A noun. A verb. A blog.
Coming home to the garden after a few days away feels like seeing nieces and nephews after a break. Except when you say, “My, how you’ve grown!” plants are a bit harder to embarrass. Want to see what’s growing in a small, shady, city garden – maybe a bit like yours? Certainly, I’d like to recall what worked and what didn’t in the Microgarden […]
Blooming now: interesting leaf patterns on the Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’ There’s very little blooming in the November Microgarden. But wait! There’s so much, if you look closely. Like the vision of old friends doing new tricks in the image above. Every autumn, the red-purple leaves of the purple smoke tree (Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’) […]
Hydrangea ‘Annabelle’ with Heuchera ‘Caramel’ I chuckle when people say “nothing will grow under Norway maples.” Then I point to a scene like the one above, growing in my doubly Norway maple-shaded, root-infested, deeply sandy garden – the indomitable ‘Annabelle’ hydrangea, fattened on a regular diet of chopped leaves and, recently, duck manure. Yes, things […]
Heucherella ‘Sweet Tea’ with Hosta ‘Pineapple Upside-Down Cake’ and the glorious Tulipa ‘Prinses Irene’. May has raced by so quickly, I forgot it was the 15th – the day when, every month, Carol of May Dreams Gardens invites garden bloggers to share what’s growing on. I might just make it under the wire. After a […]
Having survived late dumps of snow and ice pellets, the spring planters are growing a great crop of Optimism It’s Garden Bloggers Bloom Day – or it was yesterday – when every 15th of every month, Carol of May Dreams Gardens invites gardeners around the world to show what’s growing their way. If you were […]
This Blooms Day post will be a quickie. There’s not much still happening in the Microgarden this November. When the flowers are past their prime, how grateful we are for bright-coloured foliage: Acer palmatum ‘Bloodgood’ A nursery Chrysanthemum – almost as spherical as the pumpkin beside it. Don’t be depressed if your mums never look […]
Still life, with rain barrel It isn’t often that we’d direct you from Toronto Gardens to our Facebook page. In fact, we’ve never done it before, and might never again. But for this Blooms Day, when nothing very much is happening in the garden, I wanted to have a bit of photographic fun with the […]
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 […]
Not very promising for Blooms Day, eh? But don’t go away. You might be surprised by how this story ends. Yesterday’s wind did a good job trimming branches from the trees, including these whips from a weeping willow. I wish I’d found more. Because, with their flexibility and buttery colour, weeping willow whips make excellent […]
Hip-hip-hip hooray for Hippeastrum (aka Amaryllis) ‘Evergreen’ Other than snow flowers decking the branches, there’s not much blooming outdoors this Garden Bloggers Bloom Day in our frosty neck of the woods. Indoors, the leaves of the over-wintering pelargoniums are hanging in, and the pale greeny-white blooms of Sarah’s new Amaryllis/Hippeastrum ‘Evergreen’ make a fabulous picture […]
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 […]