Hello my dear gardening friends,

What a gift Mother Nature is giving us – hopefully it is not just to tease/lull us all into a false sense of “Spring is in the air”.

The garden centres are bristling with pansies. I attended a judging workshop in Brooklin on Saturday, stopping on the way home to purchase pansies for my dear friend (and boss) Deborah. I drove past Loblaws and (surprise, surprise) there were pansies on sale. Also, the garden centre is up. On Sunday, Deborah was having the tables built, Wednesday the soil, etc. is being delivered, and before we know it, the plants will be here. The long winter will be just a memory. Loblaws Garden Centre is back!!!!

Speaking of pansies, I loved this:

“There’s Rosemary that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember: and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts,” wrote Shakespeare in Hamlet.

Milton in Lycida described the pansy as “streaked with jet”. Edgar Allen Poe wrote of “beautiful Puritan Pansies” and Shakespeare called it “Love in Idleness”. The French novelist, Colette, who wrote so many superb evocations of garden and flowers, saw the pansy as being imbued with a “dusting of constellations”. For such a modest little flower, the pansy has enchanted many gardeners with its constancy and ability to grow.

The Floral Code has always described it as a symbol of remembrance. Who has not been intrigued by the multi-coloured faces, whiskery and velvet of its blooms?

In botanical terms it comes from the Viola family (.V. x wittrockiana), largely from the V. tri-colour line which was known as the “heartsease”, and possibly from the medicinal use of the wild pansies for cleaning the blood. It was also called garden gate for the welcome that it gives when grown inside a garden gate.

Today it is one of the most versatile and easily grown plants for garden, window box, hanging basket or container of any kind. As a ground cover, it is invaluable while providing fine splashes of colour in rock gardens. Pansies can grow in any garden or balcony all year long from the wintering flowering varieties to multi-coloured summer varieties. The plant is mainly Bi-Annual, but will grow uninterrupted for many years if it is given good watering and some feeding, and grown in a lightly shaded and well drained area. The plants must be dead headed regularly or will fade away through seed setting. The unassuming pansy always lends charm to any garden.

I went outside and to my astonishment, the icicle pansies were blooming through the snow. I have had these particular plants three winters now and they are growing in full sun, but of course soon the trees will be in leaf creating the light shade that they require in the summer time. One of the best plant values around – funnily enough they are growing with my snowdrops!!!

Coming Soon,

Spring is coming! With promising patches of blue; and sunlight and suddenly catches

A gleaming rooftop, where sparrows in batches, Flirt and flutter and pipe up snatches of hopeful song;

And windows are opened on stuffy rooms, There’s a shaking of mats and a flurry of brooms,

And its light in the longer afternoons, and boys on bikes whistle cheerful tunes.

It won’t be long!!

We discussed soil conditions last time – I talked about the “sweet and sour” soils. Rotting organic matter produces acid; this means the addition of considerable organic matter such as manure, peat moss, compost, leaf mould, cotton seed meal or the use of chemicals, such as ordinary sulphur, sulphate of ammonia, sulphate of iron (ferrous). Generally speaking in any sort of organic matter, vegetable or animal that is rotting down in your soil, acid is being slowly formed. The rotting down of a green crop or a cover crop also produces acid. This of course means that the pH is changing – it isn’t constant and that last year’s soil test isn’t reliable today if you have added anything to your soil in the meantime.

There is nothing mysterious about all this. The presence of surplus acid in your soil ties up the various plant foods in compounds that are not water soluble, and if the soil moisture cannot dissolve the existing plant foods, your plants cannot be fed and will not grow. So you simply add lime to absorb or cancel out the acid, this leads to the release of the necessary plant foods, the soil bacteria becomes active, the moisture can once again dissolve the plant’s requirements and the plants will grow. The same thing happens, but in reverse when our soil is too alkaline (as is mine); for good plant growth, we add the acid forming chemicals or organic matter and cancel out the alkalinity.

I do not mean that this is all there is to soil testing or that soil testing is totally simple. I must admit that beyond the tests for pH, I know very little about it all – that I leave to the experts. The most important thing is that with the wide diversity of plants that we try to grow, some are definitely acid loving and others the reverse – I find that trial and error seem to work well in my garden. I know that some things must be grown under my cedar hedge – these are the acid loving plants – and the other seem to do fine in the rest of the garden where I add lots of compost and manure!!!

Lawns should be repaired as soon as possible – particularly if you have some of those “yellow’ spots that Flossy left/created. The alternate thawing and freezing that we are experiencing right now (warm(ish) daytime temperatures, combined with the 2 degrees below at night) create natural pores and crevices in the lawn; these will catch and hold the small grass seed. The cool weather, the rainfall that we will get and warm sun, will help the seeds to germinate and let the tender seedlings become firmly established.

Lawns should be rolled whilst the soil is moist (not wet). This is done to protect the mat of grass and save a lot of backbreaking work later. Rolling is not to make the lawn level, rather to re-pack the heaved and frost-loosened soil about the roots of the grass. A light roller of about three hundred pounds is the best tool.

Do not use a roller that comes with a grading machine because you will squeeze the life out of the grass, and destroy the porosity of the soil. If your soil is dreadfully uneven, and you can’t stand it, you are in for a major job. It will have to be torn up and reseeded – patching will only make it look worse. At this stage instead of grass, how about either a prairie meadow or flower beds?

If you must have grass, for example over weeping tiles, you can fill small depressions in with top soil and reseed. Large deep hollows with good turf can be treated this way.

Outline the sunken area and cut through the turf with either a sharp spade (now you see why I tell you to get your tools sharpened) or with a proper turf cutter. Slice the turf over the depressed area into strips of 9 to 12 inches wide, using the spade to loosen the sod – just roll it back so that the whole low area is exposed. Now add enough really good garden soil so that when you replace the sod, the lawn is level once again.

Experiments have proved that well established lawns clipped short in the spring, makes the underground parts increase rapidly and spread through the soil. This practice should be followed because it reduces weeds and gives a denser mat of grass that will then encroach on and fill in any bald spots.

A layer of top soil that is too thin, the accumulation of grass clippings or the very nature of the grass itself may be responsible for the laying of its bare stems and roots. To overcome this, it is a good plan to sprinkle the lawn very lightly (not more than a quarter of an inch deep) with a layer of top dressing. Top dressing should consist of a rich black compost or loam (leaf mould) to which some peat and a balanced commercial fertiliser has been added. Such a dressing will hold the moisture, provide nutriment and, because of its dark colour, absorb the heat that will speed the growth.

The brilliant bloom of flowering annuals and perennial, the lustrous sparkle of the foliage of evergreens, and delicate shades of colour in the leaves and blossoms of vines and shrubbery, will not stand out if they are bordered by sickly, ill kept lawns.

Earthworms are considered a nuisance when they produce unsightly masses of castings at the entrance to their burrows. It is sad really for this is a sign of good health in the garden. They are often referred to as “Nature’s Plough” because they eat their way through the soil and in the process of digestion, convert complex organic and inorganic compounds to simple substances that can be absorbed by the hair roots of plants. They mix the soil making it porous and permit the air and moisture entrance into the soil. When they die, they contribute even further by increasing the organic content of the soil. They are so important that the commercial production of worms for improving fertility is an expanding business. Tests have shown that the results from increasing the earthworm population in some orchards, has been nothing less than miraculous.

Japan In Spring

All countries are beautiful in Spring, but Japan is pre-eminently so. The trees are now clothed with leaves of the freshest green, and many of the early flowering kinds are in full blossom. On every hill side and in every cottage garden there was some object of attraction. The double-blossomed cherry trees and flowering peaches were most beautiful objects, loaded as they now were with flowers as large as little roses.

By: Robert Fortune, “Visits to the Capitals of Japan and China”

Soon our blossoms will be filling the air with their sweet perfume. I am awaiting the arrival of the flowers on the Forsythia.

My garden will be “under reconstruction” this summer. I tried last year, but the rain and the cold defeated me. As I said earlier I had a “burn” in my garden and it looks wonderful. I cut everything down and it is almost a level playing field. I want to get onto the soil with my rotor tiller, but it is full of tulip, daffodil, lily and other bulbs, not to mention my beautiful tree peonies. They will be much happier for I am hoping to get rid of that wretched buttercup creeper – I know that as fast as I remove it, it grows twice as fast as my hoe!!!!

My grandfather would burn his garden – as kids we loved to watch – we went home smelling of smoke, tired, dirty and very happy. I think that sometimes we “protect” our children too much – we seem to need them to “be clean” all the time. I remember trying to get my small grandsons to jump into a rather deep mud puddle, and they thought it “gross”, so I jumped in by my own self!! Let the kids enjoy the soil, run it through their hands and make mud pies – these are our gardeners of tomorrow.

If they do not learn now that the earth is theirs to treasure, it will be a sadder place.

I was up the other night – couldn’t sleep – turned on my computer and who was on-line but my dear granddaughter in Oman! We had a wonderful hour together – she was on her way to school!!! Oh what a strange day – I was awakened by a call from England, then Australia, Woodview, Warsaw, and Buckhorn. Then I had a phone call from Chicago, which prompted me to call Toledo. I had another call from Florida about Loblaws re-opening, and to top off the day, from Oman. What an exciting day – all around the world and no passport required!

WATER....is the most interesting object in a landscape, and the happiest circumstance in a retired recess; captivates the eye at a distance, invites approach, and is delightful when near; it refreshes an open exposure, it animates a shade; cheers the dreariness of a waste, and enriches the most crowded view; in form, in style, and in extent, may be made equal to the greatest compositions, or adapted to the least; It may spread in a calm expanse to sooth the tranquillity of a peaceful scene, or hurrying along a devious course, add splendor to a gay, and extravagance to a romantic situation.
By: Thomas Whatley, “Observations on Modern Gardening”

I have just returned from hearing Jennifer Bennett speaking about low water gardening - then one can have a small table top fountain to create the illusion of a “mighty waterfall”.

Good gardening to us all. I hope that your crocus are in full flower. Do not forget to use your sunscreen - we have been inside all winter and our skin is very tender. So hats, sunscreen, good gardening gloves (I have a very nasty cut on my finger, from a grape vine) and perhaps a jacket still.

Lovingly, Beryl