What's Hot at the Nursery

Summer has certainly found us this July, as the temperatures were sweltering for a couple of weeks! The plants in the nursery and in our display beds have been thriving, however, and we'll show off a few of the popular choices in this post.

We keep a vase of cut echinacea flowers on hand every day, to showcase the unusual, wonderful colours that we have available, including some of the 'Big Sky' series (Sunrise, Sunset, Harvest Moon) and doubles Hot Papaya, Marmalade, and Coconut Lime.

For those who love hummingbirds--and who doesn't?--we have the irresistable beebalm in several different shades. We especially like 'Raspberry Wine', which is well named.

Hands down, our favourite echinacea other than the native is 'Hot Papaya'. Photos don't do it absolute justice, as the flowers go through so many colour changes as they mature. Truly a gem among all the new varieties that have emerged in recent years.

Want to cool things down a little in your plantings? How about Russian sage, with its blue-lavender flowers and deer-resistant foliage. This is a plant that likes good drainage over winter, and is drought resistant once established.

We have many different perennial grasses, some for the front of the border, others better suited for back of beds. Grasses are excellent choices for any garden, being easy care and offering fall and winter interest, too.

We carry a few different types of succulents, including sempervivums, also known as houseleeks and hen-and-chicks.

Our roses are grown on their own roots, and are all hardy for our tricky Nova Scotian climate. We are carrying some newer choices this year, including 'Rambling Red', and 'Emily Carr', from the Agriculture Canada Artists series.

In between tending the plants in our nursery, we are establishing more display gardens so that you can visualize what a particular new plant will look like in your garden. It's well worth walking around the nursery, as these beds are located here-and-there...

Pause by the fish pond to admire the waterlilies, and count fish and frogs--there's usually at least one frog basking on those huge leaves.

If you're looking for a dramatic plant, look no further than the Yucca, with its spiky foliage and tall stems of white flowers. Another heat and drought tolerant plant, it's sure to get noticed in your garden.

This is looking to be a fantastic year for hydrangeas, and ours are blooming in their containers at the nursery. Because of our soil mixture, even the blue-flowered ones are pink, but they'll come back around quickly in your garden. This is 'Blue Billows' in a pot...

And here it is, happy in a garden situation. The lacecaps are more reliably hardy for most Nova Scotians as compared to the mopheads, and they're gracefully beautiful.
We hope to see you soon, as high summer continues to shimmer on our gardens!

Plantings for Pollinators

We've been very busy during the month of June, for which we thank all our loyal customers, new and returning. Add that to the fact that Robert is having a new house built, and there hasn't been a whole lot of time for blog writing, although he's keeping up his Facebook pages pretty well.

One of the things we like to specialize in here at Baldwin's is plants that attract pollinators, especially bees, hummingbirds and butterflies.

Buddleia, or butterfly bush, isn't hardy for everyone in Nova Scotia, but many people can get it to overwinter. It grows so quickly from a small plant that there are some who simply treat it as an annual, although we're hearing reports of many buddleias overwintering this past winter. Here's a nice 'Black Knight' blossom being adored by hummingbird moths.

One of the most important plants you can have if you want to attract Monarch butterflies is milkweed, Asclepias species. This isn't a Monarch on the flower of rosy milkweed but a Spangled Fritillary, which also quite enjoys the plant as a source of nectar.

Among the things that you need in establishing a butterfly garden is a sheltered spot where the butterflies can land, feed, lay eggs, and then, later on, create their chrysalis where they will turn from caterpillars into butterflies.

This post is a little shorter than we had intended because Blogger decided to be cranky about uploading photos, so we will probably edit and add more information when it regains its senses. But we'd like to put in a plug for Preston Lilacs as fantastic plants for butterflies and other pollinators. The Prestons were bred by Isabella Preston, the first woman to work as a horticulturist at a Canadian agriculture research station. These lilacs are later blooming than the French hybrids, and have smaller individual florets but a long bloom period and fantastic fragrance. Check out these and other great plants for pollinators at Baldwin's nursery, and perhaps get a free rosy milkweed plant to take home with you!

See You at Saltscapes Expo!

Some days it sure feels like spring of late, other days...not so much. But this is the season of colour and fragrance, and plants seem to be mostly on schedule with other years. This photo of Rob with 'Ramapo' rhododendrons is from last year, and a little later in the spring, so don't panic--we're just trying to get you excited about this spring!

Things are hopping around the nursery as we get ready for the 7th annual Saltscapes Expo. Baldwin's Nursery has been attending since the second year, and we're happy to be at this uniquely Atlantic Canadian show again this year. We can't say for sure what we'll be bringing along for plants, but there could be a fragrant viburnum...

A Japanese maple or two...maybe some seedlings?

Perhaps a magnolia that's just ready to burst into flower...

Or one of the amazing tree peonies we're carrying...

Some of the hellebores, like 'Winter Jewel Apricot Shades'

Though we probably won't be bringing any along, we're carrying a variety of spring ephemerals this year, including the delicately lovely bloodroot (Sanguinaria).

Or this unusual dapple-leafed red trillium.

The Saltscapes Expo runs from Friday, April 29, 12 noon-9 pm; Saturday, 30 April, 9am-6 pm, and Sunday, 1 May, 10 am-5 pm. Please come and say hello to us, and have a look at some of the great plants we have for sale this year! We hope to see you this weekend. Now, back to working with the nursery.

Images of Winter, whispers of Spring

Sorry we haven't posted for a while...although winter is a time of slowdown for many gardeners, for nursery operators, it can be a very busy time. We're planning for the spring and summer, choosing new plants, tending our overwintering plants, and enjoying the joys of winter.

With all the snow we have this winter, it's a great idea to look around your garden and see what you have for 'winter interest.' Do you have shrubs with interesting shapes that look like living sculptures when snow or ice cover them?

Or shrubs and trees with bright bark, like this red-osier dogwood, which looks its best when surrounded by a blanket of pristine snow?

Perhaps you have some terrific evergreens, as we've talked about before, that will turn brilliant shades during fall and winter. The purple-bronze microbiota or Russian cypress is one of our favourites.

But we also like Thuja 'Sunkist', here just getting started in turning its winter gold colour when it was nearly buried in snow.

Take heart, fellow plant fans and gardeners. Before we know it, we'll all be busy in our gardens again, and enjoying the glorious blooms of such perennials as this Japanese Tree Peony...

Or this exquisite magnolia. It's too bad we can't put fragrances somehow into a blog post, because scented magnolias are wonderful.

And before we even know it, we'll be enjoying the tasks of the garden, dividing hostas, daylilies and echinaceas, pruning shrubs, planting our vegetable gardens. We're over the worst of winter now, and counting down til spring.

Stay tuned...we'll have news about new plants here at Baldwin's Nurseries in the not too distant future!

For the love of hellebores

(photo of 'Golden Sunrise' )

A few years ago, the hellebore or Christmas/Lenten rose was not common in Nova Scotian gardens. They were something for the collector, because they were expensive and hard to find locally.

Photo of 'Onyx Odyssey' courtesy Terra Nova Nurseries, Inc.But plant breeders have been busy developing gorgeous new hybrids over the past 5-6 years and the plants are much easier for nurseries to source. We brought a selection of hellebores in this past spring and were very pleased at the response, so we're happy to say we have a great many new varieties coming in for spring 2011.

photo of 'Jade Tiger' courtesy Terra Nova Nurseries.

While we can't reveal all the hellebore varieties that we'll have next spring, we're showing a a number of hybrid photos just to demonstrate the huge range of colours and forms available from breeders in North America and beyond.

Photo of 'Ivory Prince'

Hellebores are relatively easy to grow provided you give them what they want. They're quite shade tolerant, but aren't what you'd call shade lovers like ferns or some hostas. They certainly appreciate winter sunlight, so you may wish to plant them under deciduous shrubs where they'll get protection from hot summer sun, but have plenty of light from fall to spring.

Pristine white hellebore, species unknown.
Hellebores want a well-drained soil with plenty of organic matter. Once established, they can be quite drought-tolerant, but they appreciate a consistent amount of moisture without becoming water-logged. Too much winter wet will kill them more often than not.
Photo of 'Goldfinch'

In Nova Scotia, hellebore buds can begin to emerge in late winter or early spring, and can sometimes be destroyed by snowfalls, sudden cold snaps, or harsh winds. It's a good idea to put a protective mulch of evergreen boughs or other loose type mulch over your hellebore crowns once the ground has frozen hard, usually around Christmas. Beginning in mid-March, check carefully under the mulch to see if there are buds emerging, but don't remove the mulch until weather has stabilized in April. Even then, it's a good idea to leave the mulch nearby in case we're forecast to get a hard frost or a sudden snowstorm. It certainly can happen!

Photo of 'Ivory Prince'

Hellebores are technically evergreen, but the old foliage can get very ratty looking after one of our winters. Trim the old foliage from your plants in the spring as the flower buds and stems begin to emerge from the ground. This will allow the flowers to be displayed more easily as well as reduce the risk of disease such as black spot.

A green hellebore.
Because so many varieties of hellebores have drooping, downward-facing blooms, you may wish to plant them in a raised bed so that their intricate and lovely flowers are displayed. Did you know that the brightly coloured structures we think of as petals are actually modified leaves, called sepals? They hold their colour for many weeks after the inner structures of true flower parts have disappeared following fertilization.

Photo of 'Amber Gem' courtesy Terra Nova Nurseries.

Among the more popular and striking varieties of hellebores now available are the doubles, many of which can be compared to lotus flowers in appearance. The doubles are often more expensive than single-formed flowers, but all are beautiful and irresistible.

'Kingston Cardinal'

Usually hellebores aren't troubled by too many pests or diseases. Aphids can sometimes be a problem, and are thought to be the transmitters of diseases such as black spot and black death. Normally aphids can be controlled with a strong stream of water from a hose (you may have to do this every few days to disrupt populations) or with insecticidal soap. We haven't heard of any reports of disease around here, but will be writing about hellebores again in the spring, so we'll let you know if we find any more information.

'Apricot Winter Jewel Blush.' Photo courtesy Fraser's Thimble Farm.

Two more things to be aware of with hellebores: they are deer and rabbit resistant, which is always nice when you're dealing with the challenges of these animals in your garden.

'White Elegance.' Photo courtesy Fraser's Thimble Farm.

More importantly, all parts of the hellebore are highly toxic to humans, pets, and livestock, so it's best to handle them with gloves when dividing, transplanting or pruning them, and keep them out of spots where pets or children might get at them.

Stay tuned for future posts about growing hellebores, and for hints about the varieties we'll be carrying in the spring.

Looking for lateseason colour? We have answers.

Some call it fourseason gardening. Some call it fallscaping. We call it fun.

Now that the heat of August has been washed away by some much-appreciated rain, it's a perfect time to be working in our gardens. We don't know about you, but we're still planting things, dividing perennials, moving shrubs...and enjoying the late season blooms like these wellnamed silvergrasses (Miscanthus).

We talked a lot about grasses in our last post, but now is really the time when they are shining stars. Whether you like the tall, elegant varieties with their showy flowers like the miscanthus, or the more subtle, low-growing clumpers like Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa), there truly is a grass or ten for every garden.

Do you deadhead your coneflowers? If you do, you probably are seeing plenty of blooms in many of your varieties too. Check our display beds when you visit us: they are't perfect, but there's still lots of coneflowers showing their colour.

One of the most beloved of lateseason performers is the tall, or border sedum. There are many varieties, some with different colours of foliage, and many with different colours of flowers. The alltime favourite for many gardeners, of course, is 'Autumn Joy.'

Want to try something a little different in your fall-colour garden? How about Callicarpa, also known as 'beautyberry'. You can see why it's called beautyberry; after flowering a few weeks ago, our shrubs are now festooned with incredible purple berries,

We believe that plants with great foliage colour and texture are as important as flowering plants. This 'Plum Pudding' heuchera doesn't need to have blooms on it to look fabulous all season long.

How about these dwarf golden conifers? They don't 'flower' the way a lilac or a sunflower does, of course, but with gorgeous foliage like this, these dwarf chamaecyparis are allstars all year long.

Once the miscanthus begin to bloom, they genuinely sell themselves. Their graceful heads of silver, purple, red or rose-bronze flowers shimmer in the light.

Deadheading lavender will often prompt a nice later flush of flowers, and of course the grey-green, needle-like foliage is always handsome.

We love hydrangeas, especially the Paniculata grandiflora (PG) types with their longlasting panicles of cream to rose flowers. This one shows up nicely in front of a purple barberry.

We're open Monday-Saturday at this time of year, and are often up on the hill working with the plants. Just beep your horn, and someone will be down to help you as soon as possible. We look forward to helping you with your fallscaping ideas.