Grassy Garden Paths

Today, when nothing for me but snow and ice is underfoot, I am thinking about garden paths and how they affect the way we move through our gardens. The material used for the path, its width, whether it is straight or curved, whether we can see where it is leading or not — these aspects and more…

What could be hidden behind those doors?

The Colour of Winter

Last week’s post titled ‘Winter Interest’ sparked a critical comment from Anne Wareham, a reader in Wales who is editor of the on-line site ThinkinGardens.  Using the word ‘interest’ to describe anything in a garden, she wrote, “seems so very odd and hardly apposite really.” I agree. Interest is one of those lazy words we use…

Winter Interest

When I first began gardening,, I thought that Quebec’s winter landscape could offer nothing of interest. Now I realize that I only needed to train my eye to see things differently. Instead of looking to plants for interest, I needed to look for patterns and details. Details like the sun-sparkled fuzz of snow that coated a clump of…

The linden just after last year

A New Tree to Follow

Last year I ‘followed’ a tree, a rather pitiful corkscrew hazel, becoming less and less enamoured with it as each month passed. But I enjoyed the process of closely examining the tree and chronicling the changes month to month — and I enjoyed following other trees written about by other tree lovers from around the world. I…