Although they both loved flowers, they planted just a lilac and a flowering plum--both of which still thrive today. They also brought in native flowering shrubs from the nearby woods: a saskatoon (Amelanchier alnifolia), a choke-cherry (Prunus virginiana) and a European mountain ash (Sorbus aucuparia). I, their grown daughter who now owns the property, contributed a red osier dogwood (Cornus stolonifera), which I dug up from the low woodlands on the west quarter and carried home in my hand. Each spring these four wild ones produce clouds of white blossoms, followed by berries; in fall, each shrub's foliage turns a different colour. ents had planted mainly annuals, but I wanted to start some perennials. Start is not entirely the operative word here. Near my parents' former homestead, the first perennials had actually been established decades earlier by my great aunt and uncle, Nell and Eber Tedford, who had built a little white house near the Halvorson home. In the 1960s the Tedfords abandoned that property, but the hardy perennials carried on. Years later, when I moved back to share my parents' home, I came to the perennials' rescue and dug up veronicas, maltese crosses, columbines, delphiniums, hop vines, purple German irises, sweet Williams and a gnarled, old honeysuckle shrub. Those transplants joined a clump of tiger lilies that came from my grandparents' original homestead a few kilometres down the road.