The autumn colours seem particularly intense this year at Glen Villa, my garden in Quebec’s Eastern Townships. Leaves started to turn earlier than usual and the height of the season has almost come and gone. But what a season it has been! It started early, when a small horse chestnut tree (Aesculus pavia) began to…
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…
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…
Autumn is spectacular in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. Unfortunately I’ve had little time to enjoy it this year, because earlier this month we sold our condominium in Montreal where we’ve lived for the last 22 years. Cleaning and sorting and disposing of the contents has taken a lot of time and effort. In fact, it’s…
Today is Thanksgiving day in Canada, and there is much to be thankful for. In the garden, colours are bright. Even when the flowers have faded, I’m thankful for work that’s been done. At the Aqueduct the catmint ( Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’) has been cut back, making the bed look more like a…
I missed the peak of autumn colour this year in the Eastern Townships of Quebec — where colours are as good as (or better than?) any place in North America — because of some trips that took me away from home. So when a friend sent me a photo he took a week or so ago of the hills…
This year autumn is slow in coming. Often by the end of September, the hills are as colourful as the big box of Crayola crayons I always begged (unsuccessfully) my mother to buy, with trees standing in ranges of red, orange and pink, gold and chartreuse, and occasional patches of dark wintery green. Not this year.…
It’s been raining steadily for the last few days and most trees have lost their leaves. But not all. The linden tree at the end of the lawn was radiant one day last week, just before the rain began to fall. Colour remains, but you have to look more closely to find it. The hydrangea bushes…
Travelling is wonderful, but nothing beats being at Glen Villa on a perfect autumn day, when the air is clear, the sky is blue and nothing in particular has to be done. This morning I walked around the garden, my first walk-about in three weeks. A few flowers are still blooming, like the never-say-die sedum…