Most ordinary gardeners – those not lucky enough to have room in the garage, or a garage at all – have the same problem. Whether it’s a tool shed or a pool shed, how do you disguise it, or integrate it with your garden. A beautifully designed shed can put a serious dent in your […]
A “West Coast” Toronto garden
You might be forgiven for thinking this is a West Coast rainforest garden… but it’s an urban garden in Toronto’s east end Toronto is a city of ravines and lost rivers; Glen Davis Crescent is home to both. Its lost river, Tomlin’s Creek, still runs through a culvert underneath the road in the vee of […]
Rocks to riches: Story of a garden
Talk about a rocky start! Dave and Heidi Rita (sorry, Rita!) Fleury got more than a “rock garden” when they purchased their Beach area home about four years ago – they got edge-to-edge beach stone, punctuated by some accent rocks and elderly evergreens. The previous owners had taken the drastic measure of installing stone to keep […]
Toronto artists in the garden
Sculptor, Marilyn Walsh, with her work I’ve really enjoyed seeing art by local artists showcased on recent garden tours. In one of the gardens, the owner told me that the goal is to match the right piece with the right place. In fact, the placement in the garden sometimes feels so natural, it’s only after noticing similar […]
Ravine Diary: A garden and book by Olev Edur
Author/gardener Olev Edur and his book, Ravine Diary Sunday lived up to its sunny name for the Beach Garden Tour. As a change from a photo essay, this profile of Olev Edur’s ravine garden will be the first in a series on some of the gardens… and gardeners… on this year’s Beach tour. Olev Edur’s […]
Garden colour: Cooling down the reds, Part 1
Papaver orientalis ‘Beauty of Livermere’ is an astonishingly red red*. Our grey-day colour series continues with red. A craving for red seems to be programmed into our red-blooded DNA, especially at this time of year. And this red is pure Santa-suit, Rudolph’s-nose, holly-berry red – the red that seems even redder when paired with its […]
I call it mellow yellow, quite rightly
She’s a perfect poster girl for my post on yellow: the much-maligned Hemerocallis ‘Stella de Oro’ (not, as is often written, ‘Stella d’Oro‘). This photo shows how effective she can be “when well used.” The day is grey. Grey, grey and more grey. Plus, it’s December. Naturally, this inspires me to begin a series about […]