Over the weekend I drove to Michigan to visit my hort buddy, Sandy, who lives near Lansing. At the border they always ask where you're going, and when I say to visit a friend, the next question is: "How do you know her?"
Well, here's the story: we met 11 years ago on a Horticultural magazine tour of gardens in the Pacific Northwest. We bonded because we both enjoy wine with dinner, and it's always nice to find someone to share a carafe of sauvignon blanc or cabernet merlot, when many of the rest are drinking coke (yuck!) or water. After the trip, we kept in touch via email. When we discovered that it's only a four-hour drive to each other's homes, we began regular visits across the border.
These pictures are from her country garden. I really liked her white and blue bed (picture at the top), backed by Annabelle and Limelight hydrangeas, and blue and white petunias with alyssum.
Sandy's solution to racoons destroying birdbaths by climbing on them and smashing them is to set large clay saucers (found at Ikea) on a solid foundation of bricks. It works and makes a nice garden focal point. Love that golden yucca - it just glows.
The very charming entrance to Sandy's herb and vegetable garden, fenced off with chicken wire to keep critters out.
Flowers from the garden: I just love Sandy's gorgeous arrangements. (I'm generally too lazy to go out and cut flowers.)
Thanks, Sandy, for hosting me and taking me shopping. (As most Canadians know, the shopping in the US is so much better.)
© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener
It was garden designer Piet Oudolf who taught me to see beauty in plants during their fall dying away. Here are two examples from my garden, the button-like seeds heads of Rudbeckia 'Goldsturm', and a hanging seed head of giant sunflower planted by birds, which grew beside our pond.
For more information on Piet Oudolf, I have a page on my web site about his garden design ideas.
Fall is best time of year for me. Here are my reasons for loving autumn:
4. Fantastic leaf colors 
I was away last weekend in Killarney, not far from Sudbury, where I joined a fun group of people for a photo workshop, and had a lovely time. The pictures here were taken at Killarney Mountain Lodge.
Since then, I've had a kind of writer's, or should I say blogger's block, and so I haven't posted. Figured I'd better start again, and break this dry spell with some pictures from the fall garden. We've had a dry spell too in terms of rain, but the soil is still moist on most of the property, except on our south-facing hill, (below).
The New York Times recently had a good article in their Home and Garden section about creating a perennial meadow:
We've had a bit of a love affair with succulent plants. This variegated Agave americana collection began with a single plant, the biggest one in pot on the ground. It was much smaller when I bought it six or so years ago. Since then it has had many offsets, and my dear husband keeps propagating them. 
Over the weekend I drove to Michigan to visit my hort buddy, Sandy, who lives near Lansing. At the border they always ask where you're going, and when I say to visit a friend, the next question is: "How do you know her?" 
Sandy's solution to racoons destroying birdbaths by climbing on them and smashing them is to set large clay saucers (found at Ikea) on a solid foundation of bricks. It works and makes a nice garden focal point. Love that golden yucca - it just glows.
The very charming entrance to Sandy's herb and vegetable garden, fenced off with chicken wire to keep critters out.
Flowers from the garden: I just love Sandy's gorgeous arrangements. (I'm generally too lazy to go out and cut flowers.)