A noun. A verb. A blog.
Last night, I was presenting at the Newmarket Garden Club – a demonstration on making simple flower arrangements using materials from your (in this case, mostly my) garden. It was a fun 50 minutes, during which I did five designs. The materials weren’t all from my garden. It’s the mini Microgarden, after all. There were five kinds […]
When my mum used to tend our infant son, he’d pick up little expressions from her that, from his baby lips, were particularly cute. One was this, “Let’s sit down and have a little chit-chat.” And wouldn’t this be a lovely place to do it? It’s the charming, Englishy-formal pond courtyard at Squire House Gardens in Afton, Minnesota. […]
Coming home to the garden after a few days away feels like seeing nieces and nephews after a break. Except when you say, “My, how you’ve grown!” plants are a bit harder to embarrass. Want to see what’s growing in a small, shady, city garden – maybe a bit like yours? Certainly, I’d like to recall what worked and what didn’t in the Microgarden […]
Think of this as a late-blooming “Wordless Wednesday” – a visual, almost-silent* paeon to the glories of the late-July garden. These are all from the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, viewed on banquet day at the Minneapolis Fling. I’m not even going to name the flowers, but you can ask in the comments if you’re interested. Just […]
The small studio garden of Hearts + Ivy designer Donna Hamilton is like a jewelbox, sparkling with gems. With colour everywhere, everywhere, you feel like a bee, wanting to flit from flower to flower to flower to flower. This got me thinking about focus. I don’t usually post people pictures from garden tours, but this one makes […]
Sometimes the things you find by accident are the best finds of all. Before the Minneapolis Fling began, my roommate Joanne Shaw (of Down2Earth) and I stumbled on this plaza when exploring the city while waiting for our room. Wow, I thought, that looks like something by Martha Schwartz. Well, guess what? It is something by Martha Schwartz. The […]
I’m really going to let the pictures do most of the talking here. This garden was a revelation from the recent Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling (we hosted this event in Toronto in 2015). “Revelation” in many senses – it was surprising, moving, inspiring, and we all revelled in it! My “If I had a Million […]
With the 10th Anniversary of Toronto Gardens coming up in October 2016, we saw this as the perfect time for a change. Welcome to our redesign! Our whole site has a fresh new look on WordPress using our custom URL. You can quickly find posts by the category you like – such as design or plants. And we will now have a […]
No. Unfortunately not a picture of a Toronto garden. Not yet. Nearly a year ago, I photographed this in the display garden of Sunset Publishing in California, sighing that it would perk me up before my return to the brownery back home. Well, Facebook just reminded me of it, so I thought I’d share it […]
Canada Blooms 2016 may be over, but my mind keeps returning to this show garden from Jacob’s Gardenscape. I don’t know which criteria earned it the Most Innovative Garden award, but the gabion fences were really interesting. If you’ve spent time on the trails along Toronto’s Don or Humber rivers, you’ve probably noticed the original […]
The water garden from Genoscape won four awards at Canada Blooms in 2016: Outstanding Large Garden, Outstanding Use of Water, Best Overall Creativity, and Judge’s Choice for Garden of the Year. It was a standout. It’s the last day of Canada Blooms 2016. Many exhibitors told me they thought it was the best show in […]
Toronto’s downtown skyline from the corner of First and Channel Avenues on Ward’s Island For over 20 years, whenever we crossed the bridge to our summer home on Ile d’Orléans, in the St. Lawrence River just outside Quebec City, I’d take in the view of the broad river and forested mountains and say a little […]