Welcome to the GVAG Blog

Lady Byng, Where Are You?

The hunt is on for a lost peony, the Lady Byng. This special peony was said to be very pretty, and it definitely was colourful, bright crimson carmine with a distinctive cushion of buff and deep red.  It was also expensive: in 1926, it cost an astronomical $35. This is what it looked like:  …

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Happy Birthday to a one-year old blog!

A year ago this week I wrote the first entry for this blog, Glen Villa: Site and Insight. In the introductory post, I acknowledged that I didn’t know how the blog was going to evolve. I know I want to write about my garden, Glen Villa, and about how it got to be what it…

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2013: Glen Villa reviewed

The end of January isn’t the obvious time to do a year-end review, but since 2013 is well and truly over,  it’s now or never. And since next week marks the one year anniversary of this blog, and I plan to review some of the top posts and your comments about them, writing a month…

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Observing and learning

A few months ago Don Stratham, a New York state garden consultant, wrote a blog post about garden mishaps, or learning from failures in the garden, in his blog called Rooting for Ideas. He listed some of his mistakes — and what they had taught him. But what his post made me think of was…

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Looking ahead: Glen Villa in 2014

I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. But planning ahead for the garden is a regular winter activity. So this is what I plan (correction: make that hope) to do in 2014. 1. Clean up loose ends. This category includes more things than I like to think about. I often start new projects before the old…

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