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Toronto Gardens bloggers, Sarah (left) and Helen (always right) Battersby We are delighted that Toronto Gardens has been presented a Meme Award (or MeMe Award) by Charlotte at The Galloping Gardener, a blog we follow for its tantalizing stories and pictures of gardens around the world. To participate in the Meme Award you need to: […]
That was not a line from The Goon Show, that was the preliminary to a report on our guerrilla gardening efforts in a secret corner of the universe. Things are looking up. Our neighbourhood guerrillas have added two healthy (thanks to this year’s rains) trees to the city’s canopy, plus a happy-looking perennial garden. And […]
Despite evidence to the contrary, this photograph does not illustrate why they call it “o-bee-dient” plant. Though the flower does seem to exert a siren call: Oh, bee… Oh, bee-eee…? This is Physostegia virginiana, and it’s called Obedient Plant for the way you can bend the individual florets to your will, making them go thisaway […]
This story happened in Quebec, but it’s a story that could have happened anywhere with trees. Take one 150-year-old sugar maple tree. Apply wind; lots of wind. Aaaand… oops! Miraculously, this tree-sized branch missed the car, landed on a fence but didn’t crush it, even the birdhouse made it through the branches unscathed. However, the […]
My second garden is two hours outside of Toronto, where I exult in tons of space, sun and sandy soil with lots of rocks. Not to mention hummingbirds and clear night skies full of stars. It’s not a designed garden, rather it’s a bit of a chaotic and impromptu mess. But it’s a pretty mess. […]
When I’m at the nursery on a plant buying spree, (oops, did I say, spree? I meant visit) the thing about a plant that gets me first is colour. Anything blue, purple or lime green and my eye goes right for it. A closer inspection of the tag can frequently bring another hook: the variety […]
By August, my front garden is past its floral (tongue firmly in cheek as I write this word) glory. Spring is the bountiful season in this sandy, dry shade garden, and it all kind of slides downhill from there. Now the daylilies and Asiatic lilies are finished, leaving a few containers, some quiet hosta blooms […]
If there’s one thing I’ve noticed when trying to ID daylilies: some of them are very variable in form. This lovely one is in Sarah’s garden, and (when we last discussed it) she couldn’t remember which it was. I love a hunt. But when I did my searching, the aha! prompted by my discovery of […]
C’mon, little tomato flower (our first one). We’re rooting for you. You can do it! We have faith. And, do you know what? No matter what happens, all we ask is that you do your darnedest. That’s what counts. Way to go, little ‘Scarlet Globe’ radishes! Or should I say: Way to grow! You are […]
There are 23,000 species in the Compositae or, much more fun to say, Asteraceae family – including coneflowers (Echinacea), sunflowers (Helianthus), and, of course, Asters. Many of them are inspiring pollinators to do the happy dance right now. This little fellow is as happy as a bee in cosmos; Cosmos bipinnatus, to be precise. It […]
What’s black and white and mulch all over? Yes, newspapers. With a family addition nearly due to distract them, our neighbours G. and W. are cleverly smothering a former weed patch in their garden with newspapers, topped with a few inches of woodchips. That should keep weeds down to a dull roar while the new […]
This may be our last chance this summer to catch a major pest before it spreads its seeds. Watch out for these monsters: Under-ripe pods, packed with feathery, airborne, milkweed-like seeds. If you’re a Toronto Gardens reader, you’ve noted our campaign against the steamroller known as dog-strangling vine (DSV) or pale swallowwort (Vincetoxicum rossicum, syn. […]