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By Miles Hunter, June 6, 2011

June 6th, 2011

Enjoy the Sweet Fragrance of Lilacs!

Aside from Roses, there are no flowers as beautiful and aromatic as Lilacs. Lilacs have a strong fragrance that you can enjoy throughout your garden. Unfortunately, Lilacs bloom for only a few weeks in the late spring.

Weather has a lot to do with how long your blooms last. Cool dry weather helps your flowers last longer if only we could control that. Once the blooms have finished, you still have a nice shade bush, but you have to wait until next year to enjoy the blooms again.

You can choose from a variety of Lilacs including:

• Syringa patula ‘Miss Kim’ (Korean Lilac)
• Syringa vulgaris ‘Katherine Havemeyer’
• Syringa vulgaris ‘Charles Joly’

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By Miles Hunter, June 1, 2011

June 1st, 2011

Delight Your Senses with Lavender!

Lavender (Lavandula) is a romantic flower and every gardener should have at least one in their garden. They love a sunny location with good drainage. Lavender is extremely drought tolerant once it is established but should be watered regularly when young. Two of the hardiest and best know varieties are ‘Hidcote’ and ‘Munstead’. These varieties of English Lavender produce wonderfully fragrant blue-lavender coloured flowers during the summer. There are several new varieties of English lavender that you can choose from this year including ‘Lodden Blue’ and ‘Melissa Lilac’. These new varieties are compact bushy varieties of English Lavender.

Another variety of Lavender is the Spanish Lavender ‘Anouk’. This variety produces a consistent display of flowers from June through September. To encourage them to repeatedly bloom is it best to cut them back after they produce their first set of flowers to encourage the second bloom. Two new varieties of Spanish Lavender include ‘Silver Anouk’ (Aka Silver Summer) and ‘Green Summer’. The Green Summer is a compact version of the ‘Anouk’ while the ‘Silver Anouk’ has beautiful silver foliage.

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By Miles Hunter, May 25, 2011

May 25th, 2011

Grow the “Perfect Peony”

Peonies are beautiful sun-loving  perennials which can be very long-lived in your garden. They are extremely hardy, easy to grow, and easy to maintain. They do their best when grown near the middle or back of full sun borders or beds. There are two main types of Peonies, herbaceous peonies and tree peonies. The more common herbaceous type die back to the ground every fall and come up again every spring. The tree type peonies leave a woody stem exposed during the winter months.

There are many beautiful varieties to choose from with a rainbow of colour choices. Come in today to see these beautiful plants in bloom.

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By Miles Hunter, May 18, 2011

May 17th, 2011

Make Your Summer Bloom!

If you want your summer to burst into bloom try the Supertunia ‘Priscilla’. This beautiful petunia has a double lavender flower with striking purple veins. The flowers attract butterflies and hummingbirds to your garden. Unlike the traditional petunias the supertunias do not require deadheading (removing dead flowers) which means that they can bloom continuously all summer long. The flowers are fragrant and heat tolerant. They make a great landscape plant but are also great in hanging baskets and window boxes.

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By Miles Hunter, May 4, 2011

May 4th, 2011

Summer Never Ends for the Endless Summer Hydrangeas!

If you have ever had your Hydrangea fail to flower this is the variety for you. The ‘Endless Summer’ Hydrangea is a mophead hydrangea that can bloom on both old and new wood. So no matter how you prune them they flower every year. There are now three varieties in the Endless Summer Collection to choose from:

• Hydrangea ‘Endless Summer’ - The Original, flowers can be Pink or Blue
• Hydrangea ‘Blushing Bride’ - pure white blooms with semi-double florets that mature to pink
• Hydrangea ‘Twist N Shout’ - a Lace-cap type with vivid colour and sturdy stems

The repeat blooms of the Endless Summer® Collection truly offer gardeners an endless summer of incredible colour. These hardy plants are perfect for everything from foundation planting to container gardening. They even make an ideal floral arrangement or table setting as cut flowers.

The colour of the Original Endless Summer can be altered from pink to blue. For more information visit www.endlesssummerblooms.com.

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By Miles Hunter, May 2, 2011

May 2nd, 2011

All of the Beauty and None of the Work!

If you are looking for a Rose that has all of the beauty with none of the work you might want to try the new Easy Elegance Roses. For more information click here.

Gone are the days of high-maintenance roses. With Easy Elegance®, you can have hardy, disease-resistant, chemical free roses without all the effort and attention. Let it be known – these are not your grandmother’s roses. You don’t have to spend all day in the yard to make them last. All you have to do is plant them and enjoy the beauty. And there’s nothing easier than that.

You can choose from varieties including:

• Easy Elegance ‘Coral Cove’ – dark pink double blooms
• Easy Elegance ‘High Voltage’ - yellow double blooms
• Easy Elegance ‘Macy’s Pride’ – lemon yellow buds open creamy white and fade to light pink
• Easy Elegance ‘Paint the Town’ – red hybrid tea shaped flowers
• Easy Elegance ‘Super Hero’ – perfect red hybrid tea shaped flowers
• Easy Elegance ‘Sweet Fragrance’ – tropical coral and orange flowers with a pink base

Click here for more information about Easy Elegance Roses. 

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By Miles Hunter, April 21, 2011

April 21st, 2011

Plant the best! Plant Proven Winners!

A better garden starts with a better plant. Why are Proven Winners Plants Better? Once a Proven Winner plant makes it to your house, you’ll fall in love because Proven Winners plants are:

• Easy to grow and care for
• Covered with blooms
• Bright and colorful
• All-season bloomers
• Disease resistant
• Trialed and tested

Our selection of Proven Winners includes many great plants including varieties of Ageratum, Argyranthemum (Daisy), Bacopa, Bidens, Coleus, Ipomoea (Sweet Potato Vine), Lobularia, Nemesia, Petunias, Salvia, Supertunias and Verbena.

For 2011 we are excited about the new Punch Series including Apricot, Blackberry, Coralberry, Strawberry and Tangerine the Punch series guarantees masses of beautiful blooms all summer.

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By Miles Hunter, April 15, 2011

April 15th, 2011

New Raymond Evison Clematis Varieties!

In the past few years there have been some exciting new introductions in the world of vines. None are more exciting than the new varieties of Clematis being bred by Raymond Evison. These new varieties are bred for their comapct size, disease resistent foliage, and beautiful bloms. For 2011 you can choose from the following varieties:

• Avante Garde - red with a pink rosette
• Bourbon - dramatic red colour
• Cezanne - blue with a yellow centre
• Chantilly - white with a pink blush
• Diamantina - double blue
• Empress - pink outer sepals and an exotic spiky centre
• Fleuri - deep purple

Click here for more information.

If you are interested in learning more about these and other great varieties Raymond is giving a talk at the Justice Institute at 7:30 PM on Tuesday April 19th. Tickets are $10 + HST and are available at our store.

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By Miles Hunter, April 11, 2011

April 11th, 2011

The Magnolias are Bursting into Bloom!

It must be April becasue the Magnolias are bursting into bloom and covering our streets with beautiful flower petals. There is nothing quite like the blooms of Magnolia trees and shrubs. The blooms emerge before they produce leaves allowing us to see all of the beautiful blooms that can cover the entire tree. Flowering can begin in late March and bloom through April. The latest blooming varieties are the Grandiflora or Evergreen Magnolia. These varieties bloom in May and June with large white fragrant flowers.

One of the most popular varieties is the Magnolia stellata or Star Magnolia. These small trees (or large shrubs) make an excellent focal point in a garden bed. In the psring they are covered with large white flowers that look like a star exploding in the sky.

Other varieties that you can choose from include:

• Magnolia ‘Alexandria’
• Magnolia ‘Betty’
• Magnolia ‘Blood Moon’
• Magnolia ‘Butterflies’
• Magnolia ‘Caerhays Belle’
• Magnolia ‘Coates’
• Magnolia ‘Daybreak’
• Magnolia ‘Donna’
• Magnolia ‘Galaxy’
• Magnolia ‘Kobus’
• Magnolia ‘Leonard Messel’
• Magnolia ‘Merril’
• Magnolia ‘Sieboldii’
• Magnolia ‘Sunburst’
• Magnolia ‘Sunsation’
• Magnolia ‘Sunsprite’
• Magnolia ‘Susan’
• Magnolia ‘Vulcan’
• Magnolia ‘Yellow Bird’
• Magnolia denduata
• Magnolia grandiflora ‘Brackens Brown Beauty’
• Magnolia grandiflora ‘Edith Bogue’
• Magnolia grandiflora ‘Little Gem’
• Magnolia stellata
• Magnolia stellata ‘Jane Platt’
• Magnolia stellata ‘Royal Star’

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By Miles Hunter, April 9, 2011

April 18, 2011

The Flowering Cherries are Blooming!

There is no surer sign of spring than when the flowering cherry trees begin to bloom. There will be thousands of trees in bloom over the next month. The first to bloom are usually the Flowering Plums including ‘Pissardi Nigra’ and ‘Bliriana’. The rest will bloom over 6 to 8 weeks.

To celebrate the flowering cherries as they come into bloom The Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival runs from March 26th to April 22nd. For more information about the varieties you might find in bloom throughout greater Vancouver visit the Cherry Blossom Festival website here. At David Hunters we have many of these varieties trees to choose from including:

• Flowering Plum ‘Pissardi Nigra’- pink flowers
• Flowering Plum ‘Blireriana’ – pink flowers
• Flowering Cherry ‘Kiku Shidare’ – double pink
• Flowering Cherry ‘Kanzan’ (aka Kwanzan)- double pink
• Flowering Cherry ‘Shirofugen’ – white
• Flowering Cherry subhirtella ‘Pendula’ – weeping form, pink flowers
• Flowering Cherry ‘Whitcombi’ – single pink