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.