How green is your garden? With that thought-provoking question in mind, the Royal Botanical Gardens has established three new demonstation gardens, located just beyond the entrance to the Laking Garden, that offer three different ways to go green and reduce your carbon footprint. The No MOW! garden shows how an attractive perennial bed can replace a front lawn. The No [...]
Where can you ogle 300 beautiful gardens for free? At the Buffalo Garden Walk, which takes place on July 25 and 26. This is one of my favourite self-guided walking tours. Not only are there some great gardens, but it’s a chance to look beyond the outlet malls and explore the many unique and interesting neighbourhoods in [...]
If you attend only one gardening event this year (poor you!), make it the Toronto Botanical Garden’s annual Through the Garden Gate tour — Beyond the Bridle Path, which takes place on two days only: June 20 and 21. It’s not every day you get a chance to ogle the gardens of one the toniest [...]
The semi-annual Journees des Plantes at Courson, just outside Paris, draws plant nerds from all over France, Europe and North America — including me! In May, 2009, three and a half days of pouring rain tested the mettle of both visitors and exhibitors alike. But muddy ruts a foot deep and tractors pulling cars out [...]
6. Get thee to a greenhouse! When it’s frosty outside, it’s a tropical paradise inside a greenhouse or conservatory. Here in Toronto there are several indoor gardens, including Allan Gardens in the heart of the city, the Cloud Forest Conservatory to the west of the downtown core and Centennial Park Conservatory in Etobicoke. Outside of [...]
Winter is not high on my list of gardening seasons. Around February, waiting for the weather to warm up, I get itchy feet and twitchy green thumbs. To get me through the dreary days, I’ve developed a list of winter gardening passtimes to while away the winter. Here’s the first one of my top ten list: 1. Escape [...]
No matter where I wander, I find city gardens with loads of personality. Nancyland in Portland OR is one of the best examples. Here’s a garden that grabs you by the eyeballs and says, hi, this is my world and I hope ya’ll like it. Hold on tight, ‘cos your eyes will dart from the mosaic pebble [...]
Gardeners seem to grow like weeds up on the Bruce Peninsula. In addition to all the fabulous gardens I wrote about in A Day (Or Two) in the Country, I recently discovered another beautiful country garden large enough to make a city gardener green with envy. From the winding country road it flanks, My Heart [...]
In the summertime, there are two types of families: cottage people and stay-at-home city folk. Ours is one of the latter. On the May 24 weekend, we watch as the city empties out and wait for the blissful quiet to descend on the city. This euphoria lasts for a few weekends, and then we get [...]
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