I love to combine annuals with the goal of creating ultimate sensual overload. Proof: check out my eyeball-searing circus of a container planting, with super bright flowers that appear to swing through the air on upside down trapezes. But I realize one can’t continually decorate one’s patio or pathway with planters that can also be used…
I never thought I’d have a canna in my garden. I thought they were hard to grow, that you needed a special container for them, that planting them in said container was complicated and that you had to put them in a special protected area or they’d die almost immediately. But then last year (2016),…
There are two reasons why I love this cool hanging frame planter and neither has anything to do with the facts that you can make it look traditional or modern or anything in between (ie make it totally your own look) and that when it’s finished, it can look like a 3D painting. First, it’s…
What could be more exquisitely transporting than an all-white garden, I used to ponder rhetorically. Back in the day, as a card-carrying Hopeless Romantic, I trusted my life views would shift in some remarkable way if only I could visit Vita Sackville West’s legendary White Garden. Late in the summer of 1996, I managed to get there…
Don’t you just love the instructions on your packet of seeds–”Plant outdoors after all danger of frost”. Right. Where’s that crystal ball when you need it? In Canada, the tradition has been to wait until Victoria Day weekend when warm temps are finally, thankfully guaranteed. But, with our wonky weather these days, patience can run…
When Proven Winners sent me some Superbells® Holy Moly!™ Calibrachoa hybrids to trial last spring (2015), my first thought upon opening the crate filled with potted plants was “Wow! These are well named.” With bright yellow petals covered in splashes of neon pink, the flowers practically glowed. In a container planting, these plants need to…
I’ve always thought irises were otherworldly. So it didn’t come as a surprise when I learned that, in Greek mythology, Iris is the goddess of the rainbow. With this in mind, planting some of these flowers in your garden might be a good idea on several levels. What was more surprising to me was that…
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…
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,…
Last year at about this time, I had a tray full of seedlings–the promise of long twining, gloriously blooming morning glories. What I didn’t realize at the time was that they were doomed. Among other things, my kitchen window, sunny and inviting as it is, just didn’t offer enough solar power for my little green…
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…
Sometimes I can go into a garden centre and feel like my head’s going to explode. There’s so much choice. Which is a good thing, of course. The more types of plants, the better you’ll find just the right ones for your personal paradise. But an abundance of options can also make for, well, exploding…
Spring may be dragging its heels in our garden but it’s arrived in stores. Pots and planters are practically spilling off the shelves. I bring this up because last year at about this time I was too late to score a dark brown faux-wicker, moulded-plastic planter I had my eye on. I thought it tres…
Love to Garden? Learn Some Helpful Tips And Tricks To Help You Get That Green Thumb
Life is an interesting journey. These are journals, stories, reflections of a traveller of this journey. (songoftheheartsite@gmail.com)
for OCA Visual Communications BA (hons)
Where observation and imagination meet nature in poetry.
A blog about life in Wellington, New Zealand
Plants, veg and chickens: a cottage garden on the edge of Brussels
This blog is about gardening in the north.
Discovering the joy of art
Do not go where the path may lead, instead go where there is no path, and leave a trail -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ministry of the fence 