Why my life in the garden is still an endless joy
Am I still having fun in the garden? Yes, gardening is still a wonderful pastime. And, hard to believe, I am still getting excited about new plant acquisitions and new planting ideas.
This week, for instance, I saw for the first time a Tasmanian blueberry vine (Billardiera longiflora) in the garden of a friend on Salt Spring Island.
This vine,...
Now’s the perfect time to plant new bulbs for spring
What bulbs should you plant for a beautiful display next spring?
You'll find hundreds of varieties on offer at your local garden centre, but I found all the ones I need - all the ones I find perform best - are available, for much less, in nice packages at Costco.
I popped into my local store this week and picked...
Off to Salt Spring Island to talk about great gardens
Hard to believe, but while I've lived in BC since 1979, I've never visited Salt Spring Island.
Fact is, I’ve only been to one of the Gulf Islands - Pender - and that was a long, long time ago.
Later this month, I'll be going to Salt Spring to give a talk, Great Gardens, Great Ideas, to the local garden...
Tale of two visits: Polygon Gallery and Park and Tilford Garden
It has been years since I last walked around Park and Tilford Garden in North Vancouver.
I stopped by with my grandchildren as we made our way home from visiting the new Polygon Gallery at Lonsdale Quay.
We were all delighted at what we found at both the gallery and the garden.
The gallery is a wonderful new exhibition space. The Susan...
Back to WIG to get treatment for my little succulent picture
My little picture frame of succulents, which has decorated the front of my garage for the past five years, finally started to show its age this week and began to look a little tatty.
I decided it was time to lift and carry “the patient” to the plant hospital for treatment - in this case WIG, my favourite succulent nursery...
Look what can happen when you go to Point Roberts to see beautiful gardens
Over the years I’ve had a lot of fun going to visit private gardens on special tours organized by Point Roberts Garden Club.
One of the most memorable was in 2014 when I ended up meeting Dave and Jenny Stumpo for the first time.
They have a beautiful garden overlooking the ocean. At that time, their garden was full of ornamental...
Sorry but ants are not allowed to run willy-nilly in my garden
Killing creatures is not something I ever like to do. At heart, I like to think of myself as a man who wouldn't harm a fly.
I capture moths by hand or by using a glass or napkin whenever they find their way into the kitchen. Then, I release them gently back outside.
Slugs, if ever I catch them slithering...
World Cup soccer and gardening. It’s a great combination
My time these days is divided between two activities - watching World Cup soccer and doing garden projects. It's a pleasant mix.
In the garden, I decided to try growing Thunbergia alata, the Black-eyed Susan vine, up a metal spiral inside a plain terra-cotta container.
It already looks quite good and I am hoping the vine will eventually scramble to the...
Still love my beautiful Chinese tree after all these years
Lovely flowers of my Manglietia insignis here in full bloom.
They don’t open all at once, but sporadically, evenly decorating the tree with thick green buds with a slight burgundy tinge as well as fully-opened, exotic, waxy, pink and white, succulent-like flowers.
Native to western China, the Himalayas and Burma, the tree, sometimes called the Red Lotus, is evergreen here in...
Six garden wonders that continue to inspire and delight
The six wonderful garden projects featured here have inspired and delighted us for years. They are still among the most creative, original, artistic works of landscaping the world has seen.
I don't think it's going too far to call them six of the top garden wonders of the world. Let me know if you know other projects worthy of...
Great to be back in the garden but so much work to do
You play, you pay, says my neighbour.
What she is referring to is the fact that while I was away in Europe for a month (playing), my garden was suffering and languishing from neglect.
And when I got back, there was a mountain of maintenance to do to get the garden back in shape.
I always expect to find leaf...
Sorry St.Petersburg, I was wrong, you have lots of cafes, wine bars
Oh dear, I must apologize. How wrong was I to say I couldn’t find any outdoor cafes and wine bars in St. Petersburg. I was just not looking closely enough. Mea culpa. Mi dispiace. Прости (pras-Tee)
I must have been walking in all the wrong parts of town. I can’t explain why I got the impression that coffee shops and...
I see a plain fence and I wanted it painted black
My friend Rob Cannings and his wife, Joan, have a fabulous garden in Victoria. They have been working on it for many years.
It is special not just because of the wonderful variety of plants with different shapes and textures and sizes but also because it is a very dragonfly friendly garden.
But there’s a reason for that. Rob is...
Protected: How to use your garden to give kids wonderful memories
How do you get kids excited about gardens and gardening?
I’ve written about this many times before and I always seem to come back to the same old ideas.
Planting bulbs is good, mainly because it is easy and the children remember doing it when they see the results.
But this is not something I've ever talked about doing for spring-summer....
The breathtaking beauty of the spring garden in all its glory
One of the joys of spring, especially on a warm, sunny, late April evening, is to sit quietly in the garden and watch the sun slowly go down as it sends glorious shafts of soft light through the new leaves on Japanese maple trees.
I have tried to enhance this experience by pouring a glass of prosecco or by playing...
Rejoice! My favourite tool was lost and now it is found
I love my garden tools. But there is one I love more than all the rest - my beautiful, multi-functional, never tarnishing, never deteriorating, never diminishing six-in-one hand-trowel.
I love, love, love it. And I’ve had it for years and years and years. So you’ll understand my alarm, my despair, my devastation when I stepped out into the garden...
Wonder of germination: It’s all about the will to thrive and succeed
Germination is one of the great mysteries of life. Yes, we see it working. Yep, we have lots of science on the process.
But the reality of a seed springing to life, forcing its way out of the ground, showing a steely determination to succeed, an energy and will to live and grow and become something more than it...
Why barrenwort is no longer one of my most loved plants
In the early 1990s, I suffered, as did most other young gardeners who were starting out on their first major gardening project, from a serious case of plant lust: I felt I just had to have all the great plants in the book.
Of course, I ended up with a hodgepodge, a disjointed jumble of plants, some of which obviously...
New garden tours coming up and in the works for 2019
What new and upcoming garden tours do I have planned for the remainder of 2018 and into 2019?
In May, I will return to Italy for the ninth time to lead a very special Islands and Lakes Garden Tour, starting in Lugano and moving quickly to the Milanese lakes. You can see details here.
From there, we will head to Sardinia...
Untold stories from my India trip
Here are a few untold stories from my recent India Tour, stories that for one reason or another just didn’t fit into posts I published each day.
Head injury
The first and most important untold story is about how Bev Morris, one of the women in my tour group, slipped and fell and cracked open her head when she got up...
