Some home gardens harbour cherished “memory” plants, often gifts from family members or friends long departed. My mail includes many a question on how to prune, propagate, save or otherwise care for such significant plants.
In my own back garden I have a flowering quince (Chaenomeles) shrub and a patch of yellow wood violets, both from the garden across the street when Jim Lister owned the property.
Jim was a kindly, dignified gentleman, who often declared he asked no more of life than the ability to live it “with a little bit of grace.”
Jim loved the flowering quince, which blooms every spring and sends out runners, a habit that no doubt explains the origins of my plant in Jim’s garden. Jim thought I should also have the charming native violets in my garden. They have formed a low mat of tiny, bright green, heart-shaped leaves by the gate into the back garden.
Hidcote. A memory shrub that has been particularly lovely this early summer is Hypericum ‘Hidcote’ (shrubby or Hidcote hypericum). My friend Daphne brought it from the famed and fabulous Deep Cove garden of her parents, John and Ruth Trelawny.
I planted Hidcote in a small bed by the garden shed, where it has been a low-maintenance, vigorous and bushy plant ever since. A clematis alpina weaves its way through the shrub in summer, to flower the following spring, after which I cut the vine’s stems down to start a new cycle of growth.
Shortly after acquiring Hidcote, I asked John how he pruned it. His habit was to keep it trimmed back to around 120 centimetres. Last year, I gave my plant a hard pruning, taking out weak and dead stems and some of the oldest wood, and shortening all remaining stems considerably. Hidcote is at its best ever this summer, with a sunny and prolific display of large, golden flowers, visited enthusiastically by bees. Bloom continues through early autumn.
Hidcote flowers on the current year’s growth and is best pruned in spring. This bushy, semi-evergreen can be used as a hedge.
It’s a tough plant. In its site in my garden it remains brazenly voluptuous in the face of dryish conditions and tree root competition.
Old rose. The first rose planted in this garden was a gift from old friends and gardening associates of my parents, who visited me every autumn, as they did my parents before me, on annual business trips to the coast. Now, their two sons run the family garden business in Winnipeg.
The rose is an enduring plant, growing strongly and blooming well with a yearly fertilizing and compost mulching, in less than cushy soil conditions as nearby forest trees have grown to be monster sky-huggers with roots that have invaded the rose’s territory.
Morning Jewel is a large-flowered climbing rose that I grow as a tall shrub. Once the initial flush of bloom is finished this month, I cut the stems back. Fresh, bloom-bearing growth follows quickly. Another pruning in late winter shortens the plant considerably and sometimes removes one or two of the oldest canes.
A Scottish-bred rose introduced in 1968, Morning Jewel has a Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit for its easy-growing nature and the large, semi-double, richly fragrant pink flowers.
As the rose became well established, I decided it needed something frothy around it base. A Clematis recta surges forth from the ground each spring to form a broad, thick bush about 120 centimetres tall with a few longer stems straying into the rose. In early summer, the handsome mass of foliage becomes clothed with small, white flowers. C. recta is easy-care, requiring only to be cut close to the ground in late winter.
GARDEN EVENT
Native berries. The Horticulture Centre of the Pacific, 505 Quayle Rd. in Saanich, offers a walking class on Harvesting Native Berries July 27, 1 to 4 p.m. Participants will walk around the Native Plant Garden with Katherine Harding from the WildFoods Experience, and then head into the Western Woods to find berries while learning about the ecology. $25 for HCP members; others $35. Register at 250-479-6162. hcp.ca.