A noun. A verb. A blog.
It can be tempting to get out there on the first fine spring day and do some tidying. Resist the urge! You have very little to lose and much to gain from waiting. That blanket of dead foliage and tree leaves is protecting emerging plants from cold snaps – like the one we expect this […]
At last! Sunday gave us a day that was springy enough to let us work outside. An afternoon of liberating my pent-up gardener accomplished a lot. But. No matter how eager I was, here are three things I didn’t do to clean up the garden. I didn’t get carried away April 2 in Toronto is a touch early for any drastic garden task […]
The race is on, to beat the frost. It’s always a last ditch rescue mission for me, this late in November, when I’m madly trying to bring in every last plant from the cold. Most of my container plants have been hauled indoors, but I still have a few things growing in actual soil that […]
The Bloor Street Transformation Project included granite planters and about 130 London plane trees Overspilling with colour, the new granite planters on chi-chi Bloor Street are hard to miss. But did you also notice the trees? These pix from September were meant for a post I’d wanted to call a Bloor Street Garden Tour (it […]
The Microgarden, in all its Fall Frowsiness If you have a busy life, you can’t afford a busy garden. Take it from M.I.A.-me. My garden this fall is payback for a neglectful summer. The beds that looked charmingly cottage-y back in June could now be used in a dictionary to illustrate the word frowsy. I’m […]
Any garden that’s a major tourist attraction can’t afford to sit on its aster. The Butchart Gardens is no exception. I first visited back in July. An impressive experience, even if you aren’t a gardener – the garden’s theatrical quality gives it a crossover appeal that is a reason why the Butchart Gardens is the […]
This little seedling of the Norway maple (Acer platanoides) is one of the small forest that germinates in my garden each spring. The maples are a constant reminder of the old chestnut (as in: saying) in the title. Why would you get seven years of weeds from one year of seeds? One reason is that […]
Drat this vacation. The maniacal rush to get things done before taking a break is screwing up my garden. Next spring, I’ll probably regret not having deadheaded those tarda tulips. Hopefully, all their energies didn’t go into making seed. Just popped out now and sprinkled the seeds over some new ground. Don’t know if this […]