A noun. A verb. A blog.
I’m never ruthless enough when taking cuttings of geranium (Pelargonium). For one thing, I can never bear to remove the flowers, the blooming of which distracts the cutting from root production. But when they look like this, who can blame me. The truth is, though, there’s no real mystery around the process of propagation for […]
Are you inexorably drawn to the gardening department of a big box store when you go in to buy light bulbs? I am. Admit it, you are too. Especially after the winter we’ve had. Back in early March, I needed to get an injection of growing things. And, while Home Depot’s garden section doesn’t always represent fine […]
Beware! This is a picture of a crime scene. It’s a dumb cane plant (Dieffenbachia), being killed slowly by a combination of too much neglect and too much “love.” How can that be, you ask? Look at the tell-tale signs. Naked stems The first clue is that “palm tree” effect that happens when lower leaves die off […]
This month, I’ve learned you can’t do everything. Setting priorities means doing what counts most (such as saving the Gladiolus corms that have given me such pleasure), and setting the rest aside (such as NaBloPoMo 2017). Before the unseasonal cold snap this month, I dug up the corms above. What’s a corm? It’s the thickened […]
I didn’t realize as I hastily took this shot (on my way to our group photo for the Garden Bloggers Fling in Washington D.C.) that I was looking at a clever gardening technique. It simply seemed like a handsome steeple in the sweet spot of a colourful garden. It’s the outer edge of the cutting garden at Hillwood Estate Museum & Gardens, […]
I’ve heard this from others about alliums aka ornamental onions – though the Virginia, USA, gardener responsible for these was mystified when I told her. Alliums can self-seed. In my sandy, part-sun and tiny back garden, Allium christophii, though lovely, can be a bit of a pest. So I’m considering spray-painting them. The gardener did it to […]
The pesky squirrel problem makes people want to stop planting bulbs. Those darned critters seem to have radar, and know exactly when and where you’ve planted your bulbs – then they dig them up and either eat them, or plant them in someone else’s garden. Grrrrr. But don’t despair. I used to be one of those people, […]
Corner store tulips, taken with Camera+ app – cropped as Golden Rectangle; Miniaturize filter applied. What could be an easier than treating myself to an afternoon walk down the Danforth, looking at corner-store tulips through the eye of my iPhone? Then taking a few self-indulgent minutes with neat camera apps, making pretty pictures – prettier? […]
Our Flowtron Leaf Eater, a little battle-scarred, but still working four years later Today was perfect for leaf shredding. The sun was shining, and the leaves were dry. So that’s how I spent my afternoon. Because we love our leaves, and so do our gardens. They really, really do. Since I wrote about my leaf […]
Why, it’s silver thistle (Carlina acaulis). Here’s how I found out. Wish my photo gave you a better idea of its metallic sheen. Don’t know about you, but when it comes to knowing how to identify unknown plants (or bugs or plant diseases or…), I love to play detective. I photograph a lot of plants, and […]
My naked bales did grow the cool ink cap mushrooms called Tippler’s Bane. Don’t eat them if you’re drinking alcohol! I’m a failure – or, a bailure – at straw bale gardening. It was a failure months in the making when, from all I’d read, I’d anticipated easy-peasiness. Sadly, not so here. Read my bale […]
How much compost is in this bag? Today’s Idea File is really an “I-Have-No-Idea File” – for when someone asks you how much mulch or manure or compost or topsoil you need to cover an area, and you answer, “I have no idea!” This is especially tricky in Canada, where we straddle metric and imperial […]