Ok. You just bought a brand new box of bulbs. Now what? How about shaking things up a bit by: • breaking the rules. • helping bees some more. • easing a new bed into the garden. • inviting a family of fairies to stay awhile. • protecting a neighbouring ravine. • sending a signal.…
When it comes to growing a cooler backyard, for once I’m not talking about edgy, eco garden design trends. As southwestern Ontario continues its record-breaking heat wave, gardening is now all about the temperature. And since last month (July, 2016) was the hottest month around the world in recorded history, I don’t think we’re alone in…
A garden with room for a view is one thing but a gobsmacking garden with many rooms, each with completely different views, is something altogether different and a little tough to capture with still photos rather than 3D Sensoround. But I’ll try. On a recent (June 23, 2016) garden tour presented by the Toronto Botanical…
Secret hideaways with your choice of hovering rain umbrellas, pink flamingoes or a sparkling chandelier overhead. Old bed frames in new flower beds, a canoe filled with cannas and a loo with a view (made extra panoramic by the absence of a door). These were just some of the surprises awaiting us on a recent…
Slow growing. Too big for a shrub and too small for a tree. Straggly. Did I say really slow growing? Smoketrees can get a lot of heat from picky gardeners. But when the setting sun lights up their panicles in a shimmering nimbus how can you think otherwise than your garden is all the more miraculous…
I was riding shotgun with my guy last weekend. As we were flying down a dirt road, he nodded towards the ditch on his side. It was clogged with tall leafy plants topped with gazillions of tiny yellow flowers. They’re the reason for my fits of sneezes, he said. A conversation ensued. He was quite…
What do 2,200 varieties of plants, all in containers exposed to a merciless Southern Ontario summer, look like? Awesome. The Sawaya Container Trials, one of North America’s largest, threw open their doors (so to speak) in late July for growers, retailers and members of the Garden Writers Association to check out what’s doing best, what…
Do not go where the path may lead, instead go where there is no path, and leave a trail -Ralph Waldo Emerson
MOSTLY MONTREAL, MOST OF THE TIME
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The sun is the great luminary of all life - Frank Lloyd Wright
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The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies - Gertrude Jekyll
From suburban lawn to backyard homestead...with ducks. A journal by Lori Fontanes
