A noun. A verb. A blog.
Tomorrow, we visit the VIP preview for the second annual sculpture show known as ZimSculpt at the Toronto Botanical Garden. Our weekly mailing goes out at noon on Thursdays, so I wanted to get the word out early to our subscribers. Hence the hasty scribbling*. More to come on the show soon. Last night, my […]
This isn’t a post so much as a mash note to the foxtail lily aka desert candle (Eremurus spp). Love isn’t strong enough a word. My recent Garden Bloggers Fling trip to Denver, Colorado, technically in the same planting zone as Toronto, made me fall all over again, and again, and again. Rather than “constant,” think “elusive.” The […]
At a recent Toronto Botanical Gardens talk, Sean James gave us the lowdown on how he uses shrubs. Sean, who’s been gardening since he was four, is an entertaining speaker with tons of knowledge. Sean graduated from Niagara Park school and he now runs Sean James Consulting and Design. He’s an award-winning environmentalist, who is passionate […]
Over the years, I’ve volunteered many times to be a Master Gardener stationed in the private gardens open for the Toronto Botanical Gardens’ annual tour – now called Mark’s Choice Through the Garden Gate. And I gotta tell you, a show like this can’t go on without a lot – hundreds and hundreds and, did I already […]
Last week, I took you on a walk in the woods. This week, it’s a walk on the really wild side: Fashionable Bloor Street. It isn’t my usual shopping precinct but happens to be close to my doctor’s office. It also happens to be a great place to window shop – and by that, I don’t mean […]
An early Mother’s Day visit to our Number One Dot and her partner O – on the first fine day this spring – took us in search of waterfalls on the Niagara Escarpment. The couple had newly moved to Hamilton, with over 100 waterfalls within its boundaries. This was news to Mr TG and I […]
It all started with a basement pillar that had been removed, years ago, by a previous owner. The shoring-up they’d done might have once been code. According to the structural engineer we consulted, just in case, it wouldn’t be code now. And our basement project escalated from there. For me, the worst of it wasn’t […]
In every season, you’ll find many pretty things to see, hear, and even touch in the garden. But after a long, hard winter, the forgotten sense that comes back to life in spring is the sense of smell. My nose reminded me as I passed a planter outside a client’s office. Suddenly, I was whisked back […]
Are you inexorably drawn to the gardening department of a big box store when you go in to buy light bulbs? I am. Admit it, you are too. Especially after the winter we’ve had. Back in early March, I needed to get an injection of growing things. And, while Home Depot’s garden section doesn’t always represent fine […]
Author Steven Biggs is the gardener who convinced us that we could grow figs in our Canadian climate. Now his new book, Grow Lemons Where You Think You Can’t gives us the good news that we can grow lemons too, even in Canada. Steven’s serious interest in growing lemons began when friends gifted him with […]
We’d come home exhausted after a day of loading and unloading furniture and boxes for our #1 Dot’s move to a nearby city (okay, it’s Hamilton). What was waiting for us on the porch but this beautiful arrangement. As I turned it round and round to choose “the front*” it occurred to me that a well-designed floral […]
Did you do this in grade school? You should do it again. Watching beans grow inside a jar is like Jack and the Beanstalk meets x-ray vision. I did it recently to get pictures for a Gardening with Children Master Gardener presentation I was writing. But with the beans growing right beside me on my desk, I could not stop obsessing over roots and shoots […]