A noun. A verb. A blog.
Some tutu-like blooms to brighten this sunny but grey-brown subzero day in Toronto. Stumbling across the word choreograph in the textbook for the planting design course I’m taking, I had a little A-ha! moment. Choreography and the garden: of course! I’ve been in the habit of thinking of the selection and placement of plants in […]
Hello. My name is Helen, and I am a plantoholic. Most recreational gardeners are. Even the best of us, those who never set foot in a nursery without a shopping list, often start with a wish list. Of plants. We’re easily revved into a frenzy of plant lust by magazine, blog and catalog descriptions of […]
Urban gardens are usually small gardens. This little album of tricks contains ideas that help urban gardeners overcome some of our spatial limitations. The picture above has three to begin with: • Use the upward dimension. Be sure your small garden makes use of the infinite vertical plane with elements like arbours, trellises and wall […]
This photo of my sad front garden (let’s simply call it the before picture) illustrates why I’m sooooo happy to be taking this Art and Management of Landscape Design course [ed. actually, I have the name wrong. It’s the Art and Management of Planting Design – even better!] at Ryerson University. Instructor Michelle Reid outlined […]
An insight can sneak in quietly. Such happened to me during a lull in this off-kilter holiday. With Daughter #1 visiting from university. Shopping. Cooking. Wrapping. Eating. Entertaining; being entertained. Eating more. Learning Twitter. Dealing with (“stepping around”) the attendant mess. My insight arrived during a marathon viewing of So You Think You Can Dance? […]
Aiming for a shot of the rose arbour for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, way back the summer, I realized that one place to appreciate the (at that time) bower of bloom was from inside the house. This got me thinking: is garden design all about experiencing the garden from within it? When designing: is in […]
While doing the initial scoring for the East York Blooming Contest, I saw some high-scoring gardens that didn’t make it into the final round, including this Asian-inspired front garden. The tall tree is a standard form of weeping mulberry (Morus alba ‘Pendula’). In horticulture, standard doesn’t mean “run of the mill”, but refers to the […]
“Timelines, Strata and Ephemera” – See further info on this installation below. Québec City was born in 1608, and in 2008 it had a big party to mark its 400th. The Ephemeral Gardens were among the events and happenings that unfolded all through the year-long celebration – and which included a free concert by Céline […]
Gardeners spend hours pouring over seed and nursery catalogues, looking at books, thinking about colours, bloom times, soil conditions. They might even consider plant succession through the seasons, foliage shapes and textures, winter interest. One thing they often don’t consider: the gardener. When I first stuck my spade into the soil in this garden, I […]
The unvarnished truth: My front garden, complete with hose and bald patches, doing its best to pose for its “before” picture at right. That headline almost said “Taking stock of the carnage.” After summer’s heat and drought, my garden – especially the front garden – usually does look like a battlefield by September. (To my […]
Disclaimer: The images in this post are not pictures of my garden. They are gardens of simple inspiration from around the city. A new season: Time to take stock of the garden. Starting back where it began, twenty-two autumns ago in November, when we took possession of two rectangles of sparse lawn, with a house […]
The Judge’s Choice in the Community category, East York Blooming Contest. This shot would be better if the road beside it weren’t being chewed up by large earth movers. How do you winnow 135 nominees to a select few gardens for the official judge of the East York Blooming Contest? Send out ten teams of […]