Hort Day in Hartney and a New Hardy Rose!

One of my favorite things each Spring is speaking to different gardening groups.  After a long Prairie winter it is just great to meet up with people just as rarin' to garden as I am!  One of my absolutely favs is Hartney, Manitoba's Hort or Garden Day!  Always a great turn-out, lovely people, and some super local vendors.  This year I was speaking about compost as the best fertilizer/vitamin pill for your plants, and compost tea as a great way to stretch out your compost.  As well as other things...I have a bad habit of going off on tangents, sometimes.  Perhaps wasn't the most scintillating, sexy topic but nobody appeared to be falling asleep, even if it was directly after lunch!  Thanks, Hartney, for having me over!

 I arrived a little early and had a  great chance to shop around: some beautiful plants, local soaps and lotions, some really interesting berry vinegars and sauces.  The big score is a new rose from the Morden/Parkland family of super hardy roses!  This one is called 'Marshall's Peace Garden Rose', named in honor of the late Henry Marshall who did great work for the gorgeous International Peace Garden.  I had cruised by the table as it was a little crowded.  One of the gardeners in attendance told me I had to 'Go smell that rose!' I back-tracked and saw a lovely double white rose; it smelled awesome.  I was sold the moment I saw the 'Northern Garden Collections' tag.  This means the plant has come to us through Jeffries Nursery in Portage la Prairie; these people are doing some awesome work in introducing hardy plants for us Northern gardeners.  The rose, I was thrilled to discovery, is a sport of 'Morden Blush', a gorgeous, pale pink double rose doing very well in my garden.  With part proceeds of the sale of 'Marshalls Peace Garden Rose' going to support the International Peace Gardens, this made this purchase an all-around good thing!  I have many of the Morden roses and I assure you this one has the best fragrance of all - I wish I had a flowering one here now!  Well worth adding to your garden!  And if you are in the area and have never been to the International Peace Garden on the Manitoba-North Dakota border - that's well worth your time, too!  What a great day in Hartney!