The 10 days of Canada Blooms flower and garden show in Toronto ends Sunday – I thought I’d end the week with a few random shots that demonstrate there were, indeed, flowers there!
Tag Archives: flowers
Going to the Movies at Canada Blooms
The theme of Canada Blooms this year is Let’s Go To The Movies. The creators of many of the feature gardens interpreted or used as inspiration a well known movie such as The Jungle Book, Midnight in Paris and even Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth (the feature garden is called An Inconvenient Garden – its central courtyard is bare concrete and dead Cedars and dead grasses…).
The most colourful and playful bits of the garden show weren’t feature gardens but the accents, small pieces running down the middle of Floral Alley or put together to demonstrate the theme. Here are a few of my favourites.
This giant tub of ‘popcorn’ (tiny white and yellow roses) spilling from the ceiling greets visitors to the main hall.
The City of Toronto display right beside the giant popcorn tub is an inviting mass of colour waiting for pollinators to buzz amongst the petals.
These displays running down Floral Alley and the giant red and white popcorn tubs placed here and there helped unify the show and remind people, if they had forgotten, what the theme is:
This manikin couple greets visitors on the red carpet — the dress is a pretty beautiful floral creation!
more Allan Garden delights
Under the main dome, filled with palms reaching up to touch the glass.
The wonderful thing about Allan Gardens Conservatory is you can be satisfied and invigorated by visiting for just 15 minutes or by spending as long as 45. Take a quick walk through the entire complex to enjoy the colours, fragrance and humid air, or, leisurely stroll the meandering pathways, examining the large and sometimes tiny specimens, many of them exotics (for Ontario), all of them meticulously cared for. The city horticulturalists pack hundreds of species into the half dozen greenhouses; some seem to have been there forever and some are obviously seasonal. Here are a few of my favourites from the permanent collection and the current Spring Blooms installation.
From the spring show – lots of Muscari, Narcissus, Hyacinth and Tulips, plus the occasional surprise, like Winter Aconite.
This koi pond is there year-round, but the Rhododendron is now in bloom!
Also in bloom is Agapanthus – I’ve heard it being called a weed in more tropical parts of the world but here, not so much! I love the blue flowers. And this variegated Brugmansia is quite spectacular.
Surprising for me was this patch of kale, left to flower – the yellow flowers are really quite beautiful when massed like this – and the lemon tree! I wonder if the staff enjoy G&T’s after closing time…
There are lots of succulents and cacti in the desert house, some of them so tall they’re brushing the roof. For me, this quartet epitomizes the look. If I lived in Arizona or New Mexico I’d likely have a bunch of them on either side of the front walkway.
Seen in the metal roof struts; I wonder what he’s found to chomp on…
2018 – Plant Trends
I love it when various gardening associations or plant companies come up with their picks for “Plant of the Year.” If you haven’t already noticed, get ready to see gardening pages, sites, tweets, Instagrams (is that a real word?), Pinterests (again, can the word be used as a noun?) loaded with images of ‘The’ plant of 2018. Could be an annual, a shrub, a perennial….
The decision to designate often appears to be made by the large growers – the folks who propagate and sell plants – or by a plant association.
For example, this year the Perennial Plant Association in the U.S. says it’s Allium ‘Millenium.’ This is an interesting plant, and not just for the unusual way ‘Millenium’ is spelled. No spring ephemeral here; the glossy green leaves won’t die back late spring but instead remain throughout the growing season.
Allium ‘Millenium’
The flower-bearing scapes appear mid to late summer, rising above the 12 – 15 inch leaves, and produce 2” purple globes that are said to be huge pollinator magnets.
The plant company Proven Winners, on the other hand, has chosen a new Heuchera – Primo ‘Black Pearl’ (a cultivar of Heuchera villosa) as its choice. (They also have an annual of the year and a shrub of the year – Petunia Supertunia ‘Bordeaux’ and Weigela ‘Spilled Wine,’ respectively. All of these cultivars are trademarked.)
Across the pond in Germany, the Association of Perennial Gardeners has picked Hemerocallis as its Perennial of the Year. Not any particular cultivar – the entire species! I like that – no need to choose amongst colour, form, size or even how many chromosomes there are. Any daylily is great! For the Field to Table set, the Association for the Conservation of Crop Diversity (VEN) thinks the common rutabaga is the right choice, and wants “to share the knowledge of this classic vegetable with the world.”
Hosta ‘World Cup’
The American Hosta Growers Association has decided that ‘World Cup’ is the Hosta of the year. This is a ‘Komodo Dragon’ x ‘Superbowl’ cultivar that “forms an upright clump of deeply cupped, moderately wavy, deeply corrugated, bright gold foliage.” It has purple flowers, if anyone is interested.
And for you rose lovers, the cherry-red
‘Lovestruck’ rose
Lovestruck (Dicommatac) rose has been named Rose of the Year in Great Britain. This is a lightly scented, double-petalled floribunda rose, bred in Ireland, and said to have ‘outstanding health and vigour.’ At least in the British Isles.
Plants of the Year. At best, a great way to pique interest and introduce a new species or cultivar to the home garden. At worst, a marketing gimmick for fussy but pretty flowers that don’t live up to their promise.
A Last Hurrah
There’s not much left blooming in the garden these last few days in October – the only thing looking halfway decent are the patches of sweet Alyssum. The huge Zinnias, colourful Cannas and even the merry Marigolds are either withering away with the cold nights or had to be pulled to make way for bulb planting. (I know – a lot of people really hate Marigolds. I, on the other hand, really LOVE them and grow them every year; next year’s seeds are already dried and waiting in tiny envelopes for April germination.)
There are still a few delightful surprises though.
This white Iris is STILL blooming!!!!! There’s a half dozen flower stalks and a few buds left that have survived our light frost. Amazing!!!
I took a few Gaillarda (Blanket Flower) seedheads off a rocky slope in Toronto’s Tommy Thompson Park many many years ago, and have tried to grow them all over the property. Not surprisingly, the only place they have really thrived and come back year after year is on a similar rocky slope! No compost, leaf mould, mulch or watering wanted! They bloom non stop from mid summer until…
I bought a little 10 cm pot of Shasta Daisies last spring and, stupidly, tried to make two plants by splitting it down the middle. Neither half was happy. They appeared to just wither away over the course of the season. I left them alone though and this year, with no coaxing and quite by surprise, they came up bigger and better. Also a surprise is how short this variety is – a reminder to NEVER throw away plant tags until I’ve recorded everything written!
I have no idea what variety of Veronica this is (again with the tag!!!) – last year it was a ground hugging rosette of leaves that spread quite a bit. This year it threw up tall spikes and then the little flowers, a perfect blue, started to appear and bloom, from the bottom up. It’s been three months now! And they’re still attracting the last desperate bees needing to top off before winter.
Finally, another Veronica – Whitley’s Speedwell. It holds a special place in my heart because the original small clump was given me by a dear lady in Toronto many many years ago. A large patch of it was growing up a slope by the sidewalk in front of her house and I admired it year round. Its original spot in my garden is still going strong and growing year by year. It’s generally drought tolerant (I’ve never watered it) although last year by the end of the summer drought only the fringes survived (it all grew back this year). But I’m really impressed by my new patch – started with just four hand-full’s pulled up from the original, it has now filled in to border the side patio.
AND – the best part – it’s evergreen. ALSO the best part is this new patch flowered en masse as usual in the spring but continued to send up dozens of individual, tiny blooms all year. Last week, for some reason, it just burst out again with hundreds of flowers. Weird and wonderful!
Veronica Whitley’s Speedwell
Rounded
I think this Lilium lancifolium (a true Tiger Lily) is my favourite Lily – it’s growing in the shade of a large Basswood (Tilia americana) multiplying quite happily and is a welcome splash of colour mid August in an otherwise drab corner. The rounded petals are a perfect match for this week’s photo challenge!
Tropicals in Toronto
It was a delightful surprise to see these planted outside a low rise apartment building in Toronto where nights are about to get very chilly! I love how the arching branches of this palm and the rounded bracts of the two Bromeliades contrast with the sharp lines and corners of the brick wall.
