A noun. A verb. A blog.
Words are funny things. They come into the language, and change shape and meaning over time. Most of us know what it means to call someone ruthless. Fewer would describe someone as full of ruth. Ruth (pity and compassion) has slipped out of common usage. In the gardening world, we call houseplants tropicals, yet even […]
Oh, what a tangled web we weave… when we don’t know how to prune a weeping mulberry (Morus alba ‘Pendula’). You can see this popular weeping standard tree all over the city – and when not wearing its cloak of green, the tangled, haystack-headed results of improper pruning are only too evident. Therefore, when I […]
We take our garden “blooms” where we can in winter. No, I’m not talking flowers. Pollinators, please stay tucked in your nests, we’re not ready for you yet. I was captivated by these ice covered branches on a recent walk in Ashbridges Bay Park. This is a different sort of blooming, the cold, hard, […]
Walking around the neighbourhood on a grey November day, you can’t help but notice that the Callery pear (Pyrus calleryana) is the only light on the street. Look at that! The rest of the trees are denuded, but this fellow is still glowing. Because I remember when neighbours had one planted in their front yard, […]
Tree creatures. Walking in a park by the lake a few weeks ago I snapped this picture of a tree base that I instantly labelled, “Tree Feet”. Helen’s been writing a lot about trees lately and it has made me think about how I’ve felt about trees in my life. Trees were only one of […]
The native North American basswood (Tilia americana) was one of the first trees I learned to recognize from afar, way back in the sixth grade. See how the mature tree has a shape like the club in a suit of cards? The trunk flares out at the base, and the crown of leaves and branches […]
My wish list contains an oak tree. Not a Northern red oak (Quercus rubra) like this majestic beauty in the park nearby, but a scarlet oak (Quercus coccinea). Scarlet oaks grow on dry, sandy uplands. That sounds just like my garden! And the colour the leaves produce in fall is said to be an even […]
All the trees on the street are usually bare before my next door Norway maple (Acer platanoides) drops its leaves. Look here; it’s still green, in this picture taken yesterday. It doesn’t matter if I rake. The day before the first big snow, this guy typically drops the whole shebang. Whomp! Then we’re shovelling up […]
While doing the initial scoring for the East York Blooming Contest, I saw some high-scoring gardens that didn’t make it into the final round, including this Asian-inspired front garden. The tall tree is a standard form of weeping mulberry (Morus alba ‘Pendula’). In horticulture, standard doesn’t mean “run of the mill”, but refers to the […]
My ever-unrequited love affair with paperbark maple (Acer griseum) intensifies when seeing it in its fall regalia. Hates drought, they say. Well with the somewhat hefty price of this tree, that makes it too risky for my garden, sad to say. That doesn’t mean I can’t fantasize. Paperbark maple is one of the perfect (*or […]
This is one reason why I wish I had an electric lawn mower: to chop autumn leaves into bite-sized, easily composted pieces. This is a trick you can use now. My rickety, ancient push mower (all I can justify for my narrow strip of grass, which soon might disappear completely) doesn’t have the ooomph required. […]
When my son came across this circa-1928 image in the Toronto archives, I realized how much we take our urban forest for granted. This is a picture of the school across the street, taken from what is now our front lawn. And here is how the same scene looks about 80 years later… That tiny […]