A noun. A verb. A blog.
Way back in winter 2019/20, I decided to turn some of my bigger planters from vegetables to flowers. Yes, I made a cutting garden in the Microgarden. With no regrets. Not one. When the Plague of 2020 had everyone else scrambling to buy up veggie seeds, I already had my seeds – for Zinnia, Calendula, Cosmos, and other long-blooming flowers […]
In 2020, with garden trips and tours and meetings cancelled left and right due to you-know-what, Canada’s Garden Days, June 13 to 21, is all about GLU (Gardeners Like Us). It’s about how garden-variety GLUs find pleasure and activity and peace of mind, even with the usual garden frustrations, in the garden. I’ve learned a lot about gardening from […]
In 2020, if a cherry blossom blooms in the city, and there’s no one to see – will it still look pretty? Yes. It will. But you won’t be there this year, will you? Even Sakura Watch is on pause to discourage folks from social the-opposite-of-distancing when the cherries bloom in High Park. So, while you’re home […]
Every year, though perhaps not in 2020, I see more gardens than I have time to share. That’s why our armchair garden tour brings us close to home with this small but standout garden in North Rosedale from Through the Garden Gate 2017. I got the impression that this lovely garden is a DIY. As the […]
While we’re in San Francisco on our visit to the Gardens of Alcatraz, let’s take a little sidetrip. We met up with Bay-area friend and travel blogger Alice Joyce to see some of the city’s small gems, including the World’s Crookedest Street. Little did we know, it was also a garden. You’ll get an idea of […]
Forget that COVID-19 has us housebound. Instead, let’s take off for a garden tour – in the safety and comfort of our favourite seats. Where better to begin our jailbreak than the gardens of Alcatraz! I’ve wanted an excuse to show you them since way back in 2013 after the San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling. To me, the name “Alcatraz” went with movies like “The Bird Man […]
We’d come home exhausted after a day of loading and unloading furniture and boxes for our #1 Dot’s move to a nearby city (okay, it’s Hamilton). What was waiting for us on the porch but this beautiful arrangement. As I turned it round and round to choose “the front*” it occurred to me that a well-designed floral […]
Snowed in – psychologically, if not physically? Let me take you away from all this! Click any image for a slideshow getaway. After seeing the wonderful pool our neighbours S & B created in the back yard of a (relatively) small, east-end semi-detached home, I know that even snowbound Torontonians like us can benefit from ideas […]
Landscape architect Stanley Luk packs a whole lot of heaven into his 300-square-foot/28-square-meter condo terrace. My visit on a sunny Sunday morning in late July captured this 5-year-old garden in the sky in just one of its seasons. Trust me, there are at least three seasons of delight here. Visiting brought both pleasure and pain. On one hand, Luk’s […]
It’s easy for me to be a breathless fangirl when I truly love a garden. I wanna show you this and this and this and isn’t it all amazing? But then I take a deep breath. Helen, I say, control yourself. This garden is in Austin, Texas. Texas! What would that mean to garden people in Toronto? And I have the answer. Lots! […]
We can’t all have the Rose Window at Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral in our gardens. But that doesn’t mean we can’t glory in the power of sunlight illuminating stained glass – as the garden of Donna and Mike Fowler in Hutto, Texas, proves beyond doubt. A long lunch stop on the Austin Garden Bloggers Fling gave us plenty […]
In the many times I’ve walked through Cabbagetown, I’d never stepped into the secret corner that’s home to the Wellesley Cottages – until last month’s garden tour. What a revelation! But stick around to the end of the post. You’ll see that one cottage kept the biggest secret of all in its back yard. Hover over any image to […]