President's Choice Insiders Report Garden Edition New Plant Introductions (Loblaws)

Every year around this time, Loblaws invites garden communicators to their President's Choice Insiders Report Garden Edition Mix and Mingle.  Peter Cantley and his team along with the PC growers give the media a sneak peek at what is going to hit the garden centres that spring.  The media also get to take home plants, as many as they can carry and fill their vehicles with.  These plants are for them to trial in their gardens so they can honestly report to their respective audiences what they think of them and how they performed.

Here is what Bruce was really excited about. 

PC Mighty 'Mato (Grafted Tomato Plants)
Big news for veggie gardeners!  We as a family absolutely love tomatoes.  Most of our veggie garden is tomatoes and all different varieties.  For us the more the merrier!!  By the end of the season our patio garden is absolutely wild and that's what we love.  This will be a very welcome addition to our veggie garden.

The Mighty Mato plants deliver abundant harvests from huge plants towering up to 6 feet tall and more.  They are grafted onto vigorous rootstock with an excellent ability to absorb nutrients from the soil and help defend against pests and disease.  The tomatoes mature earlier than the same varieties of tomatoes without a grafted rootstock.
Mighty 'Mato' can be grown in containers as well, as long as they are planted in very large containers.

Heuchera 'Amber Lady'
Anyone who knows Bruce, knows he loves heucheras.  This one caught his eye.  The vibrant reddish orange maple-leaf type foliage transforms throughout the season to provide a splashy display of colour.  Compact, it grows into a nice large mound.  It's super-hardy and will do well in sun or partial shade.  He has just the spot in what he calls our 'quiet garden'

Heuchera Amber Lady

Hardy Fig Tree
Yes, you read that right!  This fig can stay out all winter (hardy to zone 4) and it shoots back up and re-fruits year after year.  No more over-wintering in the garage and protecting it.

Hardy Fig Tree

Clematis 'Abilene'
Clematis 'Abilene' is a burgundy pink flower with yellow anthers that change colour as it matures.  This is a new introduction from award-winning clematis Raymond Evison.  Clematis 'Esme' has light blue petals and yellow anthers for contrast.

Clematis Abilene

Campanula 'Purple Get Mee'
This perennial acts like an annual, the rich blooms come back throughout summer to fall.  It is loaded with purple bell-shaped flowers.  The purple colour is very vibrant and definitely a magnet.

Campanula Purple Get Mee

PC Gigantico Gerbera -- Flori line Midi Dark Fireball
This is a beacon of blazing orange .  That orange turns to yellow at the centre of a two-tone flower that adds dimension to gardens and planters.  These are definitely destined for a planter in our backyard.

PC Super Gigantico Impatiens - SunPatiens Compact 'Hot Coral'
Have been told this gets big.  Just how big?  Well so big that it can resemble a shrub or hedge that's loaded with a mass of blooms.  It's bred for the sun and heat.  Two new varieties this year -- Hot Coral and Red.  Resistant to the new strain powdery mildew and great for filling a big area.

SunPatiens Compact Hot Coral

Anyone who knows Bruce, also knows he loves hostas.  These ones caught his eye.  He was not able to get either of the hostas to trial but will be looking for them in the garden centre.

Hosta 'Designer Genes'
Brilliant yellow foliage atop rhubarb red-like stems - what an amazing contrast.  If you have a partly shady spot that needs some brightening, this new hosta is it!

Hosta 'Designer Genes'

Hosta 'Rainforest Sunrise'

American Hosta Growers Association

2013 Hosta of the Year

'Rainforest Sunrise'

(Winterberry Farms/Anderson 2003)

Color - Medio-variegated

Size - Small (10"ht x 25"w)

Habit - Mounding

Bloom - Lavender

Parent - sport of ‘Maui Buttercups’

Gold leaves are margined with a nice dark green margin. Nicely corrugated even at a young age, the glossy cupped leaves also have thick substance. Pale lavender flowers in early summer

Hosta 'Rainforest Sunrise'

The Garden In April

With the weather so beautiful, everything is popping in the garden.  Here is some of what is blooming or about to bloom in our garden.

Fernleaf Peony

Fernleaf Peony

Magnolia 'Leonard Messel'

Border garden

Fairy Gardening Creating Your Own Magical Miniature Garden -- Book Review

 

Fairy Gardening Creating Your Own Magical Miniature Garden by Julie Bawden-Davis & Beverly Turner is a whole new area of gardening for me.  Miniature gardening is the latest trend in gardening.  Fairy and miniature gardens have been made fun of with comments like "It's like playing with dolls."   It is not in that there is a living component.  Fairy &  miniature gardening can be done indoors, outdoors or both, just as we do with some tropical plants that only summer outdoors.  The cool thing about this type of gardening is that it is portable.  You can move it to a table or to an area where you are partying.  It can be added to a quiet nook where relaxation and conversion with a friend is the purpose of the garden.  Some people have their fairy or miniature garden mirror their home garden.  In the miniature garden it is so easy to rearrange the plants, furniture, fairies chickens, roosters, bicycles or even a whole stream.  In the fairy or miniature garden you can have watering cans, tools wheel barrows, urns, bird feeders, gazebos, arches, fences, bridges adirondak chairs, stepping stones, and gazing balls.  There are many accessories to use in a miniature garden.  I also thought you could have a toy soldier garden or a seasonal garden.  I would like to have  a toadstool garden with morels and houses in the larger mushrooms.  The Fairy Gardening Creating Your Own Magical Miniature Garden book by Julie Bawden-Davis & Beverly Turner from Skyhorse Publishing will teach you landscaping skills, give you ideas and encourage you to be imaginative.  It is also a gardening activity where your children can participate in .  You can even have them create their own fairy or miniature garden.  This is a great book with numerous inspirational colour pictures.

Brock University's Harlem Shake

What is the Harlem Shake?
The Harlem Shake: a dance move popularized by New York DJ Baauer may be the fastest-spreading meme on Canadian Campuses. . . ever? The jig is simpler than Gangnam Style: one person, usually wearing a mask, flails around unnoticed until suddenly, through the miracle of editing, everyone joins in.
See full article at oncampus.macleans.ca

Official Brock Harlem Shake Video  

on YouTube

Brock Harlem Shake Goes Viral Causes S5K Damage
St. Catharines Standard Article

Brock's Harlem Shake at Market.

Security Watching Brock's Harlem Shake

Cleaners blocked off doors to clean up mess.

Damaged Chairs, & Tables

Nessie, Summer & Winter

Summer Nessie

Winter Nessie

Update to Snowmageddon

Official total of Snowfall in 24 hours:  30 cm = 12 inches.  That's the most snow we have had since 1984 - 29 years ago.  St. Catharines bore the brunt of this snowstorm.

Nessie is completely buried now except for her Santa hat.

This rhodo is our meteorologist.  We do take into consideration what the weatherman says but most times we take a look outside the front door to see how the rhodo looks.  Our names for him are either "Perky MacPerkerton" or "Droopy MacDrooperton".  Either way we know how to dress for the day.  He has never been wrong!!

Rhododendron

 

Our street - unplowed

 Getting up this morning, I noticed the street has been plowed.  Now I need to shovel the end of the driveway otherwise we are not getting out this morning.

Snowmageddon

Well we got clobbered today.  It was definitely the Snowmageddon they have been predicting for the past 4 years. Not sure what the final total will be, but  I know I shoveled at least 10 inches of snow from our driveway. 

Nessie looks like she's drowning!

Nessie is covered with snow.  Both humps and tail are covered. 

Finishing off the steps.

Me supervising LOL!

The west side of our driveway, yes we do have a slight bank as our driveway slopes.  Our house is a raised bungalow & the garage is under the living room.  Imagine shoveling and hiffing the snow up and over this bank.  It got worse as the day when on.  Four times shoveling today and counting.  The thing covered with snow beside the metasequioa tree is an inukshuk.  Not that you can tell.

Snow covered inukshuk beside Metasequioa tree.

Every winter the snowplow operator has trouble knowing where the end of our driveway is.  We get a lot of packed snow at the end of our driveway making it hard to shovel and actually get out of our driveway.  He doesn't seem to know where the curb is.   Bruce put these reflectors at the end of our driveway to see if this would help the situation.  Today there was obviously more snow on the east side of the driveway than the west.

West side of the driveway.

East side of the driveway.

Standing beside the mound of snow on the east side of the driveway.

Me finishing off the steps.  Snow, snow & more snow.