How did your plants spend their summer vacation? Walk out into the garden and take a look around. Have the Siberian irises crowded out the phlox? Are the stems of your yarrow lazily flopping over its neighbours? Has the centre of the your silvery artemisia browned-out? Did you notice how much smaller the peony flowers [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
4.Plant before the rush Hardy perennials can weather the pre-May 24 weather, so beat the rush to the nursery and select some of the season’s choicest plants as soon as they arrive. Once the ground has thawed and dried out, it’s a good time to plant shrubs and trees too, especially magnolias, birch, oak, yews, rhododendrons [...]
3. Divide and conquer Think back to last season. Did the flowers of your phlox seem a bit smaller than previous seasons? Did the middle of your clump of dianthus brown out? Were the stems of your yarrow so tightly packed that they seemed to be choking the life out of the plant? These are [...]
1.Make Cut Backs Stems and stalks of perennials like sedum, coneflower and phlox look wonderful growing through drifts of snow, but let’s face it, they’ve served their purpose, and as the world around them starts to turn green, their unsightly brown clumps should be chopped to the ground. Also remove the dead leaves of coral bells, [...]
4. Read a book. There’s nothing nicer than sitting by the fireplace, curled up with a good gardening book while snowflakes drift languidly outside. Bliss. Here’s what’s on my winter reading list:
Growing vegetables in the city has become so popular that the University of Guelph has launched The Guelph Centre for Urban Organic Farming. The one hectare market garden located in the northwest corner of the Arboretum offers hands-on, practical experience as part of part of U of G’s major in organic agriculture. Hankerin’ to be an [...]
Hens are hot. That’s the message I came back with from a recent tour of the gardens of Portland, Oregon. People are blogging about them (see Dirt by Amy Stewart), gardeners are raising them in urban gardens and at one city nursery called Pistils, they’re selling exotic species like Silkens and Frizzle Cochins (these were [...]
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 [...]
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