A noun. A verb. A blog.
If you’re a creative person (as gardeners often are) it’s easy to get hung up on perfection. Rather than appreciating the garden that is, you compare it with the garden that exists only in your mind – your dreams. And you grumble. I love your garden, people might tell you. While, grumbler that you are, you give them […]
Yesterday, I wrote about a “crocus” that seemed to bloom in fall, not spring. Here’s another seemingly out-of-season bloomer that’s also doing exactly what it’s meant to do. It’s the re-blooming, tall bearded Iris germanica ‘Immortality’ that puts out its main show in June, then returns for an encore performance in fall. This one was showing its […]
SEO language be damned. I can never resist turning a blog title into a bad pun or a song by the Bonzo Dog Band. In this case, both. The other day, a friend posted on Facebook with a picture of what she thought was a crocus, all mixed up in its seasons. Ever since, Colchicum-a-kama-sutra has been playing on my […]
We have spray-on tans and spray-on hair. Now, spray-on grass seed! That’s what you see when driving along Lake Shore Blvd. E. at Leslie (and perhaps further, I haven’t looked) this fall. That blue stuff (or green or teal) is a mix of grass seed, mulch (in this case, re-pulped paper), fertilizer and some kind […]
Doug Tallamy knows the importance of small things, like caterpillars. Doug’s a writer, entomologist, and is an expert on biodiversity and wildlife. His talk at the Toronto Botanical Garden was entertaining and informative. It was also heartbreaking. Nature lovers (like me) love feeding the birds. I buy those big bags of birdseed. It’s fine to […]
Quick! Before all those beautiful fall leaves get crunchy or covered by snow! Run out and gather a handful of the prettiest leaves to make this wreath. I made a leaf wreath yesterday, inspired by online pal and brilliant contemporary basketmaking artist Kari Lønning. (Skip over to Kari’s Facebook page for examples of her work.) Here’s how I did […]
New-world asters aren’t Aster anymore. They are, among other things, Symphyotrichum as in Symphyotrichum novae-angliae or New England aster. Because these new-ish names are a bit of a mouthful, I prefer the term used (and perhaps created) by my friend Gail of Clay and Limestone: Ex-asters. It’s for Gail’s Wildflower Wednesday that I post this almost-wordless […]
I’m a latecomer* to the term “see-through plants,” new to me until this spring. It was in a presentation on small-space gardening written by another Master Gardener. Her point was that designing with see-through plants is one way to make a small space seem bigger. Hmmm, thought this small-space gardener, interesting. After that, I started to notice plants for […]
Take a look at that bright green or chartreuse shrub in my front garden above. It isn’t a shrub. It was (once) a single pot of ‘Wasabi’ coleus that I bought from Plant World this spring for my large container. A ‘Wasabi’ intent on taking over the world. Now, ‘Wasabi’ is an amazingly tough and beautiful […]
Hasn’t 2106 been a mixed-up year in Toronto for precipitation? I was begging for rain when summer was at its hottest. Now, when I’m eager to be out planting bulbs, rain. And I’m complaining. Toronto had three months of drought in 2016. But look at California. According to the Pacific Institute, California might be beginning its sixth […]
On October 15 (that’s today), registration opens for the 2017 Garden Bloggers Fling in Washington, D.C. and the Capital Region. My sister Sarah and I are both gonna be there, and we hope to see you there, too. We’ve written before about why we Fling. So much of it is the people we’ve met, some are now friends for […]
It’s simple. Those orange bugs on your milkweed are milkweed bugs! And these little fellas (or gals) above are one of the later-stage nymphs of the insect. Milkweed bugs come in two versions. Large Milkweed Bugs (Oncopeltus fasciatus) and Small Milkweed Bugs (Lygaeus kalmii), both of which feed on the seeds of milkweed plants. You can […]