We got to spend some time in the Montreal Botanical Garden’s Chinese Garden during our visit. This part of the botanical garden was created through a collaboration with the Parks Department of Montreal’s sister city, Shanghai. A prominent Shanghai landscape architect produced the design, 50 Chinese craftsmen worked on its creation, and tons of materials …
Because of time constraints, Judy and I only got to see a modest portion of what is on offer at the Montreal Botanical Garden. Its 185 acres of indoor and outdoor spaces provide rich opportunities for exploration. For this post, I want to focus on the Aquatic Garden. The entrance area is full of planters …
For the last few days, we’ve stayed at a cabin on the St. Lawrence. Here’s a view of the cabin. It’s the white one in the upper left – at the bottom of the hill. Just a few miles inland are the mountains of the Gaspe National Park, where Judy and I hiked to this …
We’re actually in Quebec right now, but we’ll be back soon. This picture was taken at the garden of Pat and Norman Webster, who live about 90 minutes southeast of Montreal (Pat writes the blog Site and Insight). I’ll have lots more about their truly amazing garden after we return to Chicago. Not to mention …
This is my second post about the recent gathering of nine Midwest garden bloggers to see the horticultural sites of Rockford, Illinois. First, let me respond to some grumbling in reaction to my defining Rockford as a “small city”. If this seemed like big city elitism to you, I apologize. I grew up in the …
Rockford, Illinois, is a small city on I-90 just a few miles from the Wisconsin border. I’ve been there many times for my job, and driven past it many more times on the way to Madison (where we once lived) or Minnesota (where my younger son and brother live). And yet, until Friday I had …
Last Sunday Judy and I made our first visit of the year to the Chicago Botanic Garden. Usually we go about once a month starting in May, and try to make certain highlights like when the crabapples are in bloom – but this year there’s been too much going on. CBG is one of the …
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 …
Algonquin Island is part of the Toronto Islands, which I wrote about in this post a few days ago. The Toronto Islands are a unique space, the largest urban area in North America without motor vehicles. In that last post we wandered around Ward Island, which has the flavor of a North Woods artist colony. …
Ward Island is part of the Toronto Islands, just a few minutes ferry ride from downtown Toronto, Canada. That short ferry ride transports you between what feels like one world and another. You leave the bustling hub of a city of 2.6 million people. You arrive in a place of small cottages and modest houses, no …
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