Thanks, Mom!

Sometime in the last decade, my mother began writing a cheque on my birthday equal to the number of years that I had managed to survive outside the womb.  The cheque arrived this week, but I knew it was coming and did my shopping on the weekend. Here is what a woman of my age can buy with her birthday money:

Creeping lamium (L. maculatum 'Pink Pewter')  A spreading patch of small silver leaves with a narrow green edge.  salmon-pink flowers appear in spring, then continue off and on until fall. Fairly tolerant of dry shade.  ~jeeperscreepers.info

Single painted daisy (Tanacetum coccineum Robinson's mix) Foliage is bright green and ferny with upright stems bearing loads of single yellow-eyed daisies, in shades of white, pink or crimson red.  ~ Heritage Perennials

Alpine strawberry (Fragaria vesca 'Yellow Wonder)  A unique and rarely offered yellow-fruited form of the European Wild Strawberry. Tiny white flowers appear all season, followed by small cone-shaped creamy-yellow fruit, the tastiest of all strawberries.  ~ perennials.com

Rock soapwort (Saponaria ocymoides) Smothered in stunning pink flowers at the ends of the stems from mid to late spring.  Its round leaves remain emerald green in colour throughout the year.  ~Northern Classics

Variegated periwinkle (Vinca minor 'Ralph Shugert') Forms a dense mat of glossy dark green leaves edged with white, and a display of bright blue flowers in spring.  Tolerates dry shade.  ~ Heritage Perennials

Fern-leaf bleedingheart (Dicentra 'Candy Hearts')  Forms a vigorous clump of powdery blue-green leaves topped by clusters of delicate dangling heart chaped flowers in a dusky rose-purple shade.  ~ Heritage Perennials

Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia) A vigorous spreading groundcover, useful in difficult shady situations.  Forms a mat of bright green leaves studded by yellow flowers in late spring.  Best as a lawn substitute.  ~jeeperscreepers.info 

Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Stella de Oro) By far the most popular Daylily selection of all time.  Forms a dense clump of grassy green foliage, with upright stems of fragrant, golden-yellow trumpet flowers.  ~ Heritage Perennials.

Moss phlox (Phlox douglasii 'Crackerjack')  A low mound or cushion of dark green needle-like leaves, smothered by tiny flowers in late spring. Very compact variety, with a grand display of bright starry magenta-red flowers.  ~ rockstarplants.com

perennial birthday gifts

A few specimens didn't look great, hence the group photo instead of individual head shots.  They may not look like much, but give them time.  See below what happened to my little bloody dock from one year to the next.  Perennial plants are a good investment.  Thanks, Mom.  

bloody dock 21-07-11

bloody dock 24-06-12

Last year I spent the birthday money on plants, but not at a typical garden retail outlet where customers generally leave with labelled pots.  Through no fault of my own, I was late getting to a sale of native plants at the museum; they were starting to pack up.  So I quickly yet thoughtfully chose ten plugs and brought them home.  Hours later, I thought I still knew what five of them were, and was fairly certain I knew which five others I had chosen, but did not know what was what.  Still don't.  One flowered this year and evidently it is fleabane.  I would not have chosen fleabane.  Only the Jacob's ladder and blue-eyed grass are for sure now; the rest - I forget what I even thought they were at one time.  It's okay to have a few mysteries.

As a gardener, my gratitude to Mom extends beyond her support for my plant shopping sprees.  From as early as I can remember, we had a vegetable garden on the hill that sloped down from our house toward the Northwest Arm in Halifax.  There was a large rectangle here, a smaller one over there, a couple of more squarish patches.  We (I'm sure I helped sometimes) dug through the soil with a fork each spring, tossing out the numerous rocks hat had floated to the surface since the previous spring.  We planted in straight rows across the beds, leaving the prescribed space between rows and mounting the seed package on a stick  to announce the coming vegetables.  Beans, peas, beets, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, corn, radishes - I believe we grew all that, and more, but I can't remember.  Marigold transplants were placed at the periphery to foil insect pests.  Rhubarb sat at the top of the large bed.  Raspberries were eventually installed on the other side of the yard.  I think we had asparagus at one point.  We had a compost pile; Mom even made compost tea back in the seventies.  I don't recall weeding or watering the garden. or even harvesting.  Maybe I didn't help out after all.  Maybe I learned nothing about gardening from the family garden.  Today I dig as little as I can, arrange plantings more in blobs than in rows, and leave "weeds" in the ground until I'm sure they don't have a role to play there.  My present garden is chaos compared to what I grew up with.  Regardless of the variation of style, though, I think the most important bit was being socialized toward growing food.  What my parents gave me was the notion that having a vegetable garden is something you do, like going to church and reading at bed time.  It's normal.  It's expected.  It's simple.  Thanks, Mom and Dad, for giving me that.