Adventures in winter seeding

You’re looking at a greenhouse. No, actually, you’re looking at many teeny tiny greenhouses. Or, they will be, once we get through with them. My Number One Dot and I have embarked on an adventure in winter seed starting, inspired and informed by the Garden Faerie blogger Monica Milla and Montreal garden blogger Dirt Gently. Links […]

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Take that, winter! A foretaste of spring

Just to remind you that spring will be springing soon… because we’re just fed up with winter.   These photos were captured on Mother’s Day 2010 at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington   Drink in all that voluptuous colour. Don’t worry about the species or cultivar now.   Although the dark purple Tulipa ‘Queen […]

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Go with the snow. It’s a good thing.

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 […]

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Blooms Day, January 2011 in Toronto

Hip-hip-hip hooray for Hippeastrum (aka Amaryllis) ‘Evergreen’ Other than snow flowers decking the branches, there’s not much blooming outdoors this Garden Bloggers Bloom Day in our frosty neck of the woods. Indoors, the leaves of the over-wintering pelargoniums are hanging in, and the pale greeny-white blooms of Sarah’s new Amaryllis/Hippeastrum ‘Evergreen’ make a fabulous picture […]

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Ice Formations: Winter Inflorescence

  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, […]

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The best laid (garden) schemes…

…of mice and mums are certainly ganging agley this month. Remind me, if I try this again, not to take two university courses and attempt to work full-time – at the same time – again. In the pie of my life, blogging is getting a very narrow slice… more like crumbs. I have assignments every […]

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The cold, dry winter of our discontent

This time last year, it was raining. There was snow on the ground… you remember what snow is, don’t you? Not just that baby powdering we got yesterday that almost melted by today. In December 2009 and January 2010, Toronto had roughly one-quarter of our usual snowfall. It looks like February is following the same […]

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How I Banish Winter Blahs

Everyone in the north gets pretty bedraggled by the end of January. We’ve already coped with 2 months of winter proper, and only have February and March to look forward to, months often filled with snow storms, slush and bitter cold. Even though this January in Toronto was ridiculously warm, with rain some days, and […]

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GGW Picture This: Melt your cold, cold heart

The days are lengthening. Round about this time, our dad would say, “Now we’ve broken winter’s back.” Experience tells me it hasn’t happened quite yet, despite this January thaw, but we are headed in that direction. In fact, winter hasn’t yet made a creditable appearance, up here in Toronto. So to find some of Winter’s […]

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