In spring, you can’t swing a bat in a garden centre without sending a display of bee-friendly flowers flying. Everyone’s on the bee-saving bandwagon and that’s a good thing. But even though we’re heading into autumn, you can still plant for beauty and the bees. Add a nectar-producing tree to your garden. Some of the…
Sure, keeping rainwater on our properties is way better than having it wash away into storm sewers and eventually into our Great Lakes (picking up pollutants as it goes). At the same time, who doesn’t want to jump on the Grow Your Own bandwagon? But creating an edible rain garden? That had to be music…
To get into the head of a landscape architect is to see renovated gardens (at least this year) filled with rain barrels, fire pits and native plants. Hammocks? Not so much. I can predict this with relative confidence because The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) conducted a survey last month (February, 2016) to capture…
“We need plants to be more than just the parsley to the pot roast of our house”, he said. Ok. I’m in. Thomas Rainer, landscape architect and co-author with Claudia West of Planting In A Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities For Resilient Landscapes, has a way with plants and words. His landscape designs look like…
Want a gift that really spreads the love? Plant an oak tree. I know this isn’t the sexiest idea but hear me out. I’ve got 5 great reasons why oak trees are the lovingest of all the plants you can grow. REASON #1: Oaks are the ultimate sharers. Sitting under an oak tree in late fall,…
“Every garden has a desert and a swamp,” he declared. OK. He had our attention. Finding the right plants for those unlovely spots—that’s the challenge. So when someone comes along and offers a tried and true list of plants recommended for your personal garden hell, well, hello! At the recent Landscape Ontario Congress, a huge trade…
Introducing exotic plants into your garden can be tricky although do-able if you’re into high maintenance gardening or you keep them in containers and bring them inside just before the first frost. But that’s just it. Here in Southern Ontario, we often think of exotic plants as being fragile beauties from tropical paradises much farther…
Crisscrossing paths lead, well, nowhere in particular. There isn’t a blade of grass. The home’s rain gutter flows into drain pipes that spill into a rock garden/work of art. And trees aren’t necessarily alive to be considered useful and a thing of beauty. This is a front yard that stops you in your tracks. There’s always…
Most everyone with a garden has a spot under some trees or along the side of the house where the sun hardly shines and the soil is often (as my endearingly direct guy will sometimes put it) as dry as a popcorn’s fart. These are the places that try a gardener’s soul. What can grow…
Wild ginger appears every spring on a moss-covered boulder just outside the door to our cottage on the Bruce Peninsula. It’s a peculiar plant in many ways so I’m pleased but a little surprised to see it showing up at more and more garden centres here in Southern Ontario. If you’re tempted to try some of…
Set against a garden busting out all over in buds and leaves, our Sand Cherry shrubs (Prunus x cistena) stand out with particular elegance. For a nice show of wine-coloured leaves all season long, these shrubs are reliable and, quite frankly, a lovely relief from all that enthusiastic green-ness a shrubby garden can have. And then…
Magnolias in bloom always put me in the mood for swishy dresses, Champagne cocktails and sultry jazz played on a record player. I even get the urge to break out in a pout ala Scarlet O’Hara. Maybe it’s those fleshy, blushing blooms busting out all over their naked branches. When their flowers start to fade,…
Why is it that sometimes the things closest to us are the least understood? Here’s a quick myth-busting guide to native plants with some gorgeous options for adding “local colour” to a garden in Southern Ontario. Myth #1: Native plants are drought tolerant. A plant native to your area has thrived in your area for a…
Cute illustration. Great (read: easy) ideas. And it helps you help bees. Love this post from fellow gardening blogger Nigel Boldero aka Old School Garden. If you’re thinking of adding a new flower bed to your garden, check out this plan. Bee Positive.
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,…
Horticulturist, Arborist and Garden Columnist
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Saint Andrews Forest Farm Blog
a chat over the garden fence
There's always room for one more plant.
a little garden near Gawler
.....and nurturing my soul
Ministry of the fence 