Next week brings the year’s shortest day and the official beginning of winter. though we’ve had more than a taste of it already. The coming year’s seed and garden catalogues have begun to arrive, bringing with them visions of next summer’s garden with its sweet, sun-warmed strawberries, crunchy cucumbers, full-flavoured tomatoes — and beautiful flowers.
As November drew to a close, along came an email that intensified those dreams and hopes for the coming growing season.
“How do you like my indoor morning glories? The last ones bloomed Nov. 18.”
The photo showed morning glory stems, blooming, in water. When I requested more information, Gale responded: “We wanted to keep the flowers growing as long as possible. Most of the vine was dying away so we cut off stems with furled buds and put them in three jars with water, no roots. Heavenly Blue morning glory is so pretty. We got the most out of them this year.”
Heavenly Blue has been around for a long time. I remember it blooming in my father’s garden. It’s considered the traditional, classic morning glory, winner of the Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit for its easy cultivation and reliable production of lovely, clear blue flowers.
These days, many varieties of annual morning glory are available. A favourite, and another heritage variety, is Grandpa Ott’s in a more dramatic purple-blue with a luminous pink violet centre. Sunrise Serenade is a ruffled double flower in rosy pink. Similar is Split Second, another fully double morning glory. It’s available from Stokes Seeds.
I realize that the very words “morning glory” fill some gardeners with panic-inducing dread as they immediately think of past and present battles with the invasive perennial morning glory that infests some gardens. The varieties I have described are non-invasive, annual vines.
Garden gold. This will seem absurd to anyone not mad for gardening, but the most thrilling gift I’ve received recently is a bag of leaf mould.
It was from the large garden of a man who runs a riding mower over his fallen maple leaves every autumn. A catcher behind the mower holds the shredded leaves, which are composted in a heap.
The result is a sensual delight — earthy, light, fluffy. I’m keeping the bag in the garden shed until I decide on what especially precious plants to treat with this most excellent mulching material. Every time I’m in the garden I take a moment to run my hands through the luscious stuff.
Gift after gift. The day after delivery of the leaf mould, a neighbour two doors away called to offer me fallen leaves from a huge maple tree in her large back garden. I made several trips, wheelbarrow and big bags in tow, to rake and bag leaves to bring home. Then snow and freezing temperatures halted the project.
The first five bags completed a hefty covering of the vegetable plots and served as protective mulch over the carrots, beets and leeks chicory in the garden.
I hope to gather more of the leaves to fill bags on hand. Stored with a shovel full of garden soil mixed in with the leaves, they will eventually turn into leaf mould if they are kept moistened and ventilated.
The valuable role that leaf mould plays in a garden is as a superb mulching material and soil conditioner. Not a fertilizing agent, it is mainly carbon and minerals. It is low in nitrogen.
In contrast, compost is usually high in nitrogen. Leaf mould (leaf mulch) is considered a better soil conditioner, while compost is more directly nourishing to plants.
Leaves are broken down by fungal action rather than by bacteria. Added to garden soils, leaf mould increases the amount of beneficial fungi in the soil and enhances a soil’s structure and moisture retention.
GARDEN EVENT
Abkhazi sales and festive tea. Akhazi Garden, 1964 Fairfield Rd. in Victoria, is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday to Sunday. Sales are underway now of holiday and culinary wreaths and table centres. New this year are the Abkhazi Garden Teacup and Wreath Birdfeeders. The teahouse is offering a Festive Christmas High Tea along with their afternoon teas. Make reservations at 778-265-6466. The Gift Shop, located in the teahouse, features quality local artisan art, pottery, fabrics, jewelry, stationery and soaps.
