A noun. A verb. A blog.
The Toronto Botanical Garden’s entry garden in January 2013 Today, we’ll put November to bed, and tomorrow we’ll wake up to December – which some feel means the end of colour in the garden. Well, all the leaves may be brown, and the sky is grey… but when we go for that walk on a […]
The rain brought out the rainbow in this mosaic rug by Clare Dohna – in the garden fittingly called Floramagoria Who knows at what stage this glorious mosaic came in this Portland garden’s planning and design? (A rhetorical question, as garden designer Laura Crockett and owners Craig Quirk and Larry Neill likely know quite well.) […]
Large firepit sitting area from designer-retailer JJ deSousa’s garden in Portland, OR Are you stuck with a garden that isn’t “on the level” – so sloped, it creates awkward changes in elevation? Want to turn that negative into a positive? Well, our promise to bring back ideas from the Garden Bloggers’ Fling in Portland OR […]
The tour program describes this Williamson Road garden as a “plantswoman’s paradise.” No wonder I loved it. Sunday’s Beach Garden Society garden tour had many highlights – and we’ll write about others, later. But, by accident, Sarah and I saved the best till last, the subject of today’s post. It showed how even a plant […]
This way to the gardens! We know you’ll be inspired. Have you ever wished you could be cloned? I have. Then you and I could be everywhere at once – especially every garden tour at once. This weekend, two local tours at least have the decency to be on different days. Saturday, it’s Leaside. Sunday, […]
In the midst of another snow storm, here are a few shots from my trip to the Allan Gardens Spring Show last Saturday – shot in the midst of another snow storm. The Spring Show isn’t the cornucopia of bloom that the Easter Show will be. Still. Any port in a storm. While, outside, Allan […]
White cedars (Thuja occidentalis) and yews (Taxus) get precision haircuts It takes you by surprise. As you walk up the gentle rise through a very pleasant, but somewhat conventional shade garden in front and stand beside the hundred-year-old cedar-shingled home in St-Romuald, Quebec you see this. It’s a wow reveal; so beautiful, and so unexpected. […]
Hydrangea paniculata ‘Quick Fire’ isn’t famous for fall colour. It probably should be. Even the Proven Winners site doesn’t mention fall foliage in its write-up for Hydrangea ‘Quick Fire.’ Why on earth not? The colour this year in my garden is a show-stopper, giving the dried blooms a flattering new outfit. Just look at the […]
All-green fall planters at Allan Gardens A little almost-wordless wow for another grey Wednesday in November. Don’t you love the textures here? And these babies will take a little nippy weather, especially here where they’re a little sheltered. It was hard to choose between them but this one might be my favourite after all.
Black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) – a North American native shrub – with glossy black pomes and bright fall foliage First, to confess. These fruits are highly decorative in the fall garden, but none of them are berries. As botanically defined, berries are fleshy fruits and seeds produced from a single ovary. Currants, blueberries and gooseberries […]
Keeyla Meadows’ garden in Albany, California – would you be this brave with colour? Oh, my! The sensory overload of Summer 2013. We have so many wonderful gardens to share with you, it’s been hard to know where to begin. We should have been blogging all summer but, as you can see, we were barely […]
‘Chiare, fresche et dolci acque’ (Clear, fresh, sweet water) – opening line of a poem by Petrarch – surround a fountain. Clear, fresh, sweet cocktails (well, Chardonnay for me, but, hey, poetic license) were sipped in the garden of artist and garden designer Shirley Watts and her husband Emmanuel Coup in Alameda, California. And ’twas […]