We’ve had great gardening weather, haven’t we! On my morning tour of the garden each day, I see that things are really getting nicely established.
A little bit of trivia: when I was watching the weather network the other day, I heard them refer to “the first day of summer”. Hmm. Isn’t that still coming up? Time for some homework! So I learned that there are really two first days of summer. We are familiar with the “astronomical” first day of summer, based on the tilt of the earth, which falls on June 20 this year. Then there is the “meteorological” first day of summer on June 1, marking the three month chunk of “summer”. For meteorologists, the year is divided into three month blocks to make it easier to compare weather data between months and seasons. Isn’t that interesting?
Now, let’s make a cup of tea and sit down together, because I have something so exciting to tell you! You have heard me mention Marjorie Harris, the First Lady of Canadian gardening, to you many times. I recently had the wonderful privilege of being able to chat with her on the phone, and I want to tell you all the things I learned. Marjorie is a bright, sparkling garden light, full of wisdom and passion for gardening! I wished all of us could have been sitting in the back yard together, sharing tea and gardening stories!
We talked of many things, and there’s a lot to share, but today we’ll start with planning and planting. I asked Marjorie if she makes actual plans for her garden. “Absolutely!” was her enthusiastic reply. “We attempt to go away every winter, so I take my notebook. I try to take pictures of the garden every 48 hours in the summer, so then I look at the pictures and say ‘this has to move, this has to go’, and then spring comes and I go out there and ignore everything and make new plans!” Don’t we all do that to some degree!
Marjorie said that her yard is “narrow but complex” with “many layers”. “Every year I choose a pocket of the garden and redevelop it. I make a plant list and realistically decide what I can have in my garden.” Though the garden is lush and abundant, Marjorie stressed that “there is no spot in my garden that is not under my control.” She said that she prefers a “limited palette” of color in her garden, based mainly on the different colors of foliage.
When it comes to planters, Marjorie explained that “The easiest thing is to try something new in a planter. One structural plant that I love is papyrus ‘King Tut’. Scale is everything. Great value for your dollar is plectranthus ‘Mona Lavender’, which blooms from June to November.”
And in the garden: does she like a well-manicured garden? “What I do is I like all the edges to be really neat, so in that sense I like it manicured. But after that, there is no level the eye can go to where there isn’t a plant. It’s organized with composition.”
I’ll share more of our conversation with you next time. Till then, Marjorie invited us all to sign up for her newsletter; visit http://marjorieharris.com to see beautiful photos and gardening information.
Hort club members, just a reminder that our wind-up pot-luck supper is happening on Wednesday, June 15 at 6:00 p.m. This gathering is for members only (and significant other) so for complete details please call Liz at (306) 782-2830. Hope you’ll be able to be at this fun event before we begin our summer break!
Have a great week, savor your garden, and be sure to wear a hat! Visit us at www.yorktonhort.ca
