By MARY FRAN McQUADE To a gardener, it’s odd that poppies are so prominent in November. Cold-loving chrysanthemums make more sense at this time of year. Lately, even Christmas greens and trees are already appearing in garden shops. The bright red poppy rightfully belongs to the month of August, the hot harvest-time. But, as most […]
By MARY FRAN McQUADE Did you think of your garden during your Thanksgiving celebrations? I’m pretty sure my vegetable gardening friends did. They’ve been posting photos of their luscious tomatoes, crisp green beans, and brilliant orange carrots for weeks now. And my turkey stuffing wouldn’t taste right without its sage and parsley cut fresh from […]
By MARY FRAN McQUADE Flowers and food are the stars of today’s gardens. But we tree-huggers, who cherish the peace and privacy our trees give us, have to find other things to fill our shaded spaces. Beachers Ursula and Doug Eley have found the way to make the most of a shady garden. They’ve deliberately […]
By MARY FRAN McQUADE The month of August is a sort of Bermuda Triangle for gardeners. It’s sunny and hot, too early to plant bulbs and put the garden to bed; too late to start anything much from seed; too hot to put in new plants. It’s a time to lie around on porch or […]
By MARY FRAN McQUADE Once upon a time, gardens were filled with bright flowering plants that bloomed their pretty heads off all summer long. Impatiens, tiny fibrous begonias, marigolds, geraniums, snapdragons and more covered garden beds, public and private. Then people caught on to the idea of perennials, and annuals were left behind in the […]
By MARY FRAN McQUADE My very first job in Toronto was working in Eaton’s flower shop. One of my co-workers was so good at getting people to buy that my boss often said, “She could sell dirt!” I’ve often laughed ironically to myself since then. Sell dirt? Heck, everyone does that. But plain old dirt […]
By MARY FRAN McQUADE We’ve got the light – now all we need is the warmth. April flounces in with a few flutters of green, and gardeners go gaga. Frost is still in the air, and snow is a possibility, but we can get our hands on green and growing things, so who cares? Earth […]
By MARY FRAN McQUADE A Canadian spring is a mudsome thing, With patches of snow that just won’t go. There’s earth beneath that slippery mess, But we can only make plans, I guess. Spring is absurdly slow to show up around here. On the calendar, spring appears sometime in March, but in chilly reality, we […]
By MARY FRAN McQUADE BOOM! What just happened? Suddenly, houseplants are exploding out of the Internet and into shops and people’s homes. Just a little while ago, all the buzz was about native and pollinator plants. Gardeners were rushing to spread milkweed and asters all over the place. Some years before that, perennials were all […]
I’m a traditionalist in some ways. I like roses. They’re pretty, they’re romantic, they smell nice and they even taste good (some of them, anyway). I’ve never been fond of the fusspot hybrid teas, which my dad used to drench in stinky, poisonous malathion to save them from a platoon of bugs and diseases. And […]
