This year, the Chelsea Flower Show celebrated its 100th birthday. To mark the event, the organizers broke a long-standing rule and allowed garden gnomes to appear. Celebrities like Elton John decorated and raffled gnomes to raise funds for the Royal Horticultural Society. It was a publicity stunt that worked. This year’s show attracted even more attention than normal, because…
Folk wisdom in Canada says that it is safe to plant tender annuals after May 24. Why that date? Because it’s Queen Victoria’s birthday. (Don’t ask, it makes no sense….) Generally, this is a safe guideline. But day before yesterday, on May 25, it snowed. It was cold — almost freezing, in fact. And we…
Recently I saw a photo of a giant yellow ducky floating in Hong Kong harbour. Called Spreading Joy Around the World, it’s by the Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman. And it is BIG: 54 ft, or 16.5 metres, tall. The artist said it was intended to make people feel happy. It worked. It made me smile.…
An article about Glen Villa, entitled An Artist’s Garden in Spring, appeared this week in the Montreal magazine Urban Expressions. Written by Donna Nebenzahl, the article is lavishly illustrated with my photographs of spring flowers. I particularly liked the big spread that shows the linden tree, with muscari, or grape hycinth, blooming in the grass. Urban Expressions…
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate; Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. — William Shakespeare Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 provided the title for…
A few weeks ago, rummaging around on the internet, I came across a blog written by Allan Becker, Garden Guru. Since he was a fellow Montrealer, I emailed him, suggesting that as neighbours of a sort, with common interests, we should get to know each other. Allan responded quickly, with some good advice. Thanks to…
What makes a good memorial? This question continues to occupy my mind, and not only because of the memorials I saw recently in Washington, D.C. and wrote about here. For more than two years I’ve been thinking about a creating a memorial to my mother who died in 2010 at the age of 97, after a full…
This book arrives at a good moment. In a few months, I’ll be visiting gardens in England along with fifteen other women, and Rory Stuart’s book offers some excellent pointers on what to pay attention to when visiting a garden and how to evaluate the experience. The subtitle, Experiencing, Making and Thinking Abut Gardens, explains…
Last year I dug up, divided and replanted about a dozen clumps of snowdrops. Amazing how a few bulbs will grow with time. According to my (less than perfect) planting records, originally I planted a few dozen snowdrops, ordinary ones that are readily available in most Canadian gardening catalogues. Thanks to an April 2012 blog…
Glory, hallelujah! Spring is finally here. Last Saturday the temperature rose to 24C (75 F). And suddenly, everything was bursting into bloom. Crocuses have been blooming for a few weeks now, and the suddenly warm day will shorten their life span. No matter. They remain a spot of light in the just-coming-to-life grass. No matter…