Other Peoples' Gardens

I love wandering through new towns and seeing how other people garden. I find it interesting how trends vary from place to place, often within short range of one another. This past weekend, we took a long drive from home to Lindsay, Ontario, and as I was the passenger, for once I got to look at peoples' yards as we drove on through.

Many people in South-Eastern Ontario have this enormous beautiful orange flower growing in their yards. I don't have any clue what it is, but it looks to be about 4 feet tall and the flowers are a glorious, electric orange. They're in full bloom right now, so I want some to go with my huge dark purple irises. Perhaps they're some sort of iris themselves? They're too early to be cannas...I have no idea, but I saw about 4 of them between Ottawa and Lindsay and I've never seen them in my area. Another thing that people along this stretch of highway enjoy are wooden silhouettes of woodland creatures - usually bears - parading across their lawns. It made me do a double-take almost every time. I am so gullible.

I also find it interesting to see how other people plant. There are people who enjoy the same wild and bountiful aesthetic as I, then there are the people who went out and bought two flats of impatiens, planted each individual flower about 2 feet apart, and consider themselves done. The sparse look. I really can't get inside that headspace at all. There are also a lot of geraniums in the world, perhaps it's because they're hardy and bright, I have no idea. I personally don't like them, except this year I did find a magenta one and broke down and bought a hanging planter of it for the deck. I also like the hardy and weirdly-scented varieties.

In my neighborhood and further north, white is the most popular colour for garden accessories. I have to say this at risk of seeming somehow bigoted: french canadian people love to paint things white. Around here, we have white-painted rocks, small white chain-link fences, white bricks, and the clincher, the white tires. My hubby calls them 'les pneus de pélouse' (lawn tires). These are used as garden borders. Sometimes they are multi-coloured, sometimes they are cut into flower-like shapes, they're usually white, and filled with geraniums. I have noticed this white-paint obsession and I think it's terrific, because it's such a regional specialty and has a touristy appeal. I know if I were visiting, I'd want to see what the folks are doing in their yards, and to go home to - oh, I don't know, New York City - and to say "I saw these people up there who paint tires white and use them as planters! They also eat french fries with cheese and gravy and call it poo-teen!" Now that's some local flavour to savour*. Another little trick that folks in my region use is to plant plastic flowers in their pneus de pélouse, which is kind of smart when you think about it - they're very winter hardy and their only drawback is that they fade in the sun after a few years. They just have to remember to remove them in October if they want to maintain any credibility at all.

Lindsay itself is something of a garden town. Convenience stores have wonderful garden centres, and there are whole parts of town where every garden is perfect. They have these terrific old victorian homes, and giant trees, and a lot of gardens are magnificent shade gardens (which I love). It's so beautiful, and so different from where I live. The climate down there favours plants that I have troubles with, like clematis and grape vines and lilacs. They bounce back faster down there and seem to suffer way less winter damage. I would love to grow bountiful clematis but mine are always a bit meek and mangy.

Anyway all in all it was a great trip. I went for my big family bridal shower, and I received the coolest garden ornament/trellis/obalisk thingy ever. I will post pics of it later.

*I love poutine.