Midsummer's Day plus Wild Plant Communities in our Gardens
21 June
Midsummer’s Day
The actual equinox, the time when the earth starts to tip back slowly towards mid-winter, happened at 10:42 pm last night (Montreal - adjust for your own longitude) but today is the longest day with around 16 hours of daylight. Actually more because there is still light in the sky before sunrise and after sunset. This photograph was taken a few years ago at sunset on midsummer’s day in the nearby arboretum where a forest ride aligns perfectly with the point at which the sun touches the horizon and shines right down the middle.
Wild Plant Communities
I have been reading a number of posts by the author of this article. He is an extremely knowledgeable professional gardener, albeit not writing from a Canadian context but the principles hold. Worth pondering on what he has to say.
When designing our own wild plant gardens, he notes:
A good example is with meadow inspired planting, I think carefully about the height of plants to make sure most of them don’t grow too tall, trying to achieve balance. I know that our pink geraniums, orange geums, white and yellow ox-eye daisies will all grow to the same height while allowing light in and around them for each to grow. Example: in our garden, most of the plants that will spread are either low growing ground covers, such as pulmonaria and geraniums, or very narrow tall plants such as foxgloves. It’s important the large plants aren’t all spreaders otherwise they will simply takeover from all of the smaller plants by shading them out.
