City Gardening

a gardening blog-azine by Lorraine Flanigan

Archives for the ‘Plants’ Category

Falling in love with Helleborus x hybridus

By • Apr 28th, 2012 • Category: Favourite Plants, Plants, Spring

  I’m in love. The handsome specimen that’s caught my eye is perfect in every way. Long-lasting flowers that bloom in a rainbow of colours, evergreen foliage that looks good all year-round (it gets a bit tattered after our long winters, but what doesn’t?) and it’s perfectly happy growing in shade. Oh, you thought I [...]



Best easy-care flowering shrubs

By • Apr 20th, 2012 • Category: Favourite Plants, Plants

Although I enjoy spending as much time  as I can in the garden, I know that many of you just don’t have the time to tend to finicky flowers or vigorous vines. But you still want a beautiful backyard, right? Modern-day flowering shrubs just may be the answer for you. Shrubs have always been easier [...]



10 Ways to Weather Winter

By • Feb 11th, 2012 • Category: Dig in, Season-By-Season

The hubbub of the holidays may have distracted you from the dearth of winter gardening opportunities, but just in time, as the lows that follow the sugar rush from a feast of festive treats threatens to dump you into horticultural doldrums, here’s City Gardening’s annual list of ways to keep your green thumb growing through [...]



When native plants aren’t the answer

By • Feb 8th, 2011 • Category: Plants

Belinda Gallagher tells it like it is. And backed by an impressive career as a nursery-owner and most recently, as Head of Horticulture at the Royal Botanical Gardens, her words reflect her experience and pragmatism. Although I missed her lecture on January 27, 2011 at the Toronto Botanical Garden, my good friend (and note-taker extraordinaire) Lorraine Hunter was there. [...]



If I had to choose just one … Japanese anemone, it would be ‘Honorine Jobert’

By • Jun 23rd, 2010 • Category: Favourite Plants, Plants

The first time I saw ‘Honorine Jobert’ was in the south of France — near Nice I think — when I was on vacation and just new to gardening. I was dazzled by an entire border of these tall, white-flowered perennials waving in the wind. When it came time to plant my small woodland garden, I [...]



If I had to choose just one … brunnera, it would be ‘Jack Frost’

By • Jun 10th, 2010 • Category: Favourite Plants, Plants

You may prefer the creamy edges of Brunnera ‘Hadspen Cream’ or the gold-rimmed ‘King’s Ransom’ or even the silvery leaves of  ‘Looking Glass’, but my heart will always be true to ‘Jack Frost’. It’s not just the snowy foliage (it reminds me of Frosted Flakes cereal — maybe it’s a nostalgia thing…), or those gorgeous forget-me-not [...]



If I had to choose just one … hardy geranium, it would be ‘Rozanne’

By • Jun 7th, 2010 • Category: Favourite Plants, Plants

Walking through my garden the other morning, it occured to me that I tend to hang onto plants whether they perform or not. In other areas of my life, I’m ruthless about getting rid of things I no longer use, wear, read, eat — well, you get the picture. So, in an effort to force [...]



Matthew Wilson’s Picks: Star Plants for Small Gardens

By • Feb 24th, 2010 • Category: Favourite Plants, Plants

If you haven’t been keeping up with my Tweets, you might well ask: Who on earth is Matthew Wilson and why the heck should I care about his star plant picks for small gardens? Well, firstly, he lives up to his nickname of Heathcliff of the Hedgerows (although the debate rages about whether he’s more [...]



The Year of the Vegetable Gardening Book: City Farmer by Lorraine Johnson

By • Feb 12th, 2010 • Category: Plants, Veggies & Herbs

Geared to city gardeners, Lorraine Johnson’s City Farmer: Adventures in Urban Food Growing will be available in April, 2010 — just in time to start sowing! Wanna know more? Read what Greystone publishers have to say about it.



Olympic Gold: Helleborus Vancouver Medallion

By • Feb 12th, 2010 • Category: Plants, Spring

What better way to welcome athletes and visitors to the Winter Olympics than with drifts of  this gorgeous Vancouver Medallion hellebore?  Thanks to the advance planning of the Garden Club of Vancouver and Heritage Perennials, 750 of these specially named hellebores (the cultivar name is ‘Candy Love’ — appropriate for upcoming Valentine’s Day, too) have been planted in [...]