Pink Dawn

One of the few flowering gems at this time of the year is the lovely Pink Dawn Viburnum (Viburnum x bodnatense 'Pink Dawn').  This deciduous shrub drops it's leaves in fall and bursts fragrant powder pink blooms, from red buds, on its rough branches from Fall until early Spring. These blooms are later followed by bird-attracting red berries that mature to black. These shrubs look absolutely at home in a woodland garden bed and especially when in close proximity to a Winter blooming Witchazel and a mass of red twigged dogwood.  Quilchena has three Pink Dawn Viburnum shrubs massed in the centre of the garden bed adjacent to the parking lot and the pond at the #18 hole. When you're making your way to the #10 hole take a look to the right and check out these Winter wonders. These bushy shrubs eventually reach a height of up to 10 feet with a potential 6 foot spread by maturity.  They prefer full to part sun with well drained soil.  It's an excellent Winter specimen plant for the Westcoast.  If you have some extra room in your back border I would highly recommend picking one of these up.

White Gardens

The last article I wrote was in reference to Moon gardening, using the moon cycles to dictate proper stewardship of the land.  The ideas of Moon gardening made me think of the white gardens in Sissinghurst Castle, which in my mind stands as a model for the modern day moon garden because it is most appreciated at twighlight. Vita Sackville-West, and her husband, designed and built the gardens in the 1930's on the grounds of Sissinghurst in the county of Kent in South East England .  She designed the gardens to have different "rooms". In one of these rooms she filled the space with white blooming flowers, and plants with foliage in silver and grey. This monochromatic design was created to reflect the brightness of the moon and fill the garden with light and enchantment in the darkness of the night.

When I owned a Garden business, a client of mine requested a white garden be built in her "back 40" as a memorial to her late husband.  It was a charming space underneath a Horse Chestnut tree carpeted with moss.  She wanted the garden to feel like it was just chanced upon and that it held stories. She wanted a small table and two chairs to have conversations with her husband, if by chance he came by for a visit.  But also as a space for serenity and reflection.  A small rock gurgler water feature was placed near where she sat and two ornately carved concrete planters anchored the entrance. They eventually softened with a moss patina. A large urn concrete planter filled with white blooming plants and trailing ivy sat underneath the base of the tree.  Soft grey cobblestone pavers were embedded into the moss to create a small pathway leading into the space.  Mass plantings of shade loving ferns and perennials, in shades of silver and white, bordered the forest floor and cascaded down the planters.  It certainly became the enchanted and serene space that she had imagined.

White gardens are pure, transcendent, fresh, luminescent and magical.  When the green backdrop mellows in twilight, the brightness of the white plants really start to shine. When building a white garden it's important to remember all of your senses are enhanced in the darkness of the light.  There is a certain drama that precedes white gardens.  As the lights dim our other senses are more dominant. I think it's valuable to take advantage of these qualities.  A wholly thyme groundcover underfoot softens the space and fills the air with the essence of herbs. Consider planting ornamental grasses, like the gentle Mexican feather grass (Stipa tenuisima), that move in the lightest breeze and make the space come alive. Mirrors can be attached to a wall, fence or trellis to reflect more light and create the illusion of a keyhole into another garden. A well placed stone or concrete structure demand attention and can create the most interesting shadows.  A water fountain or pond contribute to the space through light reflection, movement and sound. Wooden structures, like fences, arbors and walls, can be painted white to reflect even more light to the space. They can also be stained in dark colours to soften the background and provide the illusion that the plants are climbing on their own. Backlight a tree or illuminate a pathway with soft lights to really awaken the space. There are so many tricks to complete this magical story.

There are plenty of our perennial favourites with white blooms. Some of my personal favourites are white blooming Wisteria (Wisteria floribunda 'Alba'), White Lavender (Lavendula x intermedia 'Alba'),Visions in White Astilbe (Astilbe chinensis 'Visions in White'), Iceberg Rose (Rosa floribunda 'Iceberg') and the double flowering Clematis 'Arctic Queen'.

There is of course new varieties of plants being hybridized every day with silver and variegated foliage that would be really successful in a white garden.  Silver foliaged Artemisia, Lamb's ear (Stachys byzantina), and Glacier Blue Mediteranean Spurge (Euphorbia characias 'Glacier Blue'), Siberean Bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla "Jack Frost"), Lungwort "Silver Shimmers", Snow-in-Summer (Cerastium tomentosum), and Sea Holly (Eryngium maritimum) to name a few.

I hope you have the opportunity one day to create a white room in your garden some day! Have a serene and reflective day!

Darkest Night of the Year

Due to the lunar eclipse lying on one of the longest night of the year, we just experienced the longest, darkest night in 500 years last night. The sky was still dark during the 8 am tee time this morning.

This natural phenomenon makes me reflect on what our ancestors were feeling 500 years ago in 1513 when their sky also unraveled into darkness for an unthinkable amount of time with no t.v. or artificial light to distract them. At a time when King Henry VIII ruled England and was still married to Catherine of Aragon. I'm sure they would have been bewitched by the magnitude of the blackened sky. Planting, harvesting and storing crops was very much dictated by the moon in those times. Early humans noted the effect that the moon's gravitational pull had on water flow of moisture to the soil and how the moonlight effected seed germination. There are early examples of tracking the moon cycle for agricultural purposes as far back as 8000 years ago.  

The Old Farmer's Almanac has been a publication for farmers and homeowners since 1792. This valuable resource contains tide charts, planting information and weather forecasts.  This pubication gets it's weather predictions using a mathametical equation derived from sunspots, tidal activity and moon phases.  A person living in the USA that goes by the name of Caleb Weatherbee is the only person currently alive to have access to this formula (I didn't make that up).  Every year they print out an up-to-date copy to advise people of agricultural and animal husbandry needs according to Weatherbee's calculations.  Here is an example taken directly from their publication regarding some gardening practices in reference to the moon cycle. Maybe you can use some of this advise for your home garden.  Happy Moon gardening!

The Moon's phases guided many a farmer and gardener in the past, and still do today:

• Moonrise occurring in the evening brings fair weather, says one proverb, harking back to the belief that the waning Moon (full and last quarter, which rise in the evening) is dry.
• The New Moon and first quarter, or waxing phases, are considered fertile and wet.
• The new and first-quarter phases, known as the light of the Moon, are considered good for planting above-ground crops, putting down sod, grafting trees, and transplanting.
• From full Moon through the last quarter, or the dark of the Moon, is the best time for killing weeds, thinning, pruning, mowing, cutting timber, and planting below-ground crops.
• The time just before the full Moon is considered particularly wet, and is best for planting during drought conditions.

A Few of My Favourite Things

Christmas is just around the corner.  With all these raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens and brown paper packages tied up with string, I thought I'd come up with a few of my favourite things....gardening video wise anyway.  I've added three videos; a 30 Year Old Food Forest in Australia, a 300 Year Old Food Forest in Vietnam, and a 2000 Year Old Food Forest in Morocco.

A food forest is a agricultural system that is based on a woodland ecosystem.  A food forest has herbs, perennial vegetables, shrubs and fruit and nut trees growing along side each other in a self sustainable manner. It's an edible forest, hence 'food forest'.  These systems are incredibly low maintenance.  The trees lose their leaves and mulch the plants to replenish the soil.  Edible vines climb up the trees reaching for light and increasing their yield. Livestock run freely through the system and fertilize the forest floor. Food forests provide so much back considering the labour required to maintain them.  I went to a Food Forest workshop in Vancouver a few years back from BC expert Richard Walker.  He is the founder of Dragon's Eye Nursery in Grand Forks.  He hosts Food Forest Workshops in the Lower Mainland regularly, I urge you to sign up if you're interested.  They tend to sell out quickly though because of his 25 years of expertise and wealth of knowledge. His nursery is chock full of edible plants that are winter hardy to Northern BC conditions.  There is also a local nursery in South Delta called Tropic to Tropic Plants owned by Ray Mattei that has an inventory of tropical and winter hardy edible plants and trees.  One day I hope to own a piece of land to create my own food forest.  I hope you can watch these videos and be inspired by the possibilities with your own yard.

Inspired by Claude Monet

I have images imprinted in my brain of Claude Monet's paintings in watery blues and vibrant greens from the years of flipping through my Mom's art books as a child.  The movement and romance of the scenes were  recreated through Monet's impressionist strokes.  My bucket list is growing with all the beautiful gardens around the world that I plan on visiting but top of my list is definitely Monet's garden in France. Residing 50 km's North West of Paris in a village called Giverny, sits the homestead of Claude Monet. The gardens on Monet's property inspired his paintings, but his painting also inspired his gardens.  After researching this topic, I've learned that Monet was an innovative garden designer. After travelling to the South of France with Renoir he experienced an inspiration to design his gardens on his own property in Northern France to be the muse of his paintings.  Structures were installed to cast a diffused light on the surface of his ponds to capture the shape of the water lilies on the surface. Lighting and composition was integral to his art, so Monet organized the landscape on his Giverny property to create the ideal painting.

The Giverny estate is divided into two gardens; The Clos Normand and The Water Garden. The Clos Normand is about a hectare of land leading from the front door to the road.  Large rot iron arches are anchored through the center of this garden and are covered with, brambling, blooming climbing roses. The groundcover carpeting the center of the archway is a mass planting of nasturtiums. On either side of the archway a planting of orchards and ornamental trees interplanted with brightly coloured annuals and perennials illuminate the space.  Monet, the master of colour and composition, organized the plantings according to shape, colour and size of plants.  His garden design creates a very breezy balance comprising common flowers of daisies, delphiniums, lupins, peonies, holyhock and poppies with rare varieties of more unique flowers. Take a moment to imagine yourself drifting through the warm paths of rose scented Clos Normand on a Summer's day with a glass of chilled white wine in your hand.  It's enough to make you want to grab a paintbrush and canvas and recreate it, isnt' it? 



As beautiful as Clos Normand likely is, The Water Garden may be the setting of the more iconic memories of my favourite Monet paintings. Monet was deeply inspired with the gardens and art from Japan at the time.  He collected Japanese clay tiles which he used as accents around his house, as well as Asian plants often found in Japanese water gardens that he had seen in photographs and paintings. His water garden really captures the meditative principles of Japanese gardens combined with the romanticism of the French. A very uncomplicated, yet expressive design.  Monet's water gardens featured a passenger bridge, often depicted in his paintings, abundant with wisteria blooms.  Bamboo, azalea, solomon's seal, weeping willow, iris's and of course water lilies are also planted in Monet's water garden.

Yellow Blooming Magnolia

Final Episode Bearded Iris

At pond #18, I've created my own Monet inspired garden. As I was planning it out, I couldn't ignore the sensibility and simple beauty of mass plantings of water lilies and iris's igniting the landscape in the Spring then mellowing throughout the Summer months. A quiet balance of colour and reflection. Iris's are the foundation planting around the marginal garden. Native Western Blue Iris (Iris missouriensis), Douglas Iris (Iris douglasiana) and Wild Flag Iris (Iris setosa) are the mass of the selection.  Additionally, larger hybrids like 'Final Episode', 'Speeding Again' and 'Tour de France' are planted throughout.  A really generous member donated a yellow beared iris variety to the mix as well.  So Thank you!  Additional bulbs used in the planting are Indian Hyacinth (Camassia esculenta),  Hounds Tooth Violet (Erythronium 'Pagoda'), Calla lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica ) and assorted tulips and daffodils. Three yellow blooming Magnolia trees are bordering the West side of the pond and a dwarf Japanese maple on the South.  I can't wait.  In the future we plan on planting the South naturalized side with wild flowers and soft ornamental grasses on the West side to screen the pumphouse.  It should be a great show in Spring!

Wild Flag Iris

Beauty Berry

Have you ever sat through a movie that was ho-hum but temporarily captivated you with beautiful cinematography, brilliant acting from a secondary character or an unexpected plot twist?  Otherwise the movie was nap-tastic. Well, if this movie could be a plant, it would be the Beauty Berry (Callicarpa bodiniera). For the majority of the year, this insignificant plant sidles beside other plants quietly taking up room and just listening.  It may just be the kind of plant that one might not even know exists in their garden...until Winter arrives that is. As the weather cools down and plants start to lose their leaves, so does Beauty Berry. That's when this plant really shines.  As the leaves drop, all that is left are unthinkably beautiful purple berries on the bare stems of this deciduous shrub.  Basically this dowdy plants undresses to expose the most exquisitely constructed French lingerie.

You can spot two Beauty Berry shrubs at the #12 hole garden and another one at the entrance to of the Turf Care Centre. There is over 140 species of the genus Callicarpa from North America, Asia and Australia, but the most common ornamental species is bodiniera which originates from West-Central China. This medium sized shrub has a loose habit with fine leaves and small clusters of tiny flowers in white and pink. Beauty berry is from the Lamiaceae family (same family as many common herbs) and is used for jelly, wine and...insect repellent.  Fortunately, the berries of this plant are one of the last food sources for birds over the Winter, that means plenty of time to enjoy them!

Bufflehead Duck

It's a balmy minus 3 outside. The golf course is under frost delay. The air is still and the ground is frosty and stiff.  Ice rinks are developing out of the irrigation ponds and the morning sunrise has stained the sky for the last hour. It's a gorgeous Winter morning and a terrific day to spend inside writing blogs and staring out onto the frozen landscape. Last week, two friendly female members inside the kiosk inquired about the "ducks or birds" at the #3 irrigation pond. Unfortunately, I didn't know what "duck bird" they were speaking of. I was armed with the knowledge they were black and white and had short necks.  I've been piecing it together over the last week.  Fortunately, Superintendent Jason had snapped a photograph of them and uncovered the mystery for me.

It seems the Bufflehead Duck or Spirit Duck (Bucephala albeola) was paying Quilchena a visit over the last week.  These small migratory American sea ducks range in size from 13-16" long and 9.5-19 oz. The male ducks, or drakes, are larger than the female ducks with an average size of 14" long and a weight of 13 oz.  The attractive drakes have shiny green and purple feathers with white patches as contrast on the head and the body. From a distance these male ducks look black and white. The female duck is a more dowdy grey-brown with an oval white patch on the cheek. The name Bufflehead, breaking down into "buffalo" "head", refers to the oddly large balloon-shaped heads of these ducks, .

Bufflehead Ducks forage for submerged vegetation in shallow, open waters, which may be why they are so attracted to the irrigation ponds throughout the golf course.  These ducks have vigorous appetites though. They dive for aquatic crustaceans, mollusks and invertebrates. In freshwater, they eat flies, larvae, zooplankton, clams and snails. In saltwater, they consume shrimp, crabs, snails, mussels, herring eggs, ratfishes, etc. Hungry little guys!

The interesting fact about this species of duck is they live in tandem with the Northern Flicker bird. They migrate in close proximity to these woodpeckers because they nest in the tree cavities that have been carved out by them. In fact, their bodies have evolved their small size to fit into the small nesting cavities of these birds. This relationship of dependency is referred to as metabiotic. The last few weeks I have been noticing small flocks of the Northern Flicker birds foraging for insects on the ground around the golf course and it has seemed to be perfectly timed to the appearance of the Bufflehead Duck.

Bufflehead ducks may not have roamed the Earth as long as Buffalo. But, there is recorded history that they have been around for at least 500,000 years.  And, there was a fossil found in California that resembles a bufflehead that dates back to two million years ago.  That's one  huge Family tree!  Sadly though, these birds are at risk due to hunting and forestry.  In order to preserve their legacy, Naturalist suggest installing Northern Flicker sized bird boxes for them to nest in. Not only are these ducks ancient, beautiful, buoyant, hungry and resourceful. They also adorn the Coat of Arms for the coastal town of Syney, B.C. Many reasons to protect these precious ducks.