A noun. A verb. A blog.
While doing the initial scoring for the East York Blooming Contest, I saw some high-scoring gardens that didn’t make it into the final round, including this Asian-inspired front garden. The tall tree is a standard form of weeping mulberry (Morus alba ‘Pendula’). In horticulture, standard doesn’t mean “run of the mill”, but refers to the […]
Entrance to the Toronto Botanical Garden at twilight. The Entry Garden Walk, showing its strong Piet Oudolf design influence – lots of native materials left to do their thing in all seasons. I love the repetition of reds in this fall garden. The smaller Floral Hall Courtyard, looking through to the front entrance […]
Park path in Beach area of Toronto, right off busy Queen Street Something about pathways through woods, parks and deep-dark forests has always been compelling to me. Did it start with watching The Wizard of Oz? A journey through strange places amongst strange people where you can’t get lost, because you have a surefire path […]
A week ago, we put our baby (allotment) to bed. Our community garden project of Summer 2009 was a qualified success. It got us back into the vegetable gardening groove, something my husband and I hadn’t done since becoming parents, nearly 25 years ago. And it gave us modest returns on our investment and labours; […]
“Timelines, Strata and Ephemera” – See further info on this installation below. Québec City was born in 1608, and in 2008 it had a big party to mark its 400th. The Ephemeral Gardens were among the events and happenings that unfolded all through the year-long celebration – and which included a free concert by Céline […]
Unless the real person happens to have been a multi-millionaire, real gardens by real people doesn’t apply in this case, but I can’t resist. The person in question was Sir Henry Pellatt, the super-rich Edwardian industrialist whose dreams and moneybags built Toronto’s castle* Casa Loma. At least, this picture is of a garden… which gives […]
Or, rather, Au revoir. Ile d’Orléans, the island in the St. Lawrence River just a few kilometres east of Québec City, has been our family’s second home since 1987. This weekend, we drove the 800+ kilometres there (and back again) to pack, disperse and transport the accumulation of more than two decades. This, and the […]
This Thanksgiving Weekend is a time to give thanks for all our blessings – like the wonderful family weekend Sarah’s family and mine spent together two years ago at her little house in the country near Marmora. Here are some outdoorsy images of that autumnal time.
Toronto is often described as a city of villages and Parkdale, on the west side of town, is one. We confined ourselves to one street for Sunday’s visit. Here are some observations. This may not be the face of Parkdale, but it will do for a start. Parkdale citizens are brave enough to plant Japanese […]
Gardeners spend hours pouring over seed and nursery catalogues, looking at books, thinking about colours, bloom times, soil conditions. They might even consider plant succession through the seasons, foliage shapes and textures, winter interest. One thing they often don’t consider: the gardener. When I first stuck my spade into the soil in this garden, I […]
The unvarnished truth: My front garden, complete with hose and bald patches, doing its best to pose for its “before” picture at right. That headline almost said “Taking stock of the carnage.” After summer’s heat and drought, my garden – especially the front garden – usually does look like a battlefield by September. (To my […]
Disclaimer: The images in this post are not pictures of my garden. They are gardens of simple inspiration from around the city. A new season: Time to take stock of the garden. Starting back where it began, twenty-two autumns ago in November, when we took possession of two rectangles of sparse lawn, with a house […]