When I first spotted this thing from a distance, growing on a birch tree in southwestern British Columbia, I assumed it was a kind of ivy. But when I got up close to it, I realized that each leaf had its own unique shape. I had to know what it was and how I could…
We’re already in the middle of April and I’ve just found out that butterfly season is already well underway. These bedazzled bugs start making their appearance in Canada as early as March in balmy British Columbia. It won’t be long before Ontario is in peak butterfly mode. What’s the panic, you may ask? It’s surprising…
Judy Garland may have sweetly elevated rainbows to technicolour cliche, but they’ve always been happy, shiny wonders–ever since the sun’s rays met air-borne water droplets and there were sentient beings around to take notice. Now they figure in myths, superstitions, beliefs and symbolic declarations the world over. Marvelling at a rainbow’s beauty is a moment…
If you’re a big fan of mushrooms, like me, you might have enjoyed that video on how mushrooms can save the world six different ways that I mentioned in my last post. If that’s the case, then you’ll be just as excited as me to learn that, in addition to mushrooms potentially cleaning polluted soil…
Autumn is officially here and, just like the garden itself, gardening topics are dwindling as winter sets in–at least if you live north of the 49th parallel. From now til spring I’ll be posting a little less often but I promise to keep in touch as inspiration strikes. I find reaching out to my fellow…
True story: A couple of years ago, when my guy was applying for a permit to build a stand-alone garage near our cottage on the Bruce Peninsula, he had to jump through a lot of bureaucratic hoops, including an on-site inspection by the powers that be to ensure we would be inflicting the least amount…
Allow me to sing the praises of grit. Not the grit so indelibly captured by John Wayne–the stuff of perseverance and passion–but the stuff scattered on the floor of hen coops. I don’t know what chickens personally think about chicken grit but they certainly rely on it to help them digest food in their powerful…
Don’t you just love the instructions on your packet of seeds–”Plant outdoors after all danger of frost”. Right. Where’s that crystal ball when you need it? In Canada, the tradition has been to wait until Victoria Day weekend when warm temps are finally, thankfully guaranteed. But, with our wonky weather these days, patience can run…
The new year has arrived and we’re well past the winter solstice but in case you’re not convinced that the days are getting longer, this remarkable video takes only 90 seconds to transport you from the dregs of winter to a mezmerizing spring.
The garden centre had left a voicemail for me. The extra tall Russian Sage I wanted had arrived and was ready to be picked up. As I looked out over my garden, trying to figure out where I could wedge in this new prize, I had a sudden hankering to drop it all and retreat…
On a recent trip to Iceland, I hoped to see the Northern Lights. I didn’t. Even the moon and stars were crowded out by storms in a continuous loop of advance and retreat. And for the first couple of days exploring this spectacular country, I thought the landscape was going to be just as elusive. Clouds transmogrified into…
I don’t usually include gardening and Vogue magazine in the same sentence. But as I was thumbing through the December issue, past the ruinously expensive dresses and eye-popping jewelry, while making note of what I could be doing if I cared to be a woman of means and unlimited chicness, I stumbled upon a feature…
Who knew that a fen system, one of the rarest types of ecosystems in the world, can be found on the west coast of the Bruce Peninsula in Southern Ontario? The Oliphant fen system is, as you might guess, right next door to the tiny hamlet of Oliphant. A fen is a wetland created by fresh…
Using the lawn as a back-scratcher hadn’t occurred to me until I met Berkley, our almost-white golden retriever. He’d casually walk into the centre of the backyard and then flip onto his back, throwing all four paws in the air and wriggling his back. He’d leave a flattened patch that seemed oddly paler than the rest…
March Break is here. Have all your friends headed south for some de-stressing and re-warming? Same here. But, while everyone I know is about to hoist a margarita on a beach somewhere, I’ve got my own instant mood-alteration strategy. I’m going to take a cue from the Japanese and go on a shinrin-yoku–a forest bathing…
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 