I couldn’t believe the inventiveness of this fellow in Australia (that’s him in the video below) who, after discovering a frog living in his fence post, proceeds to fine tune a better home for the wee thing (whom he names Frod) after a series of night ops-style observations. With some fancy 3D printing and a…
More And Less lists are replacing New Year’s resolutions and this makes sense to me. Compiling a list of what you’d like to do/see/manifest more of as well as what you’d like less of in your life seems, well, just easier–less intimidating, more approachable and (getting down to brass tacks) more achievable. I’ve never been…
In a post I published eight years ago entitled The Greying Garden And What To Do About It, I explored the viewpoint that gardening was pretty much an older person’s pursuit. I had just attended a gardening seminar where pretty much everyone was rocking grey hair. Now, with a big boost from the pandemic, gardening…
Earlier this month I published a post (highly opinionated, of course) about gardening shortcuts for getting that traditional English country garden style. Since then, I’ve been thinking. The British garden look is popular for good reason, as are other well-known garden looks such as the Japanese-style garden or the American Southwest style (think lots of…
One of the biggest challenges for any gardener is trying to make something of the long, thin and usually dark strip between two houses. This stretch of gardening purgatory is often euphemistically referred to as a side garden. But getting the space to look anything like a garden can be really hard. So how do…
I love the garden design term “desire line“. Used in urban design as well, it refers to a path we take, whether it’s official (as in meant-to-be-part-of-the-overall-design) or renegade (more on that later). It’s usually the quickest route from A to B. You see them a lot in public green spaces–a dirt path carved into…
Bridges are amazing things. They are the very manifestation of a proposition. What’s a bridge if not the offer to be on the other side? But they don’t have to span a physical thing like a river or a highway. According to Cambridge Dictionary, a bridge can be “something that makes it easier to make…
Whenever I’m in a garden having a major Wow! moment it’s usually because I’ve stumbled onto a garden design or decor idea that’s both breathtakingly simple and wildly transformative. Here are five why-didn’t-I-think-of-that DIY garden ideas progressing from the simply elegant to the seriously eccentric (in a good way). Ideas 1 and 2: Maximizing a…
If you’re not lucky enough to have a property measured in acres instead of metres, conveniently positioned at the edge of a lush forest, you can still adopt some of the landscaping and planting ideas from this spectacular woodland garden located in southwestern Ontario (Canadian garden zones 5b to 6a). Even its grandest elements, like…
Maybe it’s our depressingly dark, wet, cool June here in southwestern Ontario that’s inspired me to look at dead things with renewed interest. While the plants I’ve recently installed in the ground and in containers are already looking exhausted from repeated deluges, perpetually damp stumps and fallen logs are springing to life as generous hosts…
Think you don’t have room for any more plants in your garden? The wonderfully over-stuffed front and back gardens of this home in northwestern Metro Toronto will have you thinking again. The owner/gardener of this average-sized suburban lot has used every inch of space with no plans for curbing her collecting habit. I think these…
Sorry for going dark these past couple of weeks. My guy and I have been crazy busy moving homes and, just to keep life really interesting, we topped everything off with another epic road trip across Canada. Now that things have settled down a bit, I thought I’d kick off my return to blogging with…
Sculpture? Gazebo? Multi-tiered plant container? The Growroom, an “urban farm pavilion” is all that and an elegantly presented political statement. Swedish architects Mads-Ulrik Husum and Sine Lindholm teamed up with Space10, an innovation lab supported by DIY furnishing mega-brand Ikea, to promote local agriculture and came up with the Growroom. They’re hoping the globe-shaped structure…
I don’t normally associate gardens with hotbeds of revolution but a lot of researchers, journalists and horticulture pros believe that the way people garden is radically changing–some might say in wonderful ways, others might say in ways that are a tad odd. Which of these 10 gardening trends for 2017 might change how you garden? TREND…
There’s a spirit in your garden and I think I can help you find it. But, first, we’ll need to back up…a lot. In ancient Rome, everyone had their own personal guiding or guardian spirit called, in Latin, a genius. (Love that.) And there were protective spirits for a place, too. Guess what one of those…
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 