Welcome to the GVAG Blog

An old hand-coloured postcard shows Glen Villa Inn.

We Are (Re)Building a Wall

Don’t worry, it’s not a border wall we are building, only the foundation wall of the old Glen Villa Inn.     The grand old resort hotel was built in 1902 and burned down in 1909. In the summer it attracted guests from around North America, particularly southerners who came north to escape the heat and…

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This photo shows how the pine tree towered above the trees around it.

Pining Away

I’m not pining away, but the pine tree is. Or was. This week we tackled a big job that I’ve been wanting to do for a few years, which was to remove an enormous old pine tree near the bank of Lake Massawippi. The photo below from 2014 shows the beginning of the end of this…

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Oh, my. Luscious.

Kiftsgate Court: A Garden Review

Kiftsgate Court is one of those English gardens included on many garden tours, in part because it is so conveniently located, just down the road from Hidcote, the iconic garden created by the Anglo-American Lawrence Johnston. The gardens at Kiftsgate were created over the last hundred years by three generations of women — grandmother, mother and daughter —…

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Autumn Splendour

This weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving, and today I’m giving thanks for the splendours of autumn.  All week the colours have been spectacular!     This  view along the driveway at Glen Villa gives some idea of how brilliant the colour is.     On the stone wall of the house, Engelman ivy is a symphony of…

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Colourful leaves are just beginning to fall.

The China Terrace in Autumn

The China Terrace is my interpretation of history … a room in the garden at Glen Villa where I have recreated parts of Glen Villa Inn, the old resort hotel that once stood on our property. Towards the end of summer I wrote about the new ‘walls’ that we installed to mark the division between…

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