A noun. A verb. A blog.
The VegeQuarium, one of the creative ideas at FoodShare’s Canada Blooms booth Imagine a self-sustaining seed starter that turns the fish poo-ey water from your aquarium into both hydration and nutrition. Not only is that just plain clever, it’s one of my favourite gems from this year’s Canada Blooms – but if you blink, you […]
Our temporary winterscape It’s the pagan in me that keeps my Christmas tree up long past traditional tree-time. For me, the tree and lights represent the resilient human spirit through the darkest days of winter. Usually, my whim is satisfied by an artificial tree. This year, however, I had a yen for a real one; […]
How cute is that!? Photo courtesy of Janit Calvo, the mini-garden guru, of Two Green Thumbs You don’t have to be a kid to love little. Adults are as likely to be as passionate about dollhouses, for example, as children are. Just look at the Kensington Dollshouse Festival in London, England, which has been drawing mostly […]
Lesson one: Always have a good place to sit and enjoy the garden. When Sarah & I started our blog over five years ago (last month; we missed our blog’s birthday!), we said we wanted to write about real gardens by real people. None of that garden porn stuff for us. Ha! Well, we’ve learned. […]
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 […]
A great idea for a DIY bee hotel, from St Fagans National History Museum in Wales Remember that hose the car ran over – and sprang a leak? It could have new life as a home for solitary bees. Look at the example above from St Fagans, the National History Museum in South Wales. St […]
Living willow fence on Laird Drive by The Living Wall There are hedges and there are fences. When the twain meets, it’s a living fence, like this one spied on Laird Drive at Commercial Road last spring. A closer look showed the material used as willow wands. Straight, flexible and determined to grow – anywhere […]
My son’s hand at age 12 still waves to me in my garden My first “concrete” art-making experience involved 250 kids, a stack of take-out trays, latex gloves, and a cement truck. My idea was to have each kid make a stepping stone with their hand print and name. We’d use the stones to repave […]
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 […]
Reykjavik’s soaring Lutheran Hallgrimskirkja, tallest building in Iceland Icelanders build cathedrals out of concrete. Striking, creative and – most crucially in that seismically excitable area – resilient ones. That’s why you shouldn’t turn your nose up at this adaptable, inexpensive material when it comes to the garden. I’ve been itching to make some garden art […]
At the end of July, I joined about 70 garden bloggers from North America and the UK in Seattle, Washington, for the annual garden blogging extravaganza called the Fling. Over four days, we saw many, many wonderful gardens, which I’ll try to share with you over the next while. The day before it began, local […]
A full blast of spring from the Home Depot Backyard Oasis. Orange, naturally. Despite the full-on colour above, this year’s Canada Blooms 2011 is not a Big Wow Year. However, it is a year of many Quiet Little Wows, the kind that have you thoughtfully nodding your head. Really, the kind real gardeners like you […]