RENWALD: GARDEN TIPS FROM STINSON
I went on a pollinator garden search this week and poof: I discovered four fabulous gardens.
Kelly Jamieson’s front yard was wall-to-wall blooms. She was one of five winning a Monarch Award this week. Asters, pearly everlastings and prickly pear cactus glimmered away, beautiful to humans and essential for pollinator species.
Amy Taylor won the top Monarch Award (monarchawardshamilton.org), a program organized by the Hamilton Naturalists Club and Environment Hamilton with the help of volunteers from the Royal Botanical Gardens and the Crown Point Garden Club.
The pollinator patrol took me to the Crown Point, St. Clair and Stinson neighbourhoods where many fine and intriguing front-yard gardens are waiting to be discovered. To study them, you must abandon the car and walk. That’s how I found a gem in the Stinson area, where Anton the gardener does his work.
Some years, Anton is famous in Hamilton for his snowmen; in other years for his free-flowing garden designs. I liked this design a lot: the garden cascades down from a lovely old brick house with the plants, especially alyssum, draping over the ground like a waterfall.
“When I started the garden cleanup here, I kept finding rocks buried under leaves and soil, so I used them to create levels and pockets for plants,” Anton says.
Anton doesn’t want his last name used. Perhaps he doesn’t want anyone else asking him to build a garden. In the Stinson neighbourhood garden, he dug up eight wheelbarrows of soil, ferrying most of it to the backyard but keeping two loads to create the rolling landscape of the front yard.
Stone paths, stone pockets and
stone walls are integrated into the scheme. He wedged the woody roots of a felled maple tree between rocks to create natural planters for rich red coleus plants, and hydrangeas.
Underneath that river of alyssum is a trail of maple roots laid out by Anton.
“When the alyssum dies back, the roots are exposed in winter; they have a pretty bronze colour.”
Pink cleome is in bloom, artemisia frames rocks and hostas appear all over the garden.
“Here’s a tip for you,” he offers. “I leave the hostas in pots, I upsize them every other year. The pots retain water longer so the hostas don’t dry out.”
Anton also collects leaves from around the neighbourhood. They get packed around hostas in the fall and, later, lightly packed on top. The leaves are a good insulating blanket.
“As they decay, they’re a worm farm,” Anton says. “Worms love rotting leaves. But it means you gotta clean up in the spring. No doubt about it.”
Against some of the craggier rocks, silvery kale appears to be growing in crevices. Look closely and you’ll see the kale is in pots and trimmed up like standards. I thought it was intentional but Anton says it’s not.
“I grew kale from seed for the first time, four types, and it got too leggy so I had to trim off the lower leaves.”
The garden will be better in about two weeks, he tells me. The angle of the sun will highlight the autumn-coloured coleus, and the centres of the kale will develop a richer colour. Oakleaf hydrangea will start turning purple, red and apricot.
“This is a good neighbourhood; we admire each other’s gardens. The lady across the street is 87 and still gardens. I like to cut flowers and take them to her.”
That’s Anton the anonymous gardener sharing tips and flowers from the Stinson ’hood.
Update: The dahlia pals I wrote about last week had a good showing at the Harrogate Autumn Garden Show in England. John Mooney won a bronze for his red seedling and had three seconds overall.