If you’re like me, you’re both excited and sad that there’s a hint of autumn in the air. Fall sends the kids back to school and the garden, if not to bed, to its last hurrah before shutting down for the winter. Because here on the West Coast, we can easily plant for a second […]
The UpBeet Gardener
For years now I have subscribed to an e-newsletter called The Upbeet Gardener, available at the Plantea website. (Plantea is an organic fertilizer, which is something we all need!) The site and newsletter are a bit hokey but contains heaps of useful information. The author lives in Alaska, so her frame of reference is a […]
The Buckland’s UBC garden — with cat.
Their’s was one garden on the last tour I went on and I thought this was a cool photo. A showpiece of beauty, design, and ingenuity, Jennifer Buckland’s UBC garden makes for an envy-inspiring visit. The scent of a large, white-flowering magnolia welcomes you to the front garden, where purple clematis intertwines with a red-flowered […]
Books
I was inspired to start a list of novels gardeners might like (and perhaps, gardening books bookworms might like?) by Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, the so-called “gothic romance” that won the Anthony Award for Best Novel of the Century. The descriptions of Manderley, the estate that is just as much a central protangonist as the […]
Robinia pseudoacacia
In well-known Vancouver gardener Pam Frost’s garden, chartreuse green Robinia pseudoacacia ‘Frisia’ creates focal points in a curved lawn.
Powerful Plants for Low-Maintenance Areas
Perennials Alchemilla mollis (Lady’s Mantle) Zone 4 Erysimum ‘Bowles’ Mauve’ (Shrubby Wallflower) Zone 6 Geranium macrorrhizum (Bigroot Cranesbill) Zone 2 Shrubs Hydrangea (Hardiness varies according to variety) Lonicera purpusii (Winter-flowering honeysuckle) (Zone 5) Nandina domestica (Heavenly Bamboo) (Zone 7) Viburnum (Zone 3)
English country meets West Coast: A peek inside a Vancouver plant lover’s playground
For 12 years, the Southlands property of gardener Julie Lane Gay and husband Craig has been in the business of growth. The spacious property, which once housed Quail Hollow Climbers and Perennials, is now fertile ground for four growing children and a gardener’s wish list of plants, among them dozens of clematis. Julie and Craig […]
More about me
I’m a writer by trade and by persuasion. Or I was until I accepted a full-time job that started as strictly writing/communications and then morphed into more of a marketing job. But before that, I was a freelance copywriter. Still do some of that on the side, but what I really love is to write […]