A noun. A verb. A blog.
This ghostly character is something you don’t see every day, certainly not in Toronto. With its fleshy, pale appearance those who see it can mistake it for a mushroom. It isn’t. Instead it’s the chlorophyl-free parasitic plant called variously indian pipe, ghost pipe or ghost plant, and corpse flower (Monotropa uniflora). I came across it while camping […]
An early Mother’s Day visit to our Number One Dot and her partner O – on the first fine day this spring – took us in search of waterfalls on the Niagara Escarpment. The couple had newly moved to Hamilton, with over 100 waterfalls within its boundaries. This was news to Mr TG and I […]
When Gail of Clay and Limestone reminded me about her upcoming Wildflower Wednesday meme, I got all excited. I’d been saving the shot above for a post with the working title “lesser-known native plants.” Trouble is, the more I looked, the more I saw it isn’t the plant I’d thought it was (Uvularia grandiflora or merrybells) – though at […]
New-world asters aren’t Aster anymore. They are, among other things, Symphyotrichum as in Symphyotrichum novae-angliae or New England aster. Because these new-ish names are a bit of a mouthful, I prefer the term used (and perhaps created) by my friend Gail of Clay and Limestone: Ex-asters. It’s for Gail’s Wildflower Wednesday that I post this almost-wordless […]
Ah, common names! Here’s a plant with many: spotted or dotted mint, spotted or dotted beebalm, horsemint and spotted horsemint (and possibly even dotted horsemint), for example, all with the botanical name Monarda punctata. No, it doesn’t look like your typical monarda, does it? Whatever you call it, you can call it great for native bees. Pollinators […]
In High Park, June 2015 – a patch of spontaneously regenerated wild lupines (Lupinus perennis) I’ve seen wild lupines in Iceland and in Nova Scotia. But I had no idea that Ontario was also a habitat for this lovely legume (Lupinus perennis). Then we visited High Park this June with the Toronto Fling and learned […]
Miriam Goldberger and Paul Jenkins (with the lovely Penny) at Wildflower Farm As if three 13-hour days of the Toronto Garden Bloggers Fling weren’t excitement enough, and an optional fourth day in Niagara didn’t do us in, on the fifth day Sarah organized an outing to native seed producer Wildflower Farm. We confess that while […]
Taming Wildflowers is Miriam Goldberger’s just-launched book from St. Lynn’s Press Between the front cover’s exuberant coneflowers and the back cover’s Piet Oudolf blurb, Miriam Goldberger’s work of passion Taming Wildflowers is the little book that could. Although it appears skinny, this is a highly concentrated primer on knowing, growing and using wildflowers. Toronto-area folk […]
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 […]
It’s too long since I’ve had the joy of seeing a sea of trilliums brighten up a woodland floor. This is one of my fond memories of childhood, having spent part of our youth living near wooded areas in different parts of Southern Ontario. However, I do have a few in the garden. This year, […]