A noun. A verb. A blog.
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 […]
The bright red foliage lesions and bumpy fruiting bodies of Pear Trellis Rust My sister-in-law was showing me the garden of their new home, including a number of fruit trees. Unfortunately, the foliage of the two pear trees are covered in red lesions, and the underside shows the clear signs that something is seriously amiss. […]
This Lust List item isn’t a plant (which, for me, is usually a tree) – it’s a book. About trees. I’ve lusted for it ever since seeing the teasers. Last weekend at the Garden Writers Symposium in Indianapolis I held it briefly in my hot little hands, and let me tell you: Seeing Trees from Timber […]
The view is clear when you can see a tree silhouetted in its underwear. Let’s let go of our moaning. Snow in January is a good friend to the Toronto gardener. First, it’s precipitation; a long, cool drink for the garden. It’s an insulating blanket of snow for our tender plants, especially when the temps […]
Guess which witch caught my eye while walking? Are they witches’ caps or gnomes? Whatever they are, they called to me (and my ever-present camera) from the shrubbery as I power-walked through our neighbourhood at 7:30 this morning. Not till I started to move again did I realize which witch was witch-hazel… in this case, […]
The characteristic blunt leaf of the Liriodendron A neighbour once asked me whether she should worry about tree roots invading her drains if she selected a “yellow poplar” through Toronto’s street tree program, as poplar roots are notorious for their water-seeking ways. I assured her that the yellow-poplar isn’t actually a poplar, but (along with […]
During a post-vacation check-up of my heat-challenged, newly planted Japanese maple this morning I spied this pixel-patterned egg mass. Aha! I exclaimed, summoning my vast store of entomological knowledge, Those are definitely the eggs of some kind of insect. No, I’m not an entomologist. But I can be a fairly good detective when it comes […]
Not Far From the Tree (NFFTT) is expanding in the east end of Toronto. If you know someone with a fruit (or nut) tree but with no time or energy to harvest it, you can spread the wealth through this network of volunteers, plus avoid that litter of fermenting, fallen fruit. NFFTT operates in west-end […]
It’s that time again, when walking through certain Toronto neighbourhoods fills your nose with the scent of the black locust tree. These trees are all around the city, originally planted because their hard wood was useful for farm implements. They have a bad-mannered habit of spreading themselves around. You can see them, for example, sprouting […]
The Japanese umbrella pine isn’t a pine; it’s Sciadopitys verticillata, and like the ginkgo tree it has a prehistoric history. You can read all about it in this article from the University of Arkansas and this article from Conifers.org. What it is, though, is stop-in-your-tracks gorgeous. Yes, that’s the correct botanical term. Those crazy upside-down […]
Yes, weedsday; you read that right. Norway maples, Acer platanoides, Toronto’s most dominant (in so many senses) street tree. You can’t garden in Toronto, especially its east end, without grappling with these non-native giants; trees that are as voracious as they are fecund. But, gee, they have pretty flowers. They’re all chartreuse and fluffy-y. From […]
This might be a crabapple, though I’m not a crabapple expert. And the Malus or apple family, along with its fruit tree cousins such as the Pyrus or pear [ed: and I should add the Prunus family, which includes plums, peaches (which this might be), apricots, cherries, and almonds], are all five-petalled members of the […]