A little Vancouver holiday sparkle

This is Pierre & Patti's Japanese maple, with garlands of raindrops in a brief sunshower.




Japanese maples are sooo beautiful. They do things when you're not looking.


Remember to look at plants in the winter-time too. They like the attention.

Harry Lauder's Walking Stick

Only a comedian would look at this tree and declare it a fine specimen from which to cut a walking stick.


This is Sabra's contorted hazel/Corylus avellana 'Contorta', also known as Harry Lauder's Walking Stick--named for the Scottish musician/comedian who used a branch as a staff for a bit of a gag. (This was circa early 20th Century. Sabra doesn't know Harry. I didn't know who Harry was either until I googled him a moment ago--and there he is, in a kilt, with a squiggly stick. Neat.)

This bit of horti-culture is brought to you because it did indeed rain this week, melting all traces of winter, so I'm still working. Bypassed my traditional hibernation date of December 15th so I was getting grumpy until I happened upon this ree-diculous tree, at which point I rolled about in mirth, spilling my meade. Ya, not quite. Anyways, I do like it, and now is the time to look for it, because all the rest of the year it is disguised by its hairy filberty wrinkly leaves. And when the catkins bloom, it gets even better. Comes with it's own Christmas decorations.

The only significant maintenance tips are:
--Harries are grafted onto normal (unfunny) hazel rootstocks which may periodically send up straight suckers, so rip them off if you can (takes the initiating bud with it), or cut them if you can't rip them.
--Once a Harry gets to mature size, I periodically prune out branches in the summertime to create "windows" into the gnarly trunk, so Harry doesn't look like a big hairy filberty wrinkly green blob. These branches are very groovy, and are often used in groovy floral arrangements by Thomas Hobbs, our modern-day horti-cultural icon.

Here's a full shot of this fine speciman. He's squiggling toward the light, as a greenbelt of enormous fir/cedar is behind him.

Icicle-Gardening

I know, it's getting cold outside. Time to wrap it up. We've had some "flurries" and yes, any leaf piles left on the lawn are now welded there until spring. Or maybe next week. Could rain next week. This is Vancouver after all.

Nevertheless, this is the best time of year for big thermoses of homemade soup and thick-cut-cheese sandwiches, and I don't mind when frosty mornings and early darkness bookend a short and sweet working day.


Ran about Sheena & Terry's garden on Friday, in a last-minute clean-up before the "flurries" in the forecast. I want Nick and Terry to see their little waterfall below, because Nick will be constructing his own version of similar size in the spring. The catchment pond (in which the pump is submerged) is obviously iced over.

In particular, notice the evergreen Lonicera pileata--one of the shrubby honeysuckles (that bears no apparent resemblance to the vine) which I have stockpiled for Nick & Terry's new waterfall planting. I really like how its horizontal branch structure softens the sides of a man-made waterfall, and it gets a surprising crop of very purple berries in late spring. The great big spiky purplish New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax) that is usually visible in the gap on the upper right is still a shadow of its former self after last winter.
I built this mini-fall and pond...eight years ago? Hol-ee. With the help of Paul Sra, a very funny man. We used a layer of pond felt and pond liner under the falls and pond (I have the construction pictures in the July 28 2008 entry) and basalt slabs for the step-down falls. As I recall, the pump was about $400, chosen for the height of water drop, and it has churned away for eight years and counting. Now there are pre-form plastic waterfall runs available, which probably does help water loss on longer, more convoluted waterfall configurations.

It's verrry important, if you do have an exposed catchment pond (unlike some of the "secret springs" water bubblers) to position a "rescue/perching rock" for birds that might fall in.

The water level can sink in summer due to splashing or evaporation so has to be topped up. And-ha-if you think, oh, my waterfall doesn't splash that much, these photos have pretty much caught those splashes, frozen in the act. That's why it's also important to extend the pond liner farther out than you think along the sides, and angle the grade back to the falls/pond, so the splashes drain back in.

Wish You Were Here...

Ah, after a long season of hard work, it's finally time for us gardeners to put our feet up, relax, maybe just hang out on the pond for a change.

One heckofa Yule Ball

Did I invent this?? Not sure. This is Roswitha's front door, and she loooooves it when I make these every year. Super fun.

Anyways, first you take one hanging-moss-basket from which you have just clipped all the bedraggled annuals (silently thanking them for a glorious summer of colour).

Then you roam around the garden with your secateurs and gather an armload of beauteous evergreens and berried treasures.

For the above (and below) set of Yule Balls I salvaged:
--blow-down fir branches
--holly and Salal branches from the far reaches of the property
--hydrangea blooms and the red berry-panicles from Nandina domestica (by the pond)
--white Symphoricarpus/Snowberry and red berries on Willow-Leaf Cotoneaster surreptitiously gathered from the roadside on my way to work
--white Baby's Breath from a bouquet the owner just happened to be tossing out
--and the final touch: wire-edged ribbon bows we saved from last year (easy to make)

Once you've jammed all the tough evergreen branches into the mossy soil-ball (so easy! no wiring necessary!) in a somewhat even fashion, with some dramatic foliage also trailing from the bottom of the ball (no wiring neccessary!), you can add the more delicate and colourful bits. Then remember to water it before it freezes solid because it will last FOREVER or at least until February. And you can always remove the bow to deter carollers after the holidays.




Fa la la la la la la la la la la la la la la

*Oh--and we just had an idea today, when we noticed birds were picking away at the Yule Ball berries: wouldn't it be an amazing gift to make one of these for someone, and also spike it with bird seed/hanging suet balls...whatever you feed birds? Sounds like a good idea--unless a crazed flock flash-mobs your handiwork into a pile of detritus under a hanging dirt-ball. That would be sad.

Signs of Spring...

I know: one step at a time. But these are the 2010 baby leaf-buds of Sedum spectabile, already formed at the base of this year's spent stalks. Little tiny spectators, waiting.

Winter Rose Contestants

Countdown to Christmas Rose 2009. (C'mon, I have to amuse myself during snack-break.)
We've had a run of particularly beautiful frosty-sunshine days, and these little shrub-roses are gasping in the last rays of the year. Persistance is a virtue.


If you were a painter, you would paint this rose-hip.

Now for the fun part...

Oh, it's all fun.
These are Rose's pots, getting jazzed up for Winter-mas. Best free winter-decorating tip ever: Save Your Hydrangea Blossoms Before They Go Soggy. I stuff them everywhere--in wreaths, made-over hanging moss-baskets, pots, etc. They last forever under the eaves/out of the rain.
The pot above already had skimmia and variegated holly, so I added white cyclamen, paperwhites, pussy willows, and evergreen branches.
Below, we worked the donkey-tails euphorbia already in the planter into the design with fresh evergreen, red osier dogwood, red huckleberry and golden willow branches. This winter medley (sounds like a salad) also serves to disguise the nondescript bare branches of a Black Beauty elderberry which also lives in the pot. I find the Big Red Bow rather festive. Don't u?

The Problem with Persimmons

I recently noted that the local nursery has a few Persimmons in stock: little whippets of trees bearing golden orbs that look too good to be true... Since you so rarely see full-grown Persimmons on the North Shore, I took some post-leaf-drop shots of Jim n' Wren's trees (same garden as the prior post's banana grove) and the uncommonly abundant crop this year.

You often don't know what sort of crop you have until leaf fall because they're hidden so well. By the end of November (haven't been here since...August?) a few light frosts have damaged most of them. (Pause for rending of hair.) I know, because I pole-pruned a Safeway-bagful for the neighbour, who wanted to make jam. Persimmons aren't the tangiest fruit at the best of times, so when I returned on Monday (a much nicer day--see title bar photo!) I got the local jam-report: "Terrible!" I couldn't help laughing at how vigorously he delivered his report. And then he said it's the second year he's made "terrible jam" but he just can't bear to see food go to waste so he's determined to make it...
I figure persimmons are best eaten fresh. Next year I'm gonna make a point of rummaging around 20 feet up there in September/October to save him his torture.

The trees themselves are very nice shade trees--though a rather weedy tree where they are indigenous in the more southerly States. So I'm judicious with pruning, and just tend to remove twiggy/dead branches to create a more open centre looking up from below. Any largish cuts result in vigorous suckers shooting for the moon. If you let it, the tree will almost touch its branches to the ground like a skirt, creating a lovely green gloom under the dome (*if you clear out the centre*). So we keep it crown-raised so you can walk under it, and in all, I do like the shape of the bare winter branches, and the remaining fruits are beautiful in the evening light.

Putting a Banana to Bed (for the winter)

The incredulity has worn off by now--that we have bananas in North Vancouver I mean. I remember when the One Guy with banana trees was legendary, and people would go on mystical quests to find his garden.

Of course, no one ever actually gets fruit, but the plant itself is a wonder for us northerly folk. Now that I have extensive meditative experience in tropical banana groves, I'd say the plants here are overall more attractive; the climate is neither dusty nor blast-furnace-like, so banana leaves tend to unfurl in their other-worldly way, and remain fresh and untattered. Tropical banana groves can look a bit ship-wrecked.

Here's Jim n' Wren's banana grove, on the cusp of December. Case in point. And contrary to the Overwintering Banana Advisory, I'm afraid I don't treat it with kid gloves at this time of year...

I call these the Banana Manglers.

(*Take note of the warm-hands tactics: long fluorescent rubber workgloves with--also fluorescent--warm fuzzy cotton liners, purchased at Mark's Work Wearhouse. Reduces your digital dexterity, but at this time of year, "mangling" is an acceptable activity.)

I wanted to show a cross-section of a banana stem because it is essentially a pillar of water: very easy to slip a saw through but very heavy to carry!

(It doesn't taste like banana. Not that I tried it. It doesn't smell like banana.)

We started this rather reductionist approach one year when the grove was getting ridiculously big, and we were actually trying to "discourage" it. Prior to that, I would undertake the installation of a complex insulation system involving straw and black plastic and wads of string around standing stalks so that a large vaguely humanoid garbage-like structure would appear to be lurching through the bare winter garden. Unnecessary. A banana grove will spring back full-size from the ground.

(No monkey habitat left. Save the monkeys.)

Even if the big stumps freeze and turn into a gloopy mess, the roots will send up a whole new crop of shoots (like the few still standing) and the grove will resurrect itself--even after last winter's endless snow and freezing temperatures (I don't think it went below -15C). Of course, the chopped banana leaves are saved for a teepee mulch, see below.


So sweet dreams Musa Basjoo.

O--another haiku opportunity:

Daay-Oh. Day oh-oh.

Winter come and me wanna

Go to Hawaii.

Haiku 4 u

A dry red leaf placed
On rain-slicked bed of black grass.
Instead of raking.


Japanese maple leaf on Black Mondo Grass/Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens'
(Another profound moment brought to u by Bicycle-Gardening Chronicles.)

Last Leg to Christmas Rose 2009...

Yea, tho the sun sets on the season's roses, I do yet persevere.

Not sure where my up-til-now secret obsession came from, but, where the prospects look promising, I deign from dead-heading if I think the plant will eke out a bud or bloom for Christmas. I'm sure it's symbolic, perhaps a medieval hangover. (Also been known to bellow "More Meade!" round this time of year. Awkward, in Starbucks.)

Anyways, we all know that evergreen "Christmas" trees/garlands/decorations etc. are all pagan rituals that The Church appropriated. I'm not saying I'm pagan--I'm just saying these are the things that you learn/investigate if you do a humanities degree. And now, as the tradesperson I am destined (by virtue of my humanities degree) to be, I understand the many dimensions of gardening.

More Meade!

The point being: decorating one's home with signs of life and light in the dead of winter simply sustains the spirit. (On the other hand, plastic Christmas trees in tropical countries are sheer corporate triumph.)

So! Last Leg to Christmas Rose 2009! I will provide photo evidence of the finalists.

Magnifico Mosaica

It's not everyday that one sees a mosaic-in-action. Was riding home a week or so ago just as an unusual crew was congregated on a corner next to Argyle high-school, in the act of creating an aggregate-style mosaic. The head artist was directing the speedy placement of swirls of coloured glass and pre-made step-stones, like the flower above. The still-wet concrete slurries over the surface, securing various mosaic-bits as it dries, then is rinsed to reveal the pattern. Fabulous.
As I went to and fro that evening, I kept witnessing the ongoing process, and took the card of one of the women participating. She also does mosaic work around town--except in the more Italian style, using broken tile bits.

In my ideal world, every concrete surface is mosa-icked. And everybody rides bikes. And gardens. And paraglides.

Go take a look for yourself. Corner of Fromme and Frederick.

Diverting Run-Off!!

This is super-exciting for people (Roswitha...) trying to figure out how to divert water on sloping driveways; i.e., away from house foundations, toward drain.

Instead of unsightly sandbags (insert info-mercial panning & zoom-ins here) you too can have neat little trowelled concrete mini-berms installed in critical locations. (Here, around metal electronic-gate plates on interlocking driveway.)

Get your mini-berms now. Before the el nino winter of floods and tempests and no snow for the Olympics.

The Olympics. Diverting public funds away from the foundations of a civil society and down a corporate drain in a city near you.*

*Note: the opinions unrelated to gardening represented in this blog will not affect the quality of garden work done and are of no concern to people who pay me.

Works in Progress...

Here's a few "blank canvasses" that have been underway this fall. Unfortunately, I don't have the before-the-before shots for all of them: just the neat n'tidy bare soil gradually getting planted up. This belies the hours and hours of work required to create that nice neat n'tidy and well-defined blank canvas. It's such a feeling of accomplishment that, where other people see "mud" (one obviously unconscious passer-by actually made that comment!!) I prefer to admire the clean slate for a while.

Here's Sandra and Don's front rock wall--after the removal of 30-year-old junipers (a machine clawed them out and left plenty rubble for us to fine tune.) Just finished planting it up with pinky-red azaleas, white heather, rockgarden dianthus from the neighbour, purple heucheras, purple-black euphorbias, blue-green Podocarpus (that's a spready evergreen), purple-leafed berberis...and saving a space for the lovely feature of the show: a Hakuro-Nishiki willow--the one with white and pink variegation. In spring (phase two), we'll deal with the bottom boulevard. You'll just have to visualize, because the teeny new plants hardly showed up in the "after"photo so I deleted it. OMMMM.

And next we have Susan and George's White Cliff of Eagle Island garden--this was another missed before-before shot because the cliff was covered in ferns and salal until a burly cliff-clearing crew got at it. Then suddenly rock walls appeared and barges of crushed granite and soil and bark mulch arrived, and we (Mike and I) appeared on the scene in time to truly appreciate the lovely blank slate. And fill it up with aucubas-and-maples-and-skimmias-and-Hako-grasses- and-climbing-hydrangea-and-hardy-fuchsias-and-hostas and and and. Pending on plant availability in spring. So I'll update the photos when I can get a nice shot. (I usually do "after" shots about 2 years later, so this entry is mainly for the "blank slate appreciation day." Or minute.)

Again, visualize with me: OMMM.

And here we have a portion of Nick and Terry's back garden (was a "yard"--now a "garden"). This was fun, because I love big old stumps and there's a big old stump. Nick was building decks and arbours (and has yet to install a waterfall), one step ahead of my barrows of soil and loads of plants. So I don't expect you to truly appreciate the last (unfinished) shot of the planting; suffice to say, it'll be great. Trust me. OMMM. We will resume in spring.

Oh, there were more projects but sometimes it just doesn't translate into photos well--I think I need some 3-D technology so I can walk through a space with accompanying birdsong (hello Cheryl: youtube). O ya--but give me the winter to come to terms with the next great leap in technology. I've only just discovered DVDs this year. Not kidding. 'Scuse me, gotta watch a movie...

Art Shot...

After a hard day gardening... :)

Michael Ableman and My Inner Peasant

Michael Ableman is a small-farm advocate, spreading the word about land stewardship and the importance of a regional food system. He market-farms on Saltspring Island, on a heritage homestead called Foxglove Farm, which also operates as a hub for forward-thinking folk interested in planning for the future of food. He fled to his Canadian outpost after years of farming California acreages that were constantly in peril from encroaching development.

He is continuing to speak out for those who can't speak for themselves: stoic, hard-working, long-suffering farmers who finally give up the fight, sell their land to developers, and move to a condo in Miami--or Victoria. He writes books of poetic prose about small farmers tending their land for past and present and future generations, and reads excerpts while showing slides of early morning misty potato fields.

I went to see Michael Ableman's presentation last week at the Centennial Theatre, mainly because I wanted to hear what someone who has made farm advocacy his full-time job had to say about the state of things. He is basically bearing witness to every small successful farmer he can find, and generating dialogue to support every food-growing enterprise in and outside the city. He advocates a list of recommendations society would follow if we actually valued agricultural production and wanted to make it a viable, profitable pursuit for up-and-comers. One suggestion is long-term land leases for willing hard-workers. He also frequently points out that "the farm is only as good as the farmer" and how important it is to pass on agricultural wisdom to the next generation. In the discussion afterwards, someone pointed out how land has become the latest "investment vehicle" rather than, again, being valued and stewarded for its fundamental food-producing capacity!

In all, I'm glad there's a community of smart people out there who are thinking about these things, coming up with "to do" lists and farming. Here on the West Coast, where milk and honey still (seem to) drip from trees, we exist in a bubble of abundance (perpetuated by the IOC) that relegates what is essentially a matter of survival (farming) to a quaint addition to our garden design schemes, or perhaps that lovely bohemian Saturday morning activity of shopping the local farmer's market with cappuccino in hand (I think I've just described my perfect day).

It's all good--it's just not enough. You know you're approaching self-reliance when you can't stand the sight of another bean or tomato or carrot or beet. We're still at the cappuccino level of food-production: it's our little treat for ourselves.

Meanwhile, the farmland we're really going to need when we really need it (?) is rapidly being big-boxed and condo-fied.

Alas, I am sooo guilty of loving the idea of farming. I attribute this to my inner indignant peasant, who finally transitioned to the merchant class, only to discover the urbane folk think peasantry is "in." I will not be duped back into the countryside to hoe the row! I spent my childhood peeling and pitting and canning and sweating and finally threw aside the mason jars for the delirium of flower-gardening. Imagine that: people who just want to grow flowers. Art takes precedence at last. Food? Bah! Let them eat cake.

This is a very bad attitude Ms. Antoinette, although I do eat a lot of cake (muffins, cookies, etc.). I do think I am making progress, however, because I do promote food gardening to some degree--however quaint--in my gardens. I think I like the "cottage-garden" idea, or perhaps the manor "kitchen-garden" concept, because it feels very urbane and swish to pluck morsels from one's garden to garnish one's life. Hmm. I think I may be on the verge of a functional shift.

Nevertheless, functional shifts are daunting. While attending talks given by charismatic mini-farmers such as Michael Ableman provide some sense of accomplishment (awareness is the first step!) actually doing something about our ravaged food system is...daunting.

Of course, we have the 100-Mile Diet movement. And Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs). And my greatest reassurance regarding the resilience of human beings: Cuba, a country that made the switch to self-sustenance in a remarkably short period of time, following the fall of the Soviet Union and the cutoff of agricultural subsidies and supplies. If they could do it, I believe, deep down, that Vancouverites will snare and eat the bunnies on Jericho Beach if we really really have to. I hear that, braised, bunny is very nice on a bed of kale.

Before I impale myself on my pen (vegetarian at heart) I should also note that the whole "have our cake and eat it too" attitude is something that naturally weathers away in the face of true adversity. For example, I have recently become aware of the "Slow Money" movement, springing (or should I say, plodding forth) from the Slow Food movement. In essence, we shall invest in food-producers with a lower rate of return than the conventional stock market buuuut with the satisfaction of knowing that our money is helping grow something real that will feed us in the event that Google goes down and plunges us into peasantry. Again.

Happy Fall

This doesn't even look real. But it is. This is Kathryn & Jim's garden today.

When trees turn colour, they suddenly look like they are floating. Like the next one here:



The yellow/coral tree is an ornamental cherry, and the white...is a Butterfly variegated Japanese maple. It looks whiter than usual. I think it's on the cusp of its autumn pinking. Thanks for sending in this pic, Dan & Deb.



And ah yes, here's my yacht-shot. And the dock I jump off in the summer.
And Rose's sumac, doing what it does best.

I really tried, recently, to get a picture of the profusion of jellyfish floating around by the shore, but they'd always drifted off by the time I got back with my camera. Camera-shy, I guess. If you steal the soul of a jelly-fish, there's not much left. They really are otherworldly--is this jelly-fish season? Apple-picking and jelly-fishing season.
Enjoy these last days of drifting through the coral sea of your gardens...