{"id":3921,"date":"2016-05-23T13:57:18","date_gmt":"2016-05-23T13:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.siteandinsight.com\/?p=3921"},"modified":"2016-05-23T13:57:18","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T13:57:18","slug":"a-change-of-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/a-change-of-address\/","title":{"rendered":"A Change of (Ad)dress"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The weather\u00a0at this time of year does strange things to the mind — and to the wardrobe. One day is cold, the next is hot. Changing locations makes the uncertainties even worse. What do I pack? Summer dresses or winter woolies?<\/p>\n

I arrived in England a few days ago on a chilly morning that felt much like the mornings I’d left behind in Canada. But looking out at the countryside, it was obvious that summer was now dressing the fields.<\/p>\n

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\"A

A froth of white dresses the fields and roadsides in Hertfordshire. What do you call this wildflower — Queen’s Anne’s Lace, wild carrot or something else entirely?<\/p><\/div>\n

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Not so at Glen Villa, my home garden in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. In the weeks before I left, the garden didn’t know what to wear.<\/p>\n

Jeffersonia, or twin leaf (Jeffersonia diphylla)<\/em>\u00a0decided to put on its party dress and bloom earlier than usual. While farther south it is common, in Quebec it is rare, almost non-existent. And since it reminds me of my home state of Virginia and of Thomas Jefferson, after whom it was named, it has a special place in my heart.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"Jeffersonia

Jeffersonia is marginally hardy in Quebec and I am fortunate that it is beginning to seed around.<\/p><\/div>\n

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It was the same story on the berm by the Skating Pond. There, hundreds of daffodils were decked out in frills of yellow and white, daffodilling for all they were worth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Over

It’s a party on the berm, with daffodils of all sorts hanging out together. Over the years, we’ve planted several thousand of them\u00a0 — and there’s lots of room for more!<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

(A side not: A year or two ago, I noticed that the daffodils were arranged in rows\u00a0like soldiers lined up for inspection instead of mingling willy-nilly\u00a0like friends at a party. To relax the effect, I began to move clumps while the daffodils were still in bloom, so I could immediately see the effect. That was two or three years ago. This year I can see that, bit by bit, my plan\u00a0is working.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"I

I am happy with this section of the hillside and love the mix of colours and varieites.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Over the first two\u00a0weeks of May, temperatures fluctuated wildly, going from summertime highs to wintertime lows. I watched as buds promised to flower, only to shrink back inside their winter clothes.\u00a0At the end of April, the buds on the magnolia trees in the Lower Garden were closed as tightly as they had been\u00a0all winter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Another

This photo from April 30, 2016 shows the magnolia bud tightly closed.<\/p><\/div>\n

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In sunnier and more sheltered spots they were beginning to open.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"This

This bud looks as if she is shrugging off a heavy winter coat.<\/p><\/div>\n

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A day or two of sunshine tricked them into\u00a0showing their colours…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The

The overcoat is almost gone.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

despite night time temperatures that were still dipping to 2C or 3C degrees.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The

The overcoat has turned into a fur neck warmer — as necessary for flowers as for people on cold nights.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

And then, only days before I left for England,\u00a0the trees burst\u00a0into bloom.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Magnolia

Magnolia stellata ‘Susan’ in full bloom in the Lower Garden is a clich\u00e9d cloud of pink that would be perfect for a little girl’s dress-up box.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Under the linden tree, grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum<\/em>) that were still coming into bloom decided to spread their blue skirts across the grass.<\/p>\n

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\"Another

Those posts in the background hold up deer fencing. It is necessary, unfortunately, to stop the deer from eating the foliage.<\/p><\/div>\n

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And then it snowed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The

The snow cover here may not rival winter depths but even a light snowfall is too much in mid May.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Spring green and snow white is not a colour combination I want my garden to wear. Nor do I want to see it dressed that way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"By

By the time I was up and outside, much of the snow had gone.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

In England, only the memory of the cold and the unwelcome snow remains. Yesterday was warm and sunny, such a perfect day that I spent all of it at Kew Gardens.<\/p>\n

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\"A

A scene from the pinetum at Kew Gardens shows a mix of foliage colours and textures, along with a bright blue sky.<\/p><\/div>\n

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The white that clothed the ground there wasn’t snow, it was a swath\u00a0of little daisies.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Little

Little daisies (Bellis perennis) turn\u00a0grass into a picnic table covered with a fresh white cloth.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Azaleas were flouncing around in dresses\u00a0as gaudy as any you’d want to see.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"A

A touch of colour is a grand thing but I find the mix of colours overwhelming. The signage describing the different types of azaleas was quite informative, however, and with planes flying past every few minutes, you could never forget how close\u00a0you were to Heathrow airport.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

This being England, by the end of the day, as rain threatened, winter seemed to be\u00a0on its way back.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The

The Tuscan-style tower originally was the chimney on the building that heated the Palm House nearby. I could have done with some of that warmth.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today again is sunny and I’m hoping that the weather will be\u00a0warm on\u00a0Wednesday when I visit the Chelsea Flower Show and will remain warm throughout the next two weeks, as I visit gardens, old and new, in the counties that surround London. But whatever the weather holds, I think my (overstuffed) suitcase\u00a0has something that suits.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"I

I can’t grow many magnolias at Glen Villa but two have survived and thrived — Susan and this one, \u00a0M. X loebneri ‘Leonard Messel.’<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

How’s the weather in your part of the world?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The weather\u00a0at this time of year does strange things to the mind — and to the wardrobe. One day is cold, the next is hot. Changing locations makes the uncertainties even worse. What do I pack? Summer dresses or winter woolies? I arrived in England a few days ago on a chilly morning that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,82,21,23],"tags":[539,588,136,589,37,214,590,47,108,100,318],"class_list":["post-3921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-glen-villa","category-miscellaneous-2","category-plants","category-travel","tag-azaleas","tag-bellis-perennis","tag-daffodils","tag-daisy","tag-glen-villa","tag-jeffersonia-diphylla","tag-kew-gardens","tag-lower-garden","tag-magnolia","tag-muscari","tag-wildflowers","category-38","category-82","category-21","category-23","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}