Gardening Roots

Roots, whether they pertain to plants or people, are usually subjects of interest to gardeners, so as I prepare to embark on this internet journey, I thought I would start out by telling you a little about my gardening roots. They go back to when I was about seven years old, growing up in a little town in Portugal called Alqueidao da Serra. It was around that time that my aunt Helena first enlisted my services in helping to care for her considerable collection of houseplants. From the moment I was first shown how to water, prune and stake her various botanical treasures, I was hooked on plants. From then on, my memories of growing up are coloured more by things horticultural than by any other influences or actual events. I devoured books under the shade of the majestic walnut tree behind my grandparents house, relished the scent of wild geranium under my feet as I played in the woods, and spent magical afternoons sitting on the low, horizontal branches of my grandparents’ monumental fig tree, gorging myself on dusky, honey-sweet figs warmed by the sun. Every fall I looked forward with great anticipation to the grape harvest and to the subsequent wine making, when my grandfather would pop the grandchildren into the huge vat to crush the grapes. Local lore held that grapes crushed by the feet of children made the best wine. Later, when I got married, I spent as much time deciding on the flowers for the wedding as I did on the dress. And when I eventually entered the workforce, although I started out in dress design, I ended up switching to garden design, my one time hobby developing into a full blown passion and a career.

In my work I am constantly being asked all kinds of gardening questions, both general and specific. Clients and gardening friends want to know what I’m up to in the garden, what I’m growing, what I’m excited about. They have specific questions both about the newest plants and old favorites, the latest gardening trends and time honoured methods of cultivation. But the constraints of time limit the number of people with whom it is possible to engage in individual dialogue. I have often expressed my frustration at not having a forum in which I could share and exchange ideas and information on all kinds of botanical subjects with a larger number of gardeners. Then one day, my daughter and her boyfriend suggested I start a gardening blog. It seemed a perfect fit. I’m a bit of a hybrid anyway. Besides gardening, my other big passion is writing. I am by turns, and depending on the seasons, a gardener who loves to write, and a writer who loves to garden.

So here I am embarking on this exciting internet journey. I hope that you will join me. I want to hear from you, the passionate, congenial and diverse community of people around the world, who are united by their love of gardening. So drop me a line. Tell me what you are excited about growing. As for me, I plan on writing many more articles, and my daughter and her boyfriend have pledged to use their considerable talents to produce video segments that hopefully will entertain, inform, and inspire you.

Tina.

Crocus anyone?

The signs of spring are as varied as the gardeners who eagerly await them. In my garden, it is often a pair of house sparrows perched on my gingko tree intently assessing the eaves of my front porch for possible real estate potential.  In other gardens spring announces itself with the swelling of the pussywillows or the emerging of early spring bloomers like Pulmonaria or Epimedium.  But of all the harbingers of spring in our gardens perhaps none is as welcome to the winter weary gardener as a clump of crocuses bravely peaking out through the snow.  Not that I can get any to bloom in mine.  Sadly, I share my little bit of God’s earth with an abundant population of squirrels whose greed for tasty crocuses knows no bounds.

Twelve years ago, when I first started gardening here I put in an enthusiastic planting of over one hundred plump little bulbs, calculated to cheer my soul with their cups of sunny yellow and royal purple, come the following spring.  As an experienced gardener, the battalion of squirrels perched on the nearby trees intently observing my labours, should have been sufficient reason for pause. But in my abundance of gardening optimism, I was betting that even if they gorged themselves on my bulbs there would still be lots left for me. The beautiful fall day no doubt contributed to my mood of expansiveness and willingness to share with all God’s creatures.  Alas I sorely underestimated the rapaciousness and capacity for greed of these particular squirrels.  They went to work unearthing my bulbs the minute my back was turned and not a crocus did they leave me. Not that I gave up that easily.  The following year, disappointed in the spring, but undaunted in the fall, I tried again.  And again the year after that.  I used all the squirrel deterring tricks known to gardeners, including the human hair I lugged home from my hairdresser, and stuffed into nylon stockings. This is one trick I have often used with success in other gardens.  Not so in mine. It appears my squirrels will brave anything for their tasty bit of crocus.  After three years, I threw in the trowel. I decided to accept the fact that this particular bit of spring garden magic would be forever denied me, at least in this garden. But it’s not all bad.  Last summer while on dandelion patrol, my husband spotted an exotic looking tulip blooming in the peony border.

“What’s this,” he asked delightedly, “did you plant tulips here?’

“No,” I answered. “It’s a peace offering from the squirrels.”  

spring has sprung

According to the calendar, spring is officially here. But as I look out at the mountains of snow covering every inch of my Port Perry, Ontario garden, spring looks very far away. Last week Environment Canada predicted another six weeks of winter weather, confirming that this will indeed be a very late spring. For those of us passionate gardeners who by February are crossing out the days on the calendar, and struggle through March by endlessly flipping through seed catalogues and compiling lists of coveted plants, there couldn’t be worse news. This has been a particularly hard winter to endure. The unsually low amount of sunlight in January and February has fostered the gloomy mood that all gardeners are prone to in those dreary months when we can’t get our fingers into the soil. And the record amount of snow that has fallen and piled up everywhere has made our gardens impassible and early gardening tasks like winter pruning impossible. Like many of my gardening friends and clients, whose littany of complaints about this seemingly interminable winter I have regularly been listening to, I also had been feeling like this winter would never end. But one day last week on my way out the door, the first sign of Spring came to me like a gift, in the form of a robin sitting atop the bare branches of my ‘Madonna’ crab apple tree. And all this week I have woken every morning to the evocative cooing of the mourning doves and the riotous chirping of the red-winged blackbirds. The harbingers of spring have definitely arrived. Regardless of the fact that under the piles of snow everywhere there is not a bit of ground to be seen, spring has definetly sprung.

“The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.“..the Song of Solomon 2:10-12