The house

A Victorian Garden

Yesterday I spoke at the Colby-Curtis Museum in Stanstead, Quebec, home to the Stanstead Historical Society. The museum is a local treasure, housed in a classical revival-style villa built in 1859 called Carrollcroft.     The current exhibition, Abundant in Bloom, is well worth visiting. It looks at  the gardens created by the women of the Colby family…

cardamine diphylla (1 of 1)

What’s in a Name?

I saw this wildflower in the woods last week and was surprised to learn its botanical name, Cardamine diphylla.     I was surprised because only a week or so ago, I looked up the name of another plant, now growing in damp areas in the garden and in the fields at Glen Villa. Its botanical name…

Moss forms a quilt on an old iron frame bed.

Terracing the China Terrace

One of the first projects I undertook at Glen Villa was the China Terrace, a contemporary folly that honours an old resort hotel that once stood on the property. I first wrote about it as a conceptual garden. Following that, I wrote about it sporadically, focusing on the changes I made —  the bed that shook off its annuals…

Saturday late afternoon-020

The Big Meadow, Year 3

In 2016, in order to discourage Canada geese from ‘littering’ the  lawn, we began to transform it into a meadow. We didn’t follow the advice given by experts on how to create a meadow — their process involved too much work and too much expense. Instead we simply stopped cutting the grass. We let it grow throughout the season…

I think this is Heuchera

New Growth

Today it is grey and rainy but yesterday felt like spring. And how wonderful that was! Despite the soggy ground, covered in many places with deer pellets and dead leaves, I spent an hour or so wandering around the garden, enjoying the sunshine and the new growth that was popping up in every warm corner.…