Budd Gardens celebrates 100 years

admin — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:00:42 +0000

admin — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 11:56:18 +0000

admin — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 11:53:26 +0000

Hosta ‘Wheee!’ sprouting in our greenhouse. Very unusual look.

Preparing a Perennial flower bed

admin — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:45:24 +0000

When preparing a new perennial flower bed keep in mind that it should be wider than a bed for annuals. Perennials grow in 3-6 feet diameters or more so your bed should be 4-8 feet wide to allow the depth needed and to create the visual panorama you are looking for. Rather than creating a rectangular or square bed add some curves to the edge. I do this by laying out a garden hose to help visualize the garden. If you are looking for shade this is the time to plant a tree in your garden.
First you dig up the grass that is there removing the top layer of roots. Next the soil must be turned over using a spade or rototiller.
Now add your topsoil to the bed. I suggest you order garden top soil from a local supplier who sells it by the yard. Wheelbarrow the soil to your bed and spread it to a depth of 8-12 inches. It is important that your flower bed be raised to allow for root growth and drainage. When ordering soil you are paying mostly for the trucking. If you order too much soil it can be piled in a back corner of your garden for future use or as is always the case a neighbour will gladly use the rest.
All of the above sounds like a lot of work but it is good for the soul. You now have a beautiful bed with lots of rich topsoil and a clean palette to decorate with plants. Digging a hole for your perennials will be a pleasure not a chore.
Preparing a flower bed means getting dirty and physical no mater the size of the garden, so while you are at it you may as well do it right.
One valuable lesson I learned through several expansions is make the garden as large as possible while you already down and dirty, you don’t want to be saying 3 years down the road that you wish you had made it bigger.

Montreal Botanical Gardens

admin — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 18:40:12 +0000

For the past few years I have attended the annual ‘Rendez-vous Horticole’ at the Montreal Botanical Gardens. This is a 3 day event where local growers are invited to display and sell their plants to the public. If you ever have the chance I recommend it, you can buy heritage vegetable plants, annuals, perennials, bonsai and many other great and unique plants. I suggest you get there on the Friday because many of the rare things are gone by the weekend. I always enjoy my trip to Montreal, a great city, and to see familiar faces and friends especially the people from the Quebec Hosta and Hemerocallis Society who have the booth next to mine.

The photo is of a young lady named Holly who is dwarfed by hosta ‘Sagae’.

Patricia The Stripper

admin — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 23:59:01 +0000

About 15 years ago I sold hosta ‘Striptease’ to a friend of mine. This strange mutation of H. ‘Gold Standard’ has a durable dark green leaf, but with a unique strip of white in the center of each leaf. Alongside the white center is a narrow golden band between it and the green. A few years later I visited my friends hosta garden and noticed this beautiful blue ‘Striptease’ still with the unique white in the centre. The plant I had sold him had mutated to a new variety much more beautiful than it’s parent. I managed to get a piece of this plant and after several years of dividing it I was able to offer it for sale. I called it ‘Patricia the Stripper’, following the ‘Striptease’ theme. Patricia the Stripper is a Chris de Burgh song and if you click below you will hear it-enjoy.

Chris de burgh – Patricia The Stripper

Blackburn in 1873, a story

admin — Thu, 19 May 2011 15:28:18 +0000

This is an amazing story of a young lad who lived in Blackburn and who at a very young age set out on an adventure that is hard to imagine today.

In 1873 as a boy of 14 Adam Kemp set out by himself from Blackburn with a team of horses belonging to a neighbour, George Purdy, to go to work at a lumber shanty on the Madawaska River near Arnprior. Remember there were no highways and roads like today, the trip would have taken days. After he had been in camp about two months he became seized with a great homesickness and decided to go home. He was given his pay order and let go by the foreman but could not collect the money until he got home.

So Adam and the team of horses set off for Blackburn. Kind people along the route gave him food and board as he had no money. Eventually he made his way back home to Blackburn and presented the pay order to George Purdy and collected his pay. Mr. Purdy was not too happy that Adam had come home early.

Does anyone think that a 14 year old boy would be given this kind of responsibilities today?

Visiting Cousins

admin — Tue, 17 May 2011 21:53:02 +0000

In the late 1950′s my granny’s sisters family would visit us on the farm in Blackburn. Back then we were way out in the boonies so visits were infrequent. I was about 8 or 9 and my cousins the Gravelle’s and Kaluski’s were the same age, some a bit older. These ‘city slickers’ would be shown the chickens and cows that granny looked after, maybe gather a few eggs or do some milking. A tractor ride down the fields was a must with each taking a turn driving if they were brave enough, age had little to do with it. The adults would catch up on news and we kids would play in the barn or climb some of the huge willow trees we had. It seems so long ago and I guess it is, over 50 years.

1895 ‘Blackburn man drops penny’

admin — Mon, 16 May 2011 22:07:38 +0000

Since we started renting land from the National Capital Commission in the late 80′s we’ve been finding all kinds of artifacts from days gone by. Horseshoes of all different sizes and shapes, as well as nuts and bolts, and various pieces of metal that had fallen off of old machinery. Last week my younger brother James was visiting my brother Dave in the fields and was walking behind the cultivator when his eagle eye spotted an old penny, a 1895 Canadian penny with a young Queen Victoria on it. In days gone by these fields were worked by my wife Evelyn’s family, the Kemp’s, so maybe this penny belonged to her great grandfather Adam. What a strange time to find this treasure, this being Budd Gardens 100 years in Blackburn anniversary. Photos of coin taken from web (coin from field was worse for wear) and man in buggy is Adam Kemp.

Had my truck Wrapped

admin — Sun, 15 May 2011 22:14:48 +0000

Last year our old 1980 Budd Gardens truck was stolen from our yard and was found several days later a total wreck. Someone tried to steal an ATM machine and drove under a 6 foot overpass with a 10 foot high truck. That doesn’t usually turn out well. I bought a cube van to replace our truck and just this week had pictures and info wrapped onto it. The work was done by K6 Media a local business belonging to a Blackburn boy by the name of Tristan Hannington. He did an excellent job. On the front of the truck I have a picture of my Grandparents working in their fields picking tomatoes circa 1930. I think it’s a nice touch to remember where we came from.