Gardening on Canada Day

It's July first, Canada Day. We read that on Times Square, in New York, our neighbours to the south are acknowledging this signal day for Canada, to inform Americans who likely couldn't care less. They've their own national holiday of self-congratulations coming up on the Glorious 4th, and their national recognition is older than ours. They'll also likely experience better weather than we have had, for public celebrations. The roster of free public events taking place in the Nation's Capital has been interrupted throughout the course of the day by other events, planned and executed by mother nature.

It has been raining off and on all day. Some of them thunderous events. On some occasions there has been rain, in full sunlight. Now that we have that gazebo set up on our deck, we've been able to ignore light rain events, and remain comfortably ensconced on the double glider, listening to the rain ping on the gazebo canopy, and nonetheless continue reading the newspaper. Of course that's in a light rain; when rain becomes heavy, as it often does, it's a no-go. Our celebration of this day consisted mostly of relaxing, and enjoying life. Something slightly unusual did occur, however.

While we were having breakfast this morning at our leisure, we suddenly noticed the antic presence of the little resident chipmunk. Realizing belatedly that we had overlooked sprinkling nuts out for him earlier, as we generally do. We've been unable to get unsalted peanuts lately, so have to wash the salted peanuts, and dry them in the microwave, a bit of a nuisance. We'll have to drop by the bulk food store and pick up raw, or roasted, but unsalted peanuts again. Once my husband had taken a few handfuls down to place in the path beside the garden shed, under which we're convinced the chipmunk lives, he was placated.

I stood on the deck, watching him poke his little head out from under the garden shed. My husband was down below, not far from the peanut cache, and so was Riley, our toy poodle, who didn't really notice the chipmunk. Accordingly, the chipmunk more or less ignored our presence, ventured out to grab a peanut, then dashed back under the shed. Finally, Riley was brought up on the deck and the chipmunk dashed toward the peanuts and frenetically filled his pouches, before making his final dash back under the shed. I regretted I hadn't thought to photograph the little devil.

After our usual ravine walk, we ambled in our garden, so latterly assaulted by days of rain. A number of casualties presented themselves to us. those fabulous, fragrant, opulently gorgeous peony blooms, exhausted. The proudly statuesque delphiniums bowed on their insufficiently rigid stems. The plush plenitude of roses weighted by the incessant drenching, petals wilting, falling off, sprinkling the garden soil. Battered Persian cornflower, Canterbury bells, rose campion, and lilies, require resuscitation, staking, clumps rescued from awkwardly prone positions. And the Morning Glory vines struggling to twine around something need encouragement and a little bit of twine.

What continues to be unperturbed by the vicissitudes of weather are our old, reliable standbys, our coral bells and plantain lilies - otherwise known as heuchera and hostas - that we have planted all over the gardens, our favourite perennials, easily separated and readily taking to growing anew elsewhere. Their wonderful leaves are themselves more than adequate reason for admiration; their floral stalks gild the lily, so to speak. Their colour variants, the differences in size are quite amazing, from huge to diminutive, and we admire and enjoy them all.

And now, in the evening hours, people are emulating nature. We can hear the regular 'pop' of fireworks going off, much as throughout the day we heard claps of thunder. We much prefer nature's celebration.