Boulton

Gardener Anne Boulton offers some helpful tips on ensuring your ‘budding’ friendship (get it?) lasts a lifetime

Gardening expert Anne Boulton returns to Sudbury.com with a new column on all things greenthumb

I lost all my Echinacea to last year’s winter. This horrible truth I came to realize gradually.

I’m always surprised at the lessons I learn working in the garden. It has been a wonderful teacher for me, at the worst of times. In the process of uncovering the delicate crowns of forthcoming perennials, I realized a few things.

Anyone who knows me an inch (or cubic inch), knows that my off-season is spent dreaming about what lies beneath. Winter is truly the gardener’s best season, for it allows a lingering of thought and is most generous with its time.

Sunday was particularly delicious. Not only did I manage a nap, but upon waking, I found a basketful of red plums on my table. Even John was baffled by their presence. I was thrilled. I immediately remembered Ms. Mel and her plum tree.

I recently visited a neighbour’s home whose garden included a great hydrangea shrub without the blooms. Its foliage was remarkably green and robust, and yet there was not a bud in sight.

So it turns out my Japanese maple didn’t make it after all. After a proper mourning period where I dressed only in maroon, my mind began to wander into the realm of possibility.

A recent trip to my favourite greenhouse saw me take home a tray full of milkweed. If you’re not familiar with the native plant, it is the only food source the larvae of the monarch butterfly will eat, thus making it terribly important.

There’s nothing I cherish more in a fellow gardener than their willingness to share a good story. Like a gardenful of hardy perennials, these stories offer scope for your imagination and reveries for years to come.