Butternut

One of the trees native to Prince Edward County is the Butternut.  Four years ago we purchased two saplings - they were about a foot high and came in a plastic bag from a conservation authority sale.  They've both grown a little bit every year until this year, when one in particular just took off.  It must have liked the mild winter.  It's grown about a metre or so this year and has sent out 12 or 18 branches from the crown.  Just wondering what it's going to look like in winter, and if I'll have to do some pruning.  Here it is, just to the left of The Mound.

First week in July, 2012

The big gardening news this year - well, two big headlines, I guess:  DROUGHT and RABBITS.
It's been really dry this summer - only two rainfalls in the past three weeks, everything is wilty and the rain barrels are empty already.  That being said, nothing has died, yet.  I'll need to bring the pump out and start some irrigation though at the end of the month.  The main colour at this time of year is purple - with those small Alliums blooming, as well as Clematis and Echinacea. 

A success story - so far anyway - is the Lilac I rescued from the ditch.  Every year the County mows the sides of the roads once or twice.  A kilometre west of me is a lovely old house with a huge Lilac hedge in front - 12 feet high or so.  Every year it sends up seedlings in the ditch and this year I dug up two little plants (not so little - about three feet) just days, it turns out, ahead of the mowers coming along.  This little guy is getting most of my rain barrel water!

Rabbits Rabbits everywhere this year!! Where are the coyotes ???   Glad I didn't plant carrots!

Work continues on The Mound.  The Daylilies I transplanted there last fall are blooming now and taking over one section.  I have a bunch more I started from seed (including some interesting crosses between yellow and red) waiting in my allotment garden - I'll put them in this September.  I also plan to transplant the remaining Peonies (four or five I think) that once were so lovely but now are almost completely shaded out by my growing White Spruce.

Stilted Ninebark

I planted a pair of Ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius) a number of years ago and they've grown into a lovely shrub.  They've proven really forgiving of the secateurs - at first I pruned them for height, and then I thought I'd give them a weird sharp - start low to high like a wave, and now I've stilted them, pruning them up so you see their bare legs, and the lovely exfoliating bark.  This is a really hardy native species, growing in a really dry part of the field, shaded somewhat by some tall pines directly south.  I'll get a photo at some point of the bark, but here they are today, in full bloom:

The Mound

Eight or nine years ago a contractor friend dumped several loads of "clean" fill onto a front corner of the property.  Of course the definition of "clean" is subjective, and I've since dug out from it many chunks of concrete, sewage pipe and big limestone chunks -- it seems he was digging out the foundation of an old house to make way for a new one.  Some good things have come of it, though:  Peony, Iris and Hosta somehow survived the trauma and I've transplanted some beautiful heritage varieties to other gardens.  The Mount itself I left alone and it soon transformed into a home for enormously tall wildflowers - most of them not really welcome.  Last year I started to reclaim the Mound - here are some shots:
Last June after I cleared away about a quarter of it:  

I transplanted daylilies, Peony, Iris, Rudbeckia, Echinacea last year plus dug in some Tulip bulbs; I also scattered seeds from Lupin, Liatris and Hollyhock and there are many Lupin sprouts this year.  I mulched a bit this spring and tadded stone steps to the top.

The next stages will include  clearing away the rest of the Mound, adding more steps to the centre and continuing to transplant things from elsewhere on the property - there's always an over-abundance of Echinacea sprouting up!

Magnolias!

I started a few Magnolias from seed seven or eight years ago - one is a Cucumber Magnolia and the other is an Umbrella Magnolia.  They went from pots in my backyard to the allotment garden to the County.  This year the Cucumber Magnolia bloomed!  Lovely smallish (compared to Saucer Magnolia) yellow flowers with a slight lemony fragrance - I've renamed it my Lemon Magnolia!

Not to be outdone, the Umbrella Magnolia is once again sending out its enormous leaves.  I love how each one starts out protected in its own tissue thin membrane that peels away as the leaf grows.