A noun. A verb. A blog.
Sarah launched our blog way back in Ought-Six with a wonderful rant about leaves. It remains true that not everyone has our passion for dead leaves. Every spring, Canadians… urban Canadians… continue to spend a great deal of time and energy raking up leaves and giving them away. Then they go to the garden centre […]
Yes, we have spring weather! In the middle of April. At least, we do temporarily, as it is threatening to transition right into summer, with 21˚C predicted this week. On the weekend, I gingerly scrumpled the leaves on top of the garden, and found some of my favorite spring things. Here is one: Lathyrus vernus, […]
It must be spring. The day before yesterday, Sarah and I had our first official Walk Around the Garden with a Cup of Tea. This puts the 2008 season at least two weeks behind schedule in Toronto. Usually, this first walk happens in mid-March. Typically, it involves gently prying apart the mat of maple leaves […]
The first snowdrop sighting on our street actually happened on Saturday. But this picture, snapped yesterday, really shows the tenacious nature of these little guys. Even snow doesn’t stop them. Unless there’s a mile of it sitting on top. Until neighbour M. transplanted a huge unwieldy shrub for me, I had one tiny patch of […]
One of the first of the big trees to bloom in spring around here, usually around March, is the native Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum). These nubbly buds, which will open to reveal some of the least showy of the maple flowers, were photographed in our neighbourhood less than a week ago, before Spring officially arrived. […]
Sarah & I often do things as a team. Like this lovely rosemary here. I bought it. Sarah rescued it by transplanting to a larger pot. I ignored it. Sarah made sure it got a bit of water over the summer. I left it outside in the fall. Sarah brought it in before the frost […]
Look at that Amaryllis (Hippeastrum), a gem called ‘Charisma’ – the gift of my dear sister. I was a little skeptical when I saw the static looking picture on the tag. It didn’t seem to match the name. But, wow, in real life, this is clearly a charmer. The bulb itself looked on the petite […]
I was watering the plants in my porch/greenhouse when I noticed some long stems of woody geranium stems sitting on the top of my compost bin. I had cut them back about a month ago and they still had live green leaves on the top. I guess they hadn’t heard when I said, “No, I […]
Spring will be springing briefly next week in January, when temps are predicted to rise to the +10-degree range. Apparently, only a couple of Toronto’s winters over the past 157 years have failed to have a January thaw. What an opportunity to get out there and tidy up the straggly tails of the morning glories […]
One of the best gifts ever for any gardener is an amaryllis bulb, truly the gift that keeps on giving. For $10-15, and sometimes less, even the most feckless gardener gets the pleasure of watching something grow; something that produces astonishingly beautiful, long-lasting flowers (sometimes with more than one scape or flower stem) – just when […]
Got all the plants inside, with the exceptions of a few casualties. Sad to see the succulents turn from a healthy turgid puffiness to one-step-away-from-putrefying liquid, but you can’t win ’em all. There were some pots on my sister’s back deck that I forgot about. I still haven’t even checked on them, but after the […]
It’s really time now, although I’ve been saying I’d better do it all month. The weather report says it got down to zero last night. Our neighborhood seems to have a bit of a microclimate, so I didn’t lose anything to frost, thank goodness. Now, I’ve got to figure out what to with with everything […]