A noun. A verb. A blog.
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 […]
As gardeners during two world wars knew, even during a major crisis you can do your bit to make things better. Victory gardens were designed to boost food productivity during the wars, one little garden plot after another. The benefits spread far beyond individual garden gates. And gardens need pollinators. Their work, done mostly by insects, is behind one […]
If I’d known that Canada Blooms 2020 would be cancelled, yesterday when I previewed the show as tour-guide, I’d’ve taken lots more pictures. But that news didn’t arrive till after I got home. And, really, had anyone known, I most likely wouldn’t have been there at all. Yesterday, was the day before the grand opening, so most of the exhibits […]
Not so long ago, I was inspecting the white-topped spears of snowdrops (Galanthus) poking through the bare earth. Now most of those snowdrops are back sleeping under a blanket of snow. But spring IS on its way. Meteorological Spring is even closer! Plus, this Saturday, Feb. 22nd, the Toronto Botanical Garden lets you think green thoughts at Get the Jump on Spring & Seedy Saturday. […]
This year was unusual for our family, full of exciting, challenging, time-consuming, positive-but-discombobulating changes. Frankly, it kept us from blogging as often as we’d like. But one change was easy: deciding to rename the garden tool that, three years ago, my sister, Sarah, and I adopted from its creator, Margaret Bennet-Alder. No longer is it the Toronto Gardener’s Journal. For […]
I’m never ruthless enough when taking cuttings of geranium (Pelargonium). For one thing, I can never bear to remove the flowers, the blooming of which distracts the cutting from root production. But when they look like this, who can blame me. The truth is, though, there’s no real mystery around the process of propagation for […]
This summer I talked to wild bee expert Sheila Colla, a scientist from York University, about wild bees and what we as gardeners can do to help them. One of the first things Sheila made clear was that wild bees are native bees and we must make a distinction between them and honeybees, which are not […]
When I sprinkled the seeds of this lovely ‘Dukat Leafy Dill’ from Renee’s Garden, I was hoping this would happen. ‘Dukat’ is said to be leafy, delicious and a little slower to bolt. I had room for them to fluff up between the Gladiolus corms in my second trough, which this year is more of a […]
This ghostly character is something you don’t see every day, certainly not in Toronto. With its fleshy, pale appearance those who see it can mistake it for a mushroom. It isn’t. Instead it’s the chlorophyl-free parasitic plant called variously indian pipe, ghost pipe or ghost plant, and corpse flower (Monotropa uniflora). I came across it while camping […]
After 70 years of delighting Toronto gardeners with their superb selection of nursery items Humber Nurseries is closing down. With a place this size though, you don’t close down all at once. Every time I’ve gone to Humber nurseries of late I’ve noticed them paring down. This spring and summer, at the front of the […]
The Islands might be flooded, and the record-setting lake levels are eroding the boardwalk. But all that rain in spring 2019 has had one wonderous side effect. The flowers on Korean dogwoods (Cornus kousa) this year are stop-in-your-tracks abundant. I had to pull over to capture this one exploding in white fireworks, just in time for […]