A noun. A verb. A blog.
The water garden from Genoscape won four awards at Canada Blooms in 2016: Outstanding Large Garden, Outstanding Use of Water, Best Overall Creativity, and Judge’s Choice for Garden of the Year. It was a standout. It’s the last day of Canada Blooms 2016. Many exhibitors told me they thought it was the best show in […]
Hello, little snowdrop! This is our earliest-ever official Toronto Gardens snowdrop sighting – I noticed my usual earlybird snowdrop was up yesterday, February 3, 2016, but it had likely awoken a few days before. Our neighbours S and B have a nice little patch blooming in their front yard, too. Prior to this, the earliest […]
Toronto’s downtown skyline from the corner of First and Channel Avenues on Ward’s Island For over 20 years, whenever we crossed the bridge to our summer home on Ile d’Orléans, in the St. Lawrence River just outside Quebec City, I’d take in the view of the broad river and forested mountains and say a little […]
No heavy snow to weigh down the grasses along Lake Shore East, January 2016 Perhaps we dreamed of a White Christmas in December 2015, but a dream was all it was. And the snow has just kept on not coming. Toronto often has little snow on the ground in January, but this year has been […]
At the My Luscious Backyard, workshop magic began with this foraged wreath kit – a great package of scavenged materials On December 5th, 2015, Mr TG dropped me off at Propellor Coffee in the west end – and lucky for me he did, as I found on my way home with my delicate foraged wreath […]
The Toronto Botanical Garden’s entry garden in January 2013 Today, we’ll put November to bed, and tomorrow we’ll wake up to December – which some feel means the end of colour in the garden. Well, all the leaves may be brown, and the sky is grey… but when we go for that walk on a […]
What is that – a flower spike? Could it be? It is! My Clivia is blooming! This was a year for miracles in the garden. Not only did the Hoya I’d tended for 30 years bloom for the very first time this spring – it did it three more times in succession over the summer! […]
Beautiful Crothers Woods will now be an official environmentally significant area in Toronto. Our beautiful ravine systems are one of the best things about Toronto, counteracting the concrete and condos, right in the very heart of the city. We are fortunate to have so many stunning, wild areas in Toronto: places where nature does the […]
Gorgeous, creamy and scented Rosa ‘Windermere’ from David Austin Today, I’m grateful for this lovely ‘Windermere’ rose, sent to me to trial and planted in spring 2015. Ultimately growing about a meter tall and wide, this rose easily fits into the Microgarden. And, unlike some David Austin roses I’ve tried, the heavy-headed flower doesn’t sag. It’s […]
Tables set amongst the vegetable rows at Muir Ranch School Farm “A day of thanks for the blessing of the harvest” – that’s what Thanksgiving is about. And if we did it earlier in the year (even earlier than we [ahem!] sensible Canadians do), I imagine Thanksgiving dinner might feel something like the farm-to-table dinner […]
In High Park, June 2015 – a patch of spontaneously regenerated wild lupines (Lupinus perennis) I’ve seen wild lupines in Iceland and in Nova Scotia. But I had no idea that Ontario was also a habitat for this lovely legume (Lupinus perennis). Then we visited High Park this June with the Toronto Fling and learned […]
This brass Y spigot with the ball-valve shut-offs is very easy to operate My heart broke last week when – as temperatures dropped – I had to empty three full rain barrels. It seemed sinful, somehow. A long section of hose on the spigot, backed up by a watering can, let me spot water the […]