Tag Archives: Ontario

Fairy Crown #23 – Sedums, Pass-Along Plants & Fruit for the Birds

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My 23rd fairy crown celebrates one of the great, hardy, late-summer-to-early-autumn perennials – sedum. Or should that be “stonecrop”.  And the Latin name?  Well, it used to be Sedum spectabile but now the big pink sedums have been renamed Hylotelephium spectabile. Let’s just call it by its cultivar name ‘Autumn Joy’.  But wait…. that cultivar was originally the German variety “Herbstfreude”.  Okay, you get the idea; DNA is analyzed; parental lines are revised; common names are confusing; and sometimes, the Germans got there first!  But what else is in today’s crown?  Well, the little coneflowers are browneyed susans,  Rudbeckia triloba, a biennial. The fuzzy yellow spike is Solidago sphacelata ‘Golden Fleece’.  And the fruits are crabapples from my dearly-departed ‘Red Jade’ crabapple and wild, native Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) that likes to attach itself to my fence.

Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ has a very long season of interest. In August, the green, broccoli-like flowerheads start their colour transformation, turning a light rose. It was at this point that I photographed my granddaughter Emma “watering” them. That’s rough blazing star (Liatris aspera) with the purple spikes nearby.

The photo below is at the height of flowering in the August pollinator garden, but the sedum takes its time in opening the tiny flowers.

When they do open a few weeks later in September, the colour a deeper rose, the echinaceas have usually finished blooming.

In the background in my city garden is Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’, which I blogged about in Fairy Crown #21 at the cottage. 

Sedum flowers are irresistible to butterflies like the monarch, especially as they begin their southward migration. 

Bumble bees and honey bees, below, love the nectar-rich flowers too.

Sedum time in Toronto coincides with the September flowering of Solidago sphacelata ‘Golden Fleece’, below, a well-behaved, compact form of autumn goldenrod discovered by Delaware’s Mt. Cuba Center in 1985 and introduced to commerce a few years later.  I purchased it years ago and have been patiently dividing it ever since.

It is popular with pollinators, especially bumble bees.

When you have friends with beautiful gardens, you’re sometimes gifted with their favourite plants. That’s what “pass-along plant” means, and the one below, browneyed susan (Rudbeckia triloba) was a gift from my pal Aldona Satterthwaite.  It’s a biennial (green growth the first summer, flowers the next), so I’ll have to wait for its babies to pop up in my garden.

My crown also contains a few fruits from my garden, including the ripening fruit of native wild Virginia creeper….

…. and those from my ‘Red Jade’ crabapple, which sadly will need a replacement next spring.  The birds will miss it terribly.

But instead of ending on a sad note, I’ll finish with a bouquet to remember the flowers of Fairy Crown 23.

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Missed my blogs on my previous 22 fairy crowns? Here they are! #1 – Spring Awakening
#2 – Little Blossoms for Easter
#3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths 
#4 – Spring Bulb Extravaganza
#5 – A Crabapple Requiem
#6 – Shady Lady
#7 – Columbines & Wild Strawberries on Lake Muskoka
#8 – Lilac, Dogwood & Alliums
#9 – Borrowed Scenery & an Azalea for Mom
#10 – June Blues on Lake Muskoka
#11 – Sage & Catmint for the Bees
#12 – Penstemons & Coreopsis in Muskoka
#13 – Ditch Lilies & Serviceberries
#14 – Golden Yarrow & Orange Milkweed
#15 – Echinacea & Clematis
#16 – A Czech-German-All American Blackeyed Susan
#17- Beebalm & Yellow Daisies at the Lake
#18- Russian Sage & Blazing Stars
#19-My Fruitful Life
#20-Cup Plant, Joe Pye & Ironweed

21-Helianthus & Hummingbirds

#22-Grasses, Asters & Goldenrod

Fairy Crown #22-Grasses, Asters & Goldenrod

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My 22nd fairy crown is a celebration of the ornamental grasses I grow at the cottage on Lake Muskoka.  The little seeds are from switch grass (Panicum virgatum); my “bangs” are big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii); and there’s also some pollen-laden Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) there as well. The pale lavender flowers are a little aster that grows wild on our property, sky-blue aster (Symphyotrichum oolentangiense). The pink flowers are the New England aster ‘Harrington’s Pink’ (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae).

In fact, #22 was the most unruly of all my crowns to make, given that the grasses had long flowering spikes that were difficult to attach to the wire frame.  Here’s a little inside look at the nuts-and-bolts of fairy crown creation.

Many of my prairie grasses grow in the west meadow. In the photo below, you can see big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) mixed with heliopsis, lanceleaf aster and various goldenrods.

When native switch grass (Panicum virgatum) is in flower and the sun shines behind it, it adds a beautiful sense of lightness to the meadow. I planted a few nursery pots of various cultivars of switch grass in the naturalistic garden beds on the property, but I also sowed seed of the species throughout the meadows and it is gradually filling in in many places….

….. including the lake shore.

It has a swishing, kinetic quality that makes sitting beside it in late summer a sensory experience.

And in autumn, switch grass turns colour, with some taking on red hues and others golden-yellow.

Big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) is sometimes called turkeyfoot grass because the flower spikes branch into three segments that resemble a turkey’s foot.  It is native to southern Ontario.

By the time it blooms in early September alongside big bluestem, grey-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata) is usually showing off its oblong black seedheads.

Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) is a stealth grass; one minute it’s in a tidy clump in a garden bed, the next minute it’s popping up in cracks between flagstones.  But it’s one of the native grasses I’ve encouraged to grow in the shallow, sandy soil of the west meadow.  I assume its deep, searching roots find cracks in the Precambrian bedrock that somehow approximate the deep soil of the tallgrass prairie that once covered millions and millions of acres of North America. That little aster peeking out from the Indian grass is sky-blue aster (Symphyotrichum oolentangiense).

I see it all over the countryside in Muskoka, but I adore the way it pops up amidst native species that I sowed in the meadows here, like wild beebalm (Monarda fistulosa), below, showing its late summer seedheads.

It’s one of those plants that is unassumingly charming – and new plants emerge in different spots each September.

But bees are sure to find it, including the orange-belted bumble bee (Bombus ternarius), below.

In my east meadow, September features another plant I received from the gardeners at Toronto’s Spadina House Museum – only this time, I purchased at their plant sale (unlike my cup plants, which were gifted to me by Spadina’s gardeners with a warning about their rambling ways.)  Meet Symphyotrichum novae-angliae ‘Harrington’s Pink’, below, partnering with sweet blackeyed susan (Rudbeckia subtomentosa).

Bumble bees are fond of ‘Harrington’s Pink’…. even if the flowers sometimes don’t fully open in my dry meadows and tend to look a little wonky…..

….. unlike the spectacular display this plant makes at Spadina House in early autumn, along with other cultivars of New England aster.

The goldenrod in my crown is not one you see in nurseries; in fact, it took me a while to identify it, but I think I have.  It is hairy goldenrod (Solidago hispida), native to dry, rocky places in a large swath of the northeast.

I’ll leave you with a bouquet I made many years ago that celebrates the big grasses, asters, seedheads and goldenrods that shine in my meadows at this time of year. The cowboy boot? Well, it just seemed fitting for this celebration of the prairie on Lake Muskoka!

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Here are the blogs on my previous 21 fairy crowns!

#1 – Spring Awakening
#2 – Little Blossoms for Easter
#3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths 
#4 – Spring Bulb Extravaganza
#5 – A Crabapple Requiem
#6 – Shady Lady
#7 – Columbines & Wild Strawberries on Lake Muskoka
#8 – Lilac, Dogwood & Alliums
#9 – Borrowed Scenery & an Azalea for Mom
#10 – June Blues on Lake Muskoka
#11 – Sage & Catmint for the Bees
#12 – Penstemons & Coreopsis in Muskoka
#13 – Ditch Lilies & Serviceberries
#14 – Golden Yarrow & Orange Milkweed
#15 – Echinacea & Clematis
#16 – A Czech-German-All American Blackeyed Susan
#17- Beebalm & Yellow Daisies at the Lake
#18- Russian Sage & Blazing Stars
#19-My Fruitful Life
#20-Cup Plant, Joe Pye & Ironweed

Fairy Crown #21 – Helianthus & Hummingbirds

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My 21st fairy crown for the end of August features a few dependable meadow plants for late summer here on Lake Muskoka.  The light-yellow daisy is Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’, a popular hybrid of two species, H. pauciflorus var. subrhomboideus, stiff sunflower, and H. tuberosus, native Jerusalem artichoke.  The dark-centered daisy is sweet blackeyed susan (Rudbeckia subtomentosa). The little white daisies belong to lanceleaf aster (Symphyotrichum lanceolatum), which occurs naturally in my meadows.  I’ve also tucked in another naturally-occurring native, stiff goldenrod (Solidago rigida).  The cobalt-blue flowers belong to a tender perennial from my deck containers: anise-scented sage (Salvia guaranitica ‘Black & Bloom’), a cultivar from Ball Floral that is itself a cross between two older (unpatented) cultivars ‘Costa Rican Blue’ and ‘Black & Blue’.

Sweet blackeyed susan, aka sweet coneflower, below, is my favourite of the Rudbeckia genus for a few reasons. First, it has the most perfect flowers, below, which are much larger than other Rudbeckia species, and carried at the top of stems on plants that can reach a height of 1.5-2 metres (5-6 ft).  Second, though it is native to the American midwest north to Illinois and Michigan, it is perfectly hardy in Muskoka. Third, it flowers at the end of summer when the meadows need more colour.  Fourth, it has an interesting scent that is reflected in its third common name, fragrant coneflower.

It isn’t a huge pollinator draw, but I’ve seen the odd wasp or bee foraging on the flowers.

It is classed as a wetland species, preferring moist to mesic soil. While we certainly don’t have a wetland on our property, it is very happy in our partly shaded hillside meadow and at the bottom of our property at the rocky lakeshore where its roots are frequently bathed by the wake from passing boats.

In my west meadow, sweet blackeyed susan blooms simultaneously with Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’, below.  They seem perfectly suited to be sharing this area, along with cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum).

On the other hand, I have a large drift of ‘Lemon Queen’ under my stairs, below, and this planting is visible every time I go into the cottage. That means I get to see it flop its head (all its heads) when the weather is very dry, forcing me to drag the hose over to perk them up again – something I’d never do in the meadow.

Bumble bees are frequent visitors to Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’.

This is also the time of summer for native lance-leaf aster (Symphyotrichum lanceolatum) with its panicles of tiny white flowers. It is reportedly allelopathic (i.e. secretes a substance that hurts plants growing near it), but unless I’ve misidentified it, it doesn’t seem to have impeded the growth of its meadow-mates, below.

Bees enjoy foraging on it, including my rare meadow guest below, the yellow-banded bumble bee (Bombus terricola).

Stiff goldenrod, another member of the big goldenrod clan is in bloom now, though DNA analysis has assigned it to a different genus. These changes take a while to percolate through the literature and commerce, so many sources still list it as Solidago rigida, rather than Oligoneuron rigida.  But it is an exceptional goldenrod, gradually forming clumps….

…. with strong stems topped by rounded clusters of tiny flowers.  Like all “goldenrods”, it is a bee favourite, like this orange-belted bumble bee (Bombus ternarius).

Though my fairy crowns thus far have featured plants growing in my Toronto garden or in my meadows on Lake Muskoka, the 21st edition contains a few spikes of a tender South American perennial that I take great care to overwinter indoors under a window in my basement laundry tubs in the city so I can have it in my cottage deck containers each summer.  These are my “motley pots”, below, and the plant I’m referring to is the anise-scented sage with the blue spikes, Salvia guaranitica ‘Black and Bloom’, which is difficult to find in spring in Toronto garden centres.  I made this photo in the summer of 2019, but each year has a different cast of characters in my “Hummingbird Photo Studio”.  (If you click on the preceding link, you’ll see the popularity of this year’s experimental hummingbird favourite: standing cypress, Ipomopsis rubra.)


Their all-time favourite, however, is Salvia guaranitica ‘Black and Bloom’, below….

Ruby-throated hummingbird nectaring in Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blooms'

I have grown lots of hybrid salvias including ‘Amistad’, ‘Wendy’s Wish’ and ‘Amber Wish’, and they all attract hummingbirds.

Here’s a little video I made of the ruby-throated hummingbird on various plants in my containers through the years:

When I made this fairy crown, I had 2 out of 3 of my sons in attendance, as well as my husband, below, and they were all good sports in this serendipitous project.

They didn’t get the full-on fairy crown treatment like the grandkids, but I made them all wear meadow flowers, including my eldest son, right, and his partner….

…..and my middle son, below. Youngest son is off in Italy being married in less than 2 weeks! I plan to walk him down the aisle, but my fairy crowns have been instructed to keep up the show until winter!

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Meet my 20 previous fairy crowns!

#1 – Spring Awakening
#2 – Little Blossoms for Easter
#3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths 
#4 – Spring Bulb Extravaganza
#5 – A Crabapple Requiem
#6 – Shady Lady
#7 – Columbines & Wild Strawberries on Lake Muskoka
#8 – Lilac, Dogwood & Alliums
#9 – Borrowed Scenery & an Azalea for Mom
#10 – June Blues on Lake Muskoka
#11 – Sage & Catmint for the Bees
#12 – Penstemons & Coreopsis in Muskoka
#13 – Ditch Lilies & Serviceberries
#14 – Golden Yarrow & Orange Milkweed
#15 – Echinacea & Clematis
#16 – A Czech-German-All American Blackeyed Susan
#17- Beebalm & Yellow Daisies at the Lake
#18- Russian Sage & Blazing Stars
#19-My Fruitful Life
#20-Cup Plant, Joe Pye & Ironweed

Fairy Crown 18-Russian Sage & Blazing Stars

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My 18th fairy crown for August 7th features a strange, wild creature having a seriously bad hair day.  All right…. it just contains a lot of spike flowers and I ran out of horizontal room on the tiara so it looks like I’ve endured a shock. These are flowers and leaves from my Toronto garden. The lavender-blue spikes are Russian sage (formerly Perovskia atriplicifolia, now called Salvia yangii after DNA analysis proved it was in the sage family).  The fuzzy dark-mauve spikes are Liatris spicata ‘Kobold’, aka blazing star or gayfeather.  The stem with wine-red leaves and flower clusters is Sedum ‘Vera Jameson’. The chartreuse flowers cascading over my forehead are Canada goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) – at least, a few stems that I didn’t tear out to try to prevent it from spreading (which it will do anyway). The dissected leaves come from my Tiger Eye sumac shrub (Rhus typhina ‘Bailtiger’) and the vine falling over my right shoulder is Boston ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata).  Those little, pale-pink bottlebrush flowers on my left cheek are ‘Pink Tanna’ burnet (Sanguisorba officinalis) at the end of its season.  Finally, tucked into a corner on my forehead are a few red flowers of Petunia exserta that I forgot I’d thrown into my sundeck containers and they emerged in the midst of self-seeding oakleaf lettuce.

With its airy wands of long-lasting, light-blue flowers, the sub-shrub Russian sage is a big presence in my pollinator garden…..

…..and it offers nectar to bees for many weeks.

But it is sometimes short-lived and does not take kindly in our cold climate to being cut back in autumn. Much better to wait until spring when new growth has started.  

It flowers at the same time as violet-purple dense blazing star (Liatris spicata ‘Kobold’)….

…. which is also a wonderful pollinator lure.

I adore the burnets and was able to source Sanguisorba officinalis ‘Pink Tanna’, which has interesting little “scrim” flowers. But I’m still on the lookout for the big, dark-red species which add such a zingy note to a meadow-style planting.

The Tiger Eyes sumac (Rhus typhina ‘Bailtiger’) is a favourite…..

…… and it retains its chartreuse colour well into summer, before turning a beautiful apricot in fall.  

I forgive it its suckering-wandering ways because the birds absolutely adore it throughout winter.

As for the Boston ivy, well it’s pretty much a given in my garden… on my gate, below, and on my fence, and it would climb the house if I let it, but I don’t.

The little red petunias (P. exserta) were a seed-starting project a few years back and are quite rare and not found in garden centres.  I wrote about them extensively in my 2020 blog My Motley Pots.  This one managed to thrive in a container of self-seeding oakleaf lettuce on my deck.

As I wrote back then, my youngest son’s girlfriend Marta Motti did a painting of this petunia being visited by the hummingbird which she gave to me as a gift. I am delighted to say that she is marrying Jon on September 10th in Tuscany – and we will be there for the ceremony!

Sedum ‘Vera Jameson’ is in my backyard deck pots where it partners with the tough native grass sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula).  It’s very drought-resistant, given that these pots get watered very rarely, except by mother nature.

A few plants that are flowering now or in the next few weeks missed being in a fairy crown, so I’d like to say a few words about them now. The first is hoary or downy skullcap (Scutellaria incana), a native northeastern North America plant that I’m trialling in my front pollinator garden, where I’m hopeful it will be able to fend off the lily-of-the-valley groundcover.

Lastly, I’d like to give a nod to my favourite blazing star or gayfeather, Liatris aspera, aka rough blazing star.  Though endangered, this is our regional native.  Drought tolerant, it reaches 90-120 cm (3-4 feet) in height; it will start to flower in the next few weeks and is a superb, late-summer pollinator plant. 

As for the Canada goldenrod….. well, it’s a useful weed but if you turn your back you’ll have a forest. So don’t turn your back!

Fairy Crown #17 – Beebalm & Yellow Daisies at the Lake

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This is truly my favourite time of year in the meadows at our cottage on Lake Muskoka. Why?  Because the flower variety is at peak and the bees are at their most plentiful and buzzy. So my 17th fairy crown for August 5th celebrates the pollinator favourites here, including the champion, pink-flowered wild beebalm or bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), as well as yellow false oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides), biennial blackeyed susan (Rudbeckia hirta), grey-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata) with its dark cones, mauve hoary vervain (Verbena stricta), oregano (Origanum vulgare) and a few of my weedy Queen Anne’s lace flowers (Dauca carota).  

I call my wild places on either side of the cottage ‘Monarda Meadows’ because wild beebalm (M. fistulosa) is the principal perennial there and in all the beds and wild places around our house, where it grows as a companion to Heliopsis helianthoides, below.

There’s a reason wild beebalm is called that; it’s a literal balm for the bees, specifically bumble bees whose tongues can easily probe the florets! 

Another frequent visitor to wild beebalm flowers is the clearwing hummingbird moth (Hemaris thysbe).

False oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides) is one of the most aggressive natives I grow. I’m happy to leave it where it lands, but it often sulks in very sandy, sunny spots when summers are hot and dry.  It’s much better in the rich soil at the bottom of my west meadow, and I try to ignore all the red aphids that line the stems in certain summers.

But heliopsis also attracts its share of native bees, including tiny Augochlora pura, below.

Unlike the blackeyed susan I wrote about in my last blog, R. fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’, the ones I have at the lake are all the drought-tolerant native Rudbeckia hirta, below, with a long-horned Melissodes bee.  Biennials, they have seeded themselves around generously since 2003, when I first sowed masses of seed (along with red fescue grass) on the bare soil of the meadows surrounding our new house.

Sometimes they manage to arrange themselves very fetchingly, as with the perfumed Orienpet lily ‘Conca d’Or’, below.

Other times, they hang with the other tough native in my crown, hoary vervain (Verbena stricta).  Both are happy in the driest places on our property where they flower for an exceedingly long time….

…… as you can see from this impromptu bouquet handful featuring the vervain with earlier bloomers, coreopsis, butterfly milkweed and oxeye daisy.

Bumble bees love Verbena stricta.

The other yellow daisy in flower now — hiding at the top of my fairy crown — is grey-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata), also a favourite of bumble bees and small native bees in the meadows.  A vigorous self-seeder, it nevertheless does not always land in soil that is moisture-retentive enough for its needs; in that case, like heliopsis above, it wilts badly. But I love its tall stems bending like willows in the breeze.

Also in my fairy crown is a familiar hardy herb that fell from a pot on my deck long ago and found a happy spot in the garden bed below:  Greek oregano (Origanum vulgare var. hirtum).  

Its tiny flowers are also favoured by small pollinators.

The last component of my midsummer fairy crown is the common umbellifer Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota).  As much as we think of this as an unwanted invasive weed in North America, it was reassuring to see a native potter wasp, Ancistrocerus, making use of its small flowers.

As always, my fairy crown has a lovely second act as a bouquet.

Finally, I made a 2-minute musical video that celebrates these plants that form such an important ecological chapter in my summer on Lake Muskoka.

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Are you new to my fairy crowns?  Here are the links to my previous 15 blogs:
#1 – Spring Awakening
#2 – Little Blossoms for Easter
#3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths 
#4 – Spring Bulb Extravaganza
#5 – A Crabapple Requiem
#6 – Shady Lady
#7 – Columbines & Wild Strawberries on Lake Muskoka
#8 – Lilac, Dogwood & Alliums
#9 – Borrowed Scenery & an Azalea for Mom
#10 – June Blues on Lake Muskoka
#11 – Sage & Catmint for the Bees
#12 – Penstemons & Coreopsis in Muskoka
#13 – Ditch Lilies & Serviceberries
#14 – Golden Yarrow & Orange Milkweed
#15 – Echinacea & Clematis
#16 – A Czech-German-All American Blackeyed Susan