Boraginaceae

“Boraginaceae, the Borage or Forget-me-not family, includes a variety of shrubs, trees, and herbs, totaling about 2,000 species in 146 genera found worldwide. [2] A number of familiar plants belong to this family.”

"

Hellebore, Rhodos, Forget-me-notsPublished Tuesday May 31st, 2011
What a joy it was to be outdoors during the one or two sunny periods we had this past week. Soggy flowers dried out and perked up, and bees went crazy darting from one flower to another.

Carrying forward with the theorizing on duration of flowers with showy sepals vs. petals, the rhodos rely on true petal colour to attract pollinators, and their flowers are much shorter-lived. Rhodo blooming starts well after hellebores first emerge, when the temperatures are somewhat warmer, and the likelihood of pollination is better. The petals are very colourful, and also have the insect-attracting spots I described above. They last about two good weeks, which should be plenty of time for the bumble bees to get to each one.Although we have been seeing countless PJM Rhododendrons in bloom for the last three weeks, this close cousin, called 'Olga' Rhododendron, is more pink in bloom than the cooler lavender-pink PJM. Its leaves are a bit larger and its branch structure finer and more open. Overall, the two are close to twins, both developed by plant breeder Paul J. Mezzitt - thus the initials PJM. (Mezzitt's wife's name was Olga.)

The last dainty blue flowers I saw that day were forget-me-nots. These classic shady border residents seed themselves profusely, both in beds and thinner lawns or open woodlands. They act like annuals, but are actually biennials or short-lived perennials. Once you introduce them to a garden or border, they are likely to come back year after year, shifting randomly around the landscape. Their tiny sky-blue five-petalled flowers are absolutely flat, with even tinier yellow centres. Every so often, a single flower misses out on the blue pigment, and turns out a light mauve instead. You can just see one of those in this shot.

This Saturday, join me for my two-hour shrub pruning clinic. Learn how to prune most of the common types of shrubs in a way you can take home and practice immediately. Pruners, shears and loppers will be sharpened for free during the lecture.

Garden CorrespondenCE with Dick Chiswell in Renforth

Planting season is finally here, with the passing of the Queen's birthday, and the welcome end of frost danger. Dick normally aims to do all his planting in the last week of May and the first of June.

"The first things I put in were the cabbage family: a dozen or so cabbages, a dozen broccoli, and a dozen cauliflower. I shelter them with a black nursery pot with the end cut out, placed over the plant with its base jammed into the soil so it can't blow away. The new plants are right down inside the pot, sheltered from wind that might wiggle them and cause stress. The air around them stays warmer than outside the pot, and insects are less likely to attack.

"My goal is to have the entire garden planted by the end of this week (June 3). That would be normal timing for me. Planting the majority of the garden much before that doesn't seem to be of any advantage, and can sometimes get you into trouble in cool wet weather. Young seedlings can be quite vulnerable."

Dick plants a cover crop of annual rye grass in the fall, which gets 10-15 cm tall before snowfall. It protects the soil from wind and water erosion, smothers weeds, and supplies organic matter to the soil when turned in. That last task is part of Dick's garden prep each spring.

"I have turned over the soil in all the beds, and then till it up just before planting. I till especially deep for carrots, so that the roots go deep and straight, without forking. With potatoes, I make two furrows side by side down each raised bed, and plant the seed potatoes down in the bottom of the furrow. That gets them in fairly deep, which is necessary to avoid sunburning. The new potatoes grow above the seed potato, very near the surface. Green areas form on them wherever they are exposed to light. To prevent that, as the plants get 8-10" tall, I begin hoeing the soil up along each side of the plants, burying the roots and young potatoes even deeper."

Vegetable gardeners appreciate the perennial crops they often grow at one end of the garden, as they allow some harvesting to take place in the spring, when the other crops are weeks or months from producing.

"We've been eating asparagus, rhubarb, and perennial onions for a while now. I noticed I forgot to dig up my garlic last fall, so I will just leave it be, and dig it up in September when I should have last fall! Shouldn't hurt it..."

In the composting department, Dick is of course busy.

"I have turned the home compost over, mixing in all the winter's kitchen waste, and it is heating up nicely. I have also reground last fall's leaves, and can now leave that pile to work away all summer. For fun I plant hubbard squash on that big pile, and they grow amazingly, producing a dozen or more heavy hubbard squash. The roots grow all through the warm pile of partly decomposed leaves, and the vines cover it in green."

Thanks Dick. You'll be eating peas next time we talk I bet.

Duncan Kelbaugh is a gardener living in Quispamsis. His column appears Tuesday."