Spring, bring it on! St. James Park, Toronto – April 30, 2010
Wordless Wednesday: Soon be spring
The green, green grass of Manulife Financial
The headquarters of Manulife Financial on Bloor Street East If you’ve walked or driven along that windy strip of Bloor Street, east of Church, you’ve seen the velvety carpet of green in the gated surrounds of the Manulife Financial headquarters. It’s often called the best lawn in the city, and there’s a reason. It’s creeping […]
Gardeners: Wondering what to do with the snow?
Finally, Boxing Day 2012 had a late delivery of snow. Toronto gardeners got a late gift yesterday – a nice, deep blanket of snow! Whenever you’re shovelling it off your walks, don’t push it into the street. Pile it onto your garden! As long as it doesn’t contain salts, that snow contains just what your […]
Be chicken: Support Crackdown!
Helen Chicken says: Pssst! Wanna support a movie (and a movement)? If you wanted to keep chickens in the city of Toronto, you’d be walking on eggshells (can’t help myself, sorry). It’s illegal. Jan Keck is trying to change that – by making us laugh. The documentary film maker and his Red Gecko Productions hopes […]
Warning: Dog-Strangling Vine in bloom
The star-shaped brownish-maroon flowers of dog-strangling vine. This picture makes them seem almost pretty. Don’t be taken in. One of Toronto’s worst – if not the very worst – of weeds is now making babies. Millions and millions and millions of them. It’s an ideal time to nip all that fecundity in the bud. Dog-strangling […]
Through the Garden Gate into Rosedale
Garden tours are like a box of chocolates. There’s sure to be at least one you love. It’s Toronto garden tour season! Last week, I previewed a few of the gardens you’ll oooh! and aaaah! over in Resplendent Rosedale for the city’s splashiest annual garden tour Through the Garden Gate, held every year in a different location as […]
Beach Garden Society Plant Sale
Get started on your beautiful garden. Local plant societies are beginning their plant sales for 2012. Toronto Gardeners in the east end won’t want to miss the upcoming 2012 Beach Garden Society plant sale. The sale is tailor-made for city gardens, with personally chosen Beach Babies (see below), hand-selected Connoisseur Collection plants and great bargains on […]
June Callwood Park: Kindness grows in the city
Part of a voice print from June Callwood’s final interview Canada Blooms gets knocked these days for not pulling a magical rabbit out of its increasingly shrinking pecuniary hat. However, one bit of magic it does do is to fund garden projects around the city through the work of the Toronto Garden Club. Past […]
Christmas by candlelight at Allan Gardens
Today is the grand opening of the Allan Gardens Christmas Show. From 10 am to 5 pm daily till January 8th, with candlelight viewing on Saturdays and Sundays from 5-7 pm, you can wander through the conservatory’s winding walkways, wondering at the wuvwely… okay, I’ll stop. The Christmas flower show is a family tradition with […]
A “West Coast” Toronto garden
You might be forgiven for thinking this is a West Coast rainforest garden… but it’s an urban garden in Toronto’s east end Toronto is a city of ravines and lost rivers; Glen Davis Crescent is home to both. Its lost river, Tomlin’s Creek, still runs through a culvert underneath the road in the vee of […]
Rocks to riches: Story of a garden
Talk about a rocky start! Dave and Heidi Rita (sorry, Rita!) Fleury got more than a “rock garden” when they purchased their Beach area home about four years ago – they got edge-to-edge beach stone, punctuated by some accent rocks and elderly evergreens. The previous owners had taken the drastic measure of installing stone to keep […]
TTC Garden Tour, Part 2: Dupont Station
Designed by elusive artist James Sutherland, the TTC’s Dupont Station murals were unveiled in 1978 I hadn’t intended to continue our TTC Garden Tour so quickly. But there I was at Spadina Station with my camera. It was just a long tunnel trek and a one-stop hop over to Dupont. And no TTC Garden Tour […]