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Courtesy Leaside Garden Society

If you are in the Greater Toronto area you won’t want to miss the Magical Gardens of Leaside Tour on Saturday, June 22, 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Hosted by the Leaside Garden Society, this year’s self-guided tour includes eight very special  gardens and provides the opportunity to meet the gardeners, ask questions and learn how these beautiful spaces were created.

Passports, which include garden addresses and a tour map, are $10.00 each (adults and children) and are available from the following local merchants:

Gentry Clothiers- Sunnybrook Plaza Royal LePage- 1391 Bayview Avenue Stars- 900 Millwood Road

Urban Nature Store – 939 Eglinton Ave East (at Brentcliffe) write impressions- 1515 Bayview Avenue  or for Mail Order (cheques payable to Leaside Garden Society) please call 416-489-5398.

For more information please visit the Leaside Garden Society website or call 416-481-8919.

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Courtesy Leaside Garden Society

The Leaside Garden Society will hold its annual Plant Sale on Saturday, May 11 from 9 a.m. to noon at the Trace Manes Community Centre, 110 Rumsey Road, Toronto. The sale will feature perennials from Martin Galloway’s Chalk Farm Nursery as well as member-donated plants. Proceeds from the sale help to finance our educational and community programs. Also on May 11, the Greater Toronto Water Garden & Horticultural Society will hold its annual Plant Sale at Trace Manes Community Centre.

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Here are some of the most reliable, along with some new introductions appearing in nurseries this season. 

Tough and stunning ninebarks

Coppertina ninebark (Photo: Proven Winners)

Ninebarks (Physocarpus) are some of the toughest shrubs for the landscape. Tolerant of both heat and drought, they’re also deer resistant (an important point for those of you who garden near a ravine). I’ve grown one called Coppertina for the last three years and I love it for its coppery coloured leaves alone – not to mention it lovely pink flowers. A new one to look for this year is called Lemon Candy, a compact shrub that grows less than one metre tall and wide with bright chartreuse foliage and white flowers in spring. Little Devil is another new, compact variety that’s about a metre tall and wide. It features reddish purple leaves and creamy white flowers. (Avoid ‘Diablo’ ninebark, which is susceptible to powdery mildew.)

Heavenly hydrangeas

Hydrangea Invincibelle Spirit (Photo: Proven Winners)

With all the new hydrangeas that have been developed over the last few years, it’s hard to know which one to choose. The good news is: you can’t go too far wrong if you stick to the arborescens and paniculata types and avoid the macrophyllas, which can be a tad touchy in our climate. ‘Annabelle’ is an old favourite arborescence type that’s been supersized in the form of Incrediball (Invincibell Spirit is its pretty pink sister). The huge flowerheads are supported by sturdy stems, too, so this one won’t sag under the weight of its blooms. Quick Fire and Limelight are fairly new paniculata varieties. Little Lime is a new, more compact version of Limelight that’s good for small space city gardens. I’m also smitten by Tickled Pink, another paniculata type that’s a little over a metre tall and wide with white flowers that fade to rosy pink. For the most part, hydrangeas will take a little shade (the more sun, the more flowers, though) but they absolutely demand plenty of water, so consider installing some simple irrigation – even a soaker hose on a timer will do the trick.

New old favourites

My Monet weigelia (Photo: Proven Winners)

It’s hard to imagine any garden without old reliable, tried and true shrubs such as spirea and weigela. New this season is a spirea called Double Play. In springtime, the leaves have an orangey glow, which mellows to bright yellow in summer. Large pink flowers bloom in spring on this compact, less than a metre tall and wide shrub. Some of the prettiest weigelas to look for include the diminutive, My Monet with its tri-coloured foliage and pink flowers. Wine and Roses, and its more compact companion, Midnight Wine, feature deep burgundy foliage, which acts as the perfect foil for their soft pink flowers.

With this list in hand, all you have to do is find the time to visit the nurseries and pick out your favourite, easy care flowering shrubs.

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Photo: Courtesy TBG

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Once I find a great reference book I’m unwilling to part with it. Flags and tabs mark important pages so I can quickly and easily find information when I need it, and much-read sections are well-thumbed and annotated.

So, it’s with great unease that I open a revised edition of any book, let alone a basic tome such as Practical Guide to Gardening in Canada. Will the update have the same great information? If the information in the older edition was so terrific why is a revision necessary? Will all the good stuff be replaced by pretty pictures?  

Well, I’m glad to report that I’ll be bidding a fond (and probably much overdue) farewell to my 1993 edition of Practical Guide to Gardening in Canada, and happily replacing it with the revised and updated Canadian Encyclopedia of Gardening, published by DK Publishing.

The revised edition had me hooked from the get-go. No longer is the hardiness zone map buried in the “Climate and the Garden” section (page 516 in the 1993 edition); it appears on both the inside front and back covers, making it super easy to find, whichever way you open the book.

The introductory chapter places contemporary gardening in context with sections on organic gardening, sustainability and gardening for wildlife.  The overall organization of the book is much the same, with the exclusion of seasonal reminders, which I glanced at from time to time. But I’ll gladly learn to live without this section for the value of its replacement: the Canadian Plant List, which lists plants by botanical name and provides a hardiness zone rating for each – hurrah!

Most of the chapters from the older edition have been retained and updated in the new edition, with some welcome additions, including a chapter on container gardening, an overview of green roofs and vertical walls and information about vermicomposting.

Because of pesticide bans instituted in many parts of the country, the Plant Problems chapter of my 1993 edition is very outdated, so the revamped guide, with its emphasis on organic and biological controls and  IPM (virtually unheard of in the 1993 edition), will become a frequently read section. (Love the list of common garden pest control products, which somewhat surprisingly, includes neem oil. Although widely available as a leaf-shine product, it has been awaiting federal approval for use as a pesticide for several years. Did this information slip under my horticultural radar trap?)

With all of these improvements, revisions and inclusions, the 2013 edition of Canadian Encyclopedia of Gardening will be sitting on my bookshelves – probably for another 20-year span!

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Look up. Look down. Look all around. This year’s Canada Blooms Flower and Garden Festival at Toronto’s Direct Energy Centre will set your head a-spinning with all the wonderful scents, colours and signs of spring. In fact, this year’s theme, The Magic of Spring, says it all. Visiting the show is magic. But lest you miss a single sleight of hand, here’s your guide to 10 features that will put a spring in your step.

1. ‘Pink Frost’ hellebore This little charmer may look demure but it’s a tough and reliable performer that should be a staple in every shade garden. Don’t leave the show without one! Available at the Pick Ontario booth.

2. Air plants Known as Tillandsias to the horticultural cognoscenti, these miracle indoor plants live on air – and little else. Mist them from time to time and they’ll be happy. Available at the Toronto Botanical garden pop-up shop, the Sheridan Nurseries booth and at various other locations in the Marketplace. 

3. Pops of colour If you’re wondering how to put a little punch – and fun – in your garden this season, you can’t go wrong with colour. Several of the feature gardens, including Spring. In a Box (Ron Holbrook & Associates), and The Magic of Teamwork (D.A. Gracey & Associates), used bold, saturated colours in everything from outdoor pillows and art to tubular peep-holes in dry stone rock walls. And be sure to check out the rainbow wall of sap buckets at Canada’s Garden Route.

4. Natural elements Never has nature been used in such innovative, contemporary ways. You’ll see barn beams combined with PVC piping (Magicool by Genoscape), a slippery slide crafted from a gnarled tree trunk (Natural Playgrounds by Canadian Wildlife Federation and Bienenstock) and grapevine floral arrangements (at the Toronto Botanical Garden pop-up shop).

5. Water, water everywhere Looking to add an element of water to your garden? Well, you’ll find lots of innovative ideas. Check out the rain shower at Hope Springs Eternal, a garden designed by Kent Ford, the wall of water at Timeless…What’s Old is New Again (Landscape Ontario) or the fish seemingly popping out of the pool at Body and Soul by Shiboui.

6. Green walls, green roofs There were a few of these planted walls and roofs at last year’s Canada Blooms show, and they’re back again this year. From the whimsical planted dog-house roof and wall of lush greenery at Enchanted Greenery (Creative Garden Designs) to plants stacked high in wooden planters at Senses Awaken (Aura Landscaping) to the crazy-pretty twig- and stalk-filled metal grid wall at The Magic of Teamwork, you’ll find plenty of inspiration to build your own green wall or roof.

7. Kids’ play The go-to place for kids at Canada Blooms is the Natural Playgrounds garden. Bang on bongos, roll balls down chutes or climb a tree limb. This spot is great fun for kids and kids-at-heart.

8. Get active Gardens have traditionally been places of sanctuary and relaxation, but not if you’re a fitness fanatic like landscape architect Sean Gallagher. His Otium feature garden is an outdoor gym, complete with a training circuit equipped with everything from weights, steps spaced for pacing and balancing balls. It’ll take your breath away!

9. Let there be light Just as in the home, lighting can make all the difference in setting the mood in a garden. Don’t miss the up-lit stone water urns at Magicool (Genoscape) or the torches and vintage lantern at Enchanted Greenery (Creative Garden Design) or the back-lit sculpted visage at the Wine Sensory Garden (Mori Gardens and Garden Centre and Reif Estate Winery).

10. Floral enchantments Follow the row of giant crayon-coloured paper flowers to the Toronto Flower Show where dramatic, cheeky and exquisite floral designs created by the talented members of the Garden Club of Toronto will hold you spellbound.

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In an announcement released October 11, 2012, the Toronto Botanical Garden went public with the news of a financial crisis that threatens a cultural institution that’s at the heart of a community that values the gardens, parks and natural areas that green the concrete and steel of this city and provide a relaxing break from our busy lives.

The Toronto Botanical Garden is more than the sum of its 17 urban-sized gardens that surround the city-owned building sitting on the edge of Edwards Gardens at the corner of Leslie and Lawrence Avenue East. The TBG has touched the lives of anyone who has enjoyed one of the Gardens of Song outdoor summer concerts, grabbed a sandwich at the Garden Café, taken a gardening class taught by some of the city’s best horticultural experts, sent their children to any of the themed TBGKids Camps, borrowed the latest gardening book from the Weston Family Library, went on a Through the Garden Gate tour of some of the city’s best neighbourhood gardens, attended a meeting of one of the many plant and horticultural societies that make the TBG their home, asked a Toronto Master Gardener to help you with a gardening problem, bought some gardening gear at the TBG booth at Canada Blooms, heard the TBG’s ever-energetic director of horticulture, Paul Zammit, speak to your gardening group, learned something new from reading an issue of Trellis or experienced any one of the 100 initiatives listed in the TBG’s press release.

 If you would miss any one of these programs, services or events, now’s the time to dig deep and make a donation to the Hearts and Flowers fundraising campaign so the Toronto Botanical Garden can continue to help us all grow.

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