Primula, also known as a Primrose, is a sure sign of spring. Grocery stores and nurseries sell them by the millions. If you have tried growing these same plants in your northern zone gardens you were probably disappointed. The commonly sold Primrose has not been bred for the garden and just doesn’t do well in our climate. But there are many primulas that grow extremely well in the garden and Primula denticulata, the drumstick primula, is one of the easiest and showiest to grow.
Prunus ‘Marion Jarvie’ has a mysterious past. Around 1997, a well known Toronto gardener, Marion Jarvie, obtained a small rooted cutting from Japan. The cutting grew into a fine specimen tree which produced a very unusual flower display. The colour is very bright and the petals are narrow, more like a Magnolia ‘Royal Star’. It became the highlight in Marion’s spring garden.
Pycnanthemum tenuifolium is a member of the mint family. Since mints are extremely invasive and difficult to remove from the garden you might be thinking, I’ll pass on this one. But that would be a mistake. This mint is very well behaved and is an insect/butterfly magnet. It is native to the north-east part of North America, including Ontario.
A great little plant for the shady rock garden or as an under planting for shade gardens. Saxifraga stolonifera creeps along the ground slowly, covering the ground to a height of a couple of cm. It flowers on fairly long stems that reach 30 cm into the air.
A well behaved, unusual sedum that always gets a comment from visitors. Sedum repustre is a common bluish green sedum that spreads quickly, and the variety S. rupestre ‘Angelina’ is a well-known yellowish version that is almost invasive. Sedum rupestre f. cristata looks quite different, and does not spread very quickly. It makes a great rock garden plant and stays small enough to be suitable for a trough.
Tetraneuris herbacea, better known by it’s old name Hymenoxys acaulis, is an unusual Ontario native that is easy to grow and makes a great addition to any rock garden.
This is a clover, but not just any clover. It is the most ornamental of all Clovers and definitely worth adding to your garden. Best of all, your friends will never guess what it is.
Red Feather is easy to grow and does not spread by runners. It has huge, purple-red flower heads that are silver when in bud and are borne on long stems. The plant makes a nice clump and looks good all summer. The flowers are peculiar in that each stem has two flowers, one larger than the other. The large one opens while the smaller one is still developing. Just as the large one is finished flowering, the second one opens. The result is a longer bloom time.
I have grown this plant for 8 years and I would not want to be without it. The gentian speedwell, is a very delicate looking plant that flowers in late spring, putting on a great floral display for about two weeks—which is too short. Even with such a short flowering season it deserves a place in your garden.
The first time I saw Acanthus hungaricus, the Hungarian Bear’s Breeches, in flower I was mesmerized. This is such a spectacular architectural plant that it should be in every garden.
By now you have seen lots of headlines that say plant communication exists, including The Wonderful World of Plant Communication, How Plants Secretly Talk to Each Other and Do Plants Have Something to Say? There are even books that promote the idea; The Hidden Life of Trees, The Secret Life of Plants and What a Plant Knows. And here I was thinking that plants are just dumb organisms with no intelligence.
Plants are certainly fascinating and we have lots to learn about how they function, but do they really communicate? Can one plant pass along a message to another plant? Can that second plant receive the information and understand what it means?
Weeds, weeds everywhere! Gardeners are looking for the best natural weed killer to get rid of them. Roundup certainly works, but is there an equivalent natural product that is less harmful to the environment and our health. In this blog I’ll look at a variety of organic herbicides to see if they work for controlling weeds and lawn grass.
Sanguisorba canadensis is rare in gardens but should be grown more often. It’s a bog plant and this may lead people to think it needs a wet spot to do well, but my plant grows in a normal garden bed that rarely gets watered and I have grown it from seed. It flowers at about 120 cm (4 ft) and this shorter stature may be due to lower moisture levels. It shows no wilting or dry leaf edges due to a lack of water.