Canada Day Festivities

Canada Day dawned bright and cool, perfect for a morning's work in the garden. But first, a stroll to observe some of the beautiful, odd things therein.

This is a meadow rue that we purchased at a Native Ontario plant sale. It has taken off like crazy; I had no idea that it would sprout up to be as tall as (or taller than) me. It's wacky.


Another plant we love, even though it's not native, is our Japanese quince. Dark coral flowers grow up and down along its branches in the spring. And then, fruit appears!

This is fourth summer for the quince, and the first for fruit.

The big task of the day, though, was a rather sad one. In seven years, we've tried twice to grow a viburnum; we love their big white blossoms. The first was a beautiful, delicate (too delicate?) European viburnum, which lasted two years before having every single leaf eaten by beetles. We replaced it with what had been advertised as a much hardier hybrid. It was also much less beautiful. But it was a viburnum, and it too would have had big white blossoms if the beetles hadn't shown up and eaten just about all its leaves every one of the last five years. The tenacious buggers defied Kelly's ministrations with hoses and various noxious (but not toxic!) concoctions. We consulted our landscape architect friend, who confirmed an ongoing infestation.

It was time to say goodbye. The little tree was dispatched by about 6 sharp chops with the loppers, and 15 minutes heavy digging.

And in its place we planted something a little more indigenous: a sumac. It looks tiny now but it can grow up to 6 feet high and 8 feet wide.

And when it grows up, it will look beautiful with the quince and the lilac.

The rest of the morning we spent clipping, pruning, moving things around, and generally enjoying our little garden. We harvested some Russian kale for our supper.

We've got some carrots, chard, and garlic in there too. We harvested the garlic scapes last week. They've made cameo appearances in several salads and a very good frittata.

But of course we wouldn't want to be accused of laying about on a summer day, so Kelly painted the trim on the garage -- just another one of many steps in our garage rehab project. Then she tacked up some bright new material for drapes, and planted and re-installed the window boxes.

Those barrels in front have Kentucky Wonder and some kind of purple Italian pole beans, and sugar snap peas, which look like they're getting ready to pop.

Working in the dirt was a splendid way to spend the national holiday. Due to the city workers' strike in Toronto, the usual beachfront fireworks display was canceled -- a disappointment for many folks, but not us.

We just sat outside and watched a magical cloud show instead.