You are invited! On Thursday, I’m launching Autobiography of a Garden from 5-7 at the Visual Arts Centre, 350 Victoria Ave, Westmount, Quebec. Wine and cheese will be served! Autobiography of a Garden tells the story of my 25-year journey, as a conventional country property became a landscape that challenges what a…
Tonight I’m officially launching my new book, Autobiography of a Garden. Date: Friday, July 29Place: Studio Georgeville20 Carré Copp, Georgeville QCTime: 5-7 Tomorrow night is the second book launch of the weekend. So if you can’t come tonight, do join me tomorrow. Date: Saturday, July 30Place: Gillygooly Gallery96 Hatley Centre RoadCanton-de-Hatley, QCTime: 4-6 Everyone is…
What a wonderful thing it is to fulfill a life-time ambition! I’ve wanted to visit Levens Hall since the early 1960s. That summer, a young English girl arrived in Virginia to spend a year living with me and my family and, as a gift, she brought us a book about English gardens. On the cover…
Glen Villa has a new website! No longer Site and Insight, the place to go for garden news and reviews is now Glen Villa Art Garden On this new site you will find the same write-ups of gardens I visit around the world and the same punchy opinions and commentary about…
Last week I was in Austin, Texas to give one of my favourite talks, about using art in a garden. I was there as part of a series called Garden Spark, arranged by writer and gardener extraordinaire, Pam Penick. (You can find her regular blogs at www.penick.net/digging) The talk was held outdoors at Barton Springs…
My first blog post appeared in January, 2013. I had so much to say then, so many thoughts about gardens and garden design, that for many years I posted weekly. Recently my posts have been fewer and farther between, not because I have less to say but because other work has been more pressing. I…
When I look out my bedroom window, this is what I see. Or what I will see before long. Lake Massawippi isn’t frozen yet, but frozen or not, the prospect reminds me that this is the time of year to look ahead. And to look back. What did I accomplish in the garden…
Memorials are not typically found in private gardens. Occasionally you see a marker for a well-loved pet, like the one below that I came across at Glen Villa Art Garden, my garden in Quebec’s Eastern Townships. Stones like Goldie’s make a sorrowful statement about the past, but they also are aimed at the future, at…
When our children were young, I dreaded taking them to the grocery store. If I was lucky, the expedition would be quick and easy. But some days, the little brats screamed for chocolates or put unwanted items into the shopping cart, and when I took them out, they created a scene. Unpleasant for me and…
I first visited the Reford Gardens when the government of Quebec was in charge, sometime in the 1980s, I think, when the gardens were not very interesting. I can’t count how many times I have visited since, though, and always with enormous pleasure. Les Jardins de Métis are divided in two parts, a historic garden…