Crows at the bird bath

Photos from summer 2020

 

"In an English Country Garden"...

 

Here are two flower pots that had hyacinthes in them when they were given to us years ago. I found the metal tray in someone's garbage and the pots fit in it very nicely. 

The cottage garden, the country garden, Percy Grainger's "In an English Country Garden", just writing the title of this piece of music causes me to hear it in my mind and to sing it to myself. 

Most Canadians, most Canadians who garden, plant annuals, these flowers are ready to be planted and produce flowers almost immediately, they also flower most of the season. Personally, I have switched over to an all-perennial garden. It feels more substantial and represents how I feel about gardening, frugality, sustainability, and life in general.

Planting day in Canada is Victoria Day, that is May 24, and where else in the Commonwealth is Victoria Day celebrated but in Canada?  Victoria Day is also when the last frost is supposed to have passed and we can plant our annuals without worrying about a sudden cold spell. Victoria Day, named after Queen Victoria, used to also be fire cracker day.  When I was young we used to ride our bikes to nearby Ville St. Pierre and buy firecrackers there. It was lots of fun setting off firecrackers with a piece of white string that was lit on fire, then with a smouldering glow on the end of the string we could light fire crackers, throw them, and watch them explode. 

Back in the 1950s our upstairs neighbours on Oxford Avenue were Mr. and Mrs. Nuttall; he was an avid gardener who claimed the garden even though it was supposed to be looked after by people in the first floor flat. I remember someone putting fire crackers in his tulips and blowing up the flowers. It wasn't me, really, I would never have done that.

When you set out to plant a cottage garden you will probably say goodbye to annuals; for the most part annuals and a cottage garden are mutually exclusive but there are, of course, exceptions. You will save a bundle by planting perennials and have, in my opinion, a much nicer garden. Begin with cone flowers, move on to other daisies, and then aim to plant all of the other flowers that go into a cottage garden. I will make a list of these flowers but you've probably heard of all of them and you will see how simple it is. This will cost a few hundred dollars the first year but amortized over several years it is not costly and the enjoyment far exceeds the cost. As well, these plants multiply and soon, as I did last fall and this spring, you will be transplanting cone flowers, daisies, and bee balm to other parts of your garden. The cost is free; the return is immense. 

A true cottage garden doesn't have a lawn and that is what I am working towards, when that happens there will be foot paths and much more garden and much less grass. Grass is not a flower although people love their lawns. I, too, like a nice lawn but I like a cottage garden even more. 

Last fall I dug up some grass and moved daisies to the new flower beds. I moved cone flowers, daisies, bee balm, ornamental grass, and holly hocks to the new flower beds; the result has been better than I ever expected. I have a lot of shade in this garden, too much shade, and the new garden plot is in the full sunlit part of the garden. I would like to have a huge bank of daisies as I've seen in other cottage gardens but without a lot of sunlight this seemed a difficult feat to achieve, now it's possible that in a year of two, enlarging the new flower beds, I will have quite a terrific display of daisies, bee balm, cone flowers, and others. 

Honey bees on 26 July 2021

 

The cottage garden is all for peaceful co-existence

There is peaceful co-existence among most animals but when a human approaches they all run for their lives. One of my favourite poems is by Walt Whitman, in which he writes,

I think I could turn and live with animals, 

     they are so placid and self-contain'd, 

I stand and look at them long and long. 

They do not sweat and whine about their condition, 

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, 

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, 

Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented 

     with the mania of owning things, 

Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind 

     that lived thousands of years ago, 

 Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

Sometimes animals fight each other, you see them butting heads in wildlife movies, but usually it isn't fighting to the death. A robin is sitting in the bird bath, he's not greedy, he doesn't mind if a sparrow joins him. There is room for all the birds but they might have to wait their turn, and they do; they know how to queue up. They aren't plotting against each other, they don't have concealed weapons, they aren't pedophiles or perverts.

How do you live with the animals in the limited way that city living affords? I suggest just sitting outside and being quiet, the birds will get used to your presence. They will pay you the highest compliment, they will ignore you.

Make your cottage garden as inviting to animals, birds, and insects as possible. Birds will use the bird bath and ignore you. Butterflies might land on your shoulder. The honey bees will continue to visit the flowers; bumble bees, that used to be so common but are now increasingly rare, will visit your garden and enjoy the bee balm. At night, in July, fire flies will make your garden a place of magic and wonder.

The Canadian Cottage Garden

Everything is the best ever this summer; I am referring to the garden. I have never seen the garden so full of flowers as this year; I keep saying to my wife that it is paradise out there, it is the Garden of Eden. 

The Canadian author, W.P. Kinsella, who wrote Shoeless Joe, from which the film Field of Dreams was adapted, wrote something like, "if you build it, they will come." Of course, it is true, including in gardening. If you want birds to visit your garden, have a bird feeder; better yet also have a bird bath with clean water in it every day. If you want insects, butterflies, bumble bees, honey bees, have a lot of flowers and the insects will come. If you want life, then plan ahead and make your backyard inviting for living beings. 

Your backyard, which was barren, just a lot of half dead grass and dirt, desolate and uninviting, can be transformed into a place that is full of life and activity, as I have done with our backyard. Yesterday, I sat in our backyard with my son who was visiting; right away he knew it was a cottage garden that I had aimed for (he hadn't visited for almost two years due to Covid-19). The work I put in for the last five or more years was finally evident. You can transform just about any piece of land into your own Garden of Eden. If you work on it, flowers will grow, the birds and insects will return. Even urban wildlife will stop by and visit; in the middle of last night I woke up to the smell of a skunk, but there are other nocturnal animals making their way through the garden, including raccoons and ground hogs. 

Here are some photographs taken this week of honey bees on echinacea flowers, cone flowers, that I planted a few years ago. Having been a beekeeper many years ago I always love to see honey bees in the garden, not because they are important pollinators, which they are, but because I have a lot of affection for honey bees; they're busy working, they won't sting you, it is live and let live in this life.

Notice the bee's back legs, the pollen sacs are for collecting pollen which is protein for honey bees

Bird bath time

A cottage garden should have some display or presence of water. If you live in the city it's unlikely you will have a stream or creek running through your backyard; I am not too big on fountains or artificial waterfalls although it's a possibility; so the easiest display of water is a bird bath. Birds love to visit a bird bath and sit in the water, they dunk their heads under the water, flap their wings, and then depart. It is a source of endless entertainment. Why do birds take baths? I am not too sure that science has studied this much; even in the fall I've seen birds in this bird bath. Curious, isn't it?

A robin having a cooling bath.

I am a paparazzi of birds bathing in public, there is no privacy anymore...

Sunlight, Water, Soil, Plants

For a good garden you need at least three of four things: sunlight, water, good soil, and healthy plants. 

Not much sunlight, then plant hostas. 

No tap water, then collect on rain water. 

Soil problems, try making compost or buy bags of soil. 

If you need more plants for your garden, then it's time to go to a garden center, or maybe someone will give you seeds or plants from their garden. 

Miss these ingredients and it will be difficult to have the garden you want.

Bee balm

Cone flowers

Day lilies, bee balm

Bee balm, day lilies

Some flowers in the Canadian Cottage Garden

I began making a list of plants that are traditionally found in cottage gardens. Some plants flower in spring, more flower in summer, and some plants are still flowering to fall. A lot of what I do, as a gardener, is by chance, by serendipity. There are different variables that will affect your garden, including weather, insects, how much time one has to garden, and so on. Here are some spring flowers: apple blossoms, bleeding hearts, snow drops, lilacs, forsythia, tulips, and others. Then, in summer, we have roses, peonies, miniature irises, snow ball hydrangeas, day lilies, fox glove, different varieties of hostas, lavender, shasta daisies, gloriosa daisies, cone flowers, bee balm, raspberries, clematis, and others. You want to stick with perennials over annuals, but biennials like Sweet Williams and holly hocks will add a lot to a garden. Self seeding plants are always welcome including, by the way, plants that migrate to your garden from your neighbour`s yard. I have forgotten or left out other plants I've grown and will try to include them here at a later date. Something could be written about every plant or tree or bush mentioned here and possibly will be. 

Bleeding heart

Bleeding hearts

Here is a hosta in early spring

Apple blossoms

Forsythia bush

Tulips

In the Garden

We don't have a large backyard, which in some ways is perhaps an advantage. The main disadvantage is that it is quite shady. This photo was taken in early November 2009.

This room was attached to the side of the house... when? No idea. But the house was built around 1950, so probably in the 1960s. At some point, perhaps in 2012, I cut down the lilac bush on the left to about two feet out of exasperation with squirrels jumping from the lilac bush onto the roof and entering the attic by an air vent. The only way to stop squirrels is to not let them enter or to block where they enter, preferably the former. An arborist told me that the lilac bush might die due to my cutting it down; and then, in 2017, I saw a few lilac shoots coming up, it took until 2021 for the lilac to grow about seven or eight feet in height. Photo from July 2011.

Before I began working on the back yard garden I planted pots on the patio. July 2011

Back yard in July 2011

Our ginkgo tree, on our front lawn, July 2011; not sure if it was planted in 2009 or 2010