Yes! “Dallying” is still alive although sputtering along as we adjust to our new, limited gardening, life 13 stories above the closest soil. We are still delighted with our life’s alterations but were reminded of year’s past as the first seed catalogues showed up in the mail today. The plan is to have a reimagined “Dallying” appearing regularly next year with lots of great gardening information. It will include regular visits to other interesting and significant gardens and that will be the focus of today’s missive. We went travelling to the west coast at the end of October and visited a few gardens and lots of family and friends.
Butchart Gardens is a well known and rather spectacular destination on Vancouver Island close to Victoria. This garden started by the Butchart family as a cement quarry in 1904 and as the ore petered out in 1912, Jennie Butchart started to transfer the Quarry into the spectacular garden that we visited this past October. It is now owned and operated by Great Granddaughter Robin. At this time of year the sunken garden’s multitude of colours comes mostly from the many Japanese Maples showing off their autumn foliage.
Not many summer blooms remained but the huge Dahlia collection captivated us as we wandered along almost half a kilometre of path bordered by them. They varied from a quite short to over 2 m tall and displaying an impressive variety of bloom types and colour combinations. Some of the stems on the tall ones looked like they might need a chain saw to cut them down. I wondered how late these amazing blooms would last, I think first frost there is mid November. Each time I spotted one that I found particularly fascinating I had to remind myself that it wouldn’t do well on my balcony.
The gardens were not quiet. There were several beds that had, obviously, just been replanted with some cool weather annuals and it would be interesting to return in a couple of weeks to see them in bloom. We watched one planting crew working very efficiently planting thousands of new Tulip bulbs in between the freshly planted annuals. The speed with which they worked was facilitated by the very soft cultivated soil they were working in. A quick jab with a long trowel, drop the bulb in the opening and them remove the trowel and level the soil before grabbing the next bulb, probably in less than a minute. We had a fun conversation with them as there were two crews working from the opposite ends of the bed and having a bit of race to the centre.
Wherever we wandered we would see these large Maple leaves mostly in this bright yellow colour. I didn’t know it and that drives me to find out what it might be. The miracle of those little phones we all carry, quickly identified it as Acer macrophyllum or bigleaf maple. It is native to a narrow band of the pacific northwest coast. It does produce maple syrup but it has a somewhat different flavour and has never become commercialised. It’s wood is a typical hardwood and is used in veneer furniture and some musical instruments. The large leaves were used by aboriginals to cover food in their cooking pits.
Upon our return home we were pleasantly surprised by the containers on the balcony. These Begonias were still looking pretty healthy on the ninth of November. The Celosia and the Petunias were also in good shape. Frost free until the middle of November, maybe a little global warming.
They were obviously hanging on to welcome us home as two days later they were looking pretty sad. Their lovely pots are terra cotta and could be subject to some winter damage so we tidied them up and transported them to our little storage unit in the underground parking. That space also holds the biggest of my Amaryllis and it is having a rest and cool period and should come back upstairs and give us its usual 30+ blooms. Just another adaptation to apartment gardening.
I am, of course, always available to speak to garden clubs or other interested groups and you can find some of my topics on my web page
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