A floralogue of sorts. A record of my travels as a gardener to far away gardens and new places visited.
This is a long one. I suggest you make a cup of tea and a snack before starting. “And now listen carefully. You in others-this is your soul. This is what you are. This is what your consciousness has breathed and lived on and enjoyed throughout your life-your soul, your immortality, your life in others. …
I first came upon this incredibly strange ginger (Zingiber spectabile) while touring a wonderful garden and wilderness retreat in Dominica called Papillote.
I thought I’d post a sunny photo today since we’ve been living under grey skies all week and I’m about to collapse into a no-sun, low-energy coma. Although, scrolling through folders of photos of us frolicking in the Caribbean a few months ago is kind of miserable in its own way. I took this photo …
Last Friday, a friend with a car (THANK YOU JOHN, I hearby bequeath my first born to you. The cat is also an option.) drove Davin, myself, and another friend on a field trip to Richters Herbs about an hour outside Toronto, in Goodwood, Ontario. The goal was to enjoy some greenery, buy some herbs …
You know, I’ve never much cared for caladium. They’ve always been a “whatever” plant in my book, a humdrum bit of foliage most often seen crammed into decorative baskets and seasonal greenhouse exhibits. Who cares? (Perhaps many of you. In which case, I’m a monster and a tasteless fool. Sorry.) In all honesty, my eyes …
On our last day of the trip, our friend David in St. Lucia picked some red, ripe coffee beans (aka cherries) off of the Arabica bush, one for each of us, and instructed us to bite through the thick skin with our teeth. Next, he said, remove the beans and put them in your mouth, …
Yesterday afternoon I was invited into the apartment of a fellow Parkdale resident to check out her collection of fascinating and unusual plants. The visit brought the plant junky in me out in full force. I went home conspiring to get my hands on a few of those amazing plants myself and then spent the …
Back in August 2009 my friend Laura asked me if I wanted to take a quick jaunt out to the burbs to take some pictures of the Foodcycles farm. At the time we had just finished putting the finishing touches on the book design and it felt like I hadn’t left my computer in what …
Two years ago I wrote about my disappointing experience eating fresh cacao in Cuba. Cacao (Theobroma cacao) is the tree that chocolate comes from. The fruit is a big pod that forms directly on the trunk and older growth of the tree. It kind of looks like a squash and smells like one too. Chocolate …
At one time just about everyone in Dominica grew bananas. Stabilized market prices made it possible for farmers to etch out a humble prosperity growing and selling bananas for export to the UK. But Dominica’s small-scale banana farmers can no longer compete with the massive plantation output of Latin America’s big banana business. Between that …
In August 1979 a massive hurricane hit the small island of Dominica, devastating just about everything in its path including homes, roads, crops, trees, and even leaving mountaintops bare. Amazingly, in the wake of all of that destruction, the hurricane left behind a new plant, Spathoglottis plicata, an Asian ground orchid that can now be …
Can you believe the size of this thing? Me neither. I have not seen a euphorbia of this size before or since. This photo was taken at the Andromeda Botanic Gardens in Bathsheba, Barbados. Euphorbia make up a very large and diverse genus of plants, but because of the size I believe this plant may …