Although I didn't know it at the time, 2008 was the last year for my beloved apt on Roncesvalles. After 5 years the gardens were still a work in progress but many of the plants were well established and happily reinventing the former parking lot into a green oasis. The wild rose was now over 10 ft tall and covered in fragrant pink double helix blossoms every June. The clematis was also winding it's way skyward and put on an impressive shower of ice blue and pale lilac flowers. The orange day lily was equally prolific, sending up new shoots every year that produced a succession of deep orange blossoms over the month of
June. And for later in the summer there were cone flowers, black eyed susans, delphiniums and self seeding anise hyssop, as well as all the climbing vines.Up on the deck the vegetables and annuals mingled with the tropic house plants set free for the summe
r. Tomatoes and
herbs loved the sun and heat. I even grew a bucket of potatoes with some success.Over the years I tried a variety of annuals with some doing better than others. Climbing vines were always successful and easy to start from seed. Morning glories, cypress vines, thumbergia, and climbing beans and the elusive moonflowers - I grew them every year but only managed to get them to flower twice. A pair of sumac trees managed to escape the routine slaughter and became lovely palm like shade trees over one corner of the deck!
The south garden eventually filled in nicely with mostly native plants. Bee balm, columbine, foxglove, black eyed susans and even a trillium. The most successful plant was a giant rue which I hoped would deter the neighbourhood cats ( mine included) from using the garden as a litterbox- it failed at that but looked lovely and healthy while everything else was still struggling with the toxic remnants. Because of it's shady location I was limited in types of plants and it never became as lush as the north garden but the appeal was in its simplicity. Sadly I had to leave most of this garden behind in the move.
We moved in Nov 2008- to a space with a large deck and an actual backyard with a garden!
To be continued... BackyardfarmsTO
