A weeping Japanese larch is a great space saver in a small garden.

5 gardening ideas make the most of weeping conifers

Sure you can plonk an interestingly shaped weeping conifer in the centre of a garden bed or off on its own in the middle of the lawn and call it a day. There’s no doubt your specimen plant will be an eye-catcher. But there’s so much more these surprisingly versatile trees can do. Here are…

The new Canadian Shield rose is a brilliant red hardy landscape rose.

Celebrate Canada with a brilliantly hardy rose

Oh, Canada! Here’s the first in a series of posts on very special but easy to grow plants for your garden in honour of Canada’s birthday. First up on my Celebrate Canada Plants List is a gorgeous new variety of rose. Celebrate Canada with The Canadian Shield™ Rose Grown exclusively in celebration of the 150th anniversary…

Coreopsis a star reborn in the summer garden

It goes by the unglamorous common name of Tickseed. The botanical Coreopsis sounds much more appealing but, in fact, just glosses over a hard reality. This fancier name comes from the Greek koris, for bug, and opsis, for ‘like’, meaning the seeds of this plant look like bugs or ticks. Resemblances to insects aside, these starry flowers are…

Cosmos adds to a sunny garden in surprising ways

The first time I saw cosmos in a blindingly sunny garden, orderliness was not the word that came to mind. No, barely contained chaos was more like it. The impenetrable thatch of tall stems thrust up cartoon-like flowers, in brilliant shades of pink, nodding in every direction. But the story goes that Spanish priests loved the…

A browallia for full shade gardens has purple flowers.

Solo plants for lush patio containers

Here in southwestern Ontario, the Victoria Day long weekend, which falls on or around May 24th, is anticipated with guarded respect by gardeners. Not because this 3-day weekend also goes by the name May Two-Fer, referring to cases of beer, not the date. No, it’s because this weekend represents all that is soul-crushingly cruel about…

Flower and foliage clippings illustrating a container recipe

Purple reigns all summer in this container

In my continuing quest to create container plantings with maximum flower power for minimum effort, I was really pleased with this vibrant purple and green combo I put together last summer. I’m a sucker for the ombré petals and steely centres of African daisies and, with their leaves adding lots of lush green texture, they…

This salvia is a true blue winner

I don’t normally plant annuals in my flower beds. I’d rather invest in perennials that are going to come back year after year. And I splurge on ephemeral annuals for my pots where I can spotlight them in all their delicate and exotic glory. If a plant can’t survive our Southern Ontario winters then it’s…