I realized we were officially in the grip of pre-Halloween hysteria last week when I was fishing out my wallet to pay for some items in our local pharmacy. A woman swept past me, one hand gripped on a trailing child, the other pointing towards the back of the store. In a loud, theatrical whisper,…
A week ago, one little bright red maple leaf fluttered to the ground just outside the back door of our cottage on the Bruce Peninsula in southwestern Ontario. Me and my guy were horrified. The turning leaves in autumn in Ontario (as well as most of eastern Canada and parts of northeastern United States) is…
In my ongoing pursuit of next-to-effortless gardening, this fall I’m taking a cue from Johnny Appleseed. Although Michael Pollan, in his book Cooked, pretty much debunks the legend of a friendly wandering giant sprinkling seeds through the wilderness with little fruit trees sproinging up in his wake, the idea of basically tossing seeds on the…
Is this the ultimate guide for the lazy gardener? If your ideal Fall Clean Up Day is to do as little as possible, you’ve come to the right place. But what if I told you that by doing far less, you’re actually helping your garden’s health and wildlife way more? That’s a real win-win. Here’s…
Ok. You just bought a brand new box of bulbs. Now what? How about shaking things up a bit by: • breaking the rules. • helping bees some more. • easing a new bed into the garden. • inviting a family of fairies to stay awhile. • protecting a neighbouring ravine. • sending a signal.…
One of my favourite early spring flowers is Iris reticulata. I love everything about them–their scent (as sophisticated as any French perfume), their size (so cute!) and their deep bluish purple colouring accented with a bright yellow stripe and delicate black spots running down the centre of each petal. Then I discovered Iris danfordiae. These…
If this coming winter is anything like last winter, I want to make sure I give my trees the best chance of making it through to spring. So I’ll be watering them, particularly the evergreens, until the ground is practically frozen solid. Here’s why: The needles of an evergreen are actually their leaves and, like…
You’d think a tree covered in pine needles in the middle of summer would A) be a pine tree and B) be evergreen. I’m learning how wrong I can be. And how un-evergreens are golden in the fall garden. Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus) is indeed a pine tree–a beautiful, fast-growing native of Ontario with long,…
Now that the temperatures are finally dipping below zero celsius here in Southern Ontario, my container plantings are beginning to bite the dust. And so the big fall clean-up begins. But this time around, I’m going to be smarter about it. Having spent this year studying organic horticulture techniques, I’ve found that there are easy ways to…
Looking like a small sea of green waves caught mid-curl, my hostas have brought a soothing kind of coolness to the garden all summer long. But, now that we’re edging closer to November, that coolness has turned stone cold ugly. In another week or two, they’ll be flat on the ground and rapidly turning into…
You see them there, looking vaguely sinister in near-black silhouette, projecting explosions of spikiness. So it’s totally understandable that you might want to wade into your garden bed, armed with a sturdy pair of pruners, and give your coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) the big snip. Hey, you’re making the garden tidier and, let’s face it, friendlier…
What’s likely to happen after you’ve put in all that effort to plant your fall tulips? Get a beautiful patch of blooms next spring? Nope. If you live in Southern Ontario, the chances of them making it through the first 48 hours in the ground without squirrels getting to them is pretty slim. I’ve had…
When’s a good time to plant flower bulbs in the fall for a good show come next spring? Heaps of bagged bulbs are appearing everywhere from garden nurseries to grocery stores so you’d figure that now, now, now is the best time. But there isn’t actually that much of a rush here in Southern Ontario.…
As much as I loathe seeing Halloween candy already lining grocery store shelves, I love the flip-side to putting autumn in overdrive–finding cool weather plants that take over garden beds and containers with all the subtly of a Mac truck. Great big orange domes of neatly clipped chrysanthemums lining a front walkway. Constellations of purple…
Roses always get the credit for having fabulous fragrances. You can’t deny that perfumers have been laughing all the way to the bank on the popularity of their scent. Even when Coco wanted to reinvent women’s perfume, she still held on to a sumptuous rose note in Chanel No. 5. But yesterday morning, the heat…
Love to Garden? Learn Some Helpful Tips And Tricks To Help You Get That Green Thumb
Life is an interesting journey. These are journals, stories, reflections of a traveller of this journey. (songoftheheartsite@gmail.com)
for OCA Visual Communications BA (hons)
Where observation and imagination meet nature in poetry.
A blog about life in Wellington, New Zealand
Plants, veg and chickens: a cottage garden on the edge of Brussels
This blog is about gardening in the north.
Discovering the joy of art
Do not go where the path may lead, instead go where there is no path, and leave a trail -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ministry of the fence 