A noun. A verb. A blog.
You’re looking at a greenhouse. No, actually, you’re looking at many teeny tiny greenhouses. Or, they will be, once we get through with them. My Number One Dot and I have embarked on an adventure in winter seed starting, inspired and informed by the Garden Faerie blogger Monica Milla and Montreal garden blogger Dirt Gently. Links […]
Just to remind you that spring will be springing soon… because we’re just fed up with winter. These photos were captured on Mother’s Day 2010 at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington Drink in all that voluptuous colour. Don’t worry about the species or cultivar now. Although the dark purple Tulipa ‘Queen […]
I’d been gardening on it for almost 10 years before I knew these garden spaces actually had a name: The Hell Strip. And suddenly all my challenges made sense. Yep, I’ve been trying to garden on a little strip o’ hell. For those of you unacquainted with the “hell strip” it’s a long garden space […]
And by “cheap,” I mean “a really, really good bargain.” The Toronto Master Gardeners has teamed with the Toronto Botanical Garden to sell these rain barrels with a neat history. They’re former food product containers that once travelled the world holding things like olive oil. Now, thanks to a Canadian company, they’re fully rigged up with […]
Ontario’s native floral symbol Trillium grandiflorum – can you be sure it was responsibly propagated? Is choosing native plants always the right thing to do for the planet? Simple answer, right? Well, after a couple of recent encounters, I’m surprised. The simple answer turns out to be more than a little complex. When are native […]
The view is clear when you can see a tree silhouetted in its underwear. Let’s let go of our moaning. Snow in January is a good friend to the Toronto gardener. First, it’s precipitation; a long, cool drink for the garden. It’s an insulating blanket of snow for our tender plants, especially when the temps […]
Last March in the Dominican Republic, I watched a craftsman build a palapa or tiki hut from wood and palms. I recorded the process in pictures and have wanted to share it ever since. But how is the construction of a tropical palapa relevant to a Toronto audience? Especially a wintry Toronto audience. That was […]
Hip-hip-hip hooray for Hippeastrum (aka Amaryllis) ‘Evergreen’ Other than snow flowers decking the branches, there’s not much blooming outdoors this Garden Bloggers Bloom Day in our frosty neck of the woods. Indoors, the leaves of the over-wintering pelargoniums are hanging in, and the pale greeny-white blooms of Sarah’s new Amaryllis/Hippeastrum ‘Evergreen’ make a fabulous picture […]
We published this in its original form back in April 2009. But with January starting the season for many garden societies, it’s worth saying again: Ten reasons why it simply makes sense for any gardener (or would-be gardener) to belong to a local garden society: 1. Inside dirt on what will work in your garden. […]
As 2010 leaves us, we hope you’ll enjoy this little slideshow of some of the memorable leaves from the year behind. It doesn’t always have to be about the flowers… although a few did sneak in here and there. We hope that 2010 leaves you with fond memories, and that 2011 brings you health, happiness […]
Naughty Berberis ‘Rose Glow’ in its brazen autumn garb, with a leaf in just the right place While there’s no denying its scarlet beauty in fall, purple Berberis thunbergii or Japanese barberry is a shrub I can’t in conscience recommend due to the tendency of barberries to install themselves, uninvited, in wild spaces. Darn it. However, this post […]
Papaver orientalis ‘Beauty of Livermere’ is an astonishingly red red*. Our grey-day colour series continues with red. A craving for red seems to be programmed into our red-blooded DNA, especially at this time of year. And this red is pure Santa-suit, Rudolph’s-nose, holly-berry red – the red that seems even redder when paired with its […]