A noun. A verb. A blog.
Two of the tulips I like best (besides two lips in the dark) are late-bloomers making a show right now. The Tulipa above is in the fringed group of tulips. I wish I knew its name. Squirrels and their guillotine tendencies aside, these were reliable performers in my garden for many years, increasing happily and […]
If you haven’t been to the Toronto Botanical Garden since it was transformed with new gardens and a new name (formerly the Civic Garden Centre), you have one more reason to do so on Saturday. It’s the final day for their spring plant sale. Nice specimens for containers, or garden beds in sun or shade, […]
I’ve no idea what these city-owned strips of (sometimes) grass or (too often) weeds between the sidewalk and the street are called: swales? easements? Anyone know? [Ed: Technically, they’re called “boulevards” but the common name for them is “hellstrips.”] All I know is that more and more gardeners in our neighbourhood have started to cultivate […]
I wrote about these hyacinths last year. Someone gave them to me at the birth of my daughter, a long, grown-up-and-moved-away-from-home time ago. It amazes me that they’re still coming up, looking cheery and perfuming the garden air after nearly a generation. Hyacinths to feed my soul, indeed.
This is the lovely bouquet Sarah brought me from her country garden yesterday. But, sadly, Narcissus or daffodils, don’t make very long-lasting cut flowers. Today, most of them have expired. Best to enjoy them in the garden… If only we could put far-off places on wheels and yank them closer, our gardening lives would be […]
When you’re noting your things to do for fall, be sure to write: Plant more Anemone blanda, the Grecian windflower. This diminutive, daisylike member of the Ranunculus or buttercup family is an early spring bloomer in my garden. It flowers best where I allow the leaves to accumulate and compost into mulch under shrubs. Generally, […]
Another quickie to herald today’s opening of one of my favourite spring displays, the Tulipa tarda, aka, astonishingly, tarda tulips. This early species tulip stays low to the ground, and tolerates a root-filled space on a slope in my dry, sandy garden – albeit in one of its sunniest spots. The bulbs seem to increase, […]
Hey, Sarah, that lovely little bulb you have colonizing that tough spot beside your front steps is Puschkinia scilloides, the striped squill. We’ve been looking at it for some time wondering if it was some kind of scilla (I really prefer the Latin name to the common squill; Scilla siberica). In fact, it’s a cousin […]
Seen on the road today: the field of bluebells, Siberian squills or Scilla siberica that blankets the corner of Rosedale Valley Road and Park Road every spring. Did someone plant them here? Or, more likely, did they tumble down the slope from the houses above, wantonly self-seeding into this amazing early spring display. (Always carry […]
It’s clumps I’m lacking. Big lusty clumps like the ones my sister’s got. I’m verging into garden double-entendre here: that’s the effect snowdrops have. That first sign of life in the garden that makes you twitchy, crazed and happy. Snowdrops really are a psychological necessity in Canada. Charles Schulz once said that when we are […]
To the person who gifted us this lovely pot of pink tulips, a particular thank you on this day of mixed snow and rain – with its possible wet, white accumulations of 25 cm north of the city. (Listening to the weather report, my daughter comments that squalls is a funny word. I guess it’s […]
In case you haven’t noticed, there’s an on-again, off-again winter-spring thing happening this year. What’s more, the winter weather isn’t just wintery, it’s Antarctic. It may be March, but it has been too cold outside even for cold-hardy pansies or early bulbs. So nice to see something decorative that won’t be destroyed by the sub-zero […]