A noun. A verb. A blog.
Taro plant with rescued and repurposed piece of decorative concrete. Vivian saves architectural pieces from demolition giving new life to old beautiful objects. As you approach Vivian Reiss’s Victorian house in Yorkville you know it’s no ordinary dwelling, but a house and garden space created by a gardener of unusual and vivid passions. There was […]
If you’ve consulted Baldrick’s Dictionary, you know the definition of Irony. It’s like goldy or bronzy, only it’s made out of iron. I pass these neat examples of irony on my way to my Ryerson class every week. The wonderful coraline railing is on Granby Street, and the archway is between Carleton and Granby. Here […]
Toronto is often described as a city of villages and Parkdale, on the west side of town, is one. We confined ourselves to one street for Sunday’s visit. Here are some observations. This may not be the face of Parkdale, but it will do for a start. Parkdale citizens are brave enough to plant Japanese […]
I have way more than one garden vice. Can’t stop buying plants, for example, although I know there’s no room. Call it gluttony. Fortunately, I compensate by killing a few. (A woman who can kill goutweed can kill anything!) I also fall prey to sloth, especially when it comes to weeding and particularly about mid-July, […]
I was led into the garden by gnomes. Not today’s horror movie refugees, but 1930s pixie-on-toadstool fantasies. I was eight, and they were in my grandmother’s garden in Rhyl, a North Wales seaside town. Gran was a funny little lady, always in her pinny, hair in curlers, squinting into the smoke of a cigarette. But […]