A noun. A verb. A blog.
Picture shows kidney shape leaf form of first year growth of biennial garlic mustard. Garlic mustard does not provide a food source for this hungry Cotton-tailed rabbit. With thanks to a Toronto Gardens reader, who recently mentioned troublesome garlic mustard in our comment area, here are our Top Ten reasons to search and detroy this […]
You’d be right in thinking this looks a bit of a mess. Poor Annabelle! This is her equivalent of a bad hair day. The ‘Annabelle’ Hydrangea arborescens is one of the best flowering shrubs for a small city garden. Compact and somewhat shade tolerant, it performs well in an urban setting, producing a load of […]
What do you see in this picture, besides a woman badly in need of a manicure? I’ll tell you: the first step in a great technique for sharpening your pruners. I always used to find sharpening tools awkward. Then I saw landscape architect Paul Ehnes demonstrate his pruning wizardry – including his way to sharpen […]
April – the cruelest month – is the time when I start wondering when I can start introducing my overwintered plants back into the “wild”, aka bring them back into the great outdoors. I overwinter geraniums every year, keeping the favourites for next year. Main reason: In the (almost) words of Renfield from the movie, […]
There aren’t many native sugar maples on our street. Most are Norways. So I like to check in with our sugars from time to time, as you would an elderly neighbour. About a week ago, I was horrified to note that the trunk of one across the street, whose rich leaf colours I’d photographed last […]
Actually, they’re Dynamic Accumulators. So what the heck is a dynamic accumulator, you ask? They are some of the most powerful plants you can have in your garden. They are basically free, organic, living fertilizer, and they improve your soil due to their ability to mine important nutrients from within the soil or air. Jane […]
When skunks and other critters begin to forage this way in your garden, they’re actually doing you a favour… by ridding you of white grubs. That’s little consolation when you see the damage they do by digging, usually in what in most small city gardens passes for a lawn. Though the foragers will dig among […]
Oh, April weather – you are truly driving me crazy. Between the slippery show covered steps I had to negotiate last night, and the little icicles formed on the shrubberies yesterday, I shake my freezing cold fist at you! (because I forgot to bring my gloves, because….it’s Spring!) For all others who are similarly being […]
Walking by Ted Reeve Arena on Gerrard Street East at Main, I spied what looked like dried black leaves persisting on some of the ornamental trees. Turns out, it wasn’t leaves on the branches, but hundreds of thick, black growths; perhaps some kind of fungus. Google came to my aid back at the ranch, and […]
To the person who gifted us this lovely pot of pink tulips, a particular thank you on this day of mixed snow and rain – with its possible wet, white accumulations of 25 cm north of the city. (Listening to the weather report, my daughter comments that squalls is a funny word. I guess it’s […]
When asked what fruit I grow (in a garden questionnaire the other day), I was about to write, “sadly, none.” Then Sarah reminded me about my serviceberry, Amelanchier. How could I forget! This is one of the best native trees, a hard worker in the garden in almost every season. Lovely grey bark in winter; […]
Pansies and violas on sale in garden centres can go directly in the garden in Toronto now. As long as you can dig, you can plant, and you can certainly plant them in planters as well. Even if we get snow next week, they will be fine. They are quite hardy and can stand frost, […]