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 […]
Garden design lessons from florists
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 […]
Why you should do the grade-school bean experiment
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 […]
2019 Snowdrop alert! At last.
My first snowdrop of 2019 revealed itself this morning, on St. Patrick’s Day. Here and there are more nubs of up-pushing Galanthus foliage, too. For me, the first snowdrop is a sign that, despite this long winter of our discontent, beneath the soil surface the garden is growing. Press on, says Nature, nothing in this world can take the place […]
The plants of Canada Blooms 2019
Have you ever paused to think what a challenge it must be to force 70,000 plants into leaf or peak bud or bloom in time for the March opening of a show like this? Especially over the dark, rainy, sleety, snowy Ontario winter like the one we’ve survived in 2018-19! That’s an accomplishment in itself. And to […]
Ecoman’s cliff garden at Canada Blooms 2019
Of the things in my folder to share with you about this year’s Canada Blooms, this is the one that excited me most. It’s Jonas Spring’s Cliff Garden. Spring uses reference points from nature to inspire the shape and form of the gardens he builds for clients. Essentially, cities are cliffs; houses are boulders. Layered on this […]
Butterflies Migrate to Winter Stations 2019
Flutter down to Woodbine Beach in Toronto’s east end to visit the 2019 Winter Stations and surround yourself with The Forest of Butterflies (PDF). You have till April 1 to see the half-dozen temporary installations in this annual design competition, this year with the theme of Migration. Did you know it takes four generations of Monarch butterflies to […]
Happy Meteorological Spring!
After February 2019’s unreasonable insistence on winter weather, today’s evidence above, I’m all too eager for spring. To have it happen three weeks earlier than the Vernal Equinox – around March 21st – would be psychologically uplifting, right? Guess what? March 1st is the first day of meteorological spring. Yip-yip-yippee! Spring starts today! Perhaps you knew […]
Canada Blooms-ing with children
The theme is A Family Affair at Canada Blooms 2019, a little more than a week away. Just for the event, I’ve written a brand new talk on Gardening with Children for the Toronto Master Gardeners’ presentation library – you can see it (and me) on the Harrowsmith Garden Solutions Stage at noon on Tuesday, March 12th. My talk is just one […]
Get the Jump on Spring – with us!
Come meet up with Sarah and I this weekend when the Toronto Botanical Garden hosts its free Seedy Saturday and Get the Jump on Spring events. Break the spell of this very snowy, icy February – and think springy thoughts! Free talks, free inspiration, and free seeds. How can you lose? We’ll be there on Saturday, February 23, […]
Snow-day escape to a contemporary oasis in Austin, TX
Snowed in – psychologically, if not physically? Let me take you away from all this! Click any image for a slideshow getaway. After seeing the wonderful pool our neighbours S & B created in the back yard of a (relatively) small, east-end semi-detached home, I know that even snowbound Torontonians like us can benefit from ideas […]
Book Review: Gardening with Emma, a kid-to-kid guide
It made me want to be a kid again to read Gardening with Emma: A kid-to-kid guide by Emma Biggs (with help from her dad, Steven Biggs). Who wouldn’t want to reconnect with the authentic, childlike wonder and excitement of discovery in the garden? The book arrived at the right time. As I’m now writing a […]