Garden Walk: June 16th

One of the most difficult challenges in photography is capturing the essence of a garden. No matter how lovely the pictures are, they rarely evoke the same experience as being there in person. I’m in awe of photographers who do this for a living! And of course, no photograph includes the song of the birds, the buzz of the bees, the sweet scent of roses as you brush by them, the relief of cooler air as you move out of the sun onto a shady path…

One of my favorite views of the garden can be seen from an upstairs window in the house. I like to look out at the garden when I get up in the morning and see it at its freshest, before the heat of the day sets in.

Once the horses are looked after, I take a stroll around the yard and see what changes the new day has brought.  Pictured above is Geraniium phaeum ‘Samobor‘ and catmint Nepeta x faassenii ‘Walker’s Low’.

The slanting rays of the morning sun offer softer lighting than the midday sun.  Here are some of the first blooms of Morden Sunrise.

This view shows one of the garden’s three birdbaths, set off by Salvia “May Night” (Salvia nemerosa ‘Mainacht’). To the left is the Giant Fleeceflower (Persicaria polymorpha). It’s about five feet tall this year, and putting on a beautiful display. I hope that in another year or two, it will get to be another foot taller. To the right are daylilies, still a few weeks or a month away from their bloom time.

The old-fashioned shrub roses, ‘Dart’s Dash’ scent the air with a fragrance as beautiful as their brilliant flowers. Here, the roses are set off by the blue of False Indigo (Baptisia australis).

I’ve been keeping an eye out for a gnome to live in the garden for some time, and when I found this birdbath, I thought that this fellow would be just right for a shady spot at the edge of a garden path. I’ll close this post with a view of the path that leads into the garden from the driveway. You can spot the gnome just to the right of the path.

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New Roses

I’m not a big rose fan, but I have become very fond of the row of Dart’s Dash roses that line the walk. They are carefree, bright, beautifully scented and beloved by bees. They are also quite large shrubs. When I was browsing through garden magazines in the spring, I noticed advertisements for a series of smaller shrub roses called Knockout roses. The one named Rainbow particularly caught my eye. However, I hadn’t seen these roses around here, and had no place to put a rose shrub anyway.

Then, one day when I was wandering through a local nursery, I saw it. They had Knockout Rainbow. I had no place to put a shrub, and it was way too hot to even think about digging a spot for it, so I left it behind, but that rose settled in at the back of my mind and nagged me. Finally, when the worst of the heat seemed to be passing, I decided to expand the garden a bit to include a couple of roses. I laid out a garden hose to help in deciding on a pleasing line, and started digging.

Having made a start, I returned to the nursery and brought home two roses. Knockout Rainbow has pink and yellow blooms that fade to light pink as they mature. I also purchased Morden Sunrise, which has yellow-orange flowers.

I laid out the boundary of the new bed with a garden hose and then removed a strip of sod along the edge of the hose. From there, I made the strip wider, and then started removing the sod in the centre.

Over the last few days I have finished digging the bed. I got the new roses settled in and mulched around them. They’ll have a couple of months to settle in before winter arrives. They have lots of growing space to fill in next year.

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