A noun. A verb. A blog.
This morning eight years ago, I remember where I was. My daughter was home sick with the TV on; she called me urgently from my office to the living room. We couldn’t stop watching. Today, the anniversary was spent differently. First, it was with a large group of friends. Second, it was spent in an […]
Yesterday, the scent of the basil I’d picked for our daughter to take back to Halifax lingered on my fingers for a long time. She also took with her some sage (advice), rosemary (for remembrance) and a golden zucchini from her aunt Sarah’s allotment – all the better to help her celebrate her last week […]
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 […]
Part of the joy of travelling is the novelty of new experiences. Some are ephemeral, like the beauty of this particular sunset over Lake Huron in Pinery Provincial Park. In Toronto, not many places give you sky and water unmarked by human intervention, so this was a thrill. Also at Pinery is this shot of […]
Returning to Toronto after a road trip can awaken you to the constrained view of the sky from our little patches of urban heaven. This is especially so in the older parts of Toronto, such as our street, with their heavy canopies of green. (Though they’re a good thing, cooling our homes and gardens.) Office […]
I was born in England, but my home is Canada. On this Canada Day, here are five reasons that, as a gardener, I’m glad to be Canadian: 1. The Maple Leaf, our emblem dear, the maple leaf forever. I love that our national symbol is something living and growing; I especially love that it has […]
The father of my three children isn’t a gardener. Or rather, he’s more a veggie guy than a flower guy – or would be, if we still had our allotment (a long, doleful tale; don’t get me started). However, he’s a really great guy to have about the garden. This is the fella who built […]
On a day when I accomplished scarcely more than half a teaspoon of deadheading, here are things to be happy about: • A cup of tea (Yorkshire red label) in the bee mug • Very hot tea with just the right amount of milk • Very hot tea with just the right amount of milk, […]
This week, Nova Scotia garden blogger Jodi of bloomingwriter wrote about her experience freeing a hummingbird trapped in her barn. It reminded me of a similar thrill of mine. One summer at our place on Ile d’Orléans, in the St. Lawrence River just outside Québec City, the (francophone) kids next door were collecting Monarch caterpillars […]
Gardeners might not think twice about running out in their pyjamas (as I did last night) to protect their tender annuals from a possible frost. But would they take the same degree of precaution for their own safety – when it comes to sun exposure? I know I didn’t, until recently. This year, I noticed […]
No matter where we lived, our mum always managed to have a garden. Before our family emigrated to Canada, there was the Cotswold farmhouse with its massive vegetable plot and borders of old fashioned hollyhocks, wallflowers, poppies and snapdragons — which form some of my earliest memories. Cowslips and dandelions from surrounding fields were gathered […]