Tiny gardens
12.06.2008 05:01
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- Source: Home Envy
Elaine Foreman is deep into a discussion about boring tennis played from the baseline. Arthur Foreman is reliving the family's move from Jamaica to Fort McMurray 25 years ago. The conversation pauses when Arthur asks his son Rob where sugar cane developed. "Southeast Asia," Rob says right in the middle of a story about Michael Schumacher driving unnoticed through Montreal prior to a Formula One race. The Foremans all love gardening, but visitors to their Mississauga home better be ready to serve and volley on a wide range of subjects. To visit the Foremans is to get an instant lesson on how to create a sense of the tropics in a cold climate garden. Rob uses a clever blend of tender tropical plants, with cold hardy ones familiar to any Canadian gardener. I see hostas with gigantic leaves that look surprisingly like watermelon. Lush looking lady's mantle sidles up to the burnished leaves of coral-bells. There is a mock orange planted for its fragrance of citrus, growing next to a tender brugmansia with flowers the size and shape of a Miles Davis horn. In Jamaica Rob and his parents lived 1,500 feet above sea level in Brown's Town, St. Ann, referred to as the "Garden Parish" where the temperature was 75 degrees all year round. Arthur grew orchids as a hobby, Elaine loved the Royal Poinciana tree decorating the garden, and Rob loved birds, plants, and cars. "My father said we'd never get birds here," Rob says in his tiny backyard garden. "But look at the goldfinches and the house finches. We even had mourning doves nesting in a wall planter." Rob is an animal nutritionist for Agribrands in Woodstock. His specialty, animals with single stomachs. He bought the house in Mississauga because he thought it would be a perfect place for his parents to retire in. On weekends he goes home to work on his beloved garden. The garden is just 21 feet wide by 50 feet deep. Small enough to care for easily, but maybe too small for a plant lover like Rob. In a quick inventory I see, Eastern redbud, a magnolia, doublefile viburnum, climbing hydrangea, clematis, bamboo, Japanese maple, a buffet of delectable perennials, including a ligularia straight as a ram rod, standing at attention over the pond Rob built. From the house you walk out onto a patio. "I didn't want to build a deck," he says, "It would have divided the garden in two," How right he is, instead you are embraced by the garden with its scents and textures. "Oh, that brugmansia (angel's trumpet) I call that my Little Shop of Horrors. It has to be watered twice a day or it droops like a monster," says Rob. There are many plants in this garden that would have grown in Jamaica with ease, coleus, cannas, Persian shield, crocosmia. In a classic black urn, Rob grows another favorite from Jamaica, begonias, in this case the variety called 'Dragon Wings'. Underneath it is a fountain of the sweet potato vine called 'Marguerita', long as a brides train. Looking at the effect, Rob says, "I wanted the plants not the urn to be the focal point." The garden is two-and-a-half years old. Before the fences went up in the neighborhood, Rob mowed all the lawn behind the houses. Finally when he started to garden he had to learn about zone 6 Ontario versus zone 11 Jamaica, about how to store summer bulbs, and protect tender plants. Bulbs such as cannas and crocosmia are stored much like dahlias. After the first frost the bulbs are dug up, cleaned off allowed to dry and then stored in peat moss. Rob has a place in the basement that remains at a constant 45 degrees-perfect for bulb storage. To maintain tropical perennials and shrubs like brugmansia, bananas, and hibiscus it's best to try and mimic their natural dormancy periods. Cold climate gardeners have a choice of bringing them indoors to grow as houseplants, storing as a dormant plant, or taking cuttings and starting new plants. Gardeners keen to go tropical might want to check out Hot Plants for Cool Climates (Houghton Mifflin) by Susan Roth and Dennis Schrader; it's full of design ideas and cultivation information. As the Foreman garden grew, so did the neighbors' interest. Those inspired to go beyond weed and feed, asked Rob for help. Now he has several designs in progress for neighbors. They want to know how to create privacy, how to disguise garden sheds, where to put the patio and of course what to plant. When he's not gardening or developing food for animals, Rob is organizing events for the Southern Ontario chapter of the BMW club. But even there, President Foreman discovers people who love begonias as much as Bilstein shocks,"I'm designing gardens for a few members of the club." And if they're lucky they'll get a few plants along with the design. "In Jamaica," Rob says, "when a couple gets married they always get plants. It's so easy to start a garden there, everything grows so easily and so many people share their plants." I don't leave empty handed from the Foremans either. Elaine gives me a nutmeg and the hottest pepper on earth the Scotch Bonnet. "Don't even smell it," she warns. His father gives me his card "Retired. No Phone. No Business. No Worries." And the advice to watch Rob because "he can talk the hind legs off you." Rob would like me to return for a real Jamaican dinner in the garden and the opportunity to meet his cousin, a member of the Jamaican Orchid Society. It's an invitation I wouldn't refuse. Food, drink, laughs, all in a piece of tropical paradise in Ontario.
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