Spring, bring it on! St. James Park, Toronto – April 30, 2010
Wordless Wednesday: Soon be spring
Garden Catalogs: A few helpful translations
From my 1948 edition of Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Gardening by Norman Taylor Listen up, class. It’s garden catalog season. Time to review a few garden terms. These ones are sneaky words and phrases (aka weasel words) with a hidden agenda – seeming to mean one thing, but really meaning something else entirely. You’ve seen […]
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia
Because it’s Saturday night, and because I’m suffering from mild hippopotomontrosesquipedaliophobia (fear of long words), I thought I’d simply share one of the more unusual water features seen this year, from an Indianapolis garden.
TTC Garden Tour, Part 2: Dupont Station
Designed by elusive artist James Sutherland, the TTC’s Dupont Station murals were unveiled in 1978 I hadn’t intended to continue our TTC Garden Tour so quickly. But there I was at Spadina Station with my camera. It was just a long tunnel trek and a one-stop hop over to Dupont. And no TTC Garden Tour […]
TTC Garden Tour, Part 1: Victoria Park Station
Along with the site improvements for Victoria Park Station, an art installation by Aniko Meszaros Garden stories are everywhere, even underground on The Better Way. Victoria Park Station is the first stop in an occasional series I’m calling the TTC Garden Tour. New artwork was part of the plan for the recently improved station infrastructure. […]
Flowers for the fallen
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.” ~ Laurence Binyon, For the Fallen This is an Oriental poppy, Papaver orientalis ‘Beauty of Livermere’, rather than […]
Another rainy day, another century
Coal wagon stalled on muddy Ashdale Avenue, a photo by Toronto History on Flickr. When you consider this photo, taken just over a century ago, you realize that Toronto isn’t much beyond its infancy. This is on Ashdale Avenue, just a few blocks from where my home would be built — a couple of decades […]
Lust List: Seeing Trees (Contest, too)
This Lust List item isn’t a plant (which, for me, is usually a tree) – it’s a book. About trees. I’ve lusted for it ever since seeing the teasers. Last weekend at the Garden Writers Symposium in Indianapolis I held it briefly in my hot little hands, and let me tell you: Seeing Trees from Timber […]
Stop and smell the roses
What a glorious day. It’s a gift to every father in Toronto – wrapped up in roses, which are blooming their heads off all over the city. Happy Father’s Day, gentlemen! Nature is telling you (and each of us) to stop and smell the roses. Take pleasure in these small moments: the gift of the […]
Trouble on the urban homestead: Is Canada safe?
A battle is waging in the green community south of the border. It isn’t about chemical versus organic or genetically modified versus heirloom. It’s about words, and who has the right to use them. The words are urban homestead and urban homesteading – commonly applied to the growing movement (no pun) that covers front-yard veggies or back-yard […]
2010 leaves… for the last day of the year
As 2010 leaves us, we hope you’ll enjoy this little slideshow of some of the memorable leaves from the year behind. It doesn’t always have to be about the flowers… although a few did sneak in here and there. We hope that 2010 leaves you with fond memories, and that 2011 brings you health, happiness […]
That Wonderful Smell? It’s Fall
We are well into fall now and careening into winter, but I can’t let the season pass without noting some of fall’s favourite smells. No matter how long ago you were a student, a new school year always lends fall a special personality: an odd contrast of something starting up, while the growing season is screeching […]