A noun. A verb. A blog.
Trick #1: Break the line. The design above doesn’t follow a long, linear path, not even with the paving. One line of stone runs into the fence, not along it, and the rock around the fountain claims an oblique corner. Few of us city gardeners have room to be expansive. Yet skinny spaces can be […]
A simple stone bench amidst the July profusion at Glendale Gardens, now called the Horticultural Centre of the Pacific Avert your eyes from all the white stuff outside. Let’s you and I have a cozy sit, and think about gardens – and how pleasant to do so on a well-placed garden bench, the subject of […]
The headquarters of Manulife Financial on Bloor Street East If you’ve walked or driven along that windy strip of Bloor Street, east of Church, you’ve seen the velvety carpet of green in the gated surrounds of the Manulife Financial headquarters. It’s often called the best lawn in the city, and there’s a reason. It’s creeping […]
Look what’s being served as an appetizer on the glass-top table in this contemporary, east-Toronto garden! Could be the icy weather but, for this Friday’s Idea File, I’m thinking about glass (in French, ice is the sound-alike glace). Mirrors are one of my favourite uses for glass in a garden. They expand a small space, […]
Our cousins’ clubhouse on their farm in Port Perry, circa 1978 Gardens need storage, let’s face it. You need somewhere to put your garden stuff, so why not make it playful or pretty as well as practical? You’ll be looking at it all year round. Let it be good looking – the subject of today’s […]
Blue Muscari in a cheerful pot on Sarah’s balcony Apparently, it’s Blue Monday, the saddest day of the year. Who knew? I’m not feeling particularly sad myself, but I am always ready to think about the colour blue. Here’s some cheeriness for a blue day. Blue flowers are notoriously hard to photograph, and usually look […]
A rusty orb on stilts contrasts the spiky mullein; Dragonfly Farms, Bainbridge Island, Washington The colour of rust sits comfortably in the natural environment – like green’s complement red, blended with dabs of earth and bark. As with the orb above, even a smooth surface weathers into delicious textural variations. Rust hints of history and […]
Hatley Castle, just west of Victoria, British Columbia It’s hard to know where to begin with Hatley Castle. Not only is it a lavish, historic mansion and gardens, one of Canada’s castles, it’s connected to stories that would make a great miniseries or few, as dramatic as Downton Abbey. Hatley was designed in 1908 by […]
Stained concrete, Lane garden, Seattle When a paving geek like me visits a garden, camera in hand, you can be sure that some shots will be about what’s underfoot. So this Friday’s Idea File focuses on the hardscaping under the snow. As you can see, you don’t have to settle for standard unit paver patterns […]
Broken rose arbor: Before Our rose arbor suffered a collapse this summer due to old age and some of 2012’s big winds. (It’s one of the memories emerging as I sort through thousands of retrieved images after a major data loss.) What would we do? All our energies and budget were being sucked up by […]
Have a dead tree? Turn it into a garden feature. Christoper D.Mello‘s garden, Asheville NC You’ll be surprised how just a little paint can spruce things up and make your garden pop. That’s idea one – applied here in a variety of ways. This is the first of what I hope will be a weekly […]
The drawbridge entrance to a very special garden in Preston Hollow, Dallas TX Now that The Hobbit movie has arrived in theatres, have a peep at this hobbity garden we visited with the 2010 Garden Writers Symposium. I won’t give you much commentary, other than to say that the garden and buildings were designed from […]