By Sue Healey, Tillsonburg Horticultural Society

In the hush of January, after all the jangle of the holidays is done, I like to sift through my garden memories of the year just past. I take this quiet and bare time of the year to reflect on the seasons gone by and remember their glory. Every year in the garden is different. There are successes and failures, newlyfound treasures or old loves rediscovered. 2024 had all of that and more. And throughout the year, there were plants that regardless of what the months brought, flourished beyond all expectation. Through attention, weather, or just circumstance there were a variety of trees, and shrubs, perennials, and annuals that made 2024 a fabulous garden year.

Early heat brought the first stars of the year. Flowering bulbs in general and daffodils in particular put on a display inSouthwestern Ontario that surpassed all in my memory. Daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, and a myriad of others seemed to sprout in every yard through out the area. Rural ditches were splashed with the yellow of naturalized daffodils and the blue scilla. The hot, dry summer of 2023 gave most spring flowering bulbs the baking conditions they need to produce masses of blooms the following year. My show began in the still frosty days of March, with Iris reticulata nosing their way through the blanket of leaves. Their crowded spears opening to sear my eyes with fluted petals of magenta, sky blue and yellow. The daffodils were just as thick and only a few moments behind the little iris. Early, fragrant jonquils, sturdy King Alfreds in true daffodil yellow, bouquets of nameless nodding trumpets skirted in lemon, all multiplied. Each besting the late season sleet until finally, chalky white, poet’s narcissus closed out my daffodil show and the month of May. Tulips, both hybrid and species sprouted in places I’d thought them lost and doubled in those I knew. Through it all hyacinths bloomed feeding those early bees and flooding the garden with blue.

Summer brought mountain ranges of hydrangeas – their huge heads packed with blossoms in every shade of creamy green, pearly white or speckled pink. Whether it was mopheads or oakleaf, paniculata or lace-cap, the early and frequent rainsnourished this deciduous shrub into outlandish size and flowering. My Annabelles (Hydrangea arborescens) tumbled over themselves in their rush for the largest blooms. Throughout the summer, the stems toppled in waves, the rains bowing the plate sized heads till they lay on the grass, making room for a second crop of creamy white pom poms to be brought down in their turn. Blooming in late summer, the panicle hydrangea (H.paniculata) requires less moisture than the most of it’s genus, but they too benefited from the extra moisture the summer provided. My specimens of “Strawberry Sundae” and “Limelight” were covered in dozens of cone shaped flowerheads, some as large as my forearm. Sturdy and denselypacked, they last throughout the fall and winter providing shelter for any number of small creatures. Only the last of the March winds will pry the dried panicles loose. The individual florets scattering across the yard like confetti – a sure sign of spring. The last of the hydrangeas to bloom and my favourite of all, is oakleaf hydrangea (H. quercifolia). A shrub I would grow if it had no blooms at all, the leaves are that impressive. A 4-6 feet, deciduous shrub with large leathery leaves, that are, as the common name implies, oak leaf shaped. During summer, leaves are deep green to almost eggplant – handsome enough paired with creamy white flowers. Autumn, however, is the season in which this shrub shines. With the coming of cooler temperatures, the leaves deepen in colour, blazing in shades of red, plum, and yellow. They remain well into winter, each one like a gloved hand curled to catch the snow. When the leaves do finally fall, the peeling, tawny bark is revealed adding texture and colour during the winter season. Pruning should be done in early spring to maintain size before growth begins. Shrubs do well in full to part sun with the best colouring in full sun. 

And alas, I have room for only three stars of 2024, the first two having so many relations worth praising.

If I could only add one more for 2024, I would then choose the plant that has captivated me for the last few months and seems to have withstood all that the unpredictable weather has thrown at it. Miscanthus “Morning Light” (Miscanthus sinensis) a grass to lose your heart to. I have Morning Light growing outside my home office window and have watched her all through this year as she swayed in the wind, catching the light in every thin blade. Ornamental grasses often have bad reputations (many with good reason), but Miscanthus has never been a problem here. A warm season grass, growth begins in mid spring and flowering from mid to late September. Neither invasive or hard to divide, this clump forming grass is fountain shaped when full grown and thrives in poor soil with full sun. Thin white edged ribbons cascade in a fountain through each season with only the briefest of gaps in April, when I cut down the dried stalks and before the new blades emerge. While other grasses will collapse or splay in the wind and weather, Morning Light is blithely untouched by rain or snow. Her limbs move with the wind, plumes tossed about like braids undone, their crimped locks still glossy at the end of October. In the heart of winter, the tiny hairs surrounding each seed head will fluff and feather catching the snow like a mane of fur. Best situated where the sun can shine through the stalks, better still, a place where you can see it well and often.

There were other stars of the year, but they will have to wait for another grey day when distraction needed. A whole new list of distractions also awaits you at your local horticultural society, with full schedule of interesting topics and excellent presentations. Join us on Tuesday, January 7th, 2025, for our featured speaker:  Sean James, “Incorporating Edibles Into a Traditional Landscape.”

Tillsonburg Senior Centre

7:30 pm 

$20/ year $5/meeting

Come as guest, stay as a member.

📷Sue