A noun. A verb. A blog.
Majorelle blue paint on the bench goes perfectly with the crisp green ferns Three vignettes from 2013’s Toronto Island Garden Tour, all featuring ostrich ferns (Matteuccia struthioperis) and the rich azure known as Majorelle blue. A little bit of Morocco at the edge of Lake Ontario – and somehow it works. I love this colour […]
Boardwalk provides the pathways around this pond in a Toronto Island garden If you count the Islands and the ins and outs of inlets and bays, Toronto’s Lake Ontario shoreline stretches for an astonishing 138 km, according to the City. Long stretches of it in the eastern and western beaches, as well as on the […]
I wasn’t the only one slathering over this lush boulevard planting in Forest Hill It’s time to mark garden tours on your calendar. Yesterday, the press – and that would include lucky old moi – previewed the city’s “really big shoe” Through the Garden Gate, which on the weekend of June 8 and 9, 2013 […]
Another gem on the 2012 Gardens of the Beach garden tour, this city garden demonstrates a graphic designer’s eye for colour, texture and composition. Beyond the arbor, the back garden is almost completely given up to the gardener’s massive hosta collection. Green lives here in many, many variations, and the effect is (strangely) simultaneously restful […]
The front door to Post Architects on Victoria Park Avenue Behind a street-facing business office, a young family – he’s an architect, she’s an artist, they have tots – have created a garden that grown-ups and kids can enjoy. They welcomed visitors into their space this June on the Gardens of the Beach 2012 garden […]
Garden tours are like a box of chocolates. There’s sure to be at least one you love. It’s Toronto garden tour season! Last week, I previewed a few of the gardens you’ll oooh! and aaaah! over in Resplendent Rosedale for the city’s splashiest annual garden tour Through the Garden Gate, held every year in a different location as […]
Most ordinary gardeners – those not lucky enough to have room in the garage, or a garage at all – have the same problem. Whether it’s a tool shed or a pool shed, how do you disguise it, or integrate it with your garden. A beautifully designed shed can put a serious dent in your […]
You might be forgiven for thinking this is a West Coast rainforest garden… but it’s an urban garden in Toronto’s east end Toronto is a city of ravines and lost rivers; Glen Davis Crescent is home to both. Its lost river, Tomlin’s Creek, still runs through a culvert underneath the road in the vee of […]
Talk about a rocky start! Dave and Heidi Rita (sorry, Rita!) Fleury got more than a “rock garden” when they purchased their Beach area home about four years ago – they got edge-to-edge beach stone, punctuated by some accent rocks and elderly evergreens. The previous owners had taken the drastic measure of installing stone to keep […]
Here’s the inspiration I promised when I wrote about concrete garden projects last week: works of imagination – all of them carefully crafted of concrete – by Victoria, B.C., sculptor, Birgit Piskor. And here’s the bonus. Not only is Piskor a gifted sculptor, she is also a gifted gardener. In July, I enjoyed a guided tour […]
Sculptor, Marilyn Walsh, with her work I’ve really enjoyed seeing art by local artists showcased on recent garden tours. In one of the gardens, the owner told me that the goal is to match the right piece with the right place. In fact, the placement in the garden sometimes feels so natural, it’s only after noticing similar […]
Author/gardener Olev Edur and his book, Ravine Diary Sunday lived up to its sunny name for the Beach Garden Tour. As a change from a photo essay, this profile of Olev Edur’s ravine garden will be the first in a series on some of the gardens… and gardeners… on this year’s Beach tour. Olev Edur’s […]