Featured Garden: My Nova Scotia East Coast Garden

When we moved into the previous house before the one we are in now, not a thing had been done to the property as it was a rental up until we bought it. Being a corner lot, made it a thoroughfare and short cut for people. I had no gardening experience so started with a little triangle (a horrible looking little garden) and planted all 6 annuals out of those little transplant containers in clumps. That Christmas a huge tree fell over in a storm and we were left with this large stump. We decided to bury it and added about 8 yards of soil and made a raised bed. Then we planted lots of perennials and shrubs which thrived as this stump slowly composted. Seeing them do so well spurred me on. Then I ordered hedging plants to go around the entire property...about 65 in total and they arrived on the rainiest days possible. So my husband had the trench dug and I planted them all in the pouring rain as they came bare root. Since then I haven't stopped. When we moved 7 years later I started all over again with the property shown. There was one big Norway Maple and a privet hedge in the front. Lots to work with! Because I became so passionate about gardening and always had people asking me for help, I ended up taking a Horticulturalist certificate online from Guelph university in Ontario, which took me about 3 years to complete. So now I have a little seasonal garden and landscape design/consultation biz.

Because we have such acidic soil, Rhodos and Azaleas have an ideal growing environment. I started many of my Rhodos from tissue cultures obtained from our local Rhododendron Society. I love Magnolia, Rhodos, Peony, Serviceberry, Japanese Maples, perennial geranium...anything that gives nice fall colour. There aren't too many plants I don't like with the exception of Goutweed, Japanese Knotweed...the invasives. I also love Fall Japanese Anemone's which some people find invasive, but I have never been that fortunate! I have started growing Helebores as well and they seem to do well in our climate.

My favourite feature of my garden would be my colour and textures. I don't have a whole lot of sun so have to rely on those characteristics. I don't have huge swaths of colours from flowers, just some sporadic flowering. I love shade gardening so like to experiment with different greens and golds and variegation. I wish I had more sun for vegetables and am only able to grow tomatoes in containers on my deck...and those I have to move around with the sun! I envy those that are able to grow so many vegetables

Digging gardens on our property. There are so many old Norway maples in the area with far flung roots. Also when they developed the subdivision they added so much horrible fill...shale and different rock..not even nice rock you can incorporate into the landscape. We've hauled so many bucketfuls of rock out of there. My oriental, asiatic lillies and my fritilarias are being decimated by the lily beetle. These are not a native beetle and the only way to get rid of them is to hand pick them. I've ended up removing most of my lillies except for the frits which I can't bear to remove.