A noun. A verb. A blog.
Did you do this in grade school? You should do it again. Watching beans grow inside a jar is like Jack and the Beanstalk meets x-ray vision. I did it recently to get pictures for a Gardening with Children Master Gardener presentation I was writing. But with the beans growing right beside me on my desk, I could not stop obsessing over roots and shoots […]
The theme is A Family Affair at Canada Blooms 2019, a little more than a week away. Just for the event, I’ve written a brand new talk on Gardening with Children for the Toronto Master Gardeners’ presentation library – you can see it (and me) on the Harrowsmith Garden Solutions Stage at noon on Tuesday, March 12th. My talk is just one […]
It made me want to be a kid again to read Gardening with Emma: A kid-to-kid guide by Emma Biggs (with help from her dad, Steven Biggs). Who wouldn’t want to reconnect with the authentic, childlike wonder and excitement of discovery in the garden? The book arrived at the right time. As I’m now writing a […]
If this seems a gruesome way to begin, it’s because of my “undying” admiration of the paddle cactus or prickly pear (Opuntia spp.). Did you know that southern Ontario has a native cactus (in the wild, it’s endangered)? This is the family, if not the one. And we can overwinter it here in Toronto’s USDA Z5/Canadian Z6. When […]
The wee folk will have fun spotting all the wee folk (and one large troll) in the Vandermeer fairy garden. Maybe it’s the Let’s Play theme at Canada Blooms 2015, but I found myself wishing I were a kid again. Some garden writers might give me a hard time for even daring to think of applying the […]
No grown-ups allowed! At the 2013 Toronto Islands garden tour in May, we enjoyed a closer look (as close as grown-ups are permitted) at a cool new treehouse. Isn’t it great? I don’t know about you, but I’d trade a few hours of grown-uppiness for a little time at the top of the ladder. Nice […]
Guy McClean directs his team using the slightest touch While cattle mooed in the background, the Royal Winter Fair rep at the new President’s Choice Animal Theatre told us about the attractions at the fair this year. And as we listened, Guy McClean, the Horse Whisperer from Australia, warmed up with his four horse “mates.” […]
An ad in the Yonkers Herald Statesman [PDF], March 30, 1961 1962-3 was a stressful year for our family, full of upsets and changes. We’d moved again. Ten times in my ten (and Sarah’s seven and a half) years. But somehow, that spring, this pair of rootless sisters became owners of a Punch ‘n Gro. […]
Shawn Gallaugher’s new venture Otium Exercise Gardens creates spaces that look like a garden, but act like a gym. A few of the gardens this year incorporated some aspect of fitness and outdoor living. Today’s Friday Idea File brings you ten things of note from this first day of Canada Blooms 2013. With one wee […]
A lily-flowered tulip was my first model for a snowflower If you need cheap, cheerful fun for a chilly day, there’s nothing easier than making paper snowflakes. Few crafts are so inexpensive – or so sure of success. All you need is a sheet of paper, sharp scissors and your imagination – which can get […]
Upside down in this pic, these onion sets form at the top of the stem There aren’t too many do-nothing perennial vegetables, but one of them is the Egyptian walking onion, Allium cepa var. proliferum. That variety name, proliferum, isn’t because these onions produce well, although they do. It comes from the botanical term proliferation […]
Gather round, kids. Now you too can amaze your friends with this simple garden sleight of hand: turn a flower into Dutchman’s breeches or Lady in the Bathtub. Just watch… Nothing up my sleeve. Lookee here: in this hand, one blossom of Dicentra spectabilis, or bleeding heart. Yes, kid, the white works just like the […]