But Will April Showers Bring May Flowers?

By Wes Porter

Out on the Wet Coast in beautiful British Columbia dandelions flourish, as Mr. Schreiner indicates.  Perhaps, should the Weather Gods bless us, by the time you are reading this article the first blooms will indicate there is something not quite right in the state of your lawn.  There may also be mysterious patches in the emerging grass; squirrels are vandalising the bulb buds.  New perennials arrive at the nursery almost daily.  The composter smells worse than the Senate.  The roses need uncovering, pruning, fertilizing and mulching.  Poets may burble of the joys of golden daffodils but elsewhere gardeners tend to view themselves –as did P.G. Wodehouse- as the sons of toil covered with tons of soil.  Without making any more ado about nothing then, here is April in the Toronto garden.

Lawns, if fertilized last fall, require little attention other than slicing out their edges with a turf knife- that tool with a crescent-shaped blade at the business end.  If crabgrass was a problem last season then apply a crabgrass preventer before the forsythia blooms burst open.  Do not open a blitzkrieg of chemicals on other weeds until May, when the weather is warmer.  The odd dandelion or other obnoxious weed can be torn from the turf with a knife, trowel, weeding implement or even bare hands.  This is not only environmentally sound but also highly satisfying.

Patches on the grass indicate the attentions of dogs or white grubs.  It is not recommended to attempt control of the insect at this time, but wait until August.  By spraying lightly with Rapel dogs can be discouraged, as can squirrels (from bulbs), tomcats (from garbage cans), raiding raccoons and other mammals.  Rapel is available at most garden centres, Canadian Tire, and similar stores.

Hybrid rose bushes should be uncovered and the canes cut back to three buds from the bottom.  The uppermost bud must face away from the centre of the shrub.  Retain no more than five of the thickest, strongest canes.  Spread any proprietary brand of granular fertilizer and then apply a three-inch mulch of sheep or cattle compost. 

Many of the most popular herbs can either be seeded direct or be purchased as plants and set outside by the middle of April. Parsley especially should be sown early as it can take up to three weeks to germinate.  In parts of England it was traditionally seeded on Good Friday.  Basil –even though some garden centres insist on trying to sell plants this early- will not survive outside.  Bay and Rosemary overwintering inside will also be better left until the latter part of May before moving to the garden.

Composters smell when the contents become too compacted and wet.  Adding garden lime may help, but it will probably be necessary to take the whole thing apart, mix with dry, dead leaves, and rebuild.  When rebuilding, sprinkle a handful of lime and the same amount of commercially composted cattle manure at every six-inch layer.

New evergreens, shrubs, vines, roses, perennials and other plants are arriving daily at garden centres, to gladden any gardener’s heart.  These may make fine additions to the garden, but only if selected with care and consideration.  Believe what is written on the labels.  If it grows to six feet wide it will not fit into a two-foot space.  When planting, why install a $20 plant in a 50¢?  Whether perennial, tree, bush or rose, the rule of thumb is that the hole must be at least twice the width of the root ball with the bottom well-loosened.  Once planted, stamp down the soil to remove air pockets and then water very heavily.  All the fertilizers and soil amendments recommended in the garden centre will be found useless unless these basic steps are taken.

In the magnificent mountains of North Carolina (so the tale goes) lived a beautiful Cherokee girl and her family.  The Cherokees had frequent battles with other tribes.  After one of these battles, a young brave from an opposing tribe was seriously wounded and so unable to avoid capture.  The girl begged her father -a leader of the Cherokees- to be permitted to nurse the wounded man back to health and so make him a useful slave, as was the custom amongst them.  The chief, not without his doubts, gave his permission, and the daughter spent many days and nights dressing the wounds and tending to the needs of the injured brave.

The chief’s doubts were well-founded.  What happened next has occurred in the past many a time.  The two fell deeply in love.  The brave, seeing nothing before him but toil among an alien tribe without the happiness of marriage, urged the girl to flee with him to his people, far away to the south.  Reluctantly, and not without many hesitations, she finally agreed. 

Like so many who have been forced to flee their native lands never to return, she sought something to bring that would remind her of it.  And so it came about one night just before disappearing from her tribe that she plucked the stem of a rose that grew near the family home.  After many days travel, upon her and the young man’s arrival at her new home, she planted the rose.  It grew and, like her, flourished.  And so it came to be called the Cherokee rose. 

This is one of the favourite tales of the American South.  So popular was it that when Georgia was seeking a floral emblem for their state, they chose the Cherokee rose.  Unfortunately, botanists have since determined that this rose –Rosa laevigata- originated in China.  It was a good tale.

Pink flamingos have now been joined by a perfect companion.  Down south o’ the border, the latest craze is plastic geese dressed in ready-made outfits to suit every occasion.  The more discerning shell out up to $65 for a concrete goose and then custom craft clothing accessories for it.  These can run to another $35 or more for something along the lines of a Shania-style micro-mini.  Or if not that, then a Rudolph costume complete with blinking  red nose.

Union Products, Inc. is a manufacturer of such geese form Leominster, Mass., a town which proudly proclaims to be “the Plastic Capital of the World”.  It is doubtful that too many other municipalities would feel the urge to challenge this claim.  Union not only sells plastic geese (via toll-free line 1-888-875-1071) and offers information on a web site (www.unionproducts.com.geese.html), but it also holds a photo contest for the “best dressed goose”.

The new hobby makes friends of neighbours who will be thrilled to see the arrival of a new baby commemorated by a goose in a baby outfit.  But would your mailman be amused to literally be given the bird?  Both incidents reportedly have taken place in the U.S.

There are no reports of this modern folkcraft having been introduced into Canada as yet.  Unfortunately White Rose is attempting to retrieve itself from a financial quagmire; such a sales idea would surely fit right into their format. 

Contact City Gardening at 416-691-1178, tell us where you saw Toronto’s best –dressed goose (outside of City Hall), and you could win a new gardening book that is not about lawn ornaments, geese or otherwise.  We are resisting the idea of christening the contest “Toronto Deserves a Goose”.

The common lilac, or Syringa vulgaris, is not so common or vulgar as its name implies.  Even its origin, if not noble, is at least intriguing.  After centuries of dispute it was finally tracked down to the Transylvanian Mountains.  Devotees of Bram Stoker and Mel Brooks will relate these mountains to Count Dracula and his novel methods of blood transfusion.  In fact, they are limestone masses similar to our own Niagara Escarpment.  This may also explain why lilacs flourish here.  We also have Canada Revenue.

It was the Turks who –as they did with tulips- first cultivated lilacs in their garden.   An ambassador from the court of the Emperor of Austria to Sulmein the Magnificent marvelled at both these flowers.  The Sultan of All the Turks presented him with lilacs upon his return to Vienna.  There they created a sensation when they first bloomed in the latter half of the 16^th century.  

Odd though it may seem, lilacs may have reached Western Europe first through the Moors in Spain and then, in about 1530, they were possibly introduced into the gardens of Henry VIII of England at Nonsuch.  An inventory of the palace and its grounds made a few years later included some trees that sound very much like lilac, even if the spelling resembles that of graduates from the Toronto school system.

The Austrian ambassador was awarded the post of court librarian.  In that capacity he transferred allegiance when an Austrian princess was joined in matrimony with King Henry of France.  They and others travelled from Vienna to Paris, accompanied by lilac shoots.  It was not the last time gardeners appreciated the suckering ability of Syringa vulgaris.

Once again, the lilacs created a sensation.  The Parisians (and the French in general) embarked on a romance that was to culminate almost three centuries later with the Lemoine pere et fils.  Already the Turks had established lilacs in white and in the colour that came to be known as lilac, both heavily scented.  By the time the Lemoines had finished they had created at least another 230 or so named varieties.  Today, thanks to hybridizers from Russia to the United States, there are at least two thousand cultivars, not too bad for a shrub said to be “common”.

Although lilacs grow almost anywhere, they are at their ultimate where there are cold winters, hot dry summers, and slightly alkaline soils.  The relatively mild winters and damp, cool summers of northwest Europe are not to their liking.  All over northeast North America, the lilac has found its home-away-from-home.  The location of many an old homestead and farmhouse, otherwise long disappeared, can be established by the profusion of lilac growing where a front door once was.  Like many Canadians, the lilac has become naturalized.

Given the abundance of sun, both basic forms and those known as the “French hybrids” (thanks to Lemoine’s initiative) flourish.  As long as the suckers are pruned back at frequent intervals, little else is generally required, other than to remove the seed heads that follow flowering.  This ensures a fine display each and every season.

It may be necessary to remove the very oldest, least productive wood every five years or so.  This practice follows the dictates of one of pruning’s golden rules: that the best and most prolific flowers occur on young wood.

As they age, however, these same branches can take on a new, dramatic appearance.  The stems twist; the bark becomes contorted and deeply fissured.  The appearance is one of great age, or in modern parlance, character.  This is to be valued in any garden, though it reaches the ultimate in those landscapes that strive for a Japanese or Chinese effect.  Some choice limestone rockery stones, perhaps a stone lantern, the whole backed by scented hosta or Japanese iris- this is the essence of the Orient.

In fact, while Europe was home to the common as well as the Hungarian lilac, it is in western and northern China that lilacs are found in their greatest diversity.  Fate has it though that three of the most popular came not from the Celestial Empire but from its peripheries.  Sheridan Nursery’s ‘Ivory Silk Tree’ is a selection of Japanese Tree Lilac.  The dwarf Persian lilac is from points west of the ominous Hindu Kush, or Killer-of-Hindus.  Another dwarf form comes to us from the Land of the Morning Calm, the exquisite Korean lilac “Miss Kim”, also excellent in containers.  Five centuries are here, in your Toronto garden.

Toronto Field Naturalists Meeting: 2:30 pm, April 4.  Summer and Fall Wildflowers of Toronto at 73 Queen’s Park Crescent East (Northrop Frye Hall): free.

Southern Ontario Orchid Society Meeting: 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. April 4 at Civic Garden Centre.  More information at 905-640-5643(phone) or 905-640-0696(fax).

Toronto Field Naturalists Walk: Todmorden Mills, 10:30 a.m. April 14.  Free, bring lunch.  Meet at site entrance Pottery Road- no pets, please.

Society of Ontario Nut Growers Spring Auction.  Starts 1:15 p.m., April 17, Civic Garden Centre at Lawrence and Leslie in Edwards Garden.  Besides nut trees, there are also unusual fruit, seeds and “nut crafts. 

Ontario Rock Garden Society Sale.  Starts 12:30 p.m. April 18, free.  Meet 2 p.m., Chester subway station; no pets please.

Magnolia Night at Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington on April 25.  Cuisine, auctions, much more.  More information at 905-825-5040- toll free in GTA.

Toronto Field Naturalists Nature Walk-High Park.  April 25, free.  Meet 10:30 a.m. at Bloor entrance opposite High Park Ave.  Bring lunch.  No pets, please.

Toronto Field Naturalists Nature Walk- Taylor Creek.  April 27, free.  Meet 11:00 a.m. at SW corner of Don Mills Road & Overlea Blvd.  Bring lunch.  No pets, please.

Alex Carey, President of The Casket Stores, has a new idea for the backyard: memorial gardens.  His company presently retails coffins and other funeral necessities but plans to branch out into stone birdbaths, sundials, Celtic crosses and similar garden ornaments.  The difference will be that these will have a compartment in which to place the cremated remains.  Mr. Carey wants to turn a corner of the garden into a “spiritual place” and doesn’t mind if the kids climb all over.  No harm will be caused because, as he points out, “this stuff is made out of rock”.  Better yet, he plans to offer similar products for the balconies of apartment dwellers and other yard-less bereaved.  One can only wait for the humourists to suggest suitable landscapings for the late mother-in-law. 

The Vineland Nurseries catalogue from owners Jim and Simone Lounsberry is always a pleasure to receive, packed as it is with –as they say- “small plants for small spaces”.  What more could a city gardener ask for?  This year, note that while their address is new it is the same location: 4540 Martin Road, Beamsville, Ontario L0R 1B1, tel.905-562-4863.  The catalogue is just $1.50 and essential for all who appreciate rhododendrons, dwarf conifers and Japanese maples, although they offer much more.

According to mythology, junipers provide protection from witches, who have to count the number of needles correctly before they can continue on their perambulations.  This would seem to support its use as a landscape specimen in the foundation planting around the front door.

Ancient folklore would also have us believe that the berries offer protection from snakes, who are driven away by them.  Unfortunately, modern mythmakers have been adding dangerously to these amusing stories. 

Plant World is carrying the newly introduced ornamental annual vines of Ipomoea batatas “Lime” and “Blackie”.  These names describe the foliage colour of plants that should be a great new choice for hanging baskets and window box fanciers as well s being amusing to experiment with in the house.  Please though, not “yams”, which are something else again.