From hanging baskets to Woolly Pockets, green walls to palette gardens, vertical gardening is hot. (Just flip through the inspirational Garden Up! by Susan Morrison and Rebecca Sweet to get a sense of how many options there are for smart use of vertical space.) I recently came across a vertical gardening concept different than anything […]
Garden Design
Pousse Créative: planters for flora and fauna
Whenever we hear about designing gardens for small spaces, there’s talk about objects that can do double duty, such as benches that also serve as storage. Designers Sébastien Haquet and Thomas Lanthier of Pousse Créative have taken that concept one step further, creating beautiful and functional garden pieces that also provide shelter for birds, cats, […]
Garden storage in urban spaces
In my book, I wrote something about how, when you’re gardening in a small space, everything is visible…and thus, there’s no room for broken tools, ugly containers, or plants you’re really not too fond of. It’s true. Unlike with many larger properties, in a small urban garden, balcony, or patio, you don’t have the luxury […]
Lime green in the garden
I love green in the garden. Who doesn’t? It’s the colour of new growth. Photosynthesis. Good health. But that’s not the green I’m talking about here. I’m talking lime green. Pucker-yer-lips, jolt-to-the-system lime. I used lime green cushions in my back patio to add a punch of colour to an otherwise subdued palette. The lime […]
Window box round-up
Windowbox by Sunface13 on Flickr. I remember the first time I saw window boxes worth coveting. I was 20 years old, backpacking through Europe. Although I wasn’t yet a gardener, I couldn’t help but fall in love with the perpetual, ageless villages with their cheery window boxes spilling over with geraniums. The window boxes were […]
Name that plant
Nickel herb markers from Nina Gibson Designs. $28 for four. There’s nothing worse than a garden littered with nursery plant labels. Where each plant has a little plastic tombstone. Sure, labels might come in handy if you’ve forgotten whether it was Euphorbia ‘Blue Lagoon’ or ‘Blue Haze’ you planted, but does every pansy need to […]
Home Outside winner!
So this contest closed a couple of days ago, and I’m finally getting around to announcing a winner. Sorry to keep you in suspense. And I’m still not going to name names (skip to the end if you’re impatient!)… because I wanted to say a couple of things about the entries. 76 of you entered, […]
Berries in the winter garden
Photinia davidiana (David’s Christmas berry) is a tough evergreen plant that also has white flowers in early summer. I last wrote about how hardscaping can make your garden in winter – and year round, for that matter. I still maintain that the hard landscape makes the biggest overall impact on the garden in winter, but […]