A noun. A verb. A blog.
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, […]
In my tiny back garden, which I’ve taken to calling the Microgarden, one of the first perennials to bloom is the Pulmonaria aka, among other things, lungwort and Bethlehem sage. It’s an old-fashioned variety that I’ve had for so long, it pre-dates my awareness of any such arcane things as ‘cultivars.’ From what I’ve learned […]
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 […]
When asked what fruit I grow (in a garden questionnaire the other day), I was about to write, “sadly, none.” Then Sarah reminded me about my serviceberry, Amelanchier. How could I forget! This is one of the best native trees, a hard worker in the garden in almost every season. Lovely grey bark in winter; […]
Our gardening tastes always get more sophisticated the more we know, and gardeners, self included, always get excited about all the new annuals (and perennials) available in the garden centres. Sometimes we turn up our noses at all the old standby annuals that have been in people’s gardens forever. Perhaps we scorn them because we […]
As I drove back from a meeting today, this little fountain of sunshine rose up from all the mousy brown blanketing the city. Had to double back with my camera. This is the witch hazel, Hamamelis, so valuable for its splash of colour (and, in many cases, perfume!) at one of the most drab and […]
This year, the Perennial Plant Association has chosen the beautiful Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’, golden Japanese fountain grass, as its Perennial Plant of the Year 2009. If you visit their site, you can download a plant sheet with the lowdown. Plants of the Year (PotYs?) have been selected through votes by PPA members, judged on criteria […]
This little paean to one of Toronto’s hidden garden gems is long overdue. Set at the edge of the Bluffs near where Kingston Road merges with Danforth Avenue, Rosetta McClain Gardens [link updated 11/21/15] is a beautifully manicured space, or should I say: series of spaces. All of them are worth a visit. At the centre […]
What great flowers for late summer and early fall the Rudbeckias are. They’re like sunshine on a stick! This lowly little Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) is one of the earlier ones. Right now, the city is alight with constellations of Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm’ which, in 1999, was rightly chosen by the Perennial Plant Association as its […]
Cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus) is a favourite of mine. Under the right conditions, they can be light and ethereal, with starry flowers that live up to their name – like white, pink, mauve and cerise constellations. Rotten things. “Right conditions” means that they grow better in sidewalk cracks than they do in my garden. When too […]
There’s something about Toronto and roses. Even the most unassuming front porch can often have an amazing display of climbing roses in June. I once took a course on perennials at the then-Civic Garden Centre (now, Toronto Botanical Garden). It was taught by Keith Squires, of Country Squires Garden in Milton (worth a visit for […]
By dint of name alone, foxgloves are like fairy flowers. If foxes wore gloves, they might look a bit like these. The bell-shaped flowers remind me of the kind of thing I might have seen fairies wearing for hats — along with the fuzzy caps of poppies – in the British children’s books I grew […]