A noun. A verb. A blog.
Toronto Gardens isn’t the only blog about gardening in Toronto. Or about Toronto gardens. Here are a few we follow – and we’d love to hear about others that are missing. YouGrowGirl We can’t begin such a post without mentioning Gayla Trail, who has set and raised the bar in garden blogging since 2000. We […]
Many plants are easily propagated by cuttings. And the process is far from complex. The most important step is, of course, to do it… and not be daunted by rules or regulations. I own rooting hormone (#1 for softwood cuttings) which would have been an essential tool in the right way to take these […]
For all you Mac users: behold my success at fooling iPhoto into creating a photo collage, something it doesn’t profess to do. There are a number of third-party software choices available to let you do this… but I found a quick, easy and no-cost solution. Just pour your photos into a page template for a […]
Aiming for a shot of the rose arbour for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, way back the summer, I realized that one place to appreciate the (at that time) bower of bloom was from inside the house. This got me thinking: is garden design all about experiencing the garden from within it? When designing: is in […]
While doing the initial scoring for the East York Blooming Contest, I saw some high-scoring gardens that didn’t make it into the final round, including this Asian-inspired front garden. The tall tree is a standard form of weeping mulberry (Morus alba ‘Pendula’). In horticulture, standard doesn’t mean “run of the mill”, but refers to the […]
Entrance to the Toronto Botanical Garden at twilight. The Entry Garden Walk, showing its strong Piet Oudolf design influence – lots of native materials left to do their thing in all seasons. I love the repetition of reds in this fall garden. The smaller Floral Hall Courtyard, looking through to the front entrance […]
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting a few things that got lost in the shuffle of the too-many-things-to-write-about growing season. One of them is Sweet Autumn Clematis (Clematis terniflora – also widely but erroneously known as C. ternifolia, it seems through a printer’s error shortly after its discovery in China; C. recta and […]
On a visit this summer to Earth Bound Gardens in the Bruce Peninsula I discovered their very effective way of keeping deer out of the garden, particularly their hosta and lily glade. These were being regularly eaten down to nubs until they used this simple trick. Their hosta bed is in a clearing, surrounded on […]
My ever-unrequited love affair with paperbark maple (Acer griseum) intensifies when seeing it in its fall regalia. Hates drought, they say. Well with the somewhat hefty price of this tree, that makes it too risky for my garden, sad to say. That doesn’t mean I can’t fantasize. Paperbark maple is one of the perfect (*or […]
This is one reason why I wish I had an electric lawn mower: to chop autumn leaves into bite-sized, easily composted pieces. This is a trick you can use now. My rickety, ancient push mower (all I can justify for my narrow strip of grass, which soon might disappear completely) doesn’t have the ooomph required. […]
Yes, Mason Hogue Gardens is now Mason House Gardens. Had they asked me (it’s one of the things I do for a living), I’d have suggested a different re-naming strategy. Too many similar letters; people are going to be confused – as anyone who has tried to change their email address has experienced. However, the […]
Starting last night, me, my battered notebook and a classroom of other garden keeners join Toronto horticulture-guru Marion Jarvie for three sessions at the Toronto Botanical Garden‘s George and Kathy Dembroski Centre for Horticulture. She’ll be talking small, shady, city gardens. That’s how I got the scoop on some dates you’ll want to add to […]