City Gardening

a gardening blog-a-zine by Lorraine Flanigan

Posts Tagged ‘landscaping’

Tips for Designing with Bulbs

By Lorraine • Oct 17th, 2008 • Category: Fall, Plants, Season-By-Season

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 [...]



Plan a season-long display of bulbs

By Lorraine • Oct 15th, 2008 • Category: Fall, Plants, Spring

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 [...]



Garden Show Off Contest

By Lorraine • Oct 8th, 2008 • Category: Style, Tempting Projects

Attention, home-grown garden designers. Canadian Gardening is running an online beauty contest for the best home and garden makeovers. This is a chance for all city gardeners to strut your stuff and show off your horticultural accomplishments. Even if you don’t think your garden is worthy, it’s fun to scroll through the entries with a savvy eye [...]



3 Ways To “Fluff” a Garden

By Lorraine • Oct 4th, 2008 • Category: Style, Tempting Projects

My cleaning lady is a “house fluffer”. When she’s not vacuuming and dusting, she’s tarting up a house to make it look its best before it goes up for sale. An outsider like her, charged with the task of transforming well-lived-in spaces into masterpieces of interior design, has a fresh and objective eye on what [...]



Nancyland

By Lorraine • Sep 26th, 2008 • Category: Favourite Gardens

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 [...]



In Praise of Late Summer Gardens

By Lorraine • Aug 28th, 2008 • Category: Dig in, Summer

How and when did we start thinking that back-to-school time signals the change in seasons from summer to fall? Technically, summer is with us until September 22, so there’s a whole lotta summer left to enjoy. If you’re one of the many who think that June is the peak of the gardening season, listen up [...]



Edgy Edger

By Lorraine • Aug 25th, 2008 • Category: Dig in, Summer

Walking to the store the other day, I passed my neighbour, Mr. Grillo, who was cutting a fine edge on his lawn where it meets the sidewalk. Smitten by the ancient tool he was using to do the job, which was held together by wire in typical Mr. Grillo style, I stopped to marvel at [...]