A noun. A verb. A blog.
The ribboned hats and dappled light here remind me of this Renoir Before our preview of this weekend’s Through the Garden Gate (BTW, there are tickets if you hurry), Plant World co-owner Paul Reeves (seen at left) outlined some garden trends, which I thought were interesting. Plant World has been one of Toronto’s independent garden centres for six generations, so has […]
Historic industrial space becomes an innovative park at the Brick Works Despite the grey skies, a sunshine of ideas bloomed at the Toronto Alliance for Better Parks Summit last Saturday – ideas about the importance of parks to people, and importance of people to our city’s parks. Where better to do this than at the Evergreen Brick […]
I’d been gardening on it for almost 10 years before I knew these garden spaces actually had a name: The Hell Strip. And suddenly all my challenges made sense. Yep, I’ve been trying to garden on a little strip o’ hell. For those of you unacquainted with the “hell strip” it’s a long garden space […]
Last March in the Dominican Republic, I watched a craftsman build a palapa or tiki hut from wood and palms. I recorded the process in pictures and have wanted to share it ever since. But how is the construction of a tropical palapa relevant to a Toronto audience? Especially a wintry Toronto audience. That was […]
Naughty Berberis ‘Rose Glow’ in its brazen autumn garb, with a leaf in just the right place While there’s no denying its scarlet beauty in fall, purple Berberis thunbergii or Japanese barberry is a shrub I can’t in conscience recommend due to the tendency of barberries to install themselves, uninvited, in wild spaces. Darn it. However, this post […]
Papaver orientalis ‘Beauty of Livermere’ is an astonishingly red red*. Our grey-day colour series continues with red. A craving for red seems to be programmed into our red-blooded DNA, especially at this time of year. And this red is pure Santa-suit, Rudolph’s-nose, holly-berry red – the red that seems even redder when paired with its […]
She’s a perfect poster girl for my post on yellow: the much-maligned Hemerocallis ‘Stella de Oro’ (not, as is often written, ‘Stella d’Oro‘). This photo shows how effective she can be “when well used.” The day is grey. Grey, grey and more grey. Plus, it’s December. Naturally, this inspires me to begin a series about […]
Finding hidden gardens is always a sneaky treat. Sometimes they arrive all by themselves, or with help from humans, in tucked away places, like Toronto’s famous back alleys. These alleyways, constructed in many Toronto neighbourhoods to facilitate access to garages, usually extend the length of a block. There is something so timeless about walking down […]
With all the jackhammers and construction barriers at Nathan Phillips Square now, you might have missed seeing the new City Hall Podium Green Roof – especially as there’s no signage at the bottom of the ramp to direct you up to the podium for a visit. Too bad. Because the green roof is worth the […]
Well grown vegetables can be highly ornamental As Sonia Day writes in the Toronto Star, a Toronto family has been ordered by the City to replace their front yard vegetable garden… with sod. Yep, sod. It’s a bit of a shock, with all this talk of food security. The garden clashes with a transportation by-law, […]
The good-things-come-in-small-packages garden of Paul Geary, he of Petal Pushers garden therapy, is around the corner and down the street. To compensate for the petite size of his own garden, Paul has made his city-owned boulevard strip a thing of beauty. Right now the strip is a particularly fetching bouquet of purple and gold. See […]
Can’t you imagine long conversations in this cosy spot? I love eating outdoors. There doesn’t seem to have been enough of that in summer 2010. My back yard is only big enough for a bit of garden and a dining table. A small dining table. So I’ll be putting on a sweater to squeeze the […]