Faves: Lyrical Liriodendron, the tulip tree

The characteristic blunt leaf of the Liriodendron

A neighbour once asked me whether she should worry about tree roots invading her drains if she selected a "yellow poplar" through Toronto's street tree program, as poplar roots are notorious for their water-seeking ways. I assured her that the yellow-poplar isn't actually a poplar, but (along with whitewood) simply one of the assorted common names for Liriodendron tulipifera, the native North American tulip tree.

'Liriodendron' means lily tree and 'tulipifera' means tulip-making, both in relation to the large-ish, single flower – as you might expect from a member of the magnolia family. So tulip tree is a much more appropriate common name. Unfortunately, you're unlikely to see this attractive green and yellow or orange tulip-y bloom until the tree is about 15 years old, or 20 feet/6.5 meters tall – and, even then, they often appear near the top of the tree, where it's hard to appreciate their form. Unless you're a bee. Tulip trees are very attractive to bees.

Tulip tree leaves catching the light, and the silhouette of a visitor

Nevertheless, I'm inordinately fond of the tulip tree, if for no other reason than their unusually shaped leaves, with their truncated apex. This distinctive leaf shape is the easiest way to recognize Liriodendron during the growing season. Tulip trees are being planted more frequently, and it always delights me to encounter one. The large, mid-green leaves can glow in the sunlight, and in fall can turn a rich shade of gold.

This is a fairly adaptable tree when it comes to growing conditions and climate. In Southern Ontario, we're at the northern limit of its native zone, which stretches all the way down the eastern continent to Florida. I've seen it listed as both shade-intolerant and somewhat shade tolerant, so I suspect culture has an impact on this. Like many of the most attractive forest dwellers, tulip tree does best in deep, rich, moist, slightly acidic soil, where it can grow to a significant size fairly rapidly.

For more info on and pictures of Liriodendron, drop by Walter Muma's useful Ontario Trees and Shrubs website. To download a brochure on Toronto's street tree program, visit the City of Toronto Urban Forestry page.

Autumn around the patio table

Can't you imagine long conversations in this cosy spot?

 I love eating outdoors. There doesn't seem to have been enough of that in summer 2010. My back yard is only big enough for a bit of garden and a dining table. A small dining table. So I'll be putting on a sweater to squeeze the last juice out of summer alfresco dining in these early autumn days.

Maybe that's why I paid so much attention to dining and outdoor conversation areas on the Garden Writers Association tours in Dallas recently. Here are some of my favourites.

You don't need walls to define an outdoor room. A change of paving, pillars and a corrugated fibreglass shade work here, along with a few well-placed pots of herbs and ornamentals.

Bring on the marshmallows, s'mores and hot chocolate!

In the right spot, indoor furniture makes good outdoor furniture. Few of us can have a view like this, but we could give a table that's a little rickety new life in the garden.

A sheltered spot is paved in gravel and stone, beside a simple reflecting pool and fountain. The takeaway here is the restrained colour palette of grey, charcoal and cream, with that pop of red. It's restful without being somnolent.

Besides looking quite elegant, curtains on a porch offer practical shelter from autumn breezes, extending potential days and evenings of coze. Darling, my glass is empty.

Dude, Where's My Obelisk?

Do garden sneaks arrive in the night wearing slippers?

You could have sworn it was there when you went to bed last night. A beautiful—and pricey—metal obelisk for a clematis to scramble up. This morning: only a empty space where the garden designer installed it.  Obelisk? Gone, baby, gone.

You had planned on watering the garden first thing in the cool of the morning. When you walked around the side of your house, all you saw was a dripping tap and....no hose. Gone With the Wind. 

The garden thieves have struck again in my neighbourhood. This time the target was tools and garden structures. It was oddly coincidental that I heard these stories of disappearing garden objects only a day after Catherine Porter's plant theft article ran in the Toronto Star. (Toronto Gardens' Helen was interviewed about her kid-napped blue flax.)

 I spoke to garden designer/Plant Therapist Paul Geary, of Petal Pushers, who had installed the garden with the disappearing obelisk. He fixed the problem by re-installing another, This Time With Concrete. He has had large size Japanese Maples dug from his installed gardens as well. He figures that the thieves watch for new plantings, and come in the night when the soil is freshly dug. Easy pickings. Dastardly doings.

On my way home I saw my hose-less neighbour trudging back and forth to the tap with a small watering can. She was remarkably cheerful about it, and the fact that it was a very nice day probably helped.

I used to think that bicycle thieves were the worst kind. They are bad. But laying in wait to dismantle a freshly planted tree, garden structure, or unscrewing and making off with a hose from the side of a house. It's not funny, Dude.

Teaching gardens can learn from this Dallas school

How charming to see a word as tricky as "chlorophyll" correctly written in learning-to-print letters! Even more charming to think that the knowledge came from a plant that children had grown themselves from seed, transplanted, tended and soon would taste.

It's all in a school-day's work in Stonewall Gardens at Stonewall Jackson Elementary School on Mockingbird Lane in East Dallas, Texas. Members of the Garden Writers Association had the good fortune to visit last week to learn about this successful teaching garden… one that has been growing (and growing budding gardeners) since 1986.

It works on a simple model. Each child gets one plant per season. They start the plant from seed and take complete care of it, recording its progress in their garden journals and enjoying the fruits of their labour. They even weed the garden, and make compost and mulch. The garden is integrated with the curriculum across many subjects, from science to composition and art.



One child, one plant: for each of nearly 600 students from kindergarten to grade five. It's a story that started with a patch of beans nearly 15 years ago and now covers an impressive 20,000 square feet – including a small greenhouse and a few very decorative chickens. After their school board eliminated their funding, the parents and community rallied to fill the gap, and since 2009 Stonewall Gardens has been its own volunteer-led non-profit organization. Even Stonewall alumni come back as volunteers.

Now that school's in for 2010-2011, this garden might be worth putting on the agenda for your next school council meeting. It takes time to put programs like this in place. First, you have to plant the seed.

Planting Bulbs: An Act of Faith

This single, late tulip, "El Nino" positively glows in the sun.

I probably need to be planting flower bulbs right now, but I'm not. The last few falls I haven't planted any tulip bulbs, no crocuses, no nothing. I have my reasons (cough *excuses*), listed here:

• My city garden is hard as heck to dig. I have tree roots I must sever through, making digging in my garden at any time a miserably arduous experience. My country garden, on the other hand, is chock full of rocks, sometimes I encounter giant boulders I can't do anything about.

• Squirrels sometimes dig up the tulip and crocus bulbs, which is heartbreaking/annoying.

 • The expense. It's hard to justify shelling out for tulip bulbs when they might become high priced squirrel food. Bulbs aren't super cheap at any time.

Enchanting, dark, double, late tulip "Black Hero".

• The remorse of Shiny Tulip Package Syndrome: I get all excited by the flower pictures on the packages, then get busy with fall's exigencies and the bulb packs sit on the counter drying up. Which leads to guilt, which lead to future reluctance to buy in case it happens again. (see point above, expense)

• It's frighteningly easy to forget where you've planted bulbs. I can't remember where the tulips that are already in the garden are planted, so I worry I may spear one if I start to dig.

With all these reasons NOT to plant bulbs, why do I have the urge to plant bulbs this year?  I am an impatient gardener, and bulbs are not for the impatient. Impatient gardeners have enough problems putting out bedding plants from 6 packs, (which always look a bit mingy when you first plant them), but they do fill out, and there's something there that you can see. Bulbs, on the other hand are buried completely. They are underground, mysteriously sprouting and growing roots. At least that's what we are told. We have to believe it's true. If we're lucky we have a wonderful surprise in the spring, a reward for our act of faith.

Lily flowered tulips—one of my faves—this one is "Jazz".

Flower bulbs are all about delayed gratification—the faith that one day this little dried looking pointy thing will become an exquisite flower. It's hard to be patient about delayed gratification of joy. Planting bulbs is commitment, a leap of faith. What's more, let's point out the really awful truth here: when you plant a bulb you have no guarantee you're even going to be around to see it bloom in spring. Anything could happen between now and then. I'm old enough now to know how true this is.

When you plant a tree you exercise the same act of faith. You likely aren't going to see the tree in its maturity, (unless you spent a good deal of your childhood planting trees, not a bad idea, actually. Get out there, kids!) But you plant the tree in spite of that. It's the same with bulbs. You plant, and have faith you will see the flowers. Bulbs do bring guaranteed joy, in time. It works that way. That's why I really must plant them this year. It's a little gift to the future: a gift to myself, to my neighbours. And to a few squirrels.

7 Things I Wish I'd Done in My Garden This Year

Gardens are always a work in progress, in my case one that always involves rocks. 

1. Grown more flowering annuals from seed, like zinnias and tithonia, (Mexican Sunflowers), and actual sunflowers. One of my favourite things about gardening is being able to make bouquets for the house, and my cutting garden wasn't up to snuff this year.

2. Started nasturtium and morning glory from seed in pots where they are going to grow, instead of transplanting from cell packs. I bought morning glory plants this spring, and only got my first bloom yesterday (Sept 3rd). Starting from seed where they are to grow may be more successful.

3. Wish I'd not planted cosmos in my vegetable plot as part of my cutting garden. The soil is way too rich for cosmos, giving me only lush leaves all season, with a few flowers just starting to bloom in the last week or so. Same goes for calendula, just leaves so far.

4. Planted my peas earlier in the season. My peas did ok, considering how late I got them in, but I had only a few handfuls of peas and they fried in the heat. Same goes for sweet peas. I didn't have a single sweet pea for a bouquet this year.

5. Spent more on soil improvement and mulch, and less on plants. At the garden centre, plants are so seductive, bags of manure and mulch are so ho-hum - plus heavy! But I've gotta go more for the ho-hum, because the payoff is better in time than adding one more pretty plant.

6. Made actual decisions about what I'm going to grow in the vegetable garden. This year's keywords were "last minute" and "willy nilly". Next year I'll only grow tomatoes and vegetables that I know I'm going to love, instead of grabbing plants here and there at the last minute.

7. Thought more about design and structure in my gardens.  I need a master plan for my garden, especially my country garden. Next year I want to start it.