The weather forecast on Saturday called for rain, rain, rain, but fortunately for all the gardeners who opened up their gardens to the public for the Long Branch Garden Tour, there was only a little bit of rain in the morning and it turned out to be a great day to be exploring gardens.

We were not only opening up our garden to the public, we also had a wedding ceremony to go to at noon. Our friends Candy and Stagg and Stephen came to the rescue and acted as substitute gardeners while we headed off to the ceremony. We have one of Stagg’s paintings on our shed, so his work was part of our garden environment.

It turned out many people came to visit our gardens throughout the day. There were 3 plants in particular people asked me about. The first was an Agapanthus which lives in a pot on our back patio. People told us this plant is super-common in England and Australia and California, but not so well known here.

I kept forgetting the name so when asked I think I may have told people it was Agamanthus or Agacanthus or Aga-something-else. It is also known as the African Lily or sometimes as Lily of the Nile.

Many people also asked about our Shishigashira Japanese Maple.

This tree was a gift from Sheila’s dad. It was small enough to fit in the back of the car when we bought it. It shows a beautiful, intense green in the summer and it is the last tree on our street to turn colour most years. Occasionally, when we have an early winter storm, it snows on the tree before the leaves change colour – but that has only happened a couple times. On those years, when it snows on the leaves, they turn a dull brown instead of the bright orangey-red we are used to. It is an easy tree to care for and it likes the semi-shady spot we gave it just fine. Last year and again this year, we’ve had spider mites in that tree. I don’t think they will seriously harm the tree but they can partially defoliate it. We have been spraying it down with water to discourage the mites. If it gets bad this year, we may consider using some insecticidal soap to control them. There are also a couple different mites and a beetle that eat spider mites. That’s an interesting idea we will have to research.

The third plant that seemed to catch the attention of many people on the garden tour is our Cut-leaf Elderberry. I think the variety is the Black Lace.

Some people see the dark purple-black cut leaves and think it is a Japanese Maple, but this time of year the lovely pink blossoms give it away. It is a durable and adaptable plant. In our garden, we often lose a few branches after winter, but new ones quickly grow. We’ve had two of them for around a decade now and this year it looks better than it ever has. It is showiest when in blossom.

It was pointed out to us during the garden tour that the multiflora roses on our property are invasive and we should take them out and replace them. It is true they spread easily. I think ours migrated from our neighbour’s place. It is an attractive plant in blossom and we had no idea it was an invasive plant. It is not the only invasive we have to cope with. The other is garlic mustard. We’ve been trying to get rid of that for years, but some of it always comes back.

Our gardens are also integrated with mosaics, sculptures and various pieces of re-purposed junk, which led to my fave comment of the day: “you folks have no rules”. True that.

We would like to thank everyone who came out to visit the gardens on the tour. There were 37 this year and for the first time the tour stretched out from Long Branch into New Toronto. We enjoy sharing our gardens so it great to see people enjoying themselves, trying to see as many gardens as possible during the day.