vulgaris ‘Silver King’ was bred by Wisconsin’s Dr. A. H. Lemke in 1941; its flowers are classed as III-Bluish but they are as close to silver as you’ll see.

Another type of lilac flowering at this time is the hybrid Chinese lilac, Syringa x chinensis, sometimes called the Rouen lilac because it was discovered in 1777 flowering in Rouen, France. It is a cross between common lilac, S. vulgaris and Persian lilac, S. persica, from Iran.

Then there is S. x chinensis ‘Bicolor’ with its purple eye on pale pinkish flowers.

Seed of this unusual lilac, Syringa ‘Rhodopea’ was collected by botanist Václav Stříbrný in 1900 in the Rhodope Mountains in Bulgaria and cultivated in the botanical garden in Prague. It has a different bearing and, according to the International Lilac Register is “not a uniform clone”, which accounts for it not always being included in the S. vulgaris clan. Speaking of the Register, it is an invaluable resource to those searching for information on lilac cultivars and can be accessed here as a .pdf file.

Finally, I had to commemorate our Rochester visit with a husband-and-wife selfie, because who wouldn’t want to remember what it was like to stand amidst these perfumed shrubs on a warm afternoon in May?

As we packed up the crumbs from our picnic lunch (devilled egg sandwiches made in my Toronto kitchen at dawn!) and made our way back to the car to drive on to Utica for the night, I asked a young mother if I could take a farewell photo for my blog, which she happily agreed to. What lucky children to run amongst the lilacs.

******

LILAC PEOPLE

Speaking of selfies, what fun it was during my few hours at the Rochester Lilac Festival to run into someone I knew only as a Facebook friend. Brian Morley of Kansas City, Missouri is a man of many talents. Not only does he co-own a fabulous business called Bergamot & Ivy Design with lush, innovative floral designs, he is also an accomplished lilac hybridizer and is on the Board of Directors of the International Lilac Society. It is a small world, but perhaps not so small when people who love lilacs gather in a famous spot devoted to the genus Syringa. And we gave each other’s lilac wardrobe choices an approving nod!

During my freelance career, I have been fortunate to correspond with renowned lilac experts, including the late Freek Vrugtman, International Lilac Registrar and Curator Emeritus of Ontario’s Royal Botanical Gardens, which features a large collection of lilacs in its Katie Osborne Lilac Dell, below.

Freek Vrugtman proof-read my May 2008 story on Hyacinthiflora lilacs for Canadian Gardening magazine, below….

…… and we chatted by email when I had a question on lilacs. After his death on March 3, 2022, the RBG published a memorial tribute which included the following passage: “Working with RBG’s other staff, including Charles Holetich and Leslie Laking, Freek directed considerable attention to the collection and became the International Registrar for Lilacs in the Genus Syringa in 1976, as RBG became the International Cultivar Registration Authority, or ICRA, for Lilacs. Whenever a new cultivar was bred anywhere in the world the breeder would submit a request to Freek for its entry into the International Registry. Freek would review all such applications and guide the breeder through the process. As Registrar Freek became widely known as the international expert on Lilac cultivars.“

When I had a lilac identification question Freek couldn’t answer, he passed it on to the RBG’s lilac specialist, Charles Holectich: “What do you think, Charlie?” Way back in 1994, when I was writing my weekly newspaper garden column for the Toronto Sun, I interviewed Charles Holetich for some hints on caring for these lovely spring shrubs. This is my column from May 22, 1994 – twenty-eight years ago! Below that I’ve included the interview as a Q&A.

JD: What’s the best location for lilacs?

CH: Lilacs prefer open, sunny locations and neutral soil, though they will grow in slightly alkaline or slightly acid conditions and are found in both.

JD: What about drainage?

CH: They dislike wet feet, so if planted in clay-type soil which has a tendency to retain moisture, you should make a hill about 2 feet high and 8-10 feet wide, so excess moisture seeps away.

JD: If it’s located in full sun, does a lilac shrub need to be fertilized?

CH: If it has too much foliage and not enough bloom, that means it’s high in nitrogen. In order to induce flower buds, you should feed it with a high phosphate (middle number) fertilizer like 4-12-8 or 5-45-15. This should be done immediately after flowering because next year’s buds are being formed in June, July and August.

JD: What about all those seedheads? Must they be removed and how can you reach the top ones on a big shrub?

CH: When summer has adequate rainfall, then it doesn’t matter because there’s sufficient energy to bring enough nutrients from the soil to satisfy the formation of both seedheads and flowering buds. But in drought summers, you should remove seedheads and water deeply, about 5-6 inches once a month.

JD: Pruning confuses a lot of lilac owners too.

CH: I think the ideal for a multi-stemmed lilac is to have 9-15 stems of different thickness positioned so they don’t rub each other. Once this is achieved, then every two years or so, you should remove one or two of the oldest stems at ground level, keeping up to 3 new shoots. Then the next year, you can decide which of the three is the best to keep and remove the others.

JD: How tall should a lilac be kept pruned?

CH: I’m a strong believer that a lilac should be deliberately kept pruned at between 6-9 feet.

********

To all the passionate lilac lovers, growers and breeders, I tip my fragrant hat, fashioned with trusses of my own Syringa pubescens ‘Palibin’ and lily-of-the-valley (or, as it’s accustomed to being addressed in my garden, “guerilla-of-the-valley”….)

********

Want to read more about spring shrubs? Read my blogs on:
The David Lam Asian Garden at Vancouver’s UBC
Spring at Van Dusen Botanical Garden, Vancouver (2 parts)
Spring at Ontario’s Royal Botanical Garden
The Rosy Buds of May and Beyond
A Shade Garden Master Class (Montreal Botanical Garden)

Reginald Farrer’s Lovely Viburnum

Posted on April 11, 2020 by Janet

On this Easter weekend of this exceedingly strange and sad spring, I give thanks for a joyous bouquet of pale pink outside my kitchen window and the comfort its dependable, early spring appearance offers. I first wrote about this shrub almost 30 years ago, in a column I had in a little community newspaper called Toronto Gardens. I later reprised it for my old website, but I decided it needed another nod of thanks here. Here is what I wrote in the early 1990s, after a mild winter, about Farrer’s viburnum (Viburnum farreri).

Record-breaking December and January temperatures in the northeast have resulted in one of my favourite shrubs putting on a winter flowering show. Not that Farrer’s viburnum (Viburnum farreri) ever waits beyond late March or early April to open its tight pink buds. But this winter, it broke dormancy well before Christmas and has been in bloom ever since, even with the mercury dipping to –16C (3F) one night. Prolonged frigid spells keep the pink buds just closed, but even one day of warm sunshine will nudge many into full flower. In fact, last week, I cut a few small branches and placed them in a bud vase so I could enjoy the sweet-scented flower clusters at my desk. But the warm indoor temperatures meant the blossoms lasted only a day or so before dropping, for this is one plant that truly thrives in the cold.

Given that I no longer “thrive in the cold” myself, it is such a treat to enjoy a shrub that does. This week, night temperatures are forecast to dip below freezing, but that won’t bother this shrub. Even on December 22nd, 2013, when I photographed the buds encased in ice that had fallen from the sky the night before, throwing Toronto into a multi-day power failure and bringing tree limbs crashing down all around the city, it still flowered months later.

Some years, it suffers snow just as its dark pink buds are plumping up, as happened below on March 9^th, 2012.

Truth be told, it’s not the most shapely of shrubs. This is how I found it at Mount Pleasant Cemetery on March 30, 2010, another early spring, just as the first inflorescences were opening on naked twigs.

But I can forgive its shape when it is literally covered with palest pink blossoms as the first leaves emerge, as it was here in my garden with forsythia in my neighbour’s garden behind it on May 7, 2019.

The history of Farrer’s viburnum is colourful. In 1914-15, British plant explorers Reginald Farrer, below, and William Purdom were prowling the foothills of the northern mountains separating China from the Mongolia border, collecting seeds of new species. Although the shrub was a favourite Chinese garden plant at the time, growing at very high altitudes, its “discovery” in the wild is credited to Farrer. Writes Alice Coats in her book Garden Shrubs and Their Histories. “He sent home abundant seed and would have sent more, but for an unfortunate falling-out with his Highness Yang Tusa, Prince of Jo-ni, who…in a fit of pique, set to and sedulously ate up all the Viburnum fruits in his palace garden, and threw away the seed.”

Originally called Viburnum fragrans to mark its sweet perfume, it was renamed in Farrer’s honour. Today, fragrant viburnum is considered a winter-flowering shrub in the Pacific Northwest and in Britain, where its flowers might open on a mild day in late autumn with flowering occurring sporadically until April. It likes full sun and reasonably good soil, but can’t be called a fussy shrub. Despite its tendency to early bloom, it is root-hardy only to USDA Zone 5a – Canadian Zone 6B, and benefits from some protection from harsh winds and winter sun. It reaches 2.5 – 3 metres (8 – 10 feet) at maturity with almost as large a spread. The flower clusters start out pale pink and fade to white and are quite modest in size — more like the Burkwood viburnum than the big snowball blossoms of the fragrant snowball Viburnum x carlcephalum. For small gardens or for low hedging, there’s a very good dwarf form called ‘Nanum’, which reaches about 1 metre (3 feet). There is also a white form, V. farreri ‘Album’, below.

Farrer’s viburnum was crossed with Viburnum grandiflorum at Bodnant Garden in Wales to give us Viburnum x bodnantense. This hybrid is usually seen as the cultivar ‘Dawn’, a lovely shrub whose flowers are rosier pink than Farrer’s.
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Both Farrer’s and Bodnant viburnums are favourites of pollinating insects, given how early they flower. One year I found a bumble bee queen taking nectar on ‘Dawn’, below.

But more often than not, it’s better insect-watching in my own garden with Viburnum farreri. Below is the mourning cloak butterfly, which overwinters in Toronto and needs nectar as early as possible. This was April 16, 2017.

That same week, I found a red admiral butterfly on the flowers. Obviously, it needs to be above a certain temperature for insects to thermo-regulate, and that has been difficult this cold spring.

In 2012, one of the earliest springs I can recall in Toronto, we had a celebratory dinner on our sundeck on March 19, 2012 with little sprigs of Farrer’s in a cylindrical vase.

But it’s the perfume of those humble flowers that I adore, and that doesn’t necessarily transfer to the Bodnant hybrid. I read the following paean to its fragrance on a website, attributed to British garden writer Mark Griffiths: “We mustn’t let the bodnantense hybrids supplant their parent; V. farreri is twiggier and more crabbed and its flowers are smaller tighter and paler, but there’s far greater poetry in its looks and purity in its fragrance. Its perfume, to my nose, is more hyacinths and almond essence than heliotrope. On a drab winter’s day, its effect is magical in the garden and even stronger in a room, whether from a few cut twigs or a pot-grown plant brought indoors for winter. This scent seems less like reckless extravagance thrown away on the chill, bee-free breeze once one realises that V. farreri doesn’t behave with us as it does in its native China. There, it holds back all through the months of harsh cold and drought, not blooming until spring, whereupon it faces stiff competition for pollinators from other blossoms. Its alluring fragrance is prudent, not prodigal. Our winters are mild and wet by comparison and this encourages it to flower in fits and flushes from late autumn onwards.”

Toronto winters are more like China than England, I expect, so I appreciated what Helen Van Pelt Wilson and Léonie Bell wrote about Farrer’s, which they called the fragrant guelder, Viburnum fragrans, in their 1967 classic The Fragrant Year: “The fragrant guelder…has long been a favorite shrub, its perfume mysteriously combining the scents of wisteria and clove in the manner of certain lilacs. Unlike the familiar V. carlesii , which gives at best only ten days of bloom, V. fragrans flowers modestly for weeks on end. Even after our harshest winters, all the rose-red buds open to rich pink flowers that grow paler with age.”

I shall leave you with a little Easter nosegay. It’s on my kitchen table now. A few wisteria-clove-hyacinth-almond-scented sprigs of Reginald Farrer’s lovely Chinese shrub, along with the little striped, ice-blue Puschkinia scilloides and Corydalis solida ‘George Baker’. Aren’t we lucky that his Highness Yang Tusa, Prince of Jo-ni didn’t eat ALL of the seeds?

Spring Lessons from Giverny

Posted on April 14, 2017 by Janet

Perhaps it’s folly to try to draw inspiration for our own gardens from one of the most famous gardens in the world – an enchanting 5 acres whose renown comes courtesy of its beloved former gardener and owner, Impressionist painter Claude Monet. The garden he made at Giverny is a short bus ride from the town of Vernon in Normandy, which is a 45-minute train ride from Paris’s Gare St. Lazare (direction Rouen). Now home to the Fondation Claude Monet Museum (Musée Claude Monet), the house and garden are visited by some 600,000 people annually.

When I was there a number of years ago, the Fondation allowed photographers and writers to apply in writing to visit on its closed day, Monday. I did so, and stayed in a bed & breakfast in the town of Giverny to be close enough to arrive early Monday morning and walk back to the b & b if it rained (which it did). However, they no longer close during the week and are open daily from late March through October 31^st, so everyone must line up for the 9:30 am opening (except those who buy their tickets ahead, allowing them to skip the line). In the summer months, the garden is often terribly crowded and difficult to get around, but on a morning or late afternoon in April, it can be quite delightful.

Interestingly, my photos come from a spring prior to British gardener James Priest’s tenure at Giverny, when the garden’s maintenance was still under the hand of head gardener Gilbert Vahé, who spent 34 years in the garden from 1977 (even before its reopening in 1980) to 2011. However, in 2017, with James Priest now gone, Vahé has come out of retirement to take over the reins once again, presumably to return the garden to some of its well-archived Monet-ness, i.e. “reproduction”, not “adaptation”.

Despite the fact that almost everyone who’s visited Monet’s garden has posted their photos or written a blog, and despite the fact that others think it’s just become too commercial or pretty, I believe that his garden offers some good lessons for all of us. Let’s explore a few.

1. DO NOT BE AFRAID OF COLOUR: My first lesson: Life is short, there are no rules, and a house can be pink stucco, with green shutters and veranda. Why not? Claude Monet, himself a master colourist, retained these colours for the house he first rented, then bought, living in it from 1883-1926. They were faithfully reapplied in 1980, when the house and garden were reopened after a restoration that brought it back to life after more than twenty years of abandonment following the bombing of Normandy during the Second World War. (And, honestly, I thought about working my Photoshop magic on the green paint of the veranda, below, but that’s what more than a half-million visitors will do to the stairs, and who am I to paint Monet’s house?)

2. BRING THE SAME COLOUR PALETTE INTO THE GARDEN: Given that your painted shutters and veranda are colourful, it follows that it’s a very good idea to extend that colour down to painted features in the garden like benches, fences and outbuildings. Not to be ‘matchy-matchy’, but so the eye moves easily from the house architecture right into the garden. This unified approach works whether you’re dealing with taupe or teal – or kelly green.

3. SPRING FOR SEASONAL BLOSSOMS FOR YOUR CONTAINERS: No, it doesn’t have to be a flowering crabapple tree and hothouse cinerarias in a ceramic Chinese pot, like Giverny, but do splurge on some pussy willows and daffodils and primulas to say farewell to winter and rejoice in spring.

4. TRY TONE-ON-TONE TULIPS: Let’s face it; this big bed would be truly boring if Giverny’s gardeners planted it with just one variety of tulip, so they don’t! They mix four cultivars, which the office could not identify for me, other than to say “four”. What that provides is a bit of pointillism that shimmers, rather than a block of colour. If you do this (and you should) make sure the tulips you choose are slightly different shades of a hue, but all the same class, whether it’s Darwin Hybrids, Triumphs or Late-Flowered tulips.

And be sure to remember the importance of humble, biennial forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvatica) when you’re designing your tulip plantings. Such an easy, beautiful way to carpet bare spring ground.

5. USE PANSIES & VIOLAS: It takes some planning to produce the beautiful combination in the photo below, where purple pansies and violas are in full flower underneath the tulips as they come into bloom. In mild regions like Normandy, pansies have no problem overwintering. But in colder parts of North America, like Toronto (USDA Zone 5-Canadian Zone 6b), pansies should be planted the previous September so they have time to establish roots before winter. That actually coincides with bulb-planting time, so you can fine-tune your colour choices and positioning of the pansies as you tuck in the bulbs. It’s a good idea to add a mulch (use a layer of shredded, damp autumn leaves) once the ground freezes, and choose the hardiest pansies and violas you can find. Try Icicle Pansies which have been bred for cold winter regions. The Delta, Bingo and Maxim series are also reportedly hardy in the north.

6. FRAME A VIEW: There’s a Monet family story behind those big, old yews at the end of the 172-foot long Grande Allée, for they were once the final evergreens in a double line of conifers that hedged this path. They can be seen in one of the many paintings Monet made in his garden, Pathway in Monet’s Garden, 1900, below:

Monet, looking for more sunshine for the flower garden he was making in front of the house, cut all the path evergreens down except this last pair, which his wife Alice Hoschedé-Monet persuaded him to spare. Apart from the grandeur of the yews as a penultimate focal point before the house facade, look at the way the gardeners have used pink forget-me-nots edging that long path to draw your eye to the pink house, creating beauty out of geometry and symmetry.

7. COLOUR WITH PAINTBOXES: When Gérald Van der Kemp arrived in Giverny in 1977 to restore Monet’s abandoned house and property, there was precious little in the way of garden records. With his American wife Florence, he had earlier established the Versailles Foundation in New York, attracting wealthy American donors to fund the restoration of the palace and gardens at Versailles. And it was $2.5 million in further American funding that would pay for the refurbishment of Monet’s house and garden. For details on the garden in Monet’s time, Van der Kemp and gardener Gilbert Vahé sought the assistance of André De Villiers, assistant to Georges Truffaut, the French garden magazine publisher and nursery chain founder, who had visited the garden and Monet often (below).

As well, Alice Hoschedé-Monet’s great grandson, the late artist Jean-Marie Toulgouat still lived in Giverny and was able to provide Van der Kemp with family correspondence, journals and photos. There were also photos made by Claude Monet himself and visitors, as well as letters he had written or that others had sent to him that mentioned the garden.

As to the colour beds in the Clos Normand, we must imagine Monet playing with his paints, choosing felicitous combinations in the same way he might have combined pigments on his easel — which is why these beds have been described as paintboxes. Rather than a riot of colour, they are planted in discrete hues and kept separate from each other, below.

There are pinks….

….and mauves and lilacs….

…. and blues……

…. and yellows…..

….and reds that pair beautifully with the deep green leaves of emerging perennials…..

….and even the colour of the emerging peonies, here shown in the rings used to keep them upright in spring rains.

In Elizabeth Murray’s book Monet’s Passion: Ideas, Inspiration and Insights from the Painter’s Garden (1989, 2^nd edition 2010), she wrote: “To increase the various atmospheric effects of the garden, Monet planted rich orange, pink, gold and bronze wallflowers and tulips together on the west side of the flower garden to emphasize the effects of the setting sun.”

“Using blue with clear yellow was one of Monet’s favored color combinations…” wrote Elizabeth Murray, and this pretty pairing of Dutch irises with yellow wallflowers and tulips illustrates the wisdom of that choice.

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But it’s in the arrangement of the solid blocks of brilliantly-coloured tulips in the Grand Allée, looking under the rose arches towards the house…..

…..and to the bottom of the Clos Normand…..

….that we see the closest intimation of the paintings that Monet made in 1886 after visiting the bulb fields of Holland. Here is Tulip Fields With The Rijnsburg Windmill (1886)….

…and Tulip Fields at Sassenheim (1886).

It’s these powerful reminders of Monet’s art that makes the garden resonate for me.

8. PLANT FLOWERING TREES: Every garden needs trees with spring blossoms – Monet appreciated this, and painted the garden when his trees were in bloom, as in Springtime at Giverny (1886), below:

Whether ornamentals, like the many lovely Japanese cherries, including slender Prunus serrulata ‘Ama-no-gawa’, shown below in the Clos Normand……

….or edible fruit trees such as pears, plums and apples – like the beautiful espaliered apple trees trained as fencing around the lawn, below, spring-flowering trees play a structural role in Monet’s garden.

9. REMEMBER FRAGRANCE: It’s a simple lesson, but one that we often forget. Scented flowers should be planted where we can appreciate their fragrance. At Giverny, that means a row of Narcissus ‘Geranum’ edging the path…..

….. or a tumble of hyacinths planted where we can inhale their sweet perfume on the wind….

…… or a truss of fragrant snowball viburnum (V. x carlcephalum) at nose height as we pass by.

10. GARDEN THEMATICALLY: Claude Monet became passionate about Japanese arts and crafts. His large collection of woodblock prints by Hiroshige, Hokusai and Utamaro is still displayed on the walls of his house. And in the garden, he turned to the Japanese landscape school to inspire him in creating his famous lily pond. We see the Japanese influence especially in the presence of the bamboo…..

…daylilies……

….. ‘Kanzan’ flowering Japanese cherry, below, and other Japanese flora in the area…..

…including the brilliant azaleas and Japanese maples on its shore.

10. PLAY WITH A POND: For many visitors, the lily pond at Giverny offers the most intimate connection to Claude Monet, given that the wisteria over the Japanese bridge (like the waterlilies, not in bloom here) is the original vine and the bridge itself……

….still looks much as it did in Monet’s The Japanese Footbridge, painted in 1899.

And, of course, there were his many paintings of the famous nymphaea or water lilies, some of which I saw in 2016 in a magnificent show called Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse at London’s Royal Academy of Arts

But any pond needs context and perspective and a connection with the rest of the garden, and in this respect, Monet’s pond offers other good lessons. The edges are planted to offer foreground interest no matter where visitors stand…..

…. and the weeping willow lends an air of mystery, its long branches cascading to suggest a gauzy screen.

Standing beside the pond, it’s easy to imagine Monet here with his easel — something made easier considering there is video footage of him painting his famous water lilies here at the pond’s edge.

As we leave the pond and Giverny, it seems appropriate to conclude with one of Monet’s masterpieces, painted exactly 100 years ago, its genius that quixotic alchemy of sunlight, reflection, water and flora which, his vision failing, he strived to perfect for the last three decades of his life. I give you Water Lilies, 1917.

Lilies in Meadows

Posted on October 11, 2016 by Janet

I spent an hour on Thanksgiving weekend planting a dozen Orienpet lily bulbs in my meadow gardens at the cottage on Lake Muskoka. A deservedly popular group resulting from complex hybridizing of Oriental and Trumpet lilies, they came from the Lily Nook in Neepawa, Manitoba, which has been in the lily-breeding business for more than 30 years. The Lily Nook also sells popular lilies outside their own registry, offering 150 varieties through their catalogue. I’ve always been impressed with their service and the quality of their bulbs.

When I say I planted the bulbs in “meadow gardens”, I mean either one of two small fields on either side of the cottage, below, but also in….

..garden beds that I originally intended to keep somewhat tame, which have now been invaded by their wild meadow brethren. This is ‘Conca d’Or’ – my favourite Orienpet, with blue Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) and ‘Gold Plate’ yarrow (Achillea filipenulina)….

Planting lilies is easy, and much like planting spring bulbs such as tulips or daffodils. The difference is that lilies can be planted in either fall or spring, unlike spring-flowering bulbs which must be planted in autumn. Fall planting works well when autumns are long and relatively mild, allowing the bulbs to root nicely before freeze-up. In my case, there is no beautiful, rich soil to work; it is truly a mess of wild grass and wildflower or perennial roots and granite bed rock. I shifted my spade around to find 10-12 inches of clear soil, then dug out any roots I could and sifted the soil a little with my hands. I had a very small amount of seed-starting mix that I added to the hole (I would recommend a better soil, if you have it, to give a good start), then plunked the fat, scaled lily bulb on top. Lilies prefer rich, free-draining but reasonably moist soil.

I gathered a pail of pine needles, and after backfilling the hole with the bulb, I mulched the soil with the needles and watered everything well. Experts recommend mulching Orienpets in cold regions, but apart from the pine needles, I’ve relied on our generally guaranteed deep snow cover to get them through winter. The pine needle mulch at least guarantees a short time for the bulb to emerge in spring without encroachment by other plants.

And when I say encroachment, in meadow gardening it’s a given that life is cheek-to-jowl and plants must be able to survive in those conditions. Here’s the Asiatic lily ‘Pearl Justien’ with wild sweet pea (Lathyrus latifolius).

This year, I bought 3 bulbs each of pink ‘Tabledance’ (who makes these names up?) and ‘Esta Bonita’, three of ‘Northern Delight’ (soft melon orange) and three more of my fave: pale-yellow ‘Conca d’Or’. The Lily Nook always adds a free bonus bulb, usually an Asiatic. While they are lovely in my city garden, they don’t seem to take as well to the meadows at the lake. The one below faded away after a few years of rough living.

Orienpets have inherited the spicy fragrance of their pink and white Oriental parents and the swoony scent of the orange and yellow Trumpets. So I’m careful to site my lilies where their exquisite perfume can be enjoyed up close. That means near a sitting area, as with ‘Conca d’Or’, below…

…. or along a grassy path where walkers can enjoy inhaling. That’s peachy ‘Visa-Versa’ at the front, and the orange Asiatic ‘Pearl Justien’ in the rear.

…. or beside the stairs to the dock….

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They are not immune to disease (especially after a rainy spring, when the stems and leaves can develop a blight) and certain little critters love them, especially red lily beetle (I don’t have many of these) and grasshoppers, like the ones below noshing on ‘Robina’ (I have thousands of these!)

This one reminded me of Dr. Strangelove riding the bomb.

Deer will take the odd chomp off the top – and that, of course means the end of the flower. But when they are happy(ish), they are my guilty pleasure – since everything else in my meadows is grown for wildlife and pollinator attraction. The liies are just for me, a little hit of luscious intermingled with the do-gooders. Let them keep company with the red ‘Lucifer’ crocosmia as it brings in the hummingbirds to sup….

…. and with the orange butterfly milkweed, as it attracts bumble bees and monarch butterflies.

Let them hang out with the bee-friendly veronica (V. spicata ‘Darwin’s Blue’)….

…. and the pink wild beebalm (Monarda fistulosa) with its hordes of bumble bees.

Here’s a tiny video of ‘Conca d’Or’, (above) playing partner to beebalm.

Yes, my meadows are big enough for a few pinup gals, like ‘Visa-Versa’, below.

And the garden beds look all the lovelier for a ravishing beauty among the humble blackeyed susans.

La Vie en Rose(s)

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Janet

La Vie en Rose…. I am not a chanteuse, but I love Edith Piaf. And I am not a rosarian, but I do love roses. That doesn’t mean I’ve actually grown many roses – other than a very constrained ‘New Dawn’ (see below) and a 5-year fling with the yellow-flowered Father Hugo’s rose (Rosa xanthina) which ultimately died in the border, leaving in its wake its progenitor, the pale-pink rootstock dog rose (Rosa canina). Before I pulled it out, I popped a sprig in a vase and photographed it. Amen. Rest in peace.

PEGGY ROCKEFELLER ROSE GARDEN, NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN

But despite steering clear of roses and their fickle needs, I’ve seen many hundreds of them in the 25 years I’ve been photographing plants, and every June I indulge a little fantasy in which I have a garden spilling with their fragrant blossoms. It’s easy to feel that rose fever, when you find yourself wandering the paths of, say, the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, as I’ve done for their annual June Rose Festival.

It’s a hugely popular crowd event in early June, with food vendors at the entrance.

It’s in gardens like Peggy Rockefeller that you can see storied roses at the height of their beauty, like ‘New Dawn’ (Wichuraiana, 1930), below, one of the classic, low-maintenance pink climbing roses. I grow this climber myself in a 4 foot-square garden (why did I plant it there? who knows?) against the brick support of my front porch, forgetting to prune it until June, hacking it back when it threatens to trail over the cars in the driveway and generally ignoring it in its spot behind an overly-large boxwood. It has never been sprayed or fertilized, is rarely watered, and gives me sprays of cupped, light-scented, tea-type blooms over the veranda railing in early summer. When happy, it’s a massive thing, growing 10 feet (3 m) tall and 15 feet (5 m) wide – enough to cover a garage wall (And yes, since this is my second PINK blog for the month of May, I’m going to be focusing entirely on pink roses!)

Below is another beauty from Peggy Rockefeller, ‘Climbing Pinkie’ (Cl. Polyantha, 1952) with masses of small pink flowers on almost thornless canes that can reach 10 x 10 feet (3 metres). It’s considered fairly disease-resistant and is an excellent re-bloomer. Because of its growing habit, many gardeners like to train this rose along the top of a fence and let the flowers cascade.

Paul’s Himalayan Musk (Hybrid Musk, c. 1899) is another giant that finds ample room to show off at Peggy Rockefeller Rose garden. A Royal Horticultural Society award-winner, this rambler festooned with masses of drooping clusters of small, double, pale-pink blossoms can reach a stunning 40 feet (13 m) in height in favourable conditions. Shade-tolerant and slightly fragrant, it flowers only once, but with such abundance it can be forgiven for taking a rest for the balance of summer.

If you like landscape roses (I find them a little boring, frankly, as I don’t expect the ‘queen of flowers’ to be “landscape” anything), there are now lots of really good pink ones from which to choose, including the Drift Series from Star Roses. They had several Drifts at Peggy Rockefeller, often interplanted with giant mauve Allium cristophii. Below is ‘Pink Drift’.

EXPLORER ROSES

One of my very favourite roses in the Rockefeller garden, not least for its Canadian heritage, ‘John Davis’ is a gorgeous, ultra-hardy, modern shrub rose, bred in 1977 as part of the Explorer series by the late Canadian rose-breeder extraordinare Felicitas Svejda. Her breeding program to develop shrub roses that rivalled old French roses for beauty while managing to withstand the harshness of Canadian prairie winters (many to -40F-40C) produced some 25 roses from the mid-70s, all with the names of early explorers. ‘John Davis’ is on many rose-lovers’ “favourite” list, with its masses of fragrant, clear-pink blossoms in early summer on a 7 foot (2.1 metre) tall shrub that can be trained as a climber.

Now let’s head across the border to the Royal Botanical Garden in Burlington, Ontario, where we find another wonderful Explorer rose. At 10 feet (3 metres) tall and wide, ‘William Baffin’ (Explorer shrub rose, 1983) is the biggest of Felicitas Svejda’s ultra-hardy introductions (she bred it in 1974 but it was released 9 years later). Gardeners who’ve tried to corral its thorny canes aren’t in a hurry to repeat the experience but the masses of cerise-pink flowers borne in clusters in early summer are truly a magnificent sight.

And bees, like the bumble bee below, love the exposed stamens of single or semi-double roses like ‘William Baffin’. Though roses don’t offer nectar, their pollen is an excellent source of protein for bees.

OLD ROSES

When I want to sniff the incredible perfume of the old garden roses, I make my way to the collection beds at the Royal Botanical Garden. There I can find most of the classics – if I’m lucky, even before they’ve been hit hard by black spot, which tends to be a common problem with many of them. Here are a dozen of my favourites in montage form.

In case you can’t read the caption, they include:

1^st row, left to right: ‘Belle de Crecy’ (Gallica, 1829), ‘Ispahan’ (Damask, 1832), ‘Henri Martin’ (Moss, 1863); ‘Variegata di Bologna’ (Bourbon, 1909).

2^nd row, left to right: ‘Fantin Latour’ (Centifolia, 1900), ‘Cardinal Richelieu’ (Gallica, pre-1847), Rosa muscosa (Common Moss Rose), ‘Petite Lisette’ (1817-Alba/Damask).

3^rd row, left to right: ‘Mme Isaac Pereire’ (Bourbon, 1881), Rosa gallica ‘Versicolor’ (Rosa Mundi), ‘Charles de Mills’ (Gallica, year unknown), ‘Tuscany Superb’ (Gallica, 1837)

Its beautifully-shaped, neon-pink blossoms made ‘Zéphirine Drouhin’ (Bourbon, 1868) a favourite of accomplished gardeners like Vita Sackville-West, and it continues to enjoy popularity today, especially since its branches are thornless. (Those canes tend to flop around, so it should be trellised.) Like all the Bourbons, it is intensely-perfumed and the flowers look like those of the most exquisite hybrid tea. I only wish Wave Hill Gardens in the Bronx, New York, where I photographed Zéphirine, below, could find a more felicitous background for those blossoms than orange brick. Design hint: pink roses look best against olive green and charcoal grey.

With its deep cerise-magenta flowers, the Apothecary rose, Rosa gallica var. officinalis, is another old rose with a very long history. About 4 feet (1.3 metres) tall and wide, extremely fragrant, reasonably disease-resistant and free-flowering in early summer, it is known historically from around 1400 when it was used by ‘officinals’ or apothecaries for medicinal use. I often find this lovely rose in medicinal herb gardens.

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DR. HUEY

Speaking of strong colour statements, ‘Dr. Huey’ (Hybrid Wichuraiana, 1914) is an interesting rose. Seen below at Chanticleer Garden (have you read my two-part blog on my favourite public garden?) outside Philadelphia intertwined fetchingly with a light-purple clematis, it was commonly used in the U.S. as a rootstock under budded roses, including hybrid teas and many of the David Austin English roses (in contrast to “own-root” roses). As such, it often emerges as suckering growth – either alongside the purchased rose (quite comical, when it soars high above a yellow hybrid tea) or in its place. But that vigor below-ground does not translate to disease-resistance above-ground, since ‘Dr. Huey’ is known to suffer considerably from black spot and other diseases. Still, those dark, wine-pink flowers on long, outspread canes are a very romantic look, and if you can keep it healthy, cheeky interloper or not, it’s a beauty.

MODERN SHRUB ROSES

Perhaps no rose was as popular in the 1990s in my neck of the woods than Bonica, below In fact, it was named “the world’s favourite rose” in 1997 (but who ran the contest? hmmmm….). Bonica is what I call it, but like many plants these days, that’s just a trade name and its actual cultivar name is ‘MEIdomonac’. Bred by French rose giant Meilland, it’s a lovely thing . Because of its compact 3-4 foot (1-1.3 metre) size can be incorporated into a perennial border of pinks, blues and purples, grown on its own as a specimen, or used as a low hedge. It’s very serviceable, with lovely flowers that look like ‘old roses’. Unlike most old roses, however, it will re-bloom throughout summer when deadheaded.

At the Toronto Botanical Garden, there’s a prominent bed where two modern shrub roses grow in a pretty, all-pink confection The David Austin English Rose Mary Rose (‘AUSmary’) is at the rear, growing to about 4 feet x 4 feet (1.3 m x 1.3 m) while the front features the sweet rose ‘The Fairy’ (Polyantha, 1932).

‘The Fairy’ makes a great companion to English lavender, shown below at Toronto’s Spadina House.

It is disease-resistant and an exceptionally long bloomer, often gathering frost on its last little buds in late autumn. Aren’t those blossoms sweet?

Speaking of Spadina House, I do love the bountiful rose display at the front of the historic home, including the old rambler ‘Dorothy Perkins’ (Wichuriaiana, 1901), below. It was the first rose released by American rose giant Jackson & Perkins, and named by breeder Alvin Miller for Charles Perkins’ granddaughter. Its brash pink might not be for everyone, but it is a party when it’s in flower in early summer, but sadly often plagued with mildew and diseases.

And while I have you at Spadina House, let me show you another charming companion for early-season roses. Look at these enchanting columbines (Aquilegia vulgaris) below, cozying up to the beautiful, scented, hardy rugosa hybrid rose ‘Thérèse Bugnet’.

Many of English rose breeder David Austin’s introductions have the look and perfume of old French roses; some even bear evocative French names. Redouté (‘AUSpale’), below, is a light-pink sport of Mary Rose (mentioned above), and the same height, with ‘fruity old rose’ fragrance. Named for the renowned 19th century painter of old roses, Pierre-Joseph Redouté, it is meltingly beautiful and would have made a prized still life subject for the artist.

Back to Toronto Botanical Garden for another little landscape rose, this time from German rose breeder Kordes. This is cherry-pink Sweet Vigorosa (KORdatura), which looks right at home with June perennials like Veronica longifolia ‘Eveline’, left, Achillea tomentosa, right, and coreopsis in the rear.

ROSES AND CLEMATIS

Growing roses with clematis is a long tradition, especially in European gardens. It’s best to choose a clematis that can be cut back to buds near the ground in spring, i.e. one that flowers on new growth. For the tallest pink roses, a purple Viticella like ‘Etoile Violette’ or ‘Polish Spirit’ would be a good match. In the photo below from Deep Cove Chalet Restaurant (one of my favourite spots to dine) outside Victoria, B.C., we see mauve-pink Clematis ‘Hagley Hybrid’ intertwined with a tallish shrub rose or low climbing rose. I love that look.

Since we’re talking pink clematis, I’ll mention one of my favourites: ‘Comtesse de Bouchaud’ (NOT Bouchard, as it’s often written). This bubblegum-pink vine would be perfect clambering through a pale-pink shrub rose – like one of the David Austins, e.g. Redouté or Queen of Sweden.

Clematis ‘Alionushka’ is a non-twining clematis (the herbaceous C. integrifolia is one parent) that needs something to support it, so it’s a very good candidate for training up into a shrub rose of about the same height.

ONE MORE COLD-HARDY ROSE

Since I’m a prairie girl originally (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan until the age of 6 weeks, when I left for the balmy west coast city of Victoria, B.C., dragging my parents behind me), I’m going to end my homage to pink roses with one that many gardeners consider to be vastly underused. ‘Prairie Joy’ is a product of Canada’s Morden Research Station in Manitoba, a vase-shaped, upright rose to 5-6 feet (2 metres) with a flush of the most gorgeous pink blossoms in early summer, followed by generous repeat flowering throughout summer. Since the very thorny canes tend to swoop down, it is recommended that ‘Prairie Joy’ be trellised or tied loosely to an obelisk.

And on that very pink note, we bid adieu to May and welcome in rose season. But don’t forget to join me in early June, when we’ll be taking a promenade through PURPLE in a gorgeous Toronto garden!

Janet Davis Explores Colour

In the garden & the world

Tag Archives: perfume

The Rochester Lilac Festival

Reginald Farrer’s Lovely Viburnum

Spring Lessons from Giverny

Lilies in Meadows

La Vie en Rose(s)

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