2025 Virtual Garden Tour - welcome

It's been over a month and it's about time to add some additional colour....here goes...
My Iris are blooming and budding, not sure which cultivar this is. I was at the Alpine Garden Club sale April 27th @ Van Dusen and there I picked up an Iris seedling from a breeder that was remarkably early in its flowering, apparently he breeds for that. It was a nice shade of blueish purple and there was a big enough plant in the pot that I could divide it and share some of it with my brother and sister-in-law in Black Creek.


You get only an impression of size of this Hosta 'Empress Wu' in this picture. a yardstick or tape measure would have given a hint of the size of it. The leaves are around 15" long and the plant stands at around 3 feet! It's finally living up to its reputation. When it was emerging I measured one of the shoots at 1.5" diameter and that gave me an inkling this would be a break-through season for it. I've had the plant since 2014 but it's been divided a couple times and I finally left it to go on about its business about 4 years ago. Apparently its finally content...
One of my favourites in spring is Hosta 'Dawn's Early Light', it's such a bright, cheery beacon in the yard. On top of that it has a lovely shape and form to its leaves. It is viridescent, so it'll go greener pretty soon now but that's not much of an issue for me. I've had it in a couple different locations, something that's easy to do when it's in a pot, and I've found it does best in mostly shade. It gets burned-out with too much direct sun...
I have a LOT of Aquilegia in my yard and for me to pot one up and keep it aside means it's something special. I had a hunch of what this was going to look like when it started to bud up and I was thrilled to see this is the flower it produced. Being generously self-seeding it's about time to give this a special position and have it contribute genetic material to the existing gene pool!
Last year I lifted 4 seedlings out of a container with Hosta 'Katherine Lewis'. They're open pollinated and there are 4 other hostas around so it's not definitive as to who's the daddy but that's not terribly critical to me. I selected the seedling primarily on the basis of their colour, I was looking for yellow-leaved ones, and I that's what I potted-up. They all came back up and once they were showing signs of good growth I took them out of their communal container - each had a corner of a 3" pot- and they each got their own. One in particular strikes me as something special. The yellow on it is bordering on pale orange and has a nice glossy leaf. It'll be a couple of years before it amounts to anything and I'm sure looking forward to that!

 

Greetings chilly May days 2025

I had opportunity to await 8 hrs for something I couldn’t leave —- so since I don’t know how to knit —- I am grateful to have thumbs for this device

I enjoy this interesting article which included UBC botanical garden drawings (link below)

(I can see how there is a distinct west coast Thomas Church (think old Sunset magazine) style )

LINK
https://www.vancouverarchives.ca/20...esmond-muirhead-clive-justice-and-harry-webb/

also - a few pictures recently
I am so pleased with the white petal clematis montana on elderly Douglas fir

a couple of Rhodo —- Percy Wiseman (apricot&pink) and Canadian Sunset (yellow)

the really pink-w orange Rhodo = Golden Gate (as in San Francisco Park)

so many Hostas! Midwest Magic // Guacamole // Stained Glass … Empress Wu // Wu La La

The Swainsons Thrush is doing its mid-May whistle call tho I have not heard yet the flute-like call … I wonder where they go for winter

oh yes - the first geranium = Mourning Widow … bees love it

the local and very territorial hummingbird helped arrange a bouquet of lilacs the other day

thank you for touring our wild & shaggy rainforest garden

 

Have a look around for Wu La La Hosta

You are right - Empress Wu is the height of the local deer :(

 

Thanks for that link. I remember when the UBC Botanical Garden was on NW Marine Drive, and I was there, but I can't remember now exactly where it was.

I love that Geranium phaeum 'Mourning Widow'.

 

Good morning Wendy — I looked online and it seems UBC has more than one “great trek” :)

the plants trek west, too! From Colony Farm area

and it seems first garden was in vicinity of Geography building and First Nation Longhouse (near Nitobe)

I think we all talked about some trees that might still be there (I think we were in a thread about chestnut tree)

the simple quick history is link below

I see also a slide presentation on UBC garden website

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBC_Botanical_Garden

 

Some more photos

Rhodo = Royal Purple

various Hostas incl some unknown
PLUS
Empress Wu
Stained glass
Guacamole
Midwest Magic
Wu LaLa

purple columbine next to hosta

a pink geranium for @wcutler :)
(It might be Phoebe Noble, named for a lady David Tarrant would interview on his tv show years ago)

yes and Lewisia …. Bees and hummers love it — mixed with hen and chicks plants

a native sword fern I should have trimmed earlier this spring. I love sword ferns - they do so well in our cold wet hot dry shade - you name it. I like the pattern and texture this fern adds.

coleus and other annuals to out in to pots to contrast with my mostly green fern and hosta garden

and I heard the first up-flute sound of Swainsons Thrush at 4:20am this morning … once you know this bird song - you’ll always listen for it starting mid-May in shrub gardens … this small brown bird is hard to see (it is secretive) tho it’s the chirp then sing song that gives it away


My passport expired so I took this trip instead … conveniently from my own garden — Chelsea 2025 (BBC video)

 

@Pieter
I am not a fan of the pale purple Hosta flowers

is it ok to trim them off?

or is it better for the plant to be allowed to flower?

 

I've never seen anything scientific on the subject. There are lots of people who do not care for hosta flowers and simply cut the scapes and that's probably best done when they start to appear rather than waiting until the buds start to develop. I fully recognize that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, plenty of folk grow hostas simply for their foliage. I don't, I prefer the whole package. Yes, some hosta flowers are rather bland but let me just throw up a couple of examples.

This is Hosta 'Ray of Hope' in bloom, I'd hate to not see these...
Hosta rectifolia var pruinosa, lovely rich colour on those flowers.
I'd hate to miss out on the wonderful scent of the 'Guacamole' flowers...
The flowers on 'Raspberry Sundae' as well as 'Gooseberry Sundae', the flowers look the same, the first is variegated, the latter is the solid-coloured leaf sport of it.
You're right, some of the flowers are rather ho-hum, such as this 'Fortunei Hyacinthina' for example....
A few years ago I did a series of comparisons to high-light the colour intensity of the various darker flowered varieties I have in my collection....
Some feel that cutting the scapes allows for more food to go into the plant itself rather than it being used for reproductive purposes, not sure there's any proof out there though...

 

thank you

do the small ones like Mouse Ears also have flowers?

it would be a Dream to breed darker (lupin colour) flowers with beautiful leaves, wouldn’t it

 

They all flower.......this is an example of 'Blue Mouse Ears' in bloom....
There have been blue as well as yellow flowers and there was a chap in Peterborough ON who developed some really dark coloured ones, unfortunately he got disillusioned with growing hostas and it would appear as if all his work was for naught as no-one has any of his work to continue with. Too bad really...

 

The first hosta flowers of the season. This here is an edger called 'Feather Boa', nice yellow for the front of a bed, multiplies steadily.
A hosta family portrait, these can all trace their lineage back to 'Halcyon'. L-R 'Remember Me', 'Ben Vernooij' and 'Firn Line'.
A cacophony of colour is to be found in one of our front beds. A small stand of Iris siberica flanked by Peonies in front of our lace maple and a good smattering of self-seeded snapdragons...

 

Is Monet - the gardener and artist visiting you :)

it sure is beautiful garden

I had a Ben Vernoy (same plant w unique colour - I diff spell) and someone thought I was giving it away —- I stayed low on that moment !
Awkward Hosta moment :)

 

@wcutler
I viewed this lovely garden tour from near Vanc

is it ok to post link here?

https://forums.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/threads/2025-garden-tour.105148/

 

No Monet around here, thank you for the compliment!
I'm a stickler for correct spelling, in particular of Dutch names :) This particular variety is a chemically induced polyploid sport of 'First Frost' and has great substance to its leaves! Its is named for the brother of Paul Vernooij from Holland who died of cancer recently and a donation will be made to the Cancer Foundation for each plant sold.

 

Its been awhile but I thought I'd share photos of something very unusual, Helicodiceros muscivorus aka the dead horse arum.

They just opened this morning and they are stinky! (I'm glad I have the very fragrant gold kiwis still flowering to help). I got the seeds in a plant swap from England back in 2018 and this is the first year they flowered.

 

Wow, thanks for posting this. I see that another common name is 'pig butt arum".

 

Well if a dinner party gets dull, that’s a refreshing topic :)

very interesting

they say our native Okanagan BC fritalleria has a “dirty socks” scent

there must be an evolution reason for all this clever nature

 

Meanwhile —- my Christmas amaryllis I just planted a few wkd ago (the typical box kit) is enjoying June —- 6 month after I bought it - one day some day

some west coast seeds viola I’ve grown

hummers like amaryllis red

and we have foxglove digitalis
As kids we’d run around pretending to have pink long manicure using those blossom petals

interesting that our farm livestock knew not to go near the foxgloves

NEXT - our local eagle supervising ferry in usual spot where @wcutler and @Willard know of the “twisted sisters” special cherry blossom trees

AND
a photo of my new dark furry garden friend —- their feet are for sure sturdy looking. I think this fine friend and I wear same garden crocs :)

 

Man, it's been a long time since this thread has been added to. I'm as guilty as anyone. About time to make amends...
As you probably know I do have a soft spot for hostas. A few years ago I exchanged some plants with a gal in Ontario via mail and one the ones she sent me is a small, yellow variety called 'Tickle me Pink' and it's taken a few years for it to get up to size, which it finally did this year. It's been kept in a very bright spot this year and it's a lovely shade of yellow with the lower part of the petiole being red-speckled. This year it finally put up a scape and I'm anxious to see what the shape and colour of the flower is. As you can see it scape is quite dark as is the developing bud, all of which points to a rich purple colour for the inflorescence but I'm jumping the gun here. Look carefully at the leaf behind the scape and you'll see the center vein of the leaf behind it showing signs of red speckles, very unusual and could well be unique to this cultivar.
I was out taking some pictures yesterday -I'm typically out in the garden with my camera almost every single day this time of year- and spotted my Lilium 'Black Beauty' in bloom and upon closer inspection I noticed there was a stinkbug hiding out!
There's plenty of hummingbirds about this time of year and they'll find ample sources of food in both our front and back yard. While out in the front yard yesterday I caught one out of the corner of my eye and this one was going into my stand of Lilium lancifolia, aka Tiger Lilies, which I found remarkable as I hadn't ever seen that before. They certainly don't bother with the multitude of lily hybrids I have in the back. They also like the Monarda I have both front and back.
I decided last year to put some Monarda in a 3-gallon pot and sink it at the back of the side bed in the front. I put it in a pot since I wanted to keep it from spreading around too quickly but I was not prepared for what it presented me with this year! This shoot is easily 7ft tall and of course gets frequent hummy visits.
I'll put up some more when I get some more time!

 

As promised, some more.
One of the things I'm always on the lookout for is signs of sporting, typically among my hostas since they are so prone to it. Imagine my surprise earlier this year when I spotted light-coloured leaves on my Weigela florida varigata and on more than one branch. This may well be an anomaly only to be seen this year. There wasn't enough growth on any of the shoots that would have made a successful cutting I don't think so I left them in place and marked the main branch they were on to hopefully make themselves known again next year, at which point they'll get cut and rooted. What has really surprised me with this specimen this year is how persistent it is in flowering. The earliest images from this year that I have were shot May 9th and I suspect that was not the first day of it in bloom. So, that's from early May until today and it's not showing any signs of slowing down.
A dear gardening friend gave us an Echinacea 'Green Twister' last year and it's back again in full bloom. Here you see more or less the three stages of the flower: opening up and mostly green at the top, unfurled showing both colours and forming a seed head at the bottom with the green quite faded.
Sticking with Echinacea, this here is 'Paradiso Dwarf'. This is in its 3rd year, it was transplanted as a seedling last year along with another one and this one had significantly larger leaves last year than its sibling, easily double the length, but, it wasn't near as floriferous as the other one. It's very much a different story this year. It's now substantially larger than the other one in term of number of stems and it's just loaded with flowers, it's gotta be 2-2.5 ft across. I'm having to give thought now as to where to relocate it to, just too big for where it is.

 

Sorry for the delay, but to answer your question I've copied an excerpt from an article I wrote on the plant...

"...I also noticed the plants were covered in a variety of flies, hopefully “doing their thing” and pollinating the plants. When I finally retreated from the garden, I don’t think I had ever been more thankful for the intensely tropical and fruity aroma of the flowering gold kiwis draped nearby.

Now as bad as this all seems, the scent lasted less than a day and the flowers for only a couple of days after that. But aside from the weird looks, unflattering names and over-powering smell, this plant has one more noteworthy attribute; it can raise its own temperature through a chemical process called thermogenesis

And while plants are generally considered ectothermic, meaning their “body” temperature varies with that of their environment (kind of like reptiles), there is a small percentage of plants that exhibit endothermic, or thermogenic, behavior. This means these plants are able to generate heat, usually for reproductive purposes. This rise in temperature is said to help attract pollinators or disperse their scents.

Now in my research I had read that this particular plant can reach temperatures as high as 21°C above ambient levels so I though I’d test this using an infrared (IR) thermometer. It was over-cast the morning the third plant opened so I decided it was a good time to conduct my little experiment…that and I wanted to get it done before the air temperature inside the garden got too hot. I discovered the temperature of the inflorescence was indeed almost 2.5°C hotter than the plant’s own leaves, and even that of the surrounding plants."

 

You posted that first one at the end of May and it's now two months later. They're still blooming?! The smell can't be that bad to keep a plant that blooms over that long a period. Or did you do that test back in May?
Now that I read this again, I'm amused that the smell of the kiwi was a relief. Maybe the gold kiwi don't smell as bad as the normal ones I always give a wide berth to at UBCBG? I don't notice the ones high up in the Asian Garden, but I really dislike the smell of the flowers that are down at nose level around the Food Garden.

 

I did the experiment back in early June when the third plant opened - flowers only lasted about 3 days but the smell was gone before the end of the first day.
As for the gold kiwis, they have a very fruity scent to them which I find quite pleasant. It actually took me a couple of years to figure out exactly what I was smelling in early June, which is when they flower; the scent is rather intense but because so many plants are flowering then and the kiwi's blossoms tend to be somewhat hidden I didn't realize that this was where this "fruity, tropical" aroma was coming from.

 

We're now past the middle of August and nary a hint of activity on the forum, never mind this thread. Even the OP, Margot, seems to have vanished, hope all's well... Anyway, time for some more seasonal pictures from our yard.
This is the same Echinacea referenced in my last post and it is just doing gangbusters!
A dear gardening buddy invariably brings us some new stuff for the garden and one of these this year is a Salvia mycrophylla 'Hot Lips' which has presented us with flowers in 3 forms: all-red, the red-white which gave it its name as well as all-white.
I've had a lovely Hosta cultivar called 'Tickle me Pink' for a few years and this year it finally bloomed for me...tickled me pink... It's a lovely yellow with red petioles, dark scape and nice flowers so I thought I'd pollinate it with pollen from what I deemed a suitable partner, in this case a variety called 'Raspberry Sundae' which has rich red petioles where the colour extends into the bottom of the leaf. When the TMP flower opened up I carefully removed its anthers and went to town with the RS anthers. So far so good. Couple of days later I check on it and all flowers and buds have disappeared, most likely courtesy of a small rodent. There's another scape on the plant and I should be able to find another pollen donor for it by the time the flowers open, probably 'Red October' which appears to be at about the same stage of development. The pot I have this in is in my potting area and I'll move to a location where rodent access should be less likely...
One of my favourite varieties of hosta is 'Fragrant Bouquet' which has lovely, large flowers that tend to have their best scent towards the evening.
Back on August 1st I noticed my Cyclamen hederifolium was in flower already, which is kinda early for our yard. This is from the 14th...
These are seedpods on Hosta 'Princess of Karafuto' and generally speaking hosta pods that are white will likely result in variegated and/or streaked seedlings as well as what are referred to as fatal-whites where no chlorophyll is produced and the seedlings simply whither.
I have a Weigela florida 'Variegata' in our front yard for many years and it was subjected to a severe pruning last year to bring it back under control. This year it has responded with massive growth and it has been in virtually constant bloom since early May. The other thing it did is produce a couple of shoots with sections that are NOT variegated but yellow/chartreuse which have persisted through the season thus far. It'll be interesting to see if they show up again next year on the same branches - I've marked them...

 

Well Pieter, I won't leave you hanging....

I don't feel as though I've had a break since mid-May as it seems there is always something or someone to deal with. And sooo much work to do in the yards this year. Between spending 3 hours every 3rd day watering and some major redoing of my gardens I feel like it is never going to end. I'm still taking down some trees to open things up while nursing injuries from said work - it really hurts when a 2M section of limb as thick as your wrist drop about 3M on to the back of your hand because you're trying to direct it away from other plants...

And I keep saying maybe tomorrow I can relax and "putter" in the garden but I'm still waiting on tomorrow....

Anyway, here are some photos from my gardens
IMG 4607 - cobra lilies in a mixed bed in the front yard
IMG 4632 - anise tree 'woodland ruby' makes a great shade plant for Vancouver's climate
IMG 4778 - Indian hyacinth are naturalizing amongst the slender crested male ferns
IMG 4854 - a mix bed of poppies in the back yard
IMG 4900 - color-changing Ringo rose
IMG 5014 - tree mallow 'Red Rum'
IMG 5062 - yucca gloriosa
IMG 5272 - Persian silk tree during one of the two days that it actually rained in June
IMG 5345 - mixed canna lilies in the front yard
IMG 5449 - 'Russian Red' canna lily topping out at almost 3M
IMG 5452 - ornamental lilies 'Broken Heart'
IMG 5461R - we are getting our first crop from the Tiger Fig this year (variegated skin with red flesh)
IMG 5281 - this "tropical jungle scene" is what my covered garden currently looks like (it too needs some cleaning)
Last two images are one of the redos - this seating area that we have been working on has been dubbed the "Dragon's Den" for the creatures that lurk nearby (or will be) once the area is finished.