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Back in my garden today after five weeks away, leading garden tours in England, Wales and Ireland, and I already see how much work I need to do. There is so much morning glory. It has grown everywhere. How has it managed to get a hold so fast in such a short time. Jet-lag meant I woke early this morning and was...

Oh my, time once again to put the garden to bed for winter. Kew has mighty forklifts to place heavy citrus box planters into storage. But I have my own heavy-lifting apparatus - my son, Peter, who comes, without complaining every October, to help me lift heavy pots of tender plants into their winter quarters where they will be protected...

Well, it certainly looks as if the obsession with honeysuckle pillars that I caught at Powis Castle Garden in North Wales earlier this month has already taken hold in my garden. At the weekend, I installed a large 6-by-6 timber post and planted two Goldflame honeysuckles at opposite corners. I first saw these pillars used in an attractive, repetitive design at...

The Garden Tours Reunion Party on Sept 2 - a celebration of the 22 garden tours I have led over the past nine years - was a big success. Eight-two people attended the event at the Shadbolt Centre at Deer Lake in Burnaby, next door to one of the nicest gardens in the Lower Mainland, Century Garden. The Cory Weeds Trio...

Not sure what this has to do with gardening, except that I saw this demonstration at the Chelsea Flower Show in May and was quite amazed. Here you see artist Adrian Grey balancing a very large, heavy stone at an impossibly acute angle on another large boulder. At first, I thought he was just pretending to be a living sculpture, holding...

What did Darwin, Dickens, Monet, Bronte and Van Gogh all have in common? Well, they all had the chance to listen to the music of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven and see a play by Shakespeare and see a painting by Rembrandt. I feel even luckier to have been born this end of history’s timeline when we have antibiotics, classics at our...

Pleaching is a clever technique that involves twining together the branches of a row of closely planted trees to create a stylish, formal hedge-on-stilts. It’s not something you see here in Canada or even in the U.S. much. But in Holland, and especially in France, you see it everywhere. Some of the best examples I’ve seen include rows of pleached chestnuts in...

It’s not at all unusual for gardeners to grow old and discover they are unable to take care of their garden as well as they would like. It’s a sad but common eventuality. And what often happens is that such gardens - even very beautiful ones that have taken years and years...

Today, I am delighted to announced the official launch of my 15-day Ireland Grand Circle Tour.It will start in Dublin on Oct. 1 and circle around the picturesque south coast and along the sensational west coast and up to Northern Ireland, Derry, Belfast and out to the Giant’s Causeway before returning to Dublin. We will be staying in excellent hotels including a...

In May, I will be in London with a tour group, visiting the Chelsea Flower Show, which this year runs from May 21 to 25 in its usual spot on the grounds of the Chelsea Hospital by the Thames. This is always an exciting event. Chelsea is the world’s premier show. There...

The Beautiful Cities Tour got off to a great start this week with all of us arriving in Berlin for the start of a fabulous trip that will take us to Prague and Vienna and Bratislava.In Berlin, we toured all the top sites from the Brandenburg Gate to the Reichstag and the Berlin Wall as well as key war...

Laskett, the garden of Sir Roy Strong The decision to visit a garden is an important one. It's a commitment that starts deep in the soul, I believe, and it's a decision that is then manifested by the eventual physical walk to the garden. The process of getting...

I know exercise is important. These days I'm content to walk the dog or go for a swim or a bike ride. That's about it. My days of jogging and playing soccer are over. Not that I lack energy, but I know I don't have the same muscle strength to support knees and ankles and hips from being injured from...

Our last few days in Berlin were spent visiting Museum Island in the centre of the city.We also took the train to Charlottenburg Palace on the outskirts of Berlin and also enjoyed an open-top boat ride on the Spree River.On Museum Island, we visited the Pergamon Panorama, a 360-degree multi-media presentation designed to take you back 1,900 years to...

Some years ago, I was invited to see the Beaty Museum of Biodiversity on the University of B.C. campus.  I never got there, but I always regretted not making more of an effort. This week, Spring Break, I decided to remedy that and visit the museum with my grandchildren, Maya and Banks.

We travelled in a luxury double-decker coach from Berlin to Prague, stopping on the way in Dresden where we had a splendid lunch and time to shop and look around.Dresden was tragically bombed during the Second World War and much of its heritage downtown was turned into rumble.  Dresden area next to the Church of Our Lady Over the past 20...

My dear friend and travel companion Larry Wick, one of North Vancouver’s most well-known gardeners, has died at the age of 99. Larry in Hong Kong on his way with us to Myanmar Larry travelled with us to South Africa, Spain, Morocco and Myanmar. Larry with me in cactus garden in South Africa Everyone loved Larry. He was a wonderful, gentle, kind-hearted guy,...

After a splendid last night in Prague when we went to Reduta, a famous jazz club, for a night of Billie Holiday music, we headed out of the city for Vienna. But first, we stopped at the Dancing House (Fred and Ginger), the famous Frank Gehry architectural landmark, to take a few pictures. Lednich Castle on the way to Vienna On the...

We’ve just got back from a 16-day trip to Spain and England. So how hard was it, travelling in these Covid-scary times?Well, the first issue we had to deal with was literally making sure we could get on the flight out of Vancouver. On the London Tube with masks in place.It's the safest way. We were going to Barcelona via Munich,...

Our 13-day Beautiful Cities Tour to Berlin, Prague, Vienna and Bratislava was a great success with everyone returning home happy and healthy after what was an exciting and action-packed trip. It was our 31st tour and many of the people who came had travelled with us  before. This made it feel like a reunion with everyone sharing stories of past...