Miss Rumphius and the Lupines

Posted on February 6, 2020 by Janet

I have a particular fondness for the award-winning book Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney (Viking, 1982). First, it celebrates grandparents. Second, it’s a story about enchanting lupines. Third, it honours the essential gardening impulse to “make the world more beautiful”. If you’d like a little 4-minute bedtime story, have a listen to me reading it to my granddaughter Emma.

Who doesn’t love lupines? Or lupins, if you like. I’ve always added the “e” to mine, given that’s how the North American clan are usually spelled. The British tend to refer to them as lupins. In fact, most of the colourful garden lupines are the offspring of those developed from 1911-1942 by the British horticulturist George Russell (1857-1951). . He planted many lupine species together in his two allotments, including the blue-purple North American species Lupinus polyphyllus – which had been brought back to Britain from the Pacific Northwest by explorer David Douglas in the 1820s – along with yellow bush lupine (L. arboreus), sulphur lupine (L. sulphureus) and others. As for the crosses, he always claimed he let the bees do the breeding work for him, but he selected the best colour combinations, gave them names and saved the seed to sell. There’s a good story on George Russell and his lupine breeding here. In Toronto, I get my June fix of multi-colored Russell Hybrids at the spectacular four-square potager garden behind the Spadina House Museum where they grow with lots of old-fashioned flowers.

In June in Toronto, Spadina’s garden is my favourite place to photograph.

The gardeners there keep the lupines coming back every year, with colours ranging from the deepest purple…..

….. to bubblegum-pink, with many bicolors that feature white, yellow and crimson markings.

They’re arrayed around Spadina’s gardens and bloom near the grape vines with sweet rocket (Hesperis matronalis)….

…. and the beautiful bearded irises….

…. and blowsy peonies…..

…. and old-fashioned ragged robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi)…..

…. and yellow loosestrife (Lysimachia punctata).

As the lupine season is winding down, the catmints (Nepeta sp.) make pretty partners.

Bumble bees have the long, strong proboscises necessary to probe through the lower keel to get at the pollen. I’ve done a lot of my bumble bee photography at Spadina House.

The Russell Hybrids have given rise to many of the modern lupines, like the Gallery Series in red….

….. and white.

I’ve been photographing lupines for a long time. The photo workshop I took with Freeman Patterson at his New Brunswick Nature Conservancy property Shamper’s Bluff back in the 90s featured….

…. lots of lupines in his beautiful meadows. Someone caught me intent on capturing dewdrops.

At Vancouver’s Van Dusen Botanical Garden, native bigleaf lupine (Lupinus polyphyllus subsp. polyphyllus) is planted under silk tassel bush (Garrya elliptica ‘James Roof’).

Lupinus polyphyllus subsp. polyphyllus is the locally indigenous sub-species of bigleaf lupine.

When I was travelling in Sisimiut, Greenland, I came upon this lovely stand of Nootka lupine, Lupinus nootkatensis.

One floriferous California spring (2004), I found this stunning hillside of dwarf lupine (Lupinus nanus) in the Los Padres National Forest.

Ten years later, I photographed arroyo lupine (Lupinus succulentus) in a magnificent meadow at the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden, along with yellow tidytips (Layia platyglossa) and goldfields (Lasthenia californica).

I came across an amazing meadow containing lupines and hawkweed in Vermont one June, and used it as the dreamy background to some abstract images…..

….. featuring close-ups of lupines. They hang in my kitchen at home.

But back to my own little patch of ground: my meadow at Lake Muskoka. I have to say it wasn’t easy to establish lupines, but after figuring out what they needed to germinate, and where they wanted to grow their first set of leaves, and how to care for them that first season, I enjoyed their beautiful spires each June.

They loved my acidic soil – they do much better in a low pH soil, despite what some cultivation guides say – and…….

…… the overwintering bumble bee queens always found the pollen to furnish their nests.

They emerged with an early cast of characters including blue false indigo (Baptisia australis) and ubiquitous oxeye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare), below.

You can see some of wild lupine’s meadow companions in this bouquet I made featuring oxeye daisy, blue false indigo, large-flowered penstemon (P. grandiflorus), blue flag iris (Iris versicolor) and buttercups.

Many years, my lupines sported impressive coats of aphids. If I had the energy I’d try to spray the stems with soapy water, but there were lots of stems…..

And in time, I had my own supply of lupine seeds. But the white and red pines I planted in the meadows have now grown so tall that they shade out the wildflowers and grasses. That was the general idea: to have “in-between meadows” as our hillside healed itself after our construction there. I do miss them in their abundance, but enjoy the few that flower still.

There’s another reason I love Miss Rumphius. It was the subject of the very last weekly gardening column I wrote in 2006 for a certain national newspaper before they cancelled my column “to focus more on real estate”. In truth, they were bleeding money and I was just one more freelance budget item to cut. (At least I hope that was the case!)

Miss Rumphius (Viking, 1982) – written and illustrated by Barbara Cooney.

In any event, the column I wrote detailed how I managed to germinate and grow seed of Lupinus perennis at my cottage, seen in the photos above, and I offer it here in case you want to make the world more beautiful.

ADVENTURES OF A LUPINE LADY (May 2006)

There’s a much-loved children’s book called Miss Rumphius (Puffin,1985).  Written and illustrated by the late Barbara Cooney and first published by Viking in 1982, it won the American Book Award for its renowned Maine author.

Miss Rumphius tells the story of a little girl named Alice who sits on her grandfather’s knee and tells him she wants to be just like him: to travel to far-away places and live in a house by the sea.  Her grandfather says that isn’t enough:  “You must do something to make the world more beautiful”.

Alice grows up to become Miss Rumphius, the librarian.  She travels far and wide, climbs mountains, rides camels and buys a little house by the sea.  But she’s worried because she hasn’t yet made the world a more beautiful place.  Then one spring she spots “a large patch of blue and purple and rose-colored lupines” in flower on a hillside near her home where they’ve spread from plants in her own garden.  Miss Rumphius becomes the Lupine Lady, spreading lupine seeds wherever she goes and, yes, making the world more beautiful.

Like Miss Rumphius, I adore lupines with their bewitching blue and purple flower spires in late spring.  At my cottage,  I’m working on creating my own wild lupine meadow too.  But at the rate my plants are growing, I’ll be an old woman with a cane by the time I’m ready to beautify the rest of the world.  For lupines have very particular needs, both in their germination and ongoing growth.

Growing Wild Lupines

Perennial wild lupine (Lupinus perennis) or sundial lupine is native to eastern Canada and the eastern U.S. where large lupine meadows are a familiar sight in late spring-early summer in the Maritimes and New England.  One of more than 300 lupine species worldwide, it’s the only known host food plant for the endangered Karner Blue butterfly.  Preferring full sun and well-drained, sandy soil with a low pH (acidic), wild lupine grows naturally in sand prairies, open oak woodlands and grassy areas with granite-based soils.  It will not tolerate clay soil, making it a challenge to grow in most gardens.

Nursery-grown lupines often fail because their long tap roots make potted plants notoriously difficult to transplant, so it’s preferable to grow your plants from seed.  If I do the math on my own seed-to-plant success, I estimate it’s about a 10:1 ratio, so a large supply of seeds is needed . Note: L. perennis is a widespread species and available from a large number of seed companies, including Wildflower Farm and Prairie Moon Nursery. (Postscript: But do make sure it’s the right species – my seed turned out to be the west coast species L. polyphyllus or a hybrid of L. perennis and L. polyphyllus. Lovely but not the same thing.)

This spring, I sowed a handful of lupine seeds at my lakeside cottage, observing a ritual I’ve perfected over the past five years.  First, I soak the large seeds overnight in water to soften them.  Then I get down on my hands and knees and carefully press each seed just under the soil surface in what I call my “lupine mud”.  It’s actually a patch of rich, damp, sandy soil behind the house that never dries out because it’s in part shade at the bottom of a hill, thus retaining the moisture that wild lupine seeds need to germinate.  I’ve tried at various times of the year to germinate lupine seeds in situ, but their critical need for moisture immediately after germination has led me to separate my seed bed from the actual growing locations.

A month or so later, when the little plants have several leaves and a small root system, I’ll carefully scoop them up with a large spoon and transplant them into my dry, sunny hillside meadows where I water them regularly the first summer as they put down their tap roots.  Those that survive the first winter seem indestructible and completely drought-tolerant thereafter.  They may not bloom for two, three or four years, but they’re on their way, ever so slowly, to becoming a meadow.

We can’t all be like Miss Rumphius, travelling to far-off places and living in a house by the sea.  But we can, in our own small way, make the world a more beautiful place.

********

It’s impossible to find a song about lupines, and not easy to find a song about gardens and children either, I discovered, but I did remember this one written by Dave Mallett in 1975. Personally, I would not use the word “prayer” and instead substitute the word “compost” – but I suppose a lot of people would not object to being prayerful about their garden. So here it is with John Denver and some singing flowers from Sesame Street.

THE GARDEN SONG (Dave Mallett composer, 1975)

Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe
And a piece of fertile ground
And inch by inch, row by row
Someone bless these seeds I sow
Someone warm them from below
Till the rain comes tumbling down

Pulling weeds and picking stones
Man is made of dreams and bones
Feel the need to grow my own
Cause the time is close at hand
Grain for grain, sun and rain
Find my way in nature’s chain
And tune my body and my brain
To the music from the land

And inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe
And a piece of fertile ground
And inch by inch, row by row
Someone bless these seeds I sow
Someone warm them from below
Till the rain comes tumbling down

And plant your rows straight and long
Temper them with prayer and song
Mother Earth will make you strong
If you give her love and care
Old crow watching hungrily
From his perch in yonder tree
In my garden I’m as free
As that feathered thief up there

******

This is the eleventh blog in #mysongscapes series of winter 2020 that combine music I love with my photography. If you enjoyed reading, have a look at the others:

Joni Mitchell’s ‘Night in the City’;
Paul Simon’s ‘Kodachrome’ and my life in photography;
Vietnam and Songs of Protest;
Galway Bay and memories of my grandfather and Ireland;
Simon and Garfunkel’s Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme;
The John Denver lullaby I sang to my first grandchild, Today While the Blossoms Still Cling to the Vine.
Gordon Lightfoot for a Snow Day
Madame George by Van Morrison – my favourite song in the world
Brown Eyed Girl(s) – Van Morrison’s classic and my black-eyed susans
Raindrops – on flowers and in my gardens

Please feel free to leave a comment below. I love to read them.

Designing with Peonies

Posted on June 10, 2019 by Janet

It’s June, lovely June and gardens are filled with the romantic perennials of late spring and early summer. The weeds are still manageable (sort of) and the heat hasn’t yet arrived to fry the blossoms. And there are peonies…. the sentimental favourites of a lot of gardeners, especially beginners, who long to grow the perennials they remember from a grandmother’s garden or a farmhouse field. And who doesn’t love peonies, in all their luscious hues from white to deepest red….

….. with many in coral and salmon.

Throw in the Itoh hybrids, and you’ve got beautiful yellows too!

And who doesn’t love peonies in vases? I made this dinner party arrangement with snowball viburnums.

For my daughter’s wedding shower, I added lupines, which tend to swoon curvaceously.

But mostly, we love them in our gardens. Peonies are beautiful in single-plant collections, of course, but they are wonderful actors in ensemble casts, too. Over the years, I’ve photographed peonies in countless gardens; these are some of my favourite combinations. Where I have a cultivar name, I’ve added it – but mostly it’s to get a sense of the design possibilities for pairing plants with peonies. Let’s start with some compositions from the Toronto Botanical Garden (TBG). This is the yellow hybrid Baptisia ‘Solar Flare’ with pink and white peonies.

Native Baptisia australis, blue false indigo, is a classic June peony partner.

This is a nice, crisp combination in the Piet Oudolf-designed entry border: Paeonia ‘Krinkled White’ with willowleaf bluestar (Amsonia tabernaomantana var. salicifolia).

In another garden at the TBG, Paeonia ‘Krinkled White’ looks beautiful with catminit (Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’) and Allium cristophii.

This is Paeonia lactiflora ‘Edulis Superba’ with Ozark bluestar (Amsonia illustris).

I loved this combination of the Itoh Hybrid peony ‘Morning Lilac’ with catmint (Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’).

Sicilian honey lily (Allium siculum) made a nice statement with white-and-green Paeonia lactiflora ‘Green Halo’.

Allium siculum is a great pollinator plant, too!

Isn’t this the perfect June vignette? It features Salvia x sylvestris ‘Summer Snow’ and camint (Nepeta sp.) with a pink peony.

Foxglove penstemon (Penstemon digitalis), is one of my favourite perennenials. A June-blooming native that is drought-tolerant and adaptable to so many soil situations (at my cottage, it grows in gravel), it also makes a charming companion to peonies, especially a glamour star like ‘Bowl of Beauty’, below.

A single-petaled peony (possibly ‘Sea Shell’?) pairs with the spiderwort Tradescantia ‘Concord Grape’.

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I’ve always loved this bold combination in the Oudolf entry border: Paeonia ‘Buckeye Bell’ with meadow sage, Salvia nemorosa ‘Mainacht’ (‘May Night’).

Salvia nemorosa ‘Mainacht’ also looks wonderful with the unusually-coloured Itoh Hybrid ‘Kopper Kettle’.

Along the entry driveway at the TBG, the Oudolf border features Paeonia ‘Bowl of Beauty’ with graceful llittle flowers of the white form of mourning widow cranesbill (Geranium phaeum ‘Album’), backed by the lilac-purple spires of Phlomis tuberosa ‘Amazone’.

Geranium ’Rozanne’ looks great with everything, but is especially effective with the Itoh Hybrid peony ‘Sequestered Sunshine’.

Let’s head further south in Toronto to the lovely four-square potager of Spadina House Museum. This is what you can expect on a perfect morning in June: a romantic melange of Russell Hybrid lupines, heritage bearded irises and peonies, among other June-bloomers.

Here’s a beautiful and classic combination: pink and purple Russell Hybrid lupines with peonies.

The heirloom French peony Jules Elie’ teams up boldly with old-fashioned yellow loosestrife (Lysimachia punctata) here.

And ‘Jules Elie’ also looks great nestled into variegated maiden grass (Miscanthus sinensis ‘Variegatus’).

Spadina House contrasts the shimmering white flowers of Paeonia ‘Duchess de Nemours’ against a sober backdrop of blue false indigo (Baptisia australis).

Beside the vegetable garden, mauve Allium cristophii makes an airy companion to pink and white peonies.

Later-flowering alliums, of course, are perfect companions for peonies. Out west at Vancouver’s Van Dusen Botanical Garden, Allium ‘Globemaster’ combines with a late-season single pink peony.

I’ve made notes of effective peony combinations on various garden tours through the years, too. In a beautiful country garden north of Toronto, I found fern-leaved dropwort (Filipendula vulgaris) consorting with a pink peony.

Another classic peony partner is Oriental poppy; this is Papaver orientale ‘Victoria Louse’.

To finish, I give you the prettiest street garden ever, a generous gesture from a Toronto gardener on one of the TBG’s annual tours years ago: yellow flag iris (Iris pseudacorus) with a dark purple bearded iris and luscious pink Paeonia ‘Jules Elie’.

And for all you gardeners who wouldn’t dream of planting something that pollinators don’t enjoy, rest easy. Provided you plant single or semi-double peonies with lots of pollen-rich stamens exposed, you can usually have your peonies and let bees eat ‘em too!

21 Hot Dates for Blackeyed Susan

Posted on July 20, 2016 by Janet

Here we are in July, my Paintbox Garden month for yellow/gold. and what more summery illustration of that sunny part of the paintbox than blackeyed susan!

When Carl Linnaeus named the genus of North American plants that include the ones we call blackeyed susan as Rudbeckia, he was honouring someone very cherished in his life, his Uppsala University mentor and fellow botanist Olof Rudbeck the Younger (1660-1740). In 1730 Linnaeus moved into Rudbeck’s house where he became tutor for his three youngest children (of 24 in total by three wives!). It was Rudbeck who recommended Linnaeus as lecturer to replace him and as the botanical garden demonstrator, even though he was only in his second year of studies.

In Wilfrid Blunt’s 1971 biography, Linnaeus, The Compleat Naturalist, the author quotes Linnaeus: “So long as the earth shall survive and as each spring shall see it covered with flowers, theRudbeckia will preserve your glorious name. I have chosen a noble plant in order to recall your merits and the services you have rendered, a tall one to give an idea of your stature, and I wanted it to be one which branched and which flowered and fruited freely, to show that you cultivated not only the sciences but also the humanities. Its rayed flowers will bear witness that you shone among savants like the sun among the stars; its perennial roots will remind us that each year sees you live again through new works. Pride of our gardens, the Rudbeckia will be cultivated throughout Europe and in distant lands where your revered name must long have been known. Accept this plant, not for what it is but for what it will become when it bears your name”.

The painting of Rudbeck, below, hangs at Uppsala University.

I am a great fan of biennial blackeyed susans (Rudbeckia hirta). They have been an integral part of my little meadows here on Lake Muskoka since we built our home in 2002. In fact, they were the plants I sowed initially, along with red fescue grass (Festuca rubra), to retain the sandy soil we placed on the property once construction was finished. And it’s a bit of an understatement to say that they grew well, given they had no competion yet from other tough customers. They grew extraordinarily well here.

When I think back to the summer of 2003, it’s of having these amazing ‘lawns’ of blackeyed susans, which later evolved (with a lot of research and work on my part) into more complex meadow-prairies.

I spent summer 2003 photographing them, and had a little photo show the next summer – long before I switched to digital.

I even wrote about them for Cottage Life magazine, given that they seemed like the ‘way back’ for our property from construction site to buzzing, fluttering habitat (and, ultimately, a much more bio-diverse place than our little shore had ever been).

They became part of the pollinator landscape here, attracting all types of bees and butterflies.

Over the years, I’ve chronicled the lovely plant pairings that pop up – because I never know where this little biennial will be next. Unlike its more refined, floriferous, multi-stemmed, perennial cousin Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm’, which I’ll talk about later in this blog, common blackeyed susan is a single-stemmed will-o-the-wisp, its seeds spread by birds, its short 2-year lifespan all there is (leafy rosette the first season, flowers the next). Occasionally, depending on the length of the flowering season, it might emerge and flower in the same year, or it might even hang around to flower a second year, but that is rare. However, individual plants can begin flowering from June well into September, so its plant partners can be highly varied – as varied as the ones in this cottage bouquet I made years ago.

Hot Dates for Susan

1) In my own garden at the cottage, wild beebalm (Monarda fistulosa) is a hardy perennial that I adore for its attractiveness to bees and hummingbirds. In fact, I have two small meadows that I call my “monarda meadows”. And this is how it looked growing alongside Rudbeckia hirta at Niagara Botanical Garden’s Legacy Prairie

Here’s a closer look at this duo in another garden. Note the dark streaks on this blackeyed susan; it’s one of many selected strains that come under the heading “gloriosa daisy”. Genetically, they’re no different from common Rudbeckia hirta wildlings, but have traits that make them worth growing as separate seed mixes, in this case ‘Denver Daisy’.

2) Here is blackeyed susan at the Legacy Prairie with swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata). Note that it will tolerate very dry, sandy conditions and remain quite compact, but if grown in the kind of moisture-retentive soil that swamp milkweed prefers, it will grow much taller.

3) In contrast, this is how it looks growing in sandy soil with the more drought-tolerant butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) here at Lake Muskoka.

4) Similarly, in dry soil blackeyed susan will be happy with hoary vervain (Verbena stricta), one of the toughest customers in my meadows….

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5) ….. while more moisture-retentive soil creates conditions for blue vervain (Verbena hastata) – and taller blackeyed susans.

6) There is simply no better bee plant than mountain mint (Pynanthemum sp) (unless it’s calamint). Here is Virginia mountain mint (P. virginianum) at Niagara’s Legacy Prairie growing with blackeyed susans.

7) I grow the smaller veronica Veronica spicata ‘Darwin’s Blue’ in my meadows. Surprisingly drought-tolerant, it is lovely with blackeyed susans.

8) Another blueish-purple plant that makes a good sidekick to blackeyed susan is English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), shown below along with Anthemis tinctoria. A surprisingly hardy subshrub, its main requirement is dry feet in winter; it will languish and die if the soil stays moist.

9) There aren’t many glamorous plants in my meadows, but a brief flirtation with perfumed Orienpet lilies (half Oriental-half Trumpet) several years ago added a touch of the exotic. And I simply love the juxtaposition of a sophisticated lily like ‘Conca d’Or’ with the humble blackeyed susans.

10) Annual mealycup sage (Salvia farinacea ‘Victoria’) is beautiful with fancy gloriosa daisies (Rudbeckia hirta cv.)

11) I adored this colour-echo combination of golden Swiss chard (Beta vulgaris ‘Golden Sunrise’) with dwarf ‘Toto’ gloriosa daisies (R. hirta cv) at Montreal Botanical Garden.

12) An ebullient assortment of gloriosa daisy cultivars mixed with blue cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus) was used in this mini-meadow at Montreal Botanical Garden a few years ago.

Here’s a closer look at that pairing; the gloriosa daisy cultivar is Rudbeckia hirta ‘Irish Eyes’.

The other blackeyed susan I grow is Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’. After being named Perennial of the Year in 1999, this bushy plant soared in popularity throughout the world. In the “new American landscape” made popular by Wolfgang Oehme and James Van Sweden, it was deployed alongside ornamental grasses in massive sweeps of gold. It continues to be one of the most popular summer perennials, and spreads very easily (too easily, perhaps, for some).

13) In my city garden, I grow a host of pollinator plants in my front garden, and Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’ is the perfect, long-flowering companion to purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea). Since I enjoy it so much, I suppose it’s not a surprise that the neighbourhood rabbit seems to like the blossoms, too – as I discovered last summer, finding a large clump deflowered.

14) My friend Marnie Wright (whose garden I have blogged about previously) uses ‘Goldsturm’ throughout her Bracebridge garden. I especially like it with summer phlox (Phlox paniculata), and…

15) ….with agapanthus (Agapanthus africanus), and….

16) ….with Marnie’s gorgeous daylilies (Hemerocallis ‘Jade Star’).

At the Toronto Botanical Garden, Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’ is used in a few gardens.

17) Here it is with balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorus), and ….

18) …with ‘Diabolo’ ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius) that has been coppiced to keep it compact, and….

19) .. with the prairie grass little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), and…..

20) …with great blue lobelia (Lobelia sophilitica).

At Toronto’s Spadina House gardens, Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’ provides huge colour from mid-to-late summer…..

21) …. when it celebrates the beginning of autumn with a brilliant splash of gold from (appropriately) goldenrod (Solidago sp.)

My work as a matchmaker is done. I hope you found a dance partner or two for your own blackeyed susans!

June Purple at Spadina House

Posted on June 9, 2016 by Janet

There’s no better place to celebrate ‘purple’ – my featured colour for the month of June – than the lush, lupine-spangled, late-spring gardens in the ornamental potager behind Toronto’s historic Spadina House.

Now a city-owned museum, Spadina House was built in 1866 by Toronto’s James Austin (founder of Dominion Bank, later merged to become Toronto-Dominion Bank, then TD Bank). The property, at the time a 200-acre concession, had been settled originally in 1818 by Dr. William Baldwin, an Irish-born lawyer, doctor, schoolmaster and eventual two-term assemblyman in the town of York (later called Toronto) on land inherited by his wife Phoebe Willcocks and her sister Maria, from their father Joseph. Sitting at the crest of the hill that leads from midtown to downtown – in historical geologic terms, it’s the escarpment overlooking the sloping shoreline of Lake Ontario’s ice-age predecessor, Lake Iroquois – Dr. Baldwin mentioned the name for his new rural home in a letter to his family in Ireland. “I have a very commodious house in the country. I have called the place Spadina – the Indian word for Hill or Mont.” Baldwin’s name came from his hearing of the Ojibway word ishapadenah, which meant “hill” or “rise of land” (and its correct pronunciation for the house is Spa-DEE-na, not Spa-DYE-na). Using a width of two chains (132 feet), Dr. Baldwin also laid out Spadina Avenue itself from Queen Street north to Davenport, at the bottom of his hill. In 1837, Lieutenant-Governor Bond Head ordered the extension of the road further south, almost to the lake.

What is Purple?

Before we head to the back garden at Spadina House, let’s look for a moment at colour. Purple is not a spectral hue, like short-wavelength indigo and violet – the “I” and “V” in our old mnemonic ROYGBIV for the red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet of the visible spectrum we see in a rainbow.

Rather “purple” is a word that people today use to describe various combinations of red and blue; it’s also sometimes used to describe colours that are really indigo or violet. It’s a muddy minefield of a colour word, its use open to broad interpretation and its misuse widespread (especially in plant catalogue descriptions!) But purple has an actual history, its etymological origins in the Greek word πορφύρα (porphura), the name given to an ancient pigment from the inky glandular secretions of a few species of spiny murex sea snails that have been harvested from the eastern Mediterranean, perhaps as early as 1500 B.C. In her fascinating book Color: A Natural History of the Palette, Victoria Finlay recounts how she visited the Lebanese city of Tyre, stayed in the Murex Hotel, and sneaked past guards to get to the ancient dye baths that gave rise to the colour Tyrian purple. When she finally found samples of cloth dyed with the colour in the National Museum in Beirut, Finlay was surprised and delighted. “Because it wasn’t purple at all: it was a lovely shade of fuchsia.” More like the hue Pliny wrote about in the first century A.D. “Next came the Tyrian dye, which could not be purchased for a thousand denarii a pound”, and “most appreciated when it is the color of clotted blood, dark by reflected and brilliant by transmitted light.” A colour, perhaps, like this web version of Tyrian purple, below, which looks like Finlay’s deep fuchsia-pink.

The august figure in the centre of my Tyrian purple sample is the Byzantine Emperor Justinian 1 (482-565). Note the “clotted blood” colour of his garments. Justinian was responsible for building the magnificent Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 537, and there is a purple connection to that ancient structure. When I visited it a few years ago, I was struck by the crimson-red pillars; they are made of the mineral porphyry, a word which also traces its roots to the Greek word for purple.

If you were of high enough rank in the Byzantine Empire to warrant Tyrian purple robes, you were considered “born in the purple” and your honorific name very possibly reflected that fact, as with young Porphyrogenetos, below, (Latin, Porphyrogenitus, Greek Πορφυρογέννητο), son of the emperor.

But much earlier – 500 years earlier – Roman emperors had worn Tyrian purple, including the most famous of all, Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.). In fact, unless you had the power and wealth to wear Tyrian purple robes, you were prohibited from wearing the colour, and could be executed for daring to do so. When Caesar visited Cleopatra in 49 B.C., her sofa coverlets were recorded as having been “long steeped in Tyrian dye”. And in the painting below by French artist Lionel Royer, “Vercingetorix throws down his arms at the feet of Julius Caesar” (1898), we see Caesar adorned in Tyrian purple robes.

Over the eons, I think it’s clear that we’ve come to view “purple” as less reddish (as in clotted blood) and more blue, a kind of deep, rich violet. So let’s head to the flowery back garden at Spadina House and see if we can visually puzzle out some other “purplish” hues.

Back to Spadina House

In the large ornamental potager behind Toronto’s historic Spadina House, the “cottage garden look” is very much in evidence. Within a formal structure of four even quadrants and intersecting cinder paths are rows of vegetables, strawberries and herbs surrounded by a billowing perimeter of herbaceous perennials, including plants like Virginia bluebell, lupine, peony, iris, anthemis, Shasta daisy, veronica, tradescantia, catmint, Japanese anemones and asters, among many others. Old-fashioned annuals grown in cold frames beside Spadina’s greenhouse are planted in the borders each spring. Behind a hedge to the north is an orchard of heritage fruit trees, and south of the house are lawns with old shade trees overlooking downtown Toronto and Spadina Road. And next door is famous (but much younger) Casa Loma.

But in early June, it’s all about lupines, irises, sweet rocket, baptisia and peonies, and there’s a decidedly PURPLE tinge to the garden.

Leaving aside Tyrian purple from ancient history, to my eye this is what purple should look like.

To see a contemporary emblem incorporating the colour purple, look no further than a U.S. military Purple Heart.

At Spadina House, purple is at its best in the deepest-colored flowers of the gorgeous Russell hybrid lupines. Purple lupines grow with lilac-purple chives (Allium schoeneprasum) ….

…and with mauve and white sweet rocket or dame’s rocket (Hesperis matronalis) and luscious violet-purple bearded irises….

Sometimes those purple lupine flowers have Tyrian purple markings (or what we might nowadays call fuchsia-pink) and attract the attention of bumble bees who are strong enough to force open the petals.

Some of Spadina’s beautiful Siberian irises (Iris sibirica) are also purple.

Now I’m going to move on to another ‘purplish’ colour, one that takes its name from the visible spectrum, but also gives its name to a large class of flowers, i.e. violets. In this case, I’ve added a little VIOLET poster girl to the colour swatch, our own native common blue violet Viola sororia. Notice that qualifier “blue”….. ?

Though colour terminology in flowers is very arbitrary, “violet” is also seen as purple by many, but it does have more blue than my purple swatch above. It is seen in many of Spadina’s lovely old bearded irises. Note the difference in hue from the lupines.

Bearded irises come in a rainbow of colours, but the duo below is the classic complementary contrast of yellow-violet from the artist’s colour wheel.

Valerian (Valeriana officinalis), below, is a pretty June companion for violet-purple bearded iris.

Columbines (Aquilegia vulgaris) are charming June bloomers and their colour can be violet-purple, as well as pink, white, yellow, red and much more.

Here with see violet columbines with a single orange poppy (Papaver rupifragum).

And here is columbine consorting nicely with yellow flag iris (Iris pseudacorus) in front of Spadina’s greenhouse.

There is an intense colour of violet with much more blue (yet still not completely in the blue camp) that can be described as BLUE-VIOLET, below.

At Spadina House, some of the Siberian irises have much more blue pigment in their petals and can be described as blue-violet.

Another purplish colour that borrows its name from the world of flora is LAVENDER. Although there are a number of plants we can call ‘lavender’, the one I think of as having flowers of this colour is English lavender, Lavandula angustifolia. That is the plant I’ve put in my lavender-purple swatch below. Less intense, more blue, but a sort of greyed blue.

At Spadina House, I do see English lavender in June, looking quite lovely with the miniature pink rose ‘The Fairy’.

And it’s also in the flowers of the herbaceous clematis, C. integrifolia, seen here with sweet rocket.

Blue false indigo (Baptisia australis) is a wonderful native northeast perennial, and though it doesn’t sit perfectly in my lavender-purple camp, being a little more intensely blue, it is quite close. And certainly not a true blue.

Here it is with the classic white peony ‘Festiva Maxima’. Isn’t this beautiful?

Now we move to yet another variation on blued purple that takes its name from flowers. I’m talking about LILAC. In my view, this one should look as much as possible like the flowers of common lilac (Syringa vulgaris), so that’s what you’ll find in my lilac colour swatch, below. In art terms, this one might be described as a tint, i.e. paler in intensity.

At Spadina, some of the columbines are soft lilac.

And some of the bearded irises, too, like the luscious heritage iris ‘Mme. Cherault’.

The next variation on purple moves further into the red family. Meet MAUVE, below. This color has its etymological roots in the French language, for the French word for the European wildflower common mallow (M. sylvestris) is la mauve. However, its language roots aren’t buried in ancient Greece, but in east end London in Victorian times. For it was here, in 1856, that Royal College of Chemistry student William Henry Perkin, while using coal tar in a quest to discover a synthetic alternative to malaria-curing quinine, came up with a solution with “a strangely beautiful color”. At first, according to Victoria Finley in her book, he called it Tyrian purple, but changed the name to a French flower (la mauve) “to attract buyers of high fashion”. It was a great hit. “By 1858 every lady in London, Paris and New York who could afford it was wearing ‘mauve’, and Perkin, who had opened a dye factory with his father and brother, was set to be a rich man before he reached his twenty-first birthday.”

Mauve’s affinity to red means that people will often say “mauve-pink”, rather than mauve-purple, but there are good reasons for including it in my discussion of purples, if only to differentiate it visually from the more blue hues. At Spadina House, we see mauve in many of the sweet rocket flowers (Hesperis matronalis).

It’s quite clear, when I contrast sweet rocket with some of the irises, that our lexicon for colour proves to be difficult and often ambiguous. Colour vision is a relationship, not an absolute, that depends on our own eyes and of course colour rendition in the medium for viewing, if not in ‘real life’, i.e. a phone or computer screen. What I see is a mauve sweet rocket flower beside a bearded iris with light violet standards and true purple splotches on the falls. But this is a tough one!

Finally, here is mauve sweet rocket with more of Spadina’s beautiful lupines. And what colour do you think those lupines are? I will leave that one with you to ponder.

Later in the month, I promise another look at purple — this time without quite so much colour terminology. Happy June!

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: Spadina House

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