It’s Still Just Dirt – The Tillsonburg News, July 23, 2014
by Penny Esseltine
Last month we talked about Refreshing the Tired Garden with information from Carlo Balistrieri, Head of Horticulture at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington. For July we’re continuing with this theme by talking to Tillsonburg Horticultural Society members about changes they’ve made in an effort to refresh their own tired garden spaces.
If you remember Carlo said gardens can tire in three ways – through the natural process of aging, from weather or cataclysmic events, and through neglect.
Natural Aging Process
I’ll start with the story of a 24 foot angel stone planter garden at the front of my porch. For almost 20 years 12 glossy green boxwood shrubs filled it up. Starting out at less than a foot tall, they grew to about four feet and were trimmed annually to maintain that height. Being glossy and green all year long is an especially nice characteristic of boxwood. This past winter claimed several. Glossy green changed to dry yellow. Seven small mugo pines now take their place. Fingers crossed that they will be slow growing and provide a lush front look for years.
Weather/Cataclysmic Event
Christine Nagy says weather had a part to play in changes in her garden this year. Due to the especially harsh winter she lost a number of plants including two butterfly bushes which she chose to replace with hydrangeas. Christine expects the hydrangea to be hardier than the butterfly bushes. As well she lost three roses and about half of a beautiful rose vine growing over an arbour that has always been a prolific bloomer (the rose vine, not the arbour). “I had to take the hedge clippers to the rose vine to clear the damaged parts. Amazingly it has come back better than ever after this especially hard pruning.”
Jan Torrell also lost butterfly bushes this past winter. “The extreme cold killed them for lots of people,” she says. “Plants that were exposed above the snow had trouble, whereas those that were covered with snow were okay.” Jan replaced her butterfly bushes with newer, hardier varieties.
This summer too Jan has replaced some of her oriental lilies with day lilies because of red lily beetles. “The beetles don’t eat day lilies,” she says.
Neglect
Judi Misener and her husband Bill moved to a new home in Courtland late in 2013. 2014 is the first growing season for them there. Judi says they took down 22 spruce trees on the one-and-a-half acre property that were substantially past their prime. In their stead they have planted blue spruce, a red oak, a willow, and two pawpaw trees. Pawpaw is a rare and endangered species native to the Carolinian Region. Judi says the once gorgeous property is largely just plain overgrown. She and Bill have thinned out plants and are now waiting to see what spaces remain to be filled. “We have a four-year plan,” Judi says. “In the first year we’re figuring out what is there and what we want to keep. In Year two we’ll be planting. Year three will be for seeing what takes hold and looks especially good, and when we get to year four it will quite likely be a time to reorganize again.” No tired garden on the horizon here.
Coming Up
In August we plan to continue with the refreshing the tired garden theme. Here’s an invitation to gardeners (horticultural members or not) to share your personal refreshing the tired garden stories through the column. If you prefer to ask for advice about how to solve a particular tired garden problem at your home we can answer questions too. Send your story or query to tillsonburghorticultural@live.ca.
The Tillsonburg Horticultural Society will launch its fall season of meetings on Tuesday, September 2 with guest speaker and gardening guru Ken Brown. If you’re looking to try something new this fall be assured that annual memberships at $15 are still available and membership benefits are outstanding. For information visit tillsonburghorticultural.ca.