The Gardens of Marmora

I had the pleasure of visiting the Marmora City Gardens en route to Ottawa last week. They are a lovely mix of tidy gardens and feature a lot of native perrenials too. I also was lucky to speak with the head gardener (a volunteer from the local gardening society). I thought to share his advice on the combatting of powdering mildew - currenlty attacking my columbine and having devestated both of my bee balms - he suggested using soapy water and spraying the leaves with that. I haven't had a chance to try it, but I'll let you know if it works. If anyone has advice on squirrels I'd love to have some. I have one digging (especially in my hanging pots) and near my hostas (growl). Yesterday one savaged a hanging fan flower plant and destroyed my brave little lupin that I'd been nursing back to health after its last attack. I picked up the completely uprooted plant and once again tucked it back into the soil, and amazingly it seems to be rallying, but I don't know if it will make it. It has been dug up twice in the last couple of weeks. There isn't much to be done for the fan flower. I stuck some of the less wilted looking bits of stem back in the dirt, added some more dirt and then watered it well. I'm not hoping too hard though.

Cheers,

Jennith