It’s that time of year where so much is going on in the garden, I can’t keep up. I LOVE it!

Clockwise from Top Left: 1. Two types of mint, pink snapdragons, and a geranium in pots. I set these pots on a metal table at the back of the garden, in front of the ramshackle shed. The geranium was not happy there and has since been moved. 2. My friend Barry bought me two of these video blue metal pails a few years ago. I love the colour and always try to plant them up with complimentary plants. This one is currently holding yellow violas and pansies. 3. My lunch on holiday Monday. The salad is from the garden. It was sprinkled with dianthus petals that are now blooming in full force in the dry bed garden. 4. May 19.

Assorted and Sundry

Have a great weekend! And happy long weekend to my American friends.

This week’s Herbaria is a tribute to columbine (Aquilegia) and some of its friends. There’s a lot going on in the garden right now, but chances are good that this will be the last week that they are all blooming at the same time and I was eager to see them assembled together as a collection.

Aquilegia are charming, graceful, meadow flowers that dance and sway in the breeze on long, thin stems. They are generally very profuse self-seeders, although I planted a deep wine colored double last year that broke the rule and did not reproduce or come back, period. [Shakes fist] Despite the rare exception, they are very easy plants to grow and the toughest of the bunch will succeed in surprisingly shady locations.

Aquilegia are a diverse group with plants in a wide range of forms, colors, and flower shapes. I tend towards the simple native types and the elegant double flowers. I am generally not a fan of the two-toned or very open flowers, although you can see that there is an exception in my collection. Of the flowers and leaves I have assembled below, there is one missing that I was not able to add here, a dark double called ‘Black Barlow.’ I put it in as a bare root early this spring and it will be another year before the flowers make an appearance. Plus, Davin moved it and I don’t know exactly where it is so I couldn’t find a leaf to include.

In the future I hope to add the native Aquilegia canadensis to my garden, but I’m waiting to get one in trade. I just can’t bring myself to purchase a plant that reproduces so readily!

From Left to Right:

Top Row: 1. Columbine meadow rue (Thalictrum aquilegiifolium). It’s not an aquilegia; however, the resemblance is so strong they put it in both the common and botanical names. 2. Yellow Corydalis (Corydalis lutea). Again, not an aquilegia, but I had to fill up nine boxes and there is a resemblance. In fact, I have it growing underneath some of the other aquilegias. They’re garden friends. 3. I bought this one on a whim at the Parkdale Horticultural Plant Fair last year without any clue as to what the bloom would be like. All it said on the tag was, “blue or pink.” That’s chancy for someone like me who is picky about columbine flowers. The good news is that I like it a lot, most specifically because of the little tinges of green on the ends of the petals. It’s hard to see in the photo at this size, but the leaves are two-toned, with a darker trim around the edges.

Middle Row: 4. Aquilegia chrysantha ‘Maxi’. These bright yellow flowers with elongated spurs seemed to show up everywhere I went in Denver last summer. I absolutely fell in love with it and went home with the strong desire to add at least one to my garden. I wonder if they served as inspiration for the Alien creatures? I think of the films every time I see it. 5. My friend Barry gifted me this plant last spring. The flowers are white, but what makes them extra special are the green tips. I just love green flowers. 6. I believe this is also a Thalictrum, but the plant it came from is small and hasn’t produced flowers as of yet. I’ve noticed that these younger leaves are much more bluey-green than those of the mature plant and I’m not sure if that’s down to age or location.

Bottom Row: 7. This purple and white aquilegia is my least favorite of the lot and I am considering culling it from my collection. It came to me as a volunteer at my community plot and was brought over accidentally in an attempt to transfer its bedfellow ‘Nora Barlow’ (end of this row), which was also a volunteer there. I was happy to leave it be in the community garden, but the two-toned flowers are bordering on the line between what I deem to be a nice columbine and one that is crass. 8. Variegated columbine. I love just about everything chartreuse and/or variegated, so when I saw this one last spring, I had to have it. What has surprised me is how much I LOVE the flowers. They are a solid, deep purple and they bloom profusely. The entire plant is absolutely gorgeous and I’m glad I located it right at the front of my garden, even if its girth has reduced the width of the path to a sliver. 9. Aquilegia vulgaris ‘Nora Barlow’ This one was featured last week, but I had to bring it back again to round out my columbine collection. I love its graceful, double flowers, and again, the green tinged theme makes an appearance. This one is a charmer, and if I had to choose a favorite, comes in at a very close second behind the chrysantha.

Building an outdoor compost bin was the very first thing we did when we started working on the new yard last spring. We made our bin on the cheap by upcycling a busted futon frame that was left in the yard by former occupants. So far the bin has worked beautifully, but like all one-bin systems it has its downsides. Keeping the bin aerated is a chore, and the fresh, ready-made compost is a pain to extract from the very bottom of the pile. The bin is also open to vermin, and while nesting rodents can be discouraged simply by keeping a well-maintained pile, I have had at least one unwelcome occupant in my years working with D.I.Y compost piles.

Homemade bins are very viable and often far superior to the cheap black plastic contraptions sold by the City (our kept falling apart and eventually housed a wasp nest), but they are not ideal. For that reason I have longed to try a really good composting system, specifically a tumbler that makes easy work of turning a heavy pile. Still, when eartheasy contacted me about trying out the Jora JK125 Tumbling Composter I was intrigued but extremely hesitant as I wasn’t sure where or how I would cram a second composting unit into an already jam-packed, narrow urban yard.

Over the years, my motto as an obsessive plant hoarder working within exceptionally tight spaces has been, “I’ll make it fit.” And somehow, magically, I always do. The only reason I was able to to manage it here is because the Jora is a self-contained unit. It smells a bit when the balance of greens and browns is off, but even then we’re only subjected to a marginally funky smell when the lid is opened. Beyond that, it’s a really easy composting system to live with. I specifically located my D.I.Y bin way at the back of the garden, away from the house, but I was able to cram the Jora into our outdoor seating area, nearly touching the table I eat at. So far so good. Some people decorate their outdoor living areas with decorative water features, attractive container plantings, or charming woodstoves. I sit down to dinner next to an industrial-green, powder-coated steel, 33 gallon compost bin.

And I actually like it! Turns out that I like the Jora a lot more than I imagined I would and my delight in it is growing everyday. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the unit set up long enough to make it through to a first batch of finished compost, but here are my thoughts and observations so far:

• The bin is insulated to create heat. It is purported to compost straight through the winter, which is something that my D.I.Y bins have never managed to accomplish. I can’t wait to see this in action this winter (although I am in no hurry to actually GET to winter).
• Aerating the “pile” really is as easy as you’d imagine and want from a turning composter. The contraption has several handles located on all sides and so far they’ve been very sturdy. I turn it daily with just about no effort. Love this feature!
• There are two chambers, each with their own securely fitted lid. This means I can fill up one side, then work on the other while the first side does its business. The first bin is supposed to be finished by the time the second is full. Genius!
• So far the bin has been big enough to hold our family’s food scraps with some browns from the garden. The key here seems to be in adding garden bits that are small or chopped up — no lazy cheating with larger sticks and bits as we sometimes do with the D.I.Y bin.
• On the plus side, I’ve been able to add more citrus peels than I usually add to my D.I.Y bins and so far, so good.
• I have noticed some leaking out of the seams on one side. Liquid is often generated in the composting process and I’m not yet sure whether this was an indication that my bin was too wet at one point, a problem with the bin’s construction, or if this just happens and that’s that.
• My only complaint so far is that it was a pain in the butt to put together. I have even worked professionally designing, illustrating, and writing assembly instructions for office furniture so I know my way around a complicated build, and Davin and I still had some trouble with this one. We made it work in the end, but not without losing our cool once or twice in the process. In hindsight, I probably should have watched the handy how-to video on the eartheasy website. Even if the video didn’t help clarify the process, it would have given us somewhere to direct our frustration.

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How to win a Jora JK125 Tumbling Composter

The folks at eartheasy have agreed to offer up one of these sweet units to a lucky YouGrowGirl.com reader. Simply post a comment below and you will be entered to win. Your comment can be as simple as “Enter me please” or “Count me in.”

Limitations: Unfortunately, this particular contest is limited to residents of the lower 48 states of the United States of America only. Canadian and International readers will not be entered this time around. Sorry folks.

One winner will be chosen at random using random dot orgs tool after entries close at midnight EST Thursday, May 31. Good luck to all!

Every week, from now until I can no longer find anything living to fill up the boxes, I will be photographing and posting a collection of flowers, leaves, stems, and other plant parts that are in my garden. This is an experiment in celebrating diversity and I hope it will allow me to focus more closely on the beauty that is inherent in the different parts of each plant. It will also serve as a visual file of the seasons.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I know I will enjoy putting them together. I can’t wait to show you more! The garden is so full and alive right now, I could have put together several for this week alone.

From Left to Right:

Top Row: 1. Pansy, unknown corner store purchase. 2. White Bleeding Heart (Dicentra spectabilis ‘Alba’) from my friend Sakura’s garden. She gave me the seedling just days before she died. I think of her whenever it blooms and am thankful that I now have a safe place to grow it. 3. ‘Bloomerang’ Lilac (Syringa) now in its second year. I have dug it up and moved it three times since and yet it flourishes.

Middle Row: 4. Clematis ‘Crystal Fountain’. At least I think it is. I lost the tag. While not my usual style, I’ve been surprised by how much I anticipated the blooms opening up this year. Even Davin got in on the excitement with daily early morning status reports. 5. Coleus ‘Henna’ I grew this last year and loved it. 6. Purple Iris. Dubbed ‘Parkdale Purple’ I can only assume this is because this particular variety has spread all around the neighbourhood. I bought mine years ago at the Parkdale Horticultural Society Plant Fair and planted it into the Guerilla Garden/Street Garden where it lived for about a decade. Last year I dug up several rhizomes and transplanted them into my new garden. They are happier here than they have ever been, most likely because the soil is perfect and I’ve been able to pamper them.

Bottom Row: 7. Columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris ‘Nora Barlow’). I originally acquired this beauty as a self-seeding volunteer in my community garden plot. I loved it so much that I brought it over to the new garden where I am pleased to find it is flourishing. 8. Cushion Spurge (Euphorbia polychroma). I have absolutely no recollection of its origins, but I believe it may be another transplanted from the Street Garden. 9. Sweet Woodruff (Galium odoratum). I originally planted this in the Yardshare Garden, but moved it over here this spring. Someone new has bought the house so the garden has come to an end.

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Please note that I received both ‘Crystal Fountain’ Clematis and ‘Bloomerang’ Lilac as review plants last year from Loblaw Inc.

We’re hitting that magical time of the season when a growing portion of our meals are gleaned from the garden. I enjoy moving around the space, snipping bits of this and that from here and there. I have edibles tucked in everywhere. There are lettuce seedlings in every bed, except the dry one. They would not fair well there.

Yesterday’s lunch, a simple salad (Except the eggs. No chickens here. Le sigh. Oh, and the cheese.) came from the garden.

Here’s my process:

1. Photo Top Left: ‘Four Seasons’ lettuce. This is the same lettuce that miraculously overwintered. I dug up the seedlings and planted them here and there.
2. Photo Top Right: Harvesting assorted edible greens. These include: Two types of spinach, bloody dock, chive flowers, viola flowers, French Sorrel, pea shoots, curly parsley, violet leaves, another type of lettuce (I forget), curly cress, ‘Green Wave’ mustard, mizuna, ‘Red Frills’ mizuna, spring onion, lemon balm, mint, and borage seedlings. These are just a few examples of salad fixins you can grow.
3. Photo Bottom Left: Easy dressing done right in the bowl. Just add your greens and toss. Olive oil, a dash of Balsamic vinegar, grated Parmesan cheese, chopped chive blossoms and parsley.
4. Photo Bottom Right: And eat. With boiled eggs and asparagus. Enjoyed with a kefir milk smoothie.

I am loving this combination of the chartreuse ‘Designer Genes’ hosta, flanked by the delicate Claytonia virginica ‘Spring Beauty’ blooms.

See also: Sierra Spring Beauty (Claytonia nevadensis).

Last night, I gleefully laid out the collection of items I had purchased from the flea market onto the floor and imagined how I will use them in the future. Most of the items were purchased for the garden and some will make an appearance in the photos I take for future book and assignments.

Most of the items that show up in my work projects are also used by me in my home. Few are purchased for one-time usage and then shuffled out the door. Perhaps it would be better that way, but I am a collector, always have been. Still, I can’t recycle the same plates, bowls, and fabrics book after book, photo after photo, so to keep things fresh, I collect an affordable hodgepodge of items that I like, primarily from thrift shops. I’ve never really been into sets anyway. It’s one part of my job that gives me an excuse to indulge in a whim that I would be otherwise forced to curb. It is why I go to the effort of dragging home dirty curbside “treasures” on my bike and why I fill up my luggage with special canning jars when I go away on business trips. In truth, I was doing these things before it became a part of my job — this just gives me the justification I need to continue.

Part of a burgeoning collection of rusty witches’ cauldrons. Some are used as pots. Some just sit there. What can I say? I like them.

Davin looked on lazily as I went through a sort-of ritual of assembling and disassembling the motley collection. Lay the items out. Ponder their use. Put them away. Pull them out again for a second glance. I looked up at him and remarked that laid out like that, I could see that what I had purchased that afternoon amounted to a pile of crap. If it is rusted, dirty, broken, and has sat unused in the back of a barn or storage shed for at least a decade, chances are good that I will buy it and bring it home. As long as the price is right.

There I sat, like a kid with new toys, delighting in a pile of wares that most people would identify as garbage. I’m like a bird seeking out shiny things, but the things I seem to like most are tarnished, pocked, and laden in a patina of filth.

“They’re for your Tickle Trunk,” Davin said.

“But I don’t collect costumes — I’m not Mr. Dressup.”

“It amounts to the same thing. You use them to tell your stories.”

Antique cobbler shoe lasts that will sit in the garden and hold up nothing.

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