Luscious early June

It's allium season in my four-square garden
Oh, early June, how lush and beautiful you are!

Old garden hands love to tell novices that it's easy to have a great spring garden, and early June is proof of that. Everything is growing: there are jewel-toned colors in the flower garden, the rock garden is in it's prime, the needles on the evergreens are still soft, and drought hasn't crisped the lawn yet.

My mystery peony
The name of this peony, which is now in glorious bloom, has escaped me. I lost the plant tag years ago and don't have it written down anywhere. It blooms at the end of May (last year) or beginning of June (this year because it's been so much cooler).

I do know that it is a Japanese peony. Here's what I learned about this type of peony when I researched them for an article for Canadian Gardening magazine:

Actually a double form made up of five or more petals around a centre of stamens with non-pollen bearing anthers (stamenoids), which resemble a soft mound of small petals. Sometimes called "anemone-flowered" when the stamens in the centre have been transformed into narrow petal-like petaloids.

The rock garden is at its peak of bloom
Here's a close-up of a prized Lewisia cotyledon, which John grew from seed, and has planted in the wall of the rock garden.


© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener

After a decade: more before and after

I written about my husband John's rock garden before. This link tells the story of how it came to be.

Pretty gorgeous, but before that...
The pictures below show its progression from a mere rock pile rescued from the bulldozer. The rock used to be part of the foundation of a barn, long gone by the time we bought our property. The construction from beginning to end took John two years, working weekends and holidays in the summer.

What have I got myself into?
Cutting and shaping the stone

Adding the gravel and soil mix

Planting weekend - almost every single plant grown from seed
How the garden looked last month
© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener

One of the best gardens in the country

The central path at Tom Deacon's garden
A couple of years ago in October, I was invited to give a talk about ornamental grasses to a garden club two hour's drive north of Toronto. One of the draws was an opportunity to visit an outstanding garden that a hort buddy of mine had told me about, the garden of furniture designer Tom Deacon, set on a hilltop in a small clearing in 100 acres of woods near the tiny hamlet of Mulmur, Ontario.

It was a rainy October day (my favorite kind of fall day), and I had a chance to spend a couple of hours visiting the garden and to hang out and admire Tom's wonderful house, designed in collaboration with Toronto-based architect Ian MacDonald.

A second path leading to a shaded seating area
The afternoon was an absolute delight: the garden and the house were exquisite, and Tom was a most generous and kind host. The garden is laid out on a central axis that moves from the house into the landscape. Tom has planted a variety of perennials (including huge swathes of lavender), shrubs and ornamental grasses in beds along a central path. The house is an elegant take on sleek, contemporary country style. I fell in love with both.

If you want read more about the garden, pick up the October issue of Gardening Life magazine, and for the house, see the October issue of Canadian House and Home (available only in Canada, I'm afraid).

End-of-season beauty at the Deacon garden

Country garden wedding pictures

Today's excitement was a wedding party getting their pictures taken in our garden. There are a lot of wedding receptions held at the golf course near us, and recently we had a request for a bridal party to have their wedding pictures taken here. Today was the day, and it was hot, but perfect for pictures because of high cloud alternating with occasional sunshine.

Diana and Aaron on their special day
We used to get requests from couples to get married in our garden, but I'm reluctant to get into the wedding business (although I would love it if John's daughter chose to get married here).



The lively flower girl in lighthearted moment
The flower girl, who's four-and-a-half, loved the garden with all its flowers and paths to explore, but she wasn't so sure about me taking pictures of her.

Peeking around the flowers

But she was so full of high spirits that I couldn't resist, so it became a bit of game of her running around and me trying to click the shutter.

My dog Toby was in heaven because he adores having visitors.

Diana and Aaron: It was fun having you and your family here today.

All the best to you in love and in life.

---

PS to any visiting photo buffs: The wedding photographer was shooting film.

Garden pictures - perennial border July

My semi-circular border
I haven't taken as many garden pictures this year, perhaps because I'm a bit demoralized by drought - it's been dry since mid-May. Also first thing in the morning - the best time for photos - is usually the time I'm dragging those hoses around.

That said, the garden proper is looking very nice, thanks to my watering - and, of course, the weeding team's efforts too. The lawn looks poorly, except bordering areas that get watered. My beds are looking very colorful now because I grow a lot of mid-summer bloomers. It was wind-still this morning with a bright overcast sky, making it perfect for a few pictures.

Above, you see part of my semi-circular border (which I've actually watered only twice this summer) with the lovely mauve culvers-root, Veronicastrum virgincum 'Facination', in bloom in the back, along with purple coneflowers, fennel, Joe Pye weed, grasses, globe thistle and the ubiquitous Rudebeckia 'Goldsturm'.

A closer shot of some of the plants in this bed
We call this the semi-circular garden because its shape is a half circle with a path through it. It's set into a small slope backed by evergreen trees that act as a windbreak. The evergreens are far enough away that their root systems don't impinge on the beds. There are deciduous trees in the background too, but they're on the neighboring tree farm.

I grow mostly big, tall perennials and grasses here in a meadow-like profusion, plus a few shrubs, which makes it interesting to walk up and down the path: you don't see what's around the bend until you come to it.

The plants I used here are all pretty drought-tolerant country garden stalwarts that do very well in our rich clay soil. The red you see is Crocosmia 'Lucifer', which thrives here because the slope is well-drained.