A noun. A verb. A blog.
This Blooms Day post will be a quickie. There’s not much still happening in the Microgarden this November. When the flowers are past their prime, how grateful we are for bright-coloured foliage: Acer palmatum ‘Bloodgood’ A nursery Chrysanthemum – almost as spherical as the pumpkin beside it. Don’t be depressed if your mums never look […]
Along with the site improvements for Victoria Park Station, an art installation by Aniko Meszaros Garden stories are everywhere, even underground on The Better Way. Victoria Park Station is the first stop in an occasional series I’m calling the TTC Garden Tour. New artwork was part of the plan for the recently improved station infrastructure. […]
Shaggy mane fungus, Coprinus comatus Keep your eyes open, and Toronto’s diversity is all around you. All it took was a walk to the Toronto Public Library, just two blocks away. Three different species of fungi hailed me as I passed with my camera – and I’m sure that many more were camera shy. I’m […]
Living willow fence on Laird Drive by The Living Wall There are hedges and there are fences. When the twain meets, it’s a living fence, like this one spied on Laird Drive at Commercial Road last spring. A closer look showed the material used as willow wands. Straight, flexible and determined to grow – anywhere […]
A confession: until the 2012 Toronto Gardener’s Journal arrived today, I hadn’t known the story behind its beautiful cover girl – an iris; each year a different view. Perhaps I’ve been asleep. Ssomehow I missed both the detail – and its significance. Just as the daffodil has come to represent cancer groups around the world, […]
Coal wagon stalled on muddy Ashdale Avenue, a photo by Toronto History on Flickr. When you consider this photo, taken just over a century ago, you realize that Toronto isn’t much beyond its infancy. This is on Ashdale Avenue, just a few blocks from where my home would be built — a couple of decades […]
Still life, with rain barrel It isn’t often that we’d direct you from Toronto Gardens to our Facebook page. In fact, we’ve never done it before, and might never again. But for this Blooms Day, when nothing very much is happening in the garden, I wanted to have a bit of photographic fun with the […]
Author/gardener Olev Edur and his book, Ravine Diary Sunday lived up to its sunny name for the Beach Garden Tour. As a change from a photo essay, this profile of Olev Edur’s ravine garden will be the first in a series on some of the gardens… and gardeners… on this year’s Beach tour. Olev Edur’s […]
A hundred years ago, it was cottage country. Today, it’s Toronto’s laid-back Beach neighbourhood, along the lake in the city’s east end. This Sunday, June 26, 17 private gardens in this nature-loving area will be open on the Beach Garden Society’s annual garden tour. From small, intimate spaces to ravine-side surprises, you’ll see some of […]
A gaggle of writers under the tall trees Sure, you know High Park, Old Mill or The Kingsway. But did you know the Village of Swansea is just around the corner? Swansea? Yes, Swansea – one of Toronto’s best-kept secrets. Long-time residents like to keep it that way, says garden writer Sonia Day, who lived […]
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 […]
The inaugural issue of the Soiled & Seeded garden zine Canadian gardeners who want more than how-tos from their garden reading now have a new zine on the scene. The first issue of Soiled & Seeded launched this month. It’s worth bookmarking. The zine is a project of Toronto-based non-profit Soiled & Seeded Natural Heritage […]