Tapestry lawns: gorgeous and growing

Is your front yard a monotonous carpet of monotone green? Maybe this is the year you ditch traditional grass for something a little more interesting–a tapestry lawn. If you’re thinking this idea sounds vaguely familiar, you’re not wrong. Creating lawn alternatives with a greater diversity of plants is not new. After all, it’s a great…

Throw some curves in your mowing

Yes, it’s a little early to start talking about mowing the lawn. In parts of Ontario, upwards of 10 feet of snow will have to melt away first. But something exciting in the world of mowing has been reported and I just had to share. Really. A large swath of grass lawn at Chanticleer, Pennsylvania,…

Transporting the garden

I’m truly pleased to have seen some really inspirational gardens over the last few summers. Combining different colours, highlighting dramatic textures and adding drama with a dry creek or water feature were just some of the I-could-do-that! ideas that jumped out at me. But two gardens stood out because they did something marvellous in the…

Going beyond curb appeal

Have you ever walked down a sidewalk and felt a real sense of community was happening there? Front yards can do that. It’s surprisingly easy to communicate either openness, inclusiveness and friendliness or just the opposite – various iterations of self-imposed isolation – by your front yard garden choices from fencing to flowers to adding…

3 lush, water saving lawn alternatives

Is this the year you’re going to rip up your turf? Are you looking for an alternative ground cover that’s low maintenance, drought resistant and yet still delivers an eye-soothing swath of green where you once had a lawn? (Yes, I realize I’m sounding like a bad TV infomercial. I’ll stop now.) I’m really excited…

Redefining curb appeal

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…