Recent Posts
Broken Tulips: Grow the Fabled Bulbs that Inspired Tulipmania
Through their beauty and unusual flower patterns, Broken Tulips offer not just a pretty display but a connection to a dramatic and tumultuous history.
Hardy Cyclamen
Cyclamen is a genus of plants known best for the florist cultivars of large, boldy-coloured flowers and dramatic mottled foliage grown as decorative, seasonal or short-lived pot plants. Many people remain unaware that there are species that are hardy in temperate gardens or that they are in leaf and in bloom in the fall, winter, and early spring!
Oddball Bulbs: Explore the Beautiful and Unusual World of Bulbs
Bulbs, corms, and rhizomes represent a particular life history strategy that has evolved in almost every region of the world. Applied to gardens, they offer us beauty, intrigue, and additional strategies for layering in interest and colour. Explore some of the most interesting oddball bulbs for your patio or garden.
Erythronium: Elegance for the Shade Garden
Erythronium is a genus of shady bulbs from North America and Eurasia that form beautiful carpets of ephemeral spring flowers on the forest floors of their native regions. They are known as fawn lilies, trout lilies, and dogtooth violets. They can be used for beautiful early spring displays in the shade garden.
Corydalis: Drifts of Colour for the Early Spring Shade Garden
Corydalis solida is a beautiful spring ephemeral that blooms in the shade garden when most perennials are still dormant. Plant them in clumps or drifts to give you colour and spring inspiration at the very beginning of the season.
Anemone: Windflowers for the Spring Garden
The beautiful wood anemones or windflowers produce carpets of dainty foliage and masses of beautiful flowers in shades of white, yellow, pink, lavender, and pale blue in early spring. Plant them in drifts in your shade garden to put on a show when your Hosta and ferns are only just thinking of breaking dormancy.
The Spheres and Fireworks of Allium: No One Should Live Without Ornamental Onions
Few garden plants offer flowers held in perfect spheres or dramatic fireworks. The ornamental onions or Allium are not be missed for dramatic and beautiful spring and summer displays.
Crocus: Everyone’s Favourite Early Spring Bulb
Crocus are the temperate world's favourite early spring bulb. They are beautiful and long-lived but also tough as nails with an amazing ability to shrug off the vagaries of early spring weather. They also come in various forms not commonly seen in garden centres. Explore all that Crocus have to offer!
Fabulous Foxtail Lilies
Few bulbs can create the kind of drama that foxtail lilies offer with their rockets of lily-like flowers reaching three, four, five, six, even eight feet high, depending on the species and cultivar you choose. Learn more about the amazing Eremurus!
Camas Lilies
Camassia or camas lilies are western North American native bulbs that occur from southern British Columbia to California and inland into the western mountains. They form spikes typically one to three feet tall of starry, lily-like flowers in white and various shades of blue. Learn more about these native beauties.
Luscious Lilies
Lilies offer beauty and fragrance and a succession of blooms from spring until late summer. They can also be inserted into small spaces between other plants to add a whole extra layer of colour into the garden.
Beautiful, Dependable Daffodils
Next to tulips, daffodils are probably the second most beloved of the spring bulbs, the proverbial runner up in spring's popularity contest. They don't have the broad colour range of the tulips but they are beautiful and dependable coming back year after year with ever expanding clumps. Explore the surprising diversity of the humble daffodil.
Fritillaria: Strange and Wonderful Bulbs for Gardens and Containers
Fritillaria are unusual yet beautiful bulbs guaranteed to add botanical intrigue to your garden and containers.
Snowdrops and Snowflakes for the Garden
Snowdrops and snowflakes might remind you of winter weather conditions but they are also the common names for some very special bulbs that mostly bloom in the late winter, early spring, and spring gardens. Learn more about Galanthus and Leucojum.
Botanical Tulips: Jewels of the Spring Garden
Botanical tulips are the species and their cultivars that were originally used to breed the big hybrid tulips made so famous by the Dutch. These smaller, daintier versions of tulips offer cool forms and colours and they are usually much longer lived, coming back year after year and multiplying when happy.
You Can Plant New Plants All Summer Long
You can plant new plants all summer long. A few careful steps are all that is required to successfully plant new perennials, shrubs, and trees during the dog days of summer.
Six Creative and Surprising Tips for Growing and Designing with Vines
No garden is complete without the beauty of vines climbing up fences and trellises and weaving through large shrubs and trees. From patio to garden, here are some design tips for integrating them into your personal space.
How to Grow Hardy Cypripedium Lady’s Slipper Orchids
Hardy lady's slipper orchids or Cypripedium are exquisite terrestrial orchids that can be grown down to zone 3, sometimes colder. Their hybrids are much easier to grow than the species and can double in flower count every year in good conditions!
Summer Spice Perennial Hibiscus
The Summer Spice perennial hibiscus are making waves with their new colour breaks including shades of blue! These relatives of the tropical hibiscus can be grown by most Canadian gardeners and have the largest flowers in the mallow family, typically 8-10 inches wide!
Poisonous Plants for Pets
There are many plants in our gardens that should not be eaten and that are potentially poisonous to pets and humans. Though they do not present a great danger, it's good to be aware of them so that your time spent in your garden or in parks with your furry friends can be safe and carefree.
Frida Kahlo’s Garden
The gardens within the courtyards of Frida Kahlo's La Casa Azul on the outskirts of Mexico City are a study in drama and serenity set against her stunning royal blue walls. Take a tour of the garden of one of the world's most recognizable and talented painters.
