City Gardening

There were so many plants, both in the gardens we toured and in the exhibit halls where growers were showing off their latest and greatest, that it was difficult to narrow down the list of most lusted-after plants for this series of blog postings. But I just couldn’t take my eyes off… 5. Mahonia ‘Soft [...]

At the 2009 Garden Writers Symposium in Raleigh North Carolina, I fell in love with… 2. Euphorbia ‘Ascot Rainbow’ Wandering deep within the display gardens at Plant Delights, I lost my heart to Euphorbia ‘Ascot Rainbow’. I stopped myself from sighing and drooling over this gem of a plant only long enough to whip out [...]

Niche marketing has reached new heights. Just in time for Easter, I’ve discovered a nursery that specializes in chocolate plants. Chocolate Flower Farm in Langley Washington features all things chocolate, from candles, soap and teas to annual and perennial plants and seeds. Oh my, and what temptations they have!  I’m salivating over Nicotiana ‘Chocolate Smoke’ and [...]

Just in the last week, I’ve attended two lectures on vegetable gardening, read innumerable blog posts about planting veggies and today, what do you think arrived in the mail? Doug Green’s Guide to Canadian Vegetable Gardening. For a dyed in the wool carnivore, all this talk about vegetable plots is a tad difficult to swallow. [...]

Grounded in Toronto after a getaway trip to Florida, I’m already looking for another way to get me through the winter. So, here’s number two: 2. Spend your Christmas gift certificates. I was lucky enough to land two gift certificates to my favourite gardening emporia — Lee Valley Tools and Gardenimport. Several dog-eared pages mark my [...]

In an age of instant gratification, it’s a wonder we have the patience to plant fall bulbs at all when we know it’ll be a good five to six months before we see their flowers in bloom.Why do these plants hold such sway over our impatient tendencies? Certainly there’s a feeling of satisfaction at planting [...]

Think spring now! To ignore the coming season is to court horticultural disaster – a naked garden devoid of tulips, crocuses and daffodils when across the street your neighbours flaunt their vernal finery. Fall is the time to plant these colourful spring flower bulbs.For gardeners, the bins of bulbs that line the aisles of garden [...]

Fall is in the air and you probably think it’s time I started writing about fall bulbs. Well, although I promise to do it soon, I’m not quite ready.That’s because I’ve just been re-introduced to the herb garden, which reminded me that fall is also a time for harvesting and preserving culinary herbs such as [...]

Are there naked ladies in your garden? Calm down, I’m not talking about nude gardening; I’m referring to flower bulbs that bloom in the fall.Naked ladies, also called autumn crocus and known botanically as Colchicum, are bulbs that can be planted right now that will bloom this fall – unlike other hardy bulbs, such as [...]

For the last three years, I’ve been anxiously watching the progress (or lack thereof) of Acanthus hungaricus, a spectacular architectural perennial I fell in love with on a trip to Jordan, Ontario in the Niagara Region. For the first two summers, the plant was barely there. Last year, it seemed to leaf out into a [...]