A noun. A verb. A blog.
Have you ever paused to think what a challenge it must be to force 70,000 plants into leaf or peak bud or bloom in time for the March opening of a show like this? Especially over the dark, rainy, sleety, snowy Ontario winter like the one we’ve survived in 2018-19! That’s an accomplishment in itself. And to […]
This post could have been called, “Andrew Keys broke up my marriage.” It was a long marriage, too; 25 years. Of course, my partner was prickly: a climbing rose (Rosa ‘New Dawn’). And the break-up is only starting, thanks to Keys’ book, Why Grow That When You Can Grow This? 255 Extraordinary Alternatives to Everyday […]
Cornus kousa ‘Summer Fun’ from Reeves last year We’ve had a lot of hits to our blog recently looking for the now sadly closed Reeves Nursery, which we wrote about when it opened on the Danforth in our east-end neighborhood last spring. Makes me think that we are sorely in need of another independent […]
Don’t be mislead by the title of Plants for Atlantic Gardens, Jodi DeLong’s new book from Nimbus Publishing. Atlantic gardeners aren’t the only ones who will find this book useful. Sure, east-coasters deal with a harsher range of climates (as cold as Zone 0!) than we do in our part of the Golden Horseshoe (Zone 5-6). They’re more […]
Ontario’s native floral symbol Trillium grandiflorum – can you be sure it was responsibly propagated? Is choosing native plants always the right thing to do for the planet? Simple answer, right? Well, after a couple of recent encounters, I’m surprised. The simple answer turns out to be more than a little complex. When are native […]
When our youngest daughter was in 6th grade, she had to write a two-page short story. At page five, she was still writing, so I asked her why. “I can’t help it,” she exclaimed. “Things just keep happening!!” Things just keep happening on the garden calendar, too. Sunday, May 2nd is no exception, and one […]
Who doesn’t want a garden that’s low maintenance? Of course, the mantra is: Low maintenance does not mean no maintenance. Even if you’re laying down concrete grass and planting plastic flowers, some maintenance will be required. However, selecting well will help you keep plant maintenance to a minimum. If you don’t want to spend your […]
[UPDATE, June 25, 2011 and Nov. 29, 2011: Sadly Reeves has gone, both from the Danforth and from the original Reeves Woodbridge home, due to financial difficulties. It’s too bad, because the east end could use another convenient garden centre that stocks unusual trees and shrubs. We would have wished them better parking, and we’ll […]
Starting last night, me, my battered notebook and a classroom of other garden keeners join Toronto horticulture-guru Marion Jarvie for three sessions at the Toronto Botanical Garden‘s George and Kathy Dembroski Centre for Horticulture. She’ll be talking small, shady, city gardens. That’s how I got the scoop on some dates you’ll want to add to […]
When I’m at the nursery on a plant buying spree, (oops, did I say, spree? I meant visit) the thing about a plant that gets me first is colour. Anything blue, purple or lime green and my eye goes right for it. A closer inspection of the tag can frequently bring another hook: the variety […]
[Update: Sadly, Gardenimport has ceased to operate. We miss it. But we have fun spotting Dugald here and there in all things horticultural.] It’s fun getting the emails from Gardenimport, the mail-order garden centre started by Dugald Cameron and his family back in 1983. There are always a couple of gems in his mailer of unusual […]
We recently wrote a lawn post, where we encouraged you to add white clover to any lawn overseeding this spring: Clover adds nitrogen to the soil so it’s an excellent organic amendment to any lawn. I have always bought my clover seeds at Farm Co-ops out of town, and didn’t know where you could buy […]