Plants flowering in the open rock garden.April May '09

[Maggi Young]

I really like what you are doing with your gardens, can also sympathise with you regarding the bugs.
We have bugs here I have never even dreamed of, and more turn up each year.

Oh, dear, I really thought that it would be hard to surprise an Australian regards bugs, but it seems Canada is doing just that..... I never guessed! 

[Luc Gilgemyn]

More nice plants Simon.
A question about Silene kantzeenensis.  Is is always that shy flowering ?? I just planted one out last week but don't know what to expect ? 

[Ragged Robin]

Dianthus minutiflorus, a native of the Pirin Mountains in SW Bulgaria.

A creamy, dreamy little dianthus, Simon 

[Sinchets]

Luc, the Silene kantzeensis is just over a year old (sown 16 March 2008 and planted out 20 May 2008). It has made a mat 30cm in diameter, but this is the first time I have grown it. I just had a look and all being well it has about 30 more buds scattered across the surface. I am not sure if they will all be open at once, or if there are clones that are better flowering than others. What was the source of yours? Mine was from seed I bought from Vojtech Holubec.
Robin, I agree the Dianthus has an airy beauty to it.

[maggiepie]

Oh, dear, I really thought that it would be hard to surprise an Australian regards bugs, but it seems Canada is doing just that..... I never guessed! 

Maggi, the only bugs I had to worry about in Oz were mozzies, thrips, aphids, white cabbage moths and that's about it, oh and citrus stink bugs.
Here, there are still heaps I have yet to ID.
Apart from june bugs ewwwww and huge big green ( hard ) grubs, flea beetles, stink bugs (  lots of different types), black flies, mozzies the size of helicopters, deer flies, horse flies, noseeums, yellowjackets, sawflies, trillions of grasshoppers, colorado potato beetles, and last year the wee harlequin bugs turned up.
These are just some I have managed to identify there are lots more!!!!!!
 I thought it would be too cold here for bugs, HAH!!

Simon, sounds like the blackflies found you.

[Sinchets]

My sister lives on a farm in themiddle of nowhere- okay that could be most of Canada I know- o the 1 day where we left the house for a walk I wore a mosquito proof bodynet- I felt a complete fool, looked a complete fool and still managed to feed an army of biting insects. 
I now know never to vist in June again- although it was worth it for the heat, the Cypripedium acaule and the Malachite hummingbirds on the feeders around the verandah. 

[maggiepie]

Simon, that reminds me I think I will get one of those net hoods with jacket this year, the blackflies haven't arrived yet, every day without them is a bonus.
I had never even heard of blackflies until the day we moved into our house, while waiting for the key there were clouds of the rotten things around and they find e VERY tasty.
They bite chunks out of you.
Where does your sister live?

[Sinchets]

She lives close to the border between Quebec and Ontario. The farm is stunning a Victorian homestead in acres of recovering mixed woodland. The woods are full of Cypripedium acaule and Medeola virginica- so great to see them in the flesh, but the insects and the six months of snow put me off ever wanting to live there. Is New Brunswick more moderated by the sea?

[maggiepie]

Simon, Southern Nova Scotia is more moderated by the sea from what I can gather, your sister's 6 months of winter sounds about the same as we are here.
It is currently 7C here, we had 23C on Monday and then back down to single digit temps.
Before I came to Canada, I couldn't understand why everyone talked about the weather, now I understand 

[johnw]

Helen - Indeed coastal Nova Scotia is moderated by the sea. Here in Halifax it is Zone 6 and on the southern tip Zone 7 though not noted on the Zone map.  I even grow a few Zone 7b/8 plants down there. The nice thing about the extreme south is that there are no blackflies, none. There are so many mosquitoes there is no airspace for the blackflies. Speaking of Medeola virginica, my land in the south was covered with them, lovely things, almost a poor man's Paris.  I must pay more attention to them, I sent a peck of the white tubers (?) to friends in Europe ten or more years ago and often wonder how they fared.

johnw  -also 7c here and dense fog.

[Lori S.]

Simon, the hummingbirds you saw in eastern Canada were surely ruby-throated hummingbirds, the only one that occurs there... (Your reference to "malachite" must refer to the green backs and wings of males, females and immatures?)
On the subject of insect life, it's spookily absent here... strangely lifeless in that regard, compared to having grown up in Saskatchewan, where there is no shortage!  Very few butterflies, a few mosquitoes for brief periods in wet years... no wonder birds are scarce by comparison too!  (That and not being on a flyway...)  I assume it's the general aridity, and cold nights... who knows?

[Rodger Whitlock]

I now know never to visit [eastern Canada] in June again- although it was worth it for the heat

Excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor! Ontario and Quebec have nothing in the way of serious heat compared with the southeastern USA. Washington DC (where I grew up in the suburbs) regularly gets up to 100F (38C) in the summer, with relative humidity hovering near 100%, and not a breath of wind. And it gets worse as you go further south. In upland South Carolina, where my family originated, the temperature can get up to 100F (or higher) in May, and stay there until September!

Having lived now in coastal British Columbia (Canada's westernmost province) for many years and become acclimated to its cool maritime climate, I couldn't handle that kind of heat even if you paid me. I don't think the people who live in those hot climate areas these days could handle the heat and humidity without nearly universal air conditioning. When I were a boy, no such thing except in some commercial buildings, notably theaters.

Gardening in such hot climates poses real difficulties, but I remember one English hardy plant guru-ess who moved to Virginia and had great success with her garden there, finding that plants that performed only modestly in England throve in the humidity and heat. Campsis, in particular, did so well that it became something of a thug.

Canada, esp. the more northern areas, has an amazing fauna of biting insects. Blackflies that bite a little hunk out of your skin and inject anti-coagulant so you end up dripping with blood. Horse- and deer flies that bite out considerably larger hunks and will persist in buzzing round and round and round you until they spot an opening in your defenses. No-see-ums, biting gnats so tiny you no see 'em, that emerge about dusk and devour you alive. And mosquitoes!

Fortunately, where I am only mosquitoes are an issue (and that a minor one) in urban areas, though out in the bush no-see-ums and deerflies are fairly common.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..............chomp!

Do you have ticks in Bulgaria?

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Luc, the Silene kantzeensis is just over a year old (sown 16 March 2008 and planted out 20 May 2008). It has made a mat 30cm in diameter, but this is the first time I have grown it. I just had a look and all being well it has about 30 more buds scattered across the surface. I am not sure if they will all be open at once, or if there are clones that are better flowering than others. What was the source of yours? Mine was from seed I bought from Vojtech Holubec.

Mmm seems like a pretty strong grower then... I'll have to allow it more space than I first planned...
I got mine as a plant from a Dutch grower who I believe had visited China a couple of years ago.. I suppose it might originate from wild collected seed.
Thanks for the info !

[johnw]

I now know never to visit [eastern Canada] in June again- although it was worth it for the heat

Canada, esp. the more northern areas, has an amazing fauna of biting insects. Blackflies that bite a little hunk out of your skin and inject anti-coagulant so you end up dripping with blood. Horse- and deer flies that bite out considerably larger hunks and will persist in buzzing round and round and round you until they spot an opening in your defenses. No-see-ums, biting gnats so tiny you no see 'em, that emerge about dusk and devour you alive. And mosquitoes!

Fortunately, where I am only mosquitoes are an issue (and that a minor one) in urban areas, though out in the bush no-see-ums and deerflies are fairly common.

Roger - So we don't scare off visitors let it be known that most cities in Canada do not have these nasty rural bugs (aside from the outermost suburbs).  Winnipeg, the mosquito capital is the one exception I can think of.

I remember as a teen being caught in a traffic jam for 2 hours in Richmond, Virginia, 100F and very high humidity.  No air conditioning and the vinyl seats were so hot we had to keep moving in the car so we didn't stick fast.

johnw

[Sinchets]

Thanks Lori, Ithought to myself as soon as I had posted that maybe 'Malachite' was not the right name and wondered where I had got it from. So I guess the green backed hummingbirds. 
John W, Medeola virginica has been one of a friend'sdream plants for years- personally I agree with you- a poor man's Paris. It was on sale in the UK from 1 nursery for a few years and then vanished never to be listed again. 
Rodger, I was there in a hots ummer- the humid heat sat over the area for weeks and even the wildlife was torpid. I am used to heat in Bulgaria, but here it is usually a drier heat. By the way the stories of ticks here are overhyped you have to be 'lucky' to find one. 
Maggiepie, my sister says she is still shocked by how much life seems to end in Montreal during the winter and then returnafter the snow has gone building up to a fever pitch of activity for the few months of summer.
Luc, my pleasure.