The back wall on my roof garden, June 2010. I cut my teeth as a young gardener growing edibles in containers on a very hot roof in urban Toronto. For 15 years I grew everything and anything you can think of there (all without an outdoor water source), and while some crops produced much better …
This past winter was a particularly cold and difficult one. I lost a number of plants and there are several others that have come out of dormancy looking shaken and forlorn. It’s frustrating, but I’m also trying to see the positive in this. Holes in the garden offer the opportunity to try something new or …
Click here to see larger. It’s been interesting to see how differently people react to the Grow Write Guild prompts. Some people say they’re too easy; others too hard. I’m behind schedule with my responses and was very tempted to throw in a super easy one for number 4, but I promised myself from the …
It’s that time of year where so much is going on in the garden, I can’t keep up. I LOVE it! Clockwise from Top Left: 1. Two types of mint, pink snapdragons, and a geranium in pots. I set these pots on a metal table at the back of the garden, in front of the …
Growing succulents in the window box on the fire escape portion of my rooftop garden has become a tradition — most likely because they are just about the only plants that can survive the intense sun, heat, and drought. The deck is fully exposed to all sorts of harsh conditions but the fire escape area …
Sempervivums or Hens and Chicks as they are commonly called, are an incredibly hardy, and drought tolerant succulent that can take a fair amount of abuse, yet when I was starting out on my roof, they were the last plant I wanted to grow. I’d come to associate them with the few that had been …
This is one of those ideas I wish I’d thought of but didn’t. Who can remember all of the different plants and varieties one is growing at any one time? Especially when the plants are all so similar like those in this sempervivum trough. My uber gardening pal Barry is behind this very smart method …
The title says it all. Although, taking the Street Garden out of the picture this year significantly reduced the opportunity to spend more. I could completely disregard most flowers, bushes, or bedding plants, focusing instead of edibles and a few hardy, drought tolerant plants for the fire escape. Bringing a set number of dollars and …
… especially when it is initiated by plant loss. To be clear these plants will not be living in THAT garden. They are for my community plot and the roof. I spent $18.99 plus federal and provincial taxes of my hard-earned dollars on this plant, an Echeveria ‘Black Prince.’ I think we can all agree …
