A noun. A verb. A blog.
If you’ve lost your boxwoods (Buxus), how about clipped Euonymus? The more popular boxwood parterres have become, and they’ve become very popular, the greater the loss if they die. After two harsh winters in a row, 2014 and 2015, I know of many who lost their boxwoods and, with them, the backbone of their formal […]
I’m truly thankful for the ideas that come home from our visits to artists’ gardens. Simple leaf cut-outs and a can or two of window frosting will get you this one. Much more fitting than curtains for balancing privacy and light in a garden shed! July 2015 was our first visit to the Port Hope […]
The formal herb garden at Niagara Parks Botanical Gardens (with Savvy Gardening gals Amy and Tara) The act of garden making is an attempt to impose a human’s sense of order on the natural world. Even a native garden or, the latest trend, the messy, bedhead garden (a trend that I’ve been following for years), actively assembles […]
A close-up of the bottle paving in Portland-area Bella Madrone garden There’s something magical about glass, isn’t there? Even when we can’t see through it or when light can’t penetrate from behind (like a stained glass window), it still manages to capture the light. As we approach the time of dull days, I like to […]
Wild enough to eat? A buffet table of cake-shaped arrangements by floral designer Albert Graves of Bloemen Decor. You can have your cake, but you might not want to eat it, too. Not if it’s one of the tasty designs above by Albert Graves at 2014’s Canada Blooms. What a cool centrepiece that might make […]
A spray of rolled magnolia leaves adds a novel touch to this mantletop display by Sheridan Nurseries’ Jung Won Woo The ideas were cool, and not just because the topic was winter decor. Yesterday evening at the Toronto Botanical Garden holiday open house, Sheridan Nurseries shared trends and tricks for prettying up the outside and […]
Fight for a just cause; love your fellow man; live a good life = FiLoLi I don’t own a goldmine, do you? That makes us unlike the Bourn family, who built the Filoli estate early in the last century. It’s also pretty certain we’re not Blake or Krystle Carrington (Filoli acted as their mansion on […]
Leaving your mind blank can give you space for other things. Like admiring this use of chives as an ornamental. I’ve been quiet for a few weeks on the blog and Twitter. You might call it Unsocial Media. Or, in garden terms, The Silence of the Lamb’s Ears. The quiet surface belies the currents beneath. […]
Trick #1: Break the line. The design above doesn’t follow a long, linear path, not even with the paving. One line of stone runs into the fence, not along it, and the rock around the fountain claims an oblique corner. Few of us city gardeners have room to be expansive. Yet skinny spaces can be […]
Stained concrete, Lane garden, Seattle When a paving geek like me visits a garden, camera in hand, you can be sure that some shots will be about what’s underfoot. So this Friday’s Idea File focuses on the hardscaping under the snow. As you can see, you don’t have to settle for standard unit paver patterns […]
Have a dead tree? Turn it into a garden feature. Christoper D.Mello‘s garden, Asheville NC You’ll be surprised how just a little paint can spruce things up and make your garden pop. That’s idea one – applied here in a variety of ways. This is the first of what I hope will be a weekly […]
Between the busy-ness of summer holidays and back to school, September’s garden can be messy. That’s so in my back garden, where morning glories typically take over by September. This year, they are true to type. Because our front yard Grand Simplification project consumed us this summer, the Microgarden in the back is now channelling Aretha Franklin: N.E.G.L.E.C.T., just a […]