Plant Sales – Mark Your Calendars

I hate to be so Toronto-centric but there are a number of local and very good plant sales coming up that ya’ll should know about. They’re more bang for your buck, the experience is fun, and often times the haul is of better quality than your typical garden super centre. FoodShare’s Plant Sale When: Saturday,

Jane Jacobs, 1916-2006

Guest post by Ariane Khachatourians I know this isn’t exactly about gardening, but it is about a fellow avid gardener who passed away earlier this week. I don’t know how many people know of Jane Jacobs, myself having studied human geography and urban planning in university, she is one of my idols. If you haven’t

The Modern Alchemist

Guest post by Renee Garner Words like hyperaccumulator and phytoremediation sound like something straight out of a 1960s Sci-Fi movie and hardly verbs describing gardens. But when the conceptual, and socially minded artist Mel Chin creates a garden, you get these lengthy words among others.  Mel Chin is a Texas born artist now living in North Carolina; and when he plants,

My Trug Tub Love

Guest post by Emira Mears Try saying that three times fast. TrugTubLove. TrugTubLove… Anyway. Gayla’s post about Lee Valley got me to thinking about my last Lee Valley impulse purchase. I had stopped there on my way back from picking up a load of compost, and tried very hard to restrain myself from making too

The Lee Valley Lure

The one-stop crack distribution depo of the Canadian gardening world recently opened a store in downtown Toronto, and… ummm… I have been there twice in two days. I want to state for the record that prior to this I have never purchased a Lee Valley product, somehow managing to walk past the booths at garden

Local vs Certified organic

Guest post by Christina Radisauskas Last week I went to a film and discussion series entited “Label Me Confused: What organic, free range, and all those other words really mean” at a local theater. Several organic farmers gathered to discuss the benefits of choosing to eat locally produced and/or organic foods rather than typical supermarket

Der Blumenladen

How ingenious is this: a flower shop where rather than buying cut flowers, you buy photos of plant bits that are then constructed into 3-Dimensional arrangements. Wolf Klein’s Der Blumenladen (The Flower Shop) is part old-school flower shop, part mad take-out menu, and part wacky flip book with a splash of conceptual art (at least

Earth Day: Toronto

Come out to Earth Day Spring Festival events this weekend at Budapest Park here in Toronto! When: Sat, April 22. 2006. 10:30 am – 4 pm Where: Budapest Park (on the waterfront at the bottome of Roncessvalles Ave., just east of Sunnyside Park and west of the Palais Royale.) Stop by the You Grow Girl

Paper Houseplants

As if gardening with living plants isn’t enough to keep me occupied, I’ve recently become obsessed with plants crafted from paper. Download and construct your own garden of indoor houseplants, from the Epson Hong Kong site. Patterns include ivy, lucky bamboo, saguaro cactus, and a cute barrel cactus.

Plant Me!

Guest post by Emira Mears I’m a pretty big fan of Branch the currently online/soon to also be a physical store in San Francisco that bills itself as a purveyor of Sustainable Design for Living. They have a pretty great gardening section that seems to be a combo of novelty grow-in-one containers and some graceful

Phase 1 Complete

Phase 1 of “Project Deck Garden 2006” was enacted yesterday afternoon. It was inspired by a sunny day and a headache that wouldn’t quit, which not surprisingly, was abated after a few hours in the fresh air. I won’t bore you with the details as Phase 1 involves large helpings of gardening’s lesser joys; clean-up,

A Different Kind of Professional Gardener

Guest post by Renee Garner Most people would agree, gardening is an art form. Artist Paula Hayes takes this statement literally, but intensive devotion elevates her gardening into gallery worthy, fine art. Her delicate glass terrariums depict an idealistic quest most gardeners can relate to, but the interaction of plants to their tiny biosphere evokes a