A noun. A verb. A blog.
No grown-ups allowed! At the 2013 Toronto Islands garden tour in May, we enjoyed a closer look (as close as grown-ups are permitted) at a cool new treehouse. Isn’t it great? I don’t know about you, but I’d trade a few hours of grown-uppiness for a little time at the top of the ladder. Nice […]
LIke the big bad wolf, the wind huffed and puffed and blew the trees down. Big ones. Can you count the rings? Back in Fall 2012, a windstorm took down a swath of mature trees – about 14, if memory serves – in Monarch Park in our east-end neighbourhood. It was a surprise to see […]
Red-edge sansevieria (Sansevieria subspicata) and silverbush (Convolvulus cneorum) A charming combo from the Cactus House at Allan Gardens. I’ve never seen red-edge sansevieria before, and was surprised that its silver-leafed companion is a shrubby member of the morning glory family. I’ll have to come back to catch it in flower – a silver shrub covered […]
The Wave Garden in Richmond Point, California, overlooking San Francisco Bay. Is it essential for a garden, a serious garden, to always start with a plan? And if we don’t have a plan, should we say, “Oh well, nothing’s written in stone”? In June 2013, I visited a garden that began with no real plan: […]
The Aster Awards sit on the podium, eagerly waiting to be presented. Shall we be kind and call my photo painterly? It’s good to have a humbling experience sometimes. It happened to me last night at the presentation of the Toronto Botanical Garden’s new Aster Awards, which recognize what the TBG calls Canada’s green stars. […]
Majorelle blue paint on the bench goes perfectly with the crisp green ferns Three vignettes from 2013’s Toronto Island Garden Tour, all featuring ostrich ferns (Matteuccia struthioperis) and the rich azure known as Majorelle blue. A little bit of Morocco at the edge of Lake Ontario – and somehow it works. I love this colour […]
Instead of framing a parterre with boxwood (Buxus) hedges, how about using feather reed grass (Calamagrostis) instead? Unlike box, it will change through the season. Don’t you love how the soft foliage here allows these bulbs to shine? Grasses have been the big thing recently. I’m not talking about puny little turf grasses, but statuesque […]
A bright flowerbed with annuals such as spider flower (Cleome) and snapdragons (Antirrhinum) If you grow perennials, people think, it means you’re a “real gardener.” Poor annuals, they’re thought of as second-class garden citizens. Yet for non-stop flower power, annuals can’t be beat. They may take a while to get going but once they do […]
California dreaming at San Francisco’s Conservatory of Flowers At times like these, escape is tempting. I speak of the weather, of course. What else would a Toronto person want to escape from in November 2013? Luckily, Toronto has wonderful escape hatches in the form of conservatories – indoor Wonderlands and protected respite for lovers of […]
I keep telling my friend D that she can give these to me We’ve had a word or two or even three to say about squirrels on this blog. Yet, for a gardener who wages a constant (non-violent) war on squirrels, I must confess to having a perverse squirrelophilia. For example, I always claim the […]
Our Flowtron Leaf Eater, a little battle-scarred, but still working four years later Today was perfect for leaf shredding. The sun was shining, and the leaves were dry. So that’s how I spent my afternoon. Because we love our leaves, and so do our gardens. They really, really do. Since I wrote about my leaf […]
Blooming now: interesting leaf patterns on the Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’ There’s very little blooming in the November Microgarden. But wait! There’s so much, if you look closely. Like the vision of old friends doing new tricks in the image above. Every autumn, the red-purple leaves of the purple smoke tree (Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’) […]