A noun. A verb. A blog.
This summer, I’ve been battling tree-of-heaven (Ailanthus altissima) like never before. We’ve written before about this struggle, but I’ve never seen it keep coming back so aggressively from the root – till now. Ailanthus is an alien species (read more about it in our previous post), that has become a regular citizen of Toronto’s unguarded laneways and unclaimed […]
To be honest, most knotweeds are at least a little naughty. They can spreaaaaaaad. That might be a good trait in a ground cover. But some, notably the invasive and hard to eradicate Japanese knotweed (Reynoutria japonica, syn. Fallopia japonica, syn. Polygonum cuspidatum), are very, very naughty indeed. This PDF from the Ontario Invasive Plant Council explains. Others, like our covergirl, Persicaria amplexicaulis […]
Thankful to be passing by, and spotted this little art piece by the sidewalk in someone’s garden Think of this as an Almost-Wordless* Wednesday-on-Saturday. Love the use of milkweed seed here. Gratitude to the internet and search engines for satisfying my curiosity: The fluffy, parachute-like structure at the top of the milkweed seed, or achene, […]
Fall is a great time to spot the red berries of climbing nightshade (Solanum dulcamara) We always knew this as “deadly nightshade,” but that’s not the right name. Deadly this plant can be, but only if you eat the berries when they’re green before they ripen – not when they’re temptingly red like this. These […]
Hey garden, your slip is showing! A pet peeve: the use of landscape cloth as a weed barrier. Sure, it’s water-permeable, but it always seems to escape at the edges or, because it’s slippery, the mulch used to cover it slides off in the middle. It looks like the earth is coated in black plastic. […]
These are the insignificant-looking flowers that cause so much misery in late-summer hay-fever season You’re probably blaming the wrong guy. The culprits behind all that sneezing aren’t those pretty yellow flowers in late-summer bloom. They’re ones you might not even pay attention to – despite the fact that one of them grows really, really tall […]
Viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare) – in Canada, a weed; in Europe, a fairly respectable wildflower. I also happen to be rather fond of the fairy-ring flowers of narrow-leaf plantain (Plantago lanceolata). Photographed on Toronto’s Leslie Street Spit. Many common North American weeds are aliens that piggybacked here accidentally with agricultural settlers. An interesting timeline in […]
Would we think they were beautiful if we didn’t know they were weeds? weeding by Helen Battersby A gardener must not love a dandelion. Its rays must not hook a gardener’s heart or show themselves as stars upon the hills, gold on the imperative of green. A gardener must not love the silken spheres […]
Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) – “leaves of three, let it be.” Hiking with Mr. TG last weekend, it became clear that my former- Scoutmaster husband had forgotten what poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) looks like. Yikes. And it was everywhere along our path. One study suggests that poison ivy might get itchier and more plentiful in […]
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 […]
If you haven’t nipped it in the bud yet, at least get this menace before it sets seeds. The brownish flowers of dog-strangling vine aka swallowwort (Vincetoxicum rossicum, syn. Cynanchum spp., from the Greek meaning “to choke a dog”) usually look fairly insignificant, though they seem fairly showy in this picture. I guess this particular […]
Pretty, isn’t it? Tamarix ramosissima, also known as tamarisk or saltcedar, is blooming with extra vigor here and there around the city. When not in bloom, it looks unassuming, and sparsely feathered – as if a shrub had disguised itself as asparagus fern. Don’t be fooled. I used to wonder why it wasn’t more widely […]