When spring seems to be taking forever to arrive, I take matters into my own hands and add a few pots of flowering spring bulbs to the kitchen windowsill. But I’ve never been keen on those sad plastic pots filled with sodden potting soil. Here’s an easy trick for making spring bulbs light up with…
Busting out in sumptuous clumps of intoxicatingly scented blooms, lilacs are sensational plants. So why are they so unloved? Just Google “lilacs bad luck” and you’ll find all kinds of lore about how bringing lilacs into the house is not good and wearing a sprig of them can be even worse. Then there are the…
Is it just me or did all the dandelions in the universe just invade our gardens overnight? The battle is on but it doesn’t have to be horrific–especially if you take a different tactic than the usual OBLITERATE THEM ALL. Here are some timely reasons for putting down the pesticides and making dandelions our co-conspirators…
Before you mow down or dig up those dandelions, write down the date they started blooming! That’s what NatureWatch is hoping you’ll do. By asking ordinary people like you and me to become Citizen Scientists and participate in some easy environmental monitoring programs, they hope the combined research will help track the rapid changes in Canada’s…
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,…
What happens when you ask someone at the top of their game to distill everything they know into a single, easy-to-understand presentation? Standing in front of chalkboard and slide projector, Frank Kershaw admitted that he wasn’t sure he could do it. As an award-winning horticulturalist and teacher at Toronto-based George Brown College, he usually conducts…
This Sunday, we jump ahead by an hour (except in parts of Saskatchewan), collectively acknowledging that Spring isn’t coming quickly enough. Funny how we can take matters into our own hands and get more daylight in our days–or at least the perception of it. To mark the occasion, I thought it would be fun to…
I just sprayed eau de Dirt on my wrist and got a lovely memory rush of digging in my garden. Such is my longing for spring on this cold and grey winter’s day. I’ll admit that I’m also hooked on Demeter Fragrance Library scents, as much for their uncanny encapsulations of time travel as for the…
“Spring travels north at about thirteen miles a day.” So wrote Diane Ackerman in her provocative book, “Cultivating Delight“. She figures this equates to 47.6 feet per minute or about 1.23 inches per second. When I read this, my first thought was at that rate, you could actually keep pace with Spring–meet up with it…
This is such a fun idea and so easy! I had to pass it along. Tipsy pots: free instructions for this fun and easy garden art project. via How To Make Tipsy Pots.
I was at a big box store a few days ago (ok, Costco) and barely got out alive. People were scrambling to grab white plastic hanging baskets stuffed with all kinds of crayola-coloured flowers. The prices were insane, of course. But as I dodged a careening cart bulging with containers of hot pink geraniums, peachy…
My back garden has finally rediscovered spring. There’s a Virginia creeper about to conquer new territory. The clematis is feeling sorry for itself. And I’ve got morning glory seedlings about to bust open their seed tray. All of this means one thing. There’s gonna be trellis. In my opinion (as someone who loathes to spend loads…
Let me state for the records that I’m anti-minimalist when it comes to gardening. Minimal does not do anything for me, even if you’re talking a painfully chic urban rooftop garden-slash-yoga retreat. To illustrate my point, just Google anything about Japanese zen gardens–supposedly the poster gardens for minimalism. There’s actually a lot going on in…
You may have heard that Monarch butterflies aren’t doing very well this year. Turns out their numbers have hit an all-time low while they were winter vacationing in Mexico. Jode Roberts of the Toronto-based Homegrown National Park Project reports on David Suzuki’s website that there are two reasons for this: severe weather and “the virtual eradication…
Are you ready to go a little wild in your garden? Miriam Goldberger says there are 60 ways to do it. (Don’t get your rubber hose in a knot quite yet.) We’re talking sixty of her favourite native wildflowers and grasses. She knows what she’s talking about. Miriam is founder and co-owner of Wildflower Farm, a…
Horticulturist, Arborist and Garden Columnist
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Reflections On A Life in Exile
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 