The earliest spring blooms are opening in the south-facing Rock Garden and many flowers are starting to show buds in the hoop house. The earliest near-native in the Rock Garden is the lovely silvery-mauve Prairie Crocus. Most years it is much earlier than the related European Pasque Flower, but this year, with the strange fluctuations… Continue reading Spring Flowers starting to bloom
Category: Featured Plants
Bringing Plants to Ottawa, Wednesday, July 13th
Beaux Arbres will be bringing plant orders to Ottawa on the evening of Wednesday, July 13th to distribute them from our Britannia area condo’s Visitor Parking Lot. I know some folks were not able to make the Saturday morning Farmers’ Market and others did not want to pick up a large order with Westboro’s potentially… Continue reading Bringing Plants to Ottawa, Wednesday, July 13th
Notes on Plant ID
I had an email this morning from someone whose plant ID app was telling her that plants she had bought from me as Anise-hyssop were Stinging Nettle or possible Catnip. Now, I have never used a plant ID app but, for plants whose most easily distinguishing features are non-visual — familiar scents for Anise-hyssop and… Continue reading Notes on Plant ID
Some Ottawa Valley Wildflowers
We had something to pick up in Wilno and a delivery to make to Killaloe, so we made a little holiday of it, a break from the nursery, having a nice picnic at Golden Lake, and lovely walk in a bit of publicly accessible alvar at the Fourth Chute. Here are some photos of some… Continue reading Some Ottawa Valley Wildflowers
Native Thistles
As a kid I loved the big Bull Thistles that sometimes appeared in our garden. True, the first year basal rosettes could be painful to a child who, like me, went barefoot as much as she could, but i loved them. I loved their enormous, prickly stature and their gorgeous purple flowers. Thistles have been… Continue reading Native Thistles
First Flower of the Spring: Prairie Crocus
Last post, when I said I would have to move the Prairie Crocuses to a cool spot to keep them in bloom for the Friends of the Farm sale, I wasn’t joking, but I didn’t think I would have to start doing the move on April 2nd. Yesterday, the largest bud on the Prairie Crocuses… Continue reading First Flower of the Spring: Prairie Crocus
Seed Collecting Fall 2021
I have finished collecting all the seeds I intend to collect this fall and have picked over and done preliminary cleaning on most of them. I will be posting a list of the available species soon. Pink Turtlehead Pink Turtlehead (Chelone lyonii) — pictured above — seeds will be available this year. I almost gave… Continue reading Seed Collecting Fall 2021
May I Introduce: Water Plantain
It is extra-ordinarily difficult to capture in a photo the charm of Water Plantain (Alisma trivale). The small, white, three-petalled flowers are widely spaced on a tall but insubstantial inflorescence, which, in a photo, is mostly just not there. In life, however, the transparent scrim of little stalks and buds and flowers, held high above… Continue reading May I Introduce: Water Plantain
May I Introduce: Sticky False Asphodel
This charming little wildflower deserves to be much better known and more often cultivated. Grassy foliage, glossy and attractive, grows about 20 cm tall and spreads by rhizomes to fill in an area. In mid summer, the flower stalks rise above the foliage. The initially pink buds open to white flowers. After flowering, the vivid… Continue reading May I Introduce: Sticky False Asphodel
May I Introduce: Fringed Sage
Soft, silvery, foliage is a desirable decorative feature in gardens. To augment the bright silver of native Pearly Everlasting and subtle silvery-grey of Parlin’s (Plantain-leaved) Pussytoes, I now offer the silky silver of Fringed Sage. It is much more hardy than the popular but notoriously finicky and short-lived Silver Mound, the standard garden centre offering.… Continue reading May I Introduce: Fringed Sage
Beaux Arbres Plantes Indigènes / Native Plants 