Welcome to my garden in the Eastern Townships, (Estrie in French), located in Cowansville, Quebec, Canada. The Eastern Townships was settled by families from the U.S.A who remained loyal to Britain. To this day, many Eastern Townships' villages bear English names in a French-speaking province. Geographically this is a hilly area with many lakes. Tourists are attracted by the ski hills, golf courses, bike trails, and vineyards.

My garden is my haven far from the "madding crowd". Time ceases to exist and I pursue my passion without the imposition of routine. My husband Jean and I built our home on 2 acres in an old maple sugar bush on a hilltop where the Appalachians begin. The slate bedrock surfaces at random which creates a challenge for gardening although alpine plants love to grow on and around these outcroppings. The shredded leaves of our many maples are used to augment the soil. The back of our property drops sharply off into a secluded ravine where ferns, daphne, and marsh marigolds grow under the maple canopy. This is a favorite glade for the white-tailed deer and more recently, wild turkeys.

My affair with daylilies began about 15 years ago. Scanning a gardening catalog one bleak winter day, I was surprised to see daylilies that were neither yellow nor orange. My collection started. With my fellow addict and master gardener, Howard Hackwell, our winters were happily spent looking at the new catalogs and deciding which plants we couldn't live without. Summers were spent phoning each other to say "Come see what's blooming today!" As northern gardeners know, winter can be a major intrusion. To alleviate this deficiency, I follow my other passion, choral singing in a classical ensemble and also in my church choir. What better combination than music and gardening to do the soul good!

As my interest in daylilies became insatiable and I learned to surf the web, I came across a superb website which is now known as Charlotte's Daylily Diary. After sending a congratulatory e-mail to this person, who I presumed lived somewhere in the U.S.A. where all the major hybridizers are located, imagine my surprise when I received a response and found out that Charlotte lived about an hour's drive from me. Invitations to visit each other's gardens soon followed. My visit to Charlotte's garden was the turning point in my decision to try hybridizing. Charlotte showed me some hybrids flowering in her garden and suggested that I should give it a try. She strongly urged that I define my criteria before going off in all directions. I wanted healthy plants with good increase, good bud count and branching, reliability to open well on cold mornings, and a flower that looked delicate but had solid substance, and of course, the Ooooh! factor. Not asking for too much, right? And so the pollen dabbing began. After the first few years, I realized this would be a long process involving much observation, copious notetaking, and an endless supply of energy. I had not counted on the vagaries of weather and our local animal population to forever "disappear" some of my hybridizing tags and labels. To keep in touch with this evolving new daylily world, I joined the American Hemerocallis Society. I also belong to the Quebec Society for Hostas and Hemerocallis, (Société Québecoise des hostas et hémérocalles), the Association des amateurs d'hémérocalles de la région de Québec, and local gardening clubs in the towns of Dunham, Waterloo, and Knowlton. Annual visits from local club members and their excitement at seeing a new seedling bloom keeps me highly motivated.

My gardening goal is to have something flowering from last frost to first frost. In the process I have acquired many flowering shrubs including rhodos and lilacs, tree peonies and several of the newer intersectional (Itoh) peonies. Hostas are a favorite. I began a shade garden to have a retreat for those hot afternoons when I can no longer work with my daylilies. A damp spot is now home to several ensata irises. Our blooming season starts with crocus in April; I always have at least one crocus in flower on April 1. By mid-May the soil is warming up and the seedlings started indoors in February can be transplanted with all the dreams that each seedling promises. I plead guilty to having invaded my husband's vegetable garden, but Jean doesn't mind as long as he can grow a few tomatoes. He's always ready to lend a hand with the grunt work when he isn't golfing. Our son Matt is also known to help out when he comes to visit from Montreal. The days are never long enough, the season is never long enough and I don't have enough arms to do everything I thought about all winter. My garden is shrinking. I don't have enough space for all my seedlings. Decisions to cull are too hard to make...which new plants to buy to improve my hybrids...what dates will peak season be this summer so visitors can enjoy the most flowering at one time. One of the pleasures of gardening is to share your passion with others, so I particularly enjoy receiving gardening clubs, friends, and neighbors. I must admit that the best side-effect of my hybridizing efforts has been all the wonderful people I have met and continue to meet.

Thank you for visiting, drop by if you're in the neighborhood. Comments or questions are welcome at: mattl@sympatico.ca

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Site for week Jan. 9 to Jan. 15, 2010
By: chacha@abacom.com

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