Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata), Buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica), and Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica). If plants could ride horses, these would be the three horsemen of the Invasive Plant Apocalypse – at least for shady areas in the Midwest. However, a recent post in The Native Plant Herald (the blog of Prairie Nursery in Wisconsin) tells us …
Last post was about white flowers, specifically white flowers in my garden that bloom in spring. Might as well finish my thought and talk about the white flowers of summer and fall.
The weather has just taken a wintery turn here in Chicago. Arctic air has buckled southward, bringing cold and modest snowfall. For the moment there is a blanket of white that covers the ground. Snow provoked thoughts of white flowers, and how it shouldn’t be too long before they would brighten the garden. Considering white …
Here’s another garden we got to visit in the Forest Hill section of Toronto. Again, remember that this is early June.
Another memorable experience from the Toronto Garden Bloggers Fling back in June was our tour of Cabbagetown gardens. Cabbagetown is a neighborhood east of downtown Toronto. Originally home to Irish immigrants so poor they grew cabbages in their front yards, the area slid into a long decline before gentrification began in the 1970s. As is …
Here’s something new for your shady garden: American Spikenard (Aralia racemosa). This is a big woodland perennial native to a large swath of Eastern and Central North America, from Quebec to Manitoba and from Georgia to Texas. American Spikenard has been growing in my garden for two summers and so far I am pleased with …
This summer I defied Impatiens downy mildew and lived to tell the tale. For two years I have avoided Impatiens (Impatiens walleriana) because of a widespread and devastating blight that has received extensive publicity. Despite the tidings of doom, my neighbor John planted Impatiens for both of those years with no problems. You can accuse …
So on Tuesday night my Bloom Day post was getting long, and I was getting tired, so I decided to cover the back garden in a second post. Which is what I’m doing now. I refer to the back garden as my shady garden, but it is a light, dappled shade mostly from tall Silver …
So much is going on I almost forgot to do the last post about our visit to the Toronto Islands, which Judy and I visited as part of the 2015 Garden Bloggers Fling back in June. You can find the earlier posts here and here. The Toronto Islands are just a few minutes by ferry …
Three private homes in the Swansea neighborhood were the first gardens we saw in Toronto during the Garden Bloggers Fling. Swansea borders on the Humber River, Lake Superior (Correction: Lake Ontario – sheesh, for dumb), and High Park, one of Toronto’s largest and most popular parks. The first garden we saw made the biggest impression …
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