Helleborus 'Cotton Candy' Photo: Terra Nova Nursery

I’m in love. The handsome specimen that’s caught my eye is perfect in every way. Long-lasting flowers that bloom in a rainbow of colours, evergreen foliage that looks good all year-round (it gets a bit tattered after our long winters, but what doesn’t?) and it’s perfectly happy growing in shade. Oh, you thought I was describing the love of my life?

Well, the current love of my garden is Helleborus x hybridus, commonly known as the Lenten rose, and it was chosen as the Perennial Plant of the Year in 2005, so obviously I’m not the only one smitten by its charms. The thousands of members of the Perennial Plant Association cast their ballots in favour of this gem which must meet the requirements of all perennial plants of the year, including: 1) suitable for a wide range of climates, 2) low maintenance requirements 3) easily propagated 4) comes true from seed or vegetative propagation, and 4) exhibits interest throughout the seasons.

If you were lucky enough to have visited this year’s Canada Blooms flower show, you would have seen Lenten roses growing in just about every feature garden. They are one of the first of the early spring perennials to bloom, and their flowers look good for up to two months! Well, I call them flowers, but to the horticultural cognoscenti, they’re sepals, but who’s splitting petals? Whatever they are, they’re beautiful – and they bloom in a wide range of colours from the purest of whites and the creamiest of creams to pale pinks, deep burgundies (nearly black ones too) and even a stunning green. Their nodding bell-shaped sepals form single, semi-double and fully doubles, and some are edged in a deeper colour known as picotee.

Because of the attractive, leathery foliage, Lenten roses look good right into the summer and fall months too. Over the winter, the leaves may get tatty, so cut these off to encourage new growth. And if deer are a problem in your garden (thankfully they haven’t become urban grazers – yet!), the leaves contain an alkaloid that keep marauding deer from munching them.

There’s more good news about these wonderful plants – they’re easy to grow. Lenten roses are happy in shade, part-shade or even in dappled sun as long as the soil remains cool and moist. They demand well-drained, humus-rich soil and once established, will tough it out during temporary periods of drought. Helleborus x hybridus is perfectly happy growing alongside other shade-loving plants, including ferns, flowering shrubs such as rhododendrons and hydrangeas and perennials like sweet woodruff, masterwort, bugbane and barrenwort.

Some new varieties of Helleborus x hybridus to look for in the nurseries this season include the Lady Series, a group of hybrids with cup-shaped, slightly upward-facing flowers that bloom in shades of pink, deep red, pink-rose and a deep, dark purple. The Royal Heritage strain of Lenten roses is also worth a second glance. These long-lived perennials produce large flowers and great foliage. Colours range from near black, purple and red to pink, green, yellow and white.

With such a rainbow of colours, handsome foliage and an easy going attitude, what’s not to love about Helleborus x hybridus?

Endless Summer hydrangea

Although I enjoy spending as much time  as I can in the garden, I know that many of you just don’t have the time to tend to finicky flowers or vigorous vines. But you still want a beautiful backyard, right? Modern-day flowering shrubs just may be the answer for you.

Shrubs have always been easier to care for than perennials and annuals, many of which make high demands on our time. However, shrubs are plants of another disposition entirely. Give shrubs the space they need, lots of water to get them started, relatively good soil and some sunlight and they can be pretty much self-sufficient.

To improve on a good thing, plant breeders have been working hard to develop easy-care shrubs with foliage that remains attractive all season long, bountiful blooms that last longer than ever (some even re-bloom) and good disease-resistance. The result is a no-fuss garden that looks like it’s groomed by a team of gardeners.

Here are some of the most reliable ones.

Tough and stunning ninebarks

Coppertina ninebark

Ninebarks (Physocarpus) are some of the toughest shrubs for the landscape. Tolerant of both heat and drought, they’re also deer resistant (an important point for those of you who garden near a ravine). I’ve grown one called Coppertina for the last three years and I love it for its coppery coloured leaves alone – not to mention it lovely pink flowers. A new one to look for is called Lemon Candy, a compact shrub that grows less than one metre tall and wide with bright chartreuse foliage and white flowers in spring. Little Devil is another new, compact variety that’s about a metre tall and wide. It features reddish purple leaves and creamy white flowers. (Avoid ‘Diablo’ ninebark, which is susceptible to powdery mildew.)

Heavenly hydrangeas

Blushing Bride hydrangea

With all the new hydrangeas that have been developed over the last few years, it’s hard to know which one to choose. The good news is: you can’t go too far wrong if you stick to the arborescens and paniculata types and avoid the macrophyllas, which can be a tad touchy in our climate. ‘Annabelle’ is an old favourite arborescence type that’s been supersized in the form of Incrediball (Invincibell Spirit is its pretty pink sister). The huge flowerheads are supported by sturdy stems, too, so this one won’t sag under the weight of its blooms. Quick Fire and Limelight are fairly new paniculata varieties. Little Lime is a new, more compact version of Limelight that’s good for small space city gardens. I’m also smitten by Tickled Pink, another paniculata type that’s a little over a metre tall and wide with white flowers that fade to rosy pink. For the most part, hydrangeas will take a little shade (the more sun, the more flowers, though) but they absolutely demand plenty of water, so consider installing some simple irrigation – even a soaker hose on a timer will do the trick.

New old favourites

With this list in hand, all you have to do is find the time to visit the nurseries and pick out your favourite, easy care flowering shrubs.

There are many more of these wonderful fall bloomers, including ‘September Charm’, which comes a close second to ‘H. J.’  Which one would you choose to grow in your “desert island” garden?

Brunnera 'Jack Frost'

You may prefer the creamy edges of Brunnera ‘Hadspen Cream’ or the gold-rimmed ‘King’s Ransom’ or even the silvery leaves of  ‘Looking Glass’, but my heart will always be true to ‘Jack Frost’. It’s not just the snowy foliage (it reminds me of Frosted Flakes cereal — maybe it’s a nostalgia thing…), or those gorgeous forget-me-not blue flowers, it’s that ’Jack Frost’ is so vigorous and healthy, he just seems to be in love with life. I’ve divided mine several times over the four or five years I’ve grown this wonderful shade plant, and I think I’ll have to do it again this year. By comparison, ‘King’s Ransom’ looks smaller and more delicate than when I planted it last year, and ‘Looking Glass’ has yet to make an appearance this season. So, my desert island choice for Brunnera is definitely ‘Jack Frost’. Any takers?

Photo: Blooms of Bressingham

Walking through my garden the other morning, it occured to me that I tend to hang onto plants whether they perform or not. In other areas of my life, I’m ruthless about getting rid of things I no longer use, wear, read, eat — well, you get the picture. So, in an effort to force myself to be just as cold-hearted in the garden, I’m compiling a list of desert island plants (or should I say, temperate island plants…).

So here’s the first in a series of “if I had to choose just one plant” posts.

I think it’s more than fitting that Geranium ‘Rozanne’ should be the first to kick off the series. This is a plant that belongs in every garden. Introduced at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2000, ‘Rozanne’ was nominated as the Perennial Plant of the Year in 2008 (what took them so long?!). In my garden, it blooms from June until November — I don’t know any other perennial that blooms as long! ‘Rozanne’ is such an easy-going plant, too. I moved it from the relatively rich soil of my perennial bed to the dusty dirt where a ‘New Dawn’ climbing rose thrives and ‘Rozanne’ didn’t so much as wilt. In fact, it clothes the naked canes of ‘New Dawn’ with lush foliage and those oh-so-lovely blue flowers.

So, are there any other nominations out there for the “If I had to choose just one hardy geranium” contest? Post a comment and let me know!

Well, firstly, he lives up to his nickname of Heathcliff of the Hedgerows (although the debate rages about whether he’s more Darcy-like. Personally, I think there’s a bit of (a young) John Cleese in him too…). Secondly, after unlikely stints at pizza-making and hotel-running, he has wielded his trowel in some of the world’s best-ranked gardens — namely, RHS Hyde Hall and Harlow Carr. So, he’s got real dirt under his fingernails. And thirdly, he can pronounce Zauscheneria as naturally as we might say: Make mine a double-double! So, ya get the picture. He’s gorgeous, funny and knows his stuff.

So listen up: here’s the scoop on which plants in the whole wide world (that we can grow here in Canada “the edge of where it’s good to garden”) rank among Heathcliff’s Wilson’s favourites for small gardens:

The solid performers

Geranium 'Rozanne'

1. Geranium ‘Rozanne’ (is there anyone anywhere who doesn’t love this plant?)
2. Nigella damascena (what, an annual on a best plants list — yes!)
3. Sanguisorba ‘Tanna’ ( gorgeous, purple-rose colour)
4. Kniphofia rooperi
5. Echinacea ‘Sunset’ (as opposed to the “annual” ‘Art’s Pride’)
6. Rosa ‘Roserie de l’Hay’ (but you won’t ever hear him recommending a hybrid tea…)
7. Phlomis russeliana (in the words of Oudolf, a plant that “dies heroically”)
8. Eyphorbia schillingii in combination with Hosta ‘Frances Willams’ (ask him his guaranteed solution for slugs and snails on hostas…)
9. Polystichum setiferum ‘Herrenhausen’ (lovely twisted fronds)
10. Kirengeshoma palmata (oh yah, loves deep shade)

Shooting Stars

1. Pulsatilla vulgaris (must be the pickiest plant on the planet — needs limestone magnesia with acidic water running underneath — as if!)
   

   Camassia

2. Iris orchiodes (a Juno type)
3. Eremurus robustus  (oh sure, Matthew,  just try growing it on clay…)
4. Camassia cusickii (yup, I’m with you on this one)
5. Rhododendron yakushimanum (ditto)

These are just a few of Wilson’s top picks for small gardens. To hear about all of them, you’ll have to track him down at one of his next speaking engagements.

Bottle tree in Yoest garden

11. Bottle trees

Discovering new plants is a big part of why I attend conferences such as the 2009 Garden Writers Symposium in Raleigh, North Carolina. It can also be frustrating, especially if the plants aren’t hardy enough for my USDA Zone 5 garden in Toronto. None-the-less, I’m always captivated by shrubs, trees and perennials that are regional staples in faraway places. That’s why when a fellow garden writer pointed out the bottle tree in a garden we were visiting, I looked desperately around the yard trying to spot this local beauty before confessing, “Oh, gosh. I’m not from around here, can you tell what one looks like?” Duh! I could have kicked myself for being so dense. The great, rare, North Carolina Bottle Tree (Arbus amphoreus?) is a tree made from bottles! Once spotted, we found them in almost every garden we visited. But the best thing I discovered about bottle trees is they’re perfectly hardy – even to Zone 2!

At the 2009 Garden Writers Symposium in Raleigh North Carolina, I fell in love with…

2. Euphorbia ‘Ascot Rainbow’
Wandering deep within the display gardens at Plant Delights, I lost my heart to Euphorbia ‘Ascot Rainbow’. I stopped myself from sighing and drooling over this gem of a plant only long enough to whip out my camera to capture my heart’s delight forever (thank gawd the batteries held out…). Later, back at the convention centre, while coifing wine at a cocktail party, I met Susan Martin of Walters Gardens who told me this is one of the top new plants for Spring 2010, so watch for it at a nursery near you!

Acanthus hungaricus

For the last three years, I’ve been anxiously watching the progress (or lack thereof) of Acanthus hungaricus, a spectacular architectural perennial I fell in love with on a trip to Jordan, Ontario in the Niagara Region. For the first two summers, the plant was barely there. Last year, it seemed to leaf out into a lovely clump, but no flowers. Then, whammo, this year it sprouted 14 stunning flower spikes! It started blooming in early July and still looks handsome, even though some of the florets are drying and turning brown.

Although in warmer zones, lucky gardeners can grow the more common Acanthus mollis, here in Canadian Zone 6b, A. hungaricus is hardier and slightly more compact than A. mollis, making it a better choice for us.