Kingsbrae Gardens, Saint Andrews by the Sea, New Brunswick

Winding paths and bridges invite visitors to explore deeper in the garden

Visiting Saint Andrews was such a treat this summer.  Deer wander through town nibbling grass and trying to get through the plastic netting wrapped around precious plants.  The magificant Tudor-style half-timbered Algonquin Hotel presides over the city.  And then there is Kingsbrae Gardens.  Such care and attention shows everywhere in the little details that make this an amazing garden.

A bowl of succulents 

The sculpture garden is for the birds

Imaginative sculptures good enough to eat

lily pond

a raised vegetable garden that is easy to tend

Nackawic, New Brunswick

In July, we were coming home from a long trip through the US and Ontario, but found time to get off the highway and visit the small town of Nackawic, nestled on the Saint John River.  It's home of The Big Axe, and it truly is a monster.

The handle is shaped like a real axe, not just a telephone pole, and the shiny metal business end looks real enough to do some damage.

The town is much more than just about the axe, which is part of a lovely park criss-crossed with paths and perenials and big shade trees.

A creaky dock just into the water, and it is irresistable to anyone looking for a bit of an adventure.

larder beetles

Oh yuck - who lives here? 
I spied a few undesirables in my cutlery drawer, and when I took out the utensils, I saw the full extent of the grossness.  Along with the dust and mouse poops were live disgusting larder beetle larvae.

This small beetle belongs to the Dermestidae family. Adults are dark brown or black and measure 6 to 9 mm in length. Their elongated, flattish bodies have a light brown to yellowish horizontal strip marked by 6 dark spots. Two club-shaped antennae extend from the head, and two pairs of wings are attached to the thorax.

The female lays 100 to 200 eggs after mating in the spring and early summer. The banana-shaped egg clusters are placed in groups of 6-8 directly on their food source—this might be the corpse of a bird or animal, or oily foods in your pantry. After about 10 days, small larvae appear.

In the larval stage, it looks like a small yellowish-brown worm covered with hairs. It is 3 to 5 mm long and has two curved horn-like appendages. The larva goes through 4 to 5 moults before transforming into a nymph and emerging in its adult form after a rest period.

Prefered foods:

• Cheese
• Cake
• Dry animal food
• Rodent and bird carcasses
• Insects, especially earthworms and ladybugs
• Flowers
• Hair and fur
• Dead skin
• Fabrics and natural materials
• the larvae of other larder beetles.

Unless you want to call in the big guns like a pest control company, the best solution is seal cracks where they get in, and to clean the drawers more often than I do.

livingstone daisy

For a true challenge, try growing Livingstone Daisy from seed.  The seeds are as tiny as dust, they need to be started indoors 12 weeks before the last frost, and the soil must be kept warm with bottom heat.  When the seeds finally germinate, the tiny plants must be transplanted because they are so crowded.  The plants themselves are floppy and sparse and hard to grow.
No selling points so far.  But the flowers are shades of neon pink, orange, and yellow, with purple and white thrown in.  They open in the sun, and close overnight. 

The plant stems are sparse and floppy.
Not much to look at until the flowers pop open.

perfect peonies

Most peonies available in nurseries produce big double flowers.  They are beautiful, they smell like heaven, but their heavy blooms are weighed down by the slightest shower and the plants need to be staked to keep them from hitting the dirt.  Plus, there is no way bees can penetrate those petals to find any pollen.

So I look for single varieties, which are much rarer, although I don't understand why.  There is just  one row of petals, with a yellow centre of stamens full of pollen that bees can find easily.  These varieties do not need to be staked - the stems are strong enough to hold the flowers through all kinds of weather.  The only down side is that there is no fragrance.

Dancing Butterfly  is the first single variety planted in my garden

A pink single struggles to break free of the surrounding buds

The most beautiful semi double - Coral Beauty
- the picture doesn't do it justice.

Tree peonies are another good choice for those who don't want to stake their plants.  Over the winter, their woody structure stays intact like a shrub, unlike other herbaceous varieties, which die down to the ground.
Unfortunately, these plants are more temperamental.
Some years their flowers are as big as dinner plates.  Other years, like this one, the flowers are smaller.   And last year, it didn't bloom at all.  They are also prone to dying for no apparent reason.  It's a challenge.
The best of both worlds is probably the Itoh peony, a cross between the tree and the herbaceous peony.  However, the Itoh is so expensive, that I have not had the courage to try them in my garden.

iridescent irises

Irises are my favourite flower.  Even though each flower lasts little more than a day, the colours and varieties are fantastic, and they are all blooming at once in my garden right now.

bearded iris

Russet bearded iris

Japanese iris

Siberian iris is much more dainty

Bearded German iris blooms from ryzomes that live for many years and spread gradually

Dutch iris blooms from bulbs planted in fall.
They don't spread and rarely survive a second winter in my garden.