B & B Weekend

If you like gardens, birds, beaches and privacy, there's a bed and breakfast on the shores of Lake Huron just waiting for you. The hosts are Audrey and Bob Hamilton and they have built their retirement 'cottage' on the south shore of Lake Huron near Camlachie, Ontario. The B&B is absolutely lovely. The entire ground floor is for the guests and is more of an apartment than a guestroom. And then there are the gardens ...

Just outside your door is a beautiful and mature garden, complete with flowering shrubs, mature perennials, bird feeders and trees. There is a covered sitting area where you can enjoy the garden and the birds even in the rain. And the birds are plentiful - orioles, doves, ruby-throated hummingbirds, finches of all kinds, cardinals, red-winged blackbirds and many more I can't name.

My mother found this beautiful retreat and introduced me to it a few years ago. We try to visit at least once each summer to enjoy the gardens, the beach, the birds and the peace. There's not much nearby, so you will need to take a drive to find a restaurant or town. The beach is a short walk away, down a shady lane. This is definitely a place for adults, not children. And adults who know how to wind down and relax.

Monday Blues?

Got the Monday Blues? This little guy should cheer you up. And here's a hint I just discovered. I'm betting lots of smart people out there figured this out years ago. I love everything about gardening except what it does to my hands and nails. Gardening gloves are bulky and don't really keep your hands clean once they get wet.

Go to your local pharmacist and ask for some non-latex surgical gloves - these are sturdier than latex and you avoid the whole allergy thing. They cost a whopping 25 cents per pair. I went all out and bought 4 pairs today. They do the trick and keep the dirt away from my nails, keep my hands clean and I can feel what I'm doing almost as if I didn't have gloves on at all. And for 25 cents, I don't mind tossing them when they're disgusting. What have I been thinking all these years?

Happy Monday.

Planting Strategy II

The final element in the height strategy is to add plants that are ... well ... tall. This can be a challenge when you're dealing almost exclusively with annuals. The resident genius, my husband, solved it quite nicely by dragging one of our indoor plants out for a little fresh air. In this case, an areca palm that was not looking at all happy indoors has been added to the deck decor. It definitely adds height and a sense of the tropics. I have found areca palms incredibly difficult to keep robust indoors and had almost given up on this one, but who knows? It might just decide to thrive outdoors in an Ontario summer.

For the bits and pieces around the main plants, I've added some brightly coloured annuals, mainly trailing plants. Our colours this year are red, blue and white so I've stuck with bacopia, lobelia, ivy geranium, trailing ivy and, yes, petunias. As an afterthought, this afternoon I was looking at the pothos inside which desparately needed cutting back. So I poked the cuttings into some of the planters. Next year, I'll plan ahead and root them properly in early May, but for now we'll see just how hardy they are.

The scented part of the plan comes into play with the 'produce' section. First is the lavendar - planted in a large imitation terra cotta pot - light enough to be brought indoors for the winter. Just planting the lavender was heavenly. Touch the leaves and you have a cloud of lavender scent.

In another corner of the deck I have arranged pots of basel, sage, chives, oregano, rosemary and thyme. If I can find it, I'll be adding a pot of cilantro too. Herbs have such wonderful smells - we often ruffle their leaves just to enjoy the delicious smells. I bought a very inexpensive white plastic table (from Canadian Tire) and have arranged the herbs on and in front of the table. A great little corner of enticing aromas.

Another accidental addition to the produce section came about when preparing dinner one night. It turns out the garlic had sprouted when we weren't looking. The offending garlic almost went into the garbage, when a lightning bolt of brilliance struck us. Now we have 15 or 20 little garlic plants happily poking their green spikey leaves up between the basil, sage etc. in the produce section.

The last addition to the edible plants, was a cherry tomato plant, proudly displayed in a hanging basket above the herbs. Why hanging? Well ... why not?

Planting Strategy

I won't launch into a detailed and rambling essay on garden planning laden with confusing Latin names because:

It would be very boring; and

Having no formal training in either gardening or Latin, I wouldn't know how to.

So ... not quite as the nursery ryhme says ...
Mary Mary quite contrary.
WHY does your garden grow?
That is, what do you want from your garden?

On my deck, I am looking to create an outdoor room for us to enjoy the summer weather. And we are in an urban area, so privacy is important. That means I need to have the plants elevated, hanging or climbing to create a living privacy screen. Since it is a deck and we do enjoy sub-zero temperatures, I need to use annual plants that fill in quickly or plan to bring them indoors during the cold months.

I like having birds and butterflies visit, so I used plants with vivid colours and lots of scent to attract them. My no-to-low maintenance policy means no pruning and nothing delicate or prone to bug infestation. Finally, we love to eat well at our house and seem to have a constant challenge finding fresh herbs. So there is a produce section in our own little Eden.

Getting High
To get the privacy, I need plants that grow tall or climb on something. Of course, there are the hanging baskets mentioned in the previous post. One thing I haven't mentioned yet is that you can grow perennials outdoors in containers and have them survive the winter months. We are in a very mild area for Ontario and enjoy the moderating effects of Lake Ontario, so our winters aren't as severe as, say, Barrie or Muskoka. So I'm counting on that being sufficiently mild to leave a few hardy plants outside this winter.

In the largest of the fibreglass planters, I added a wire frame trellis. I have planted a clematis (a fairly hardy perennial) and in only two weeks, it is already sending tendrils curling around the wire frame. I've used a cultivar called Crystal Fountain, a new variation from Japan. It will have lavender blue flowers with yellow/white centres. I chose this plant as it is compact and recommended for small spaces like patios or containers. It has the added advantage of flowering twice each season, in May-June and again in August. Since this is it's first season, I won't see any blooms now, but will probably have something to show for my efforts at the end of the summer. Clematis like to be in full sun, but should have their roots shaded so I have added some brilliant red Sunny Impatiens around the base of the clematis, serving two purposes: keeping the roots of the clematis cool and shaded; and adding colour to fill in what would be a fairly stark looking space. The Sunny Impatiens, of course, is an annual and will come out in the fall cleanup. I will let you know if/how we survive the winter.

The other two fibreglass planters are home to canna lillies. These are bulbs that will grow 4 to 5 feet tall and have brilliant scarlet blooms. The bulbs will have to be lifted in the winter and stored indoors, just as they would in any garden in this climate. Again, to add some interest to the planters, I have added colourful trailing annuals and foliage at the base of the canna.

The deck already had some basic wooden trellises afixed to one privacy screen. A perfect place to show off some climbing annuals. I have always loved Morning Glory, but often have trouble finding a suitable spot, as it can be very aggressive and invasive. I think I have the perfect place for it this year. I started the Morning Glory from seed. To speed germination, place the seeds in a wet paper towel overnight. In just 24 hours the seeds will be starting to sprout. I planted them in small decorative pottery planters and added a couple of petunias to each pot for some colour at the base. The Morning Glory seeds have settled in and are already 6-8 inches tall and reaching out for the trellis. Within a month, the trellises will be covered in lush green vines and brilliant blue blooms. Cost of this effect, a grand total of $1.49 for a package of seeds.

More strategy coming in the next post.

Garden in a Bag

Having spent the past 20+ years attempting to create miniature Utopias in various back yards around Southern Ontario, I was met with a new challenge this spring ... that of creating an even tinier paradise on a deck. No more struggling with clay, rocks, weeds, rabbits or various creepy crawlies. The biggest question, though, was how to create something of interest in a small space that offered us some sense of privacy, beauty and tranquility without giving in to 'petunia heaven'.

Now petunias are beautiful annuals, come in a wide variety of colours, flower furiously all summer, are drop-dead easy to grow and are grossly overused. I wanted to use something a little more exotic. I am a major supporter of the low-to-no maintenance gardening philosophy (a great book on this is The Rusty Rake Gardener, by David and Cathy Cummins) so was looking to maximize effect and minimize effort.

The Foundation:
I bought a few of the outrageously expensive fibreglass containers. Three, to be exact, were all the budget would support. Fibreglass pots are excellent because they are lightweight, look really nice and can be left outside all winter - even with soil in them. I have three of different sizes in a similar style, though all are quite large. These form the backbone and set the style for my deck garden. The largest is set in a corner of the deck and I have added a trellis right inside it for interest.

Then I picked up a few decorative clay pots. There's more variety in these pots and they are about a tenth the price of fibreglass. Especially if you shop in the dreary month of February when Sheridan Nursery has it's winter sale. These pots, I kept at the medium to small size. Small enough that I, with the help of my loving husband, can haul them off the deck, through the kitchen, down the stairs and into the garage for the winter and without empyting the soil.

One of the challenges with container gardening is a matter of height. I don't like having all the plants on the floor of the deck. The obvious 'window box' containers are okay but only go so far. We've added a generous number of hanging baskets to the privacy walls of our deck. These are simple to hang and following my theme of minimum effort for maximum effect, I simply bought seven or eight of the already planted ones from the local grocery store and hung them up. As far as cost, they ended up being less expensive than buying the pots, the soil and the plants and potting them myself. And best of all, it took no time at all until we were enjoying a glass of pinot grigio and our flowering baskets last Sunday afternoon.

Then there are the work horses of the patio, the terra cotta clay pots. I really don't like these things. They're ugly, they're heavy, they dry out quickly, requiring more frequent watering and they can't winter outside without falling apart. The only advantage I can come up with is that they are dirt cheap. Sorry about that.

A variation on the terra cotta that I've just given in to using is the imitation plastic form of the same. I'm not sure why I've never used them before. Not only are they quite inexpensive, but they are light weight and they can be left outside over the winter. They are, however, still ugly.

A note on the title of this post ... on Mother's Day this year, my daughter's dog, Zeus, was considerate enough to give me a beautiful card and a 'Garden in a Bag' - some viola seeds that can be grown right in a little brown bag and set on a sunny window sill to enjoy. He's a very thoughtul little puppy.

Another note on the photographs ... the really good photographs you will find in this blog are probably the work of my world famous photographer husband, Roel. The so-so photographs are probably from my camera!


Next Post: The Planting Strategy