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If I’d known that Canada Blooms 2020 would be cancelled, yesterday when I previewed the show as tour-guide, I’d’ve taken lots more pictures. But that news didn’t arrive till after I got home. And, really, had anyone known, I most likely wouldn’t have been there at all. Yesterday, was the day before the grand opening, so most of the exhibits […]
Have you ever paused to think what a challenge it must be to force 70,000 plants into leaf or peak bud or bloom in time for the March opening of a show like this? Especially over the dark, rainy, sleety, snowy Ontario winter like the one we’ve survived in 2018-19! That’s an accomplishment in itself. And to […]
Of the things in my folder to share with you about this year’s Canada Blooms, this is the one that excited me most. It’s Jonas Spring’s Cliff Garden. Spring uses reference points from nature to inspire the shape and form of the gardens he builds for clients. Essentially, cities are cliffs; houses are boulders. Layered on this […]
The theme is A Family Affair at Canada Blooms 2019, a little more than a week away. Just for the event, I’ve written a brand new talk on Gardening with Children for the Toronto Master Gardeners’ presentation library – you can see it (and me) on the Harrowsmith Garden Solutions Stage at noon on Tuesday, March 12th. My talk is just one […]
No more nay-sayers, please. There’s always something to see at Canada Blooms, if you look for it. Often, you don’t need to look too hard. Here are a few of the things I’ve pointed out on the early-morning tours I’ve led this year. The Gardens The big gardens are often exquisitely done, and this year is […]
There’s never a good time for a bad cold. But when it’s Canada Blooms, and you have a whole bunch of volunteer stuff to do, garden writer events to attend, plus pictures to take and thoughtful* posts to write? Well, ah-chooey! For better or, more likely, worse, here’s my viral or virusy view of this year. (*Doing […]
By many measures, 2016 was one of the most deplorable of annus horribilis-es. The Grim Reaper was unusually busy, and some things did not turn out as hoped. But let’s try to bright-side it. A look back: January One thing to like, every year, is Toronto’s skirt hem along the great freshwater sea that is Lake Ontario. A […]
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 […]
The wee folk will have fun spotting all the wee folk (and one large troll) in the Vandermeer fairy garden. Maybe it’s the Let’s Play theme at Canada Blooms 2015, but I found myself wishing I were a kid again. Some garden writers might give me a hard time for even daring to think of applying the […]
Wild enough to eat? A buffet table of cake-shaped arrangements by floral designer Albert Graves of Bloemen Decor. You can have your cake, but you might not want to eat it, too. Not if it’s one of the tasty designs above by Albert Graves at 2014’s Canada Blooms. What a cool centrepiece that might make […]
At their preview event at the InterContinental Toronto Centre, Canada Blooms went Wild – the show theme for 2014. Best idea ever! Last week, Canada Blooms kicked off its 2014 show with its first-ever January sneak peek. And this January, we sure needed a reminder that spring might someday be on its way. It’s hard […]