A noun. A verb. A blog.
Nipponanthemum nipponicum in mid-October At first I thought this generous mound abloom in a neighbour’s garden was a shasta daisy. But, wait. Shasta daisies in October… and, now, November? And what’s with that distinctive foliage? The whorled form sort of reminded me of Pacific chrysanthemum. Could it be a mum? Well, I relish an ID […]
Patrinia scabiosifolia in the formal garden of Oldfields, Lilly House, on the grounds of Indianapolis Museum of Art There I was, wandering lonely as a cloud, floating on high o’er vales and hills (on the grounds of the Indy Museum of Art), when all at once, with apologies to Mr. Wordsworth, I saw a crowd […]
A confession: until the 2012 Toronto Gardener’s Journal arrived today, I hadn’t known the story behind its beautiful cover girl – an iris; each year a different view. Perhaps I’ve been asleep. Ssomehow I missed both the detail – and its significance. Just as the daffodil has come to represent cancer groups around the world, […]
Hosted on every 15th of the month by Carol of May Dreams Gardens, Garden Bloggers Bloom Day is a chance to share what’s going on in your garden, month by month, all year through. It’s also a chance to look back at your own garden from year to year, to review the changes, positive or […]
Some early downiness from the downy serviceberry (Amelanchier) branches I’m forcing As winter has thrown an I don’t wanna go to bed! tantrum in Toronto, I’m extra glad I decided to trim off a couple of wayward branches from my serviceberry last weekend – and pop them in a vase for early spring bloom. In […]
Guess which witch caught my eye while walking? Are they witches’ caps or gnomes? Whatever they are, they called to me (and my ever-present camera) from the shrubbery as I power-walked through our neighbourhood at 7:30 this morning. Not till I started to move again did I realize which witch was witch-hazel… in this case, […]
Sarah and I garden two doors away from each other in the same dry shady conditions. But, when it comes to colour, we couldn’t be further apart. Sarah’s all about the hot colours, reds, oranges, yellows; I prefer mine muted, going for pinks, corals, creams and blues. The red of this little ‘Happy Thought’ pelargonium […]
Welcome to the Microgarden this Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day. Hope you like my new cushions… and enjoy the jasmine fragrance of the Hall’s honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica ‘Halliana’) by the front porch. I wrote recently about the nice perfume of the black locust tree. Well, Hall’s honeysuckle is yet another of those highly invasive plants with […]
Must be my Viking blood. I don’t do heat well. Was up Sunday morning early to douse the garden with my watering can and soaker hose before peak evaporation kicked in. Even laid down a couple of bags of mulch, now that I know where the volunteer seedlings are. (Mulch can be a major destroyer […]
Other than a little huddle of snowdrops bowing under a March rain, there isn’t much Awakening yet in my garden. So to find a subject for a March entry for the Gardening Gone Wild Picture This Contest, I raided the archives. This little Pulsatilla vulgaris or Pasque flower – photographed in my sister’s garden at […]
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting a few things that got lost in the shuffle of the too-many-things-to-write-about growing season. One of them is Sweet Autumn Clematis (Clematis terniflora – also widely but erroneously known as C. ternifolia, it seems through a printer’s error shortly after its discovery in China; C. recta and […]
On Sunday, while in Waterloo, we went a few clicks further north to visit St. Jacob’s. I was in dire need of fresh-picked apples, and hoped we’d have time to visit the farmers’ market. The huge market in St. Jacob’s is open on Thursdays and Saturdays all through the year. Sundays are much smaller, but […]