“I wandered lonely as a Cloud That floats on high o’er Vales and Hills, When all at once I saw a crowd A host of dancing Daffodils” – William Wordsworth I’m getting quite an education in narcissus this year. Although, not just in the botanical sense, come to think of it. Har har. It seems …
Recently, I’ve started some of my summer flowers from seed and the potential for future colour and perfume laying dormant in those little packages has got me daydreaming once again about all of the inspiring and cheerful cosmos I saw in the Caribbean.
Last August, Davin and I took a short jaunt to Montreal to wind down following the final delivery of the Grow Great Grub layout. While there, we stopped at the Drawn & Quarterly book shop, called Librairie D + Q to pick up some new comics. Drawn & Quarterly are an independent comic book publisher …
Today’s photo is a mixed botanical of sorts, representing tropical colour explosion at its best. I took this photo on a street corner in the town of Soufriere, St. Lucia. I can spot roses and croton (big colourful hedges) in the background, but what stands out most are the two red clerodendron (aka Clerodendrum) flowers …
I bought this adorable little Primula aricula ‘Pinstripe’ the other day at the Ontario Rock Garden Society sale. It was the one plant purchased there that I didn’t really need, but couldn’t bear to leave behind. I’m currently keeping it in a little hypertuffa pot I made years back (molded around a plastic drinking cup), …
This is one of those ideas I wish I’d thought of but didn’t. Who can remember all of the different plants and varieties one is growing at any one time? Especially when the plants are all so similar like those in this sempervivum trough. My uber gardening pal Barry is behind this very smart method …
One of the things I brought back with me from our month-long Caribbean trip (did that really happen?) was a renewed enthusiasm for some of the tropicals we grow here at home as houseplants and annuals. Seeing them in their natural habitat provided new, helpful insights into their growth habits and needs, and an appreciation …
Sempervivums or Hens and Chicks as they are commonly called, are an incredibly hardy, and drought tolerant succulent that can take a fair amount of abuse, yet when I was starting out on my roof, they were the last plant I wanted to grow. I’d come to associate them with the few that had been …
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Click title to see full photo.
Staking is one of those topics that I was sadly unable to cover in the Grow Great Grub book due to space considerations. I covered it pretty thoroughly in You Grow Girl and I have to say that years later, and having experimented with other methods, my go-to cheap and cheerful method both in the …
Hepatica nobolis is a tiny early blooming woodland plant that does well as an under-planting and doesn’t seem to mind a bit of dryness now and again. I rarely see it in use — it seems to be overlooked in favor of the larger, more colorful bulbs that flower around the same time. Or perhaps …