A noun. A verb. A blog.
It’s good to get out with a camera, even on a record-setting rainy day in February. Even under the raindrops, it’s a beautiful day in the neighbourhood. I think the covergirl picture is bridalwreath spirea (Spirea vanhouttii) making with the pearldrops. Definitely privet (Ligustrum) berries. People don’t think of privet as ornamental, but they can […]
It seems we’ll get a brief reprieve from winter over the next two days. Mind you, we’ll have to put up with a lake of freezing rain in the meantime. A perfect time to stay indoors with a good book. I’ve spoken briefly before about my book addiction. Two books, however, I can proudly tout […]
On Sunday, I picked up a little seedless watermelon from my local No Frills and gave it what I thought was an authoritative tap to test for ripeness. Little did I know that what I purchased, after the thunk, was not a watermelon. It was a festering cesspool. Until late last evening, without warning, it […]
With Apologies to my garden… (and Elizabeth Barrett Browning) How do I neglect thee? Let me count the ways. I neglect thee to the depths of summer’s day and night My garden hose can’t reach, it’s actually out of sight For the ends of Growing and ideal Placement. I neglect thee to the level of […]
Everybody has one of these. Not a Nectaroscordum, though I wish. No, I mean a plant growing in exactly the wrong spot. Too close to something, too far away to be seen. Or, in the case of this pretty cousin of the Alliums, too buried under an ‘Annabelle’ Hydrangea … and mired in too impenetrable […]
Helen and I say we come from “a long line of gardeners” and it’s true: our bragging rights. Our grandmother Ethel Espley won the cup in 1964 for having the best garden in her town in Wales. But did this have one iota of effect on me at the time? Did I think it was […]
In our neighbourhood this week we all took a collective gulp when these massive recycling bins appeared out of the blue sky on our lawns. They’re BIG. They’re HUUUUUGE. I immediately thought of the opening scene in 2001 A Space Odyssey, when the apes confronted the Big Black Monolith. “What IS it? Why is it […]
The rain is pelting down on the crocuses in my neighbour G.’s garden; the crocuses that stopped me in my tracks the other day — before I’d realized spring had really sprung. A small patch of organic sunshine at the corner of the street, these little guys have boisterously multiplied in the two or three […]
Last year about this time, while driving with the whole family in my sister’s van, we had a conversation about why we find this time of year particularly ugly, and, dare I say it, depressing. Then, as now, we were dog-tired of snow and winter and greyness. We were fed up to the gills with […]
Will it never end, Doctor? This compulsive diet of snow and ice and icy snow. And ice. I must confess, I’ve had my fill of it. Come on, winter, smarten up! There are snowdrops under there! Somewhere. I think. There should be snowdrops. There must be snowdrops. The snowdrops that usually tell me and the […]
My eyes were opened this morning by this article in the Toronto Star on earth-friendly flowers. I don’t know why it never occurred to me to ask where our cut flowers come from before, but it’s a question we should be asking. The issue is a big one, involving both ecological and human rights. The […]
It isn’t every year that Toronto is blessed, yes blessed, with such an agglomeration of snow. With the storms of the last week, I know it feels like the snow has been here forever. But think about it. As recently as January 8th, the Toronto Star had this to say about our typical post-New-Year weather: […]