Baptisias, take a bow

The three clumps of baptisia in our front garden are peaking right now and will soon need to be thinned out if we want a clear view of the street when backing out the car. That’s the ultimate size of a happy, healthy baptisia at maturity: mammoth.

I have a few baptisias growing in partial shade — yellow ‘Solar Flare’ and blue and white ‘Starlite’ — but these are demure compared to the brutish Baptisia australis and ‘Twilite’ basking in full sun in the front.

More about blue false indigo can be found here and here.

CanPlant launched

Earlier this month, Evergreen’s native plant database was relaunched as CanPlant by Douglas & Associates, an ecological consulting and landscape architecture firm in Guelph, Ontario. The firm stepped in after Toronto-based Evergreen was unable to continue maintaining the database it began 15 years ago.

The site provides data on more than 5,000 Canadian plants with filters to allow for searches related to drought tolerance, height and bloom time, and habitat considerations. There’s also a tool to allow users to find nearby nurseries that stock native plants.

Celebrating pollinators

It’s Pollinator Week Canada, June 22-28, and the CN Tower, Provincial BC Parliament Building and Niagara Falls will be lit up with yellow and black as part of the festivities.

To coincide with the special week, Friends of Earth Canada has published a free e-book called “A Flower Patch for the Rusty-Patched Bumblebee and Other Native Pollinators,” by Lorraine Johnson and Sheila Colla.

Other events during the special week include plantings, walks and webinars, as well as a downloadable poster and commemorative tee shirts. It wouldn’t be a proper celebration without tee shirts. 

Pruning tomatoes

Tomato plants are growing vigorously in the heat and it’s time to decide if you will be pruning them or not. Here’s advice on when, why and what types need it.

3,510 native species in British Columbia

From the Twitter account of the University of British Columbia (UBC) Botanical Garden promoting the Grow Green blog in Vancouver:

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