What’s in the garden these days

64

My garden becomes something out of a fairy tale in May. The rhododendrons tower over my head and the bees hum around the spectacular flowers. The band-tail pigeons arrive for about a month and gorge themselves on our feeder, while all the little birds hover around the fringes waiting for the feathered equivalent of moose to leave so they can get a few nibbles.

The lilacs fill the air with a heady scent that obliterates any other odour that could possibly be out there. I am so happy to have a lilac, the scent takes me back in time to the lazy days of spring at my grandparents. At the farm, a massive lilac stood outside the farmhouse and filled the air. The hummingbirds sat among the branches to rest and it was the first place I’d ever seen a hummingbird not in flight. When Granny and Grandad moved to the new house, lilacs lined the edge to the hilll below and put on an equally lovely show. Lilacs were also a feature in my yard growing up in Prince George. We had a hedge of lilacs dividing our front yard and our neighbour’s and the backyard had a muge white lilac that towered over the honeysuckle bushes that divided our backyards.

Irises are my favourite flowers, and this one is the king of them all. An unusual iris called a bamboo iris (Iris confusa), it has an unusual branching structure with tiny orchid-like blossoms bursting forward from them. An exceptionally cold winter knocked it back two years ago and it’s struggled since. This year it put out a few small flowers, but at least it hasn’t given up the ghost.

Some of hte best things in the garden are the smallest. Like these teeny-tiny little saxifrage blossoms. Only a couple of millimetres across, the little blossoms fill the space like a small snowbank.

But it’s the rhodendron that crowns the garden. It towers over us, close to 20’ tall and wide, and it fills with so many lilac blossoms that you can hardly see a leaf. The short-lived blossoms lighten up the garden at night, almost feeling like the tree is covered in snow. When they are done, they fall and cover the lawn and the garden below, filling the bird bath, and making for a spectacular show of natural litter.