Toronto's High Park - Native Plant Sale: May 7th, 2017

If you live in the Toronto area and would like to know more about and to buy native plants  - please visit High Park's Native Plant Sale. Sunday May 7th, 2017

Here's their info and website:

High Park Stewards Native Plant Sale

Sale Location: In front of the High Park Greenhouses. (Plants for sale are subject to availability.) For more information go to www.highparknature.org or
email stewards@highparknature.org.  

"The plants in this sale are grown in the High Park greenhouses by volunteers as part of the High Park Stewards program. They are sold to encourage the use of native plants in home gardens and are perennial, except where noted. You can learn about the plants in the rare black oak ecosystem in High Park, and help restore its ecosystem by joining High Park Stewards events. This list is subject to plant availability."

 

What's available:

Plants for sun, shade, wet conditions....you name it!
Link ---> http://www.highparknature.org/wiki/uploads/Resources/plant_sale_brochure_2017.pdf


Where:

Some restrictions: " For fairness, the maximum number of plants available per person before 1:00 pm is restricted to small orders. After 1:00 pm, larger orders can be filled, depending on the number of plants available. " 

Sign up to volunteer!

Help our gardens and pollinators flourish! Please go!

Heidi, What's Wrong with my Hinoki Cypress? It's going brown!

Growing Hinoki Cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa nana) in Southern Ontario can be a challenge at times, considering we get whopper winters occasionally. So when I was asked this question - I was hesitant to think winter damage.

From far, yeah, the cypress was quite brown. Don't jump to conclusions, but rather take a closer look.

No browning was coming from the inside of the plant, but instead on its tips.

These are in fact pollen cones.

Conifers fall under a classification known as Gymnosperms. They don't have flowers like other classifications (Angiosperms). They instead bear cones within their scale leaves which later develop seed for reproduction.

What you are seeing, are swelling cones borne at the tips of the scale foliage of the cypress. They will age brown but for now are almost reddish pink.

I will update in a week or so, when the pollen is ready to be released.

Not to worry, this plant is happy and ready to reproduce - bearing seed cones later in the summer.

It's a good time to mulch beneath the plant and water if rains are infrequent. Overall - a happy plant. Nothing wrong. Just the plant doing its thing...

Rose Mildew - Podosphaera pannosa (on Rosa glauca)

I'm sure I'm not the only one who is concerned about Southern Ontario winters and spring thaws.  We never seem to get a slow warm up in spring anymore. Instead, there's constant fluctuations; +10˚C one day, -8˚C the next.

One of the results of these fluctuations, is mould and fungus development on many plants.

I just walked through the gate and noticed something on our hardiest of roses. 

Do you notice it?

Rosa glauca is one of the main pollinator plants we use to attract insects and birds to the garden. 

Rosa glauca's simple, single flowers attract so many pollinators. It's so lovely to watch and the flowers say nothing but hello and bring vibrance to a dark corner.

Great silver/blue foliage allow the orange-red hips to jump out in contrast. Birds love these hips.

Incredibly tough and hardy, there aren't too many disease issues with this rose at all.

I've never dealt with mildew on this rose before, but as I bent down the stems to see the powdery white mass that I spotted way above my head, it revealed more on the other side.

In fact, I found about 6 younger stems with this white furry coating.

I pruned it back to about 12" below the coated area to avoid any mildew from coming in contact with other stems or the stem it was cut from.  Be thorough with removal and try not to dislodge any mildew or let it come in contact with any remaining stems.

Do not compost these stems. Burn or put them out for yard waste pick up. This stem (above) was sitting in our yard-waste pile a day after pruning and you'll see the mildew age to a light brown/mocha colour.  I tucked it down into the bin, so that no spores would become air-born and invade other plants near by.

As I examined the stems closely, the mildew spores invade the breathing holes called lenticels of the stem. Eventually spreading into a cottony mass. If left, the mildew would reach the buds and cause the leaves to be coated as well as the flower buds. Eventually stunting the plant, making it lose vigour and possible flowering ability.

Once leaves start to emerge, I will examine the rose more thoroughly to see any overlapping branches or growth that requires thinning out - which helps to promote more air circulation and a better tidied appearance. This is rose we generally allow to ramble and become large. I rather hate pruning it needlessly.

Heavy sigh...

At least finding it now has been one great preventative - so that we can enjoy a healthy plant this upcoming summer.

Overwintering Kale

Kale.....yummmm....kale. We bought this variety last summer called: Russian Red.

The great aspect of harvesting kale as it grows, it gets taller and taller, which helps deter it from too much slug damage and makes it easy to pick leaves.

Last year we grew it in pots; we grew it in perennial beds and we grew it in our herb garden.

Our herb garden is slightly shaded on one side and protected from serious winds. Sparing it from the compost, I left it with overwintering hopes. Lo' and behold, it did survive. Thankfully our winter was milder than expected.

I had spring hopes for this particular plant. We heaped leaves and debris over the base of the roots to help insulate it. Even though we enjoyed as many leaves from it as possible, I made sure to spare the top bunch of leaves to keep the plant alive. The flavour of kale is enhanced due to the cold weather, so the others we grew in our other locations were completely harvested. They were so tasty.

Now as you look closely, the buds along the main stem are starting to open.  This was my hope for the spring. Yay!

We will harvest small plant-lets as they unfurl and put them in salads or stir fries. Will let you know if they are bitter or whatever taste emerges. As it keeps growing, we hope it bolts and provides us with seeds for this coming summer to keep the cycle of plants going.

....

So happy to see other plants peaking through as well:

Raddichio is a hit and miss, so we are happy to see some return for our salads this spring.

Parsley too.

Makes us happy to have a few plants we can harvest from this spring. Helps take the edge off waiting to see our tiny seedlings give us hope for summer harvests.

Hope you've had some luck overwintering tender plants in southern Ontario too.  So glad spring is here!

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Update on Kale:

It's now, May 7th and the Kale has grown over a foot taller with more "florets" and leaves for us to enjoy. I will use as much as we can before it bolts and sets seed. I thoroughly am enjoying this extended season of harvest. We've eaten the florets from the stem in salads and stir fries. So yum!