A noun. A verb. A blog.
Our temporary reprieve from winter arrives his Saturday, February 1, 2014, at 10 am at Allan Gardens and Centennial Park Conservatories. Am I alone in being particularly excited? Will you be there? I’ve already charged up my camera batteries. Thank you, thank you, thank you! [Ed: No matter which blooms they feature, year to year, […]
A modest entry marks one of my favourite garden experiences from 2013’s Through the Garden Gate – because the reveal was such a surprise, combining formal elements with quirky details. If you read our blog, you know: Quirk R Us. P’raps that wasn’t one of those headlines. You know. The crawler-friendly ones that neatly index […]
LIke the big bad wolf, the wind huffed and puffed and blew the trees down. Big ones. Can you count the rings? Back in Fall 2012, a windstorm took down a swath of mature trees – about 14, if memory serves – in Monarch Park in our east-end neighbourhood. It was a surprise to see […]
A screw-up with iPhoto deleted my 2013 “Scott Shot” of urban bee guru Scott MacIvor, so I’ll have to make do with 2012. With some regret, last month I waved bye-bye to my last urban wild bee nesting box – or, the last in the three-year study by ecologist and PhD candidate Scott MacIvor. Read […]
Guy McClean directs his team using the slightest touch While cattle mooed in the background, the Royal Winter Fair rep at the new President’s Choice Animal Theatre told us about the attractions at the fair this year. And as we listened, Guy McClean, the Horse Whisperer from Australia, warmed up with his four horse “mates.” […]
Green dots goooood; orange dots, baaaaad. What the heck are those green dots? I wondered, as I walked up Coxwell Avenue the other day. They were painted on most of the towering ash trees (Fraxinus spp.) that line this stretch of road. Oh no. Have they run out of orange paint, and are they coming […]
Toronto’s Dufferin Waste Management Facility Now I’m gonna talk garbage – more precisely, the stuff we Torontonians put in our Green Bins, and what happens to it. Ever wonder about that? Earlier this month, three other Master Gardeners and I were invited by the Compost Council of Canada to join a day-long tour of organic […]
Hydrangea ‘Annabelle’ with Heuchera ‘Caramel’ I chuckle when people say “nothing will grow under Norway maples.” Then I point to a scene like the one above, growing in my doubly Norway maple-shaded, root-infested, deeply sandy garden – the indomitable ‘Annabelle’ hydrangea, fattened on a regular diet of chopped leaves and, recently, duck manure. Yes, things […]
I wasn’t the only one slathering over this lush boulevard planting in Forest Hill It’s time to mark garden tours on your calendar. Yesterday, the press – and that would include lucky old moi – previewed the city’s “really big shoe” Through the Garden Gate, which on the weekend of June 8 and 9, 2013 […]
Heucherella ‘Sweet Tea’ with Hosta ‘Pineapple Upside-Down Cake’ and the glorious Tulipa ‘Prinses Irene’. May has raced by so quickly, I forgot it was the 15th – the day when, every month, Carol of May Dreams Gardens invites garden bloggers to share what’s growing on. I might just make it under the wire. After a […]
Rip me up into eleven pieces! If ever there were an excuse for human cloning, it would be so that I could attend these eleven events at once on Saturday, May 11, 2013. Here’s this week’s full-of-ideas Idea File – check the links for further details on each: 1. Helen speaks on Shade Plants at […]
ERA Architects’ provocative Hoarding Suggestions outside at the Gladstone Friday’s opening night bash at the Gladstone was jam packed. Grow Op, Exploring Landscape and Place, is a different kind of garden show. Small-scale, creative and thought provoking, Grow Op installations range from quirky to quite beautiful, curated by landscape architect, Victoria Taylor. You might recall […]