Montreal is blessed with several great outdoor markets. My local one is the Atwater Market, smaller than some, larger than others. It sells meats, fish, cheeses, breads, fruits, vegetables and almost every sort of food you can put a name to. At this time of year, though, the Atwater Market is brimming over with pumpkins.…
In the last week I’ve been visiting gardens and looking at sculpture and art installations, indoors and out. I’ve visited art museums, gardens where sculpture is integrated into the setting, gardens with temporary sculpture exhibitions and sculpture parks where commissioned pieces are site specific. It’s been a fabulous experience, instructive as well as enjoyable. I started my week…
Site and Insight: Reflecting on Art and Landscape has been honoured with a prestigious Silver Award for electronic media. The award, for the website overall, was given by The Garden Writers’ Association, a large American-based organization that brings together garden writers from around the world. Site and Insight was one of 231 entries judged…
“A natural clearing in a wood is a glade. But a perfectly round clearing the same size, in the same wood, becomes a garden.” … Juan Grimm, Chilean landscape architect Ten years ago,…
What a pleasure it is to return to Glen Villa, my garden in Quebec, after three weeks spent visiting gardens in Scotland and England. Seeing so many amazing places there, I was worried that my own garden would be a disappointment. It wasn’t. It isn’t. Yes, I can see dozens of things, large and small,…
Over the last week, as part of a tour I’ve been leading through gardens in Scotland and the north of England, I’ve been fortunate enough to see four earth works created by Charles Jencks. Jencks is an American architectural theorist, writer and landscape architect who has lived in Scotland for many years and now divides his…
The Princes Street Gardens sit in the centre of Edinburgh, in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle. They were created in the late 1700s and early 1800s after a loch, originally part of the castle’s defences, was drained. The gardens are divided in two sections, East and West, that together cover some 37.5…
Trees play a major role at Glen Villa, my garden in Quebec’s Eastern Townships. They provide shade in summer, colourful foliage in autumn and the promise that comes with spring green buds. In winter bare branches of deciduous trees offer a stark colour contrast outlined against the snow, and evergreens provide structure and a touch of colour…
One of the first flower beds I added at Glen Villa was The Dragon’s Tail, a line of grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum) that sweeps across a flat grassy area like a child’s scribble. I laid out the shape with a lawn mower, cutting a gentle curve, then altering it slightly to add a bit more…
A common principle of garden design states that the style of a house should be mirrored in the style of the garden. A Georgian brick house is most comfortable surrounded by a symmetrical garden, a country cottage by loose and flowing borders. While this ‘rule’ is not iron-clad and exceptions can be successful if skillfully done, ignoring the architecture…