Visiting gardens is one the joys of my life. For the last four years, I’ve been hosting small group tours to gardens in Britain and Italy, working alongside an outstanding professional travel agent based in Vancouver. Julia Guest at Travel Concepts does the detailed planning that is essential to ensure a good garden tour. Without her…
The most recent post on the excellent British website ThinkinGardens is about the use of allusions in gardens. Noel Kingsbury, one of three people taking part in the conversation, suggested that allusions were all well and good in gardens from other times and places but that in today’s gardens, they are outmoded. “Allusion in the West which…
Percy Bysshe Shelley knew a thing or two about spring. His Ode to the West Wind ends with a hopeful phrase: Be through my lips to unawakened Earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? At Glen Villa, the answer seems to be yes, it can be.…
Last week I was wondering what I would find when I returned to Glen Villa, my garden in rural Quebec. Would the snowdrops be gone, the crocus out in full force? Would I even find a daffodil or two? The quick answer is, no. Six weeks in warmer climes made me forget that this is only the…
After more than a month, I’m heading north in a few days, returning to my garden in Quebec. It’s been a strange winter… the winter that wasn’t, someone called it. So I don’t know what I’ll find in the garden when I finally arrive. I’ve heard that in the Eastern Townships, my part of Quebec,…
Tree Rings, the sculpture I created to honour a maple tree at my garden Glen Villa, is featured in Garden Design Magazine’s on-line newsletter. I’m really pleased. Why wouldn’t I be? The article is a wow! Tree Rings Stainless Steel Sculpture – Garden Design See how laser-cut stainless steel rings pay tribute to an ancient maple…
Magnolia Plantation is one of South Carolina’s premier attractions. Located on the Ashley River near Charleston, it bills itself as America’s last large-scale Romantic-style garden. It fits the definition. It is a garden where form, balance and symmetry are thrown to the wind, where views are calculated to appeal to emotion rather than reason and…
I don’t normally post more than once a week but the wildlife here on Kiawah Island keeps giving me pictures to share. Yesterday I spotted this Great Blue Heron fishing… and enjoying the catch.
Strictly speaking, the headline on this week’s blog post should read wildlife instead of wild life. Because for the last few weeks life here has been anything but wild. Instead, the days have passed gently, giving me a very welcome break, with time to read, think and bike around the island, enjoying everything I see.…
For the last week I’ve been enjoying warm snow-free days on Kiawah Island, a vacation spot off the coast of South Carolina. One of the joys of being here (apart from the weather, of course) is seeing plants I can’t identify. This isn’t because they are rare, it’s because they are unfamiliar, and in vacation…