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Garden Mad:
tours, events, and day trips to inspire and enlighten
This is it: the spring glut. These are the days and weeks in late spring/early summer when the majority of the perennials in our gardens are in full bloom. Now is the time to get out and see the great city gardens at their finest, bursting with colour and life. Take some time to enjoy the sights, scents - and, in some cases, sounds - of Toronto’s botanical best.
- Walking tours of Edwards Gardens: both day and evening one-hour tours of the home of the Toronto Botanical Gardens (formerly the Civic Garden Centre) throughout the summer. Contact: 415-397-1340
- The Music Garden at Harbourfront: Designed by renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, this unique garden expresses the music of Bach in nature. Open year- round, it’s located on the waterfront at 475 Queen’s Quay West between Bathurst Street & Spadina
- Family Garden Days at Edwards Gardens: includes stories in the teaching garden, work stations for learning about worms and other good things, painting under the trees, and a number of other events. Call 416-397-1340
So, if you believe the old adage ‘it’s all downhill after the clematis blooms’, don’t delay, book a tour or make a date with a gardening friend to find inspiration and edification from some of Toronto’s best gardeners.
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Larissa's butterfly lures
The ancient Greeks called them psyche meaning soul or breath. I’ve always found the word for butterfly in any language is almost as beautiful as the creatures themselves: farfalle (Italian), mariposa (Spanish), and papillion (French). Courting and keeping these ‘flying souls’ in your garden is easy if you know what to plant. Different butterflies have different preferences of nectar, and a wide variety of food plants will give you the greatest diversity of visitors. Try staggering both wild and cultivated plants, as well as blooming times of the day and year, though bear in mind that wild flowers, like milkweed, have to be strictly disciplined or they’ll gobble up space. An ample clump of the same plants will be easier for butterflies to see than sparsely or singly planted flowers. Some varieties of flowers which are easy to find and grow in Toronto, and will be attractive to many species of butterflies include: verbena, heliotrope, budlia, echinacea (great for attracting monarchs and admirals), daylilies, coreopsis, asters, and a raft of other ‘meadow’ plants. The bonus is that, come the end of summer, many of these plants produce seeds that will attract birds as well.
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Jim Cape's kinder gardening class: learning life lessons the natural way
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Fact: my kids, Madison and Peter, like all kids, love dirt.
Worms, bugs, water, and mud, just about everything to do with the garden, are magnets for them. It’s not hard to take the seeds of this fascination and begin cultivating children’s innate connection with the natural world.
Giving kids their own small place in the garden with seeds to plant and grow is the essence of the adage ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’.
They learn that plants, just like people, need to eat and drink to grow, and that sunlight, nutritious soil, water, and a little TLC, are essential for everything green. |
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If your kids are anything like mine, watering and weeding aren’t nearly as much fun for kids as planning and planting their garden. A garden calendar on the fridge helps by having them cross off the tasks as they complete them.
Gardening with kids doesn’t have to end with the summer. Letting them choose and plant their own tulips, daffodils and hyacinths in the fall will bring their attention and delight back to the garden in the spring.
Finally, remember, getting dirty is an integral part of growing up.
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Give them seeds that are large enough for them to hold easily in their hands, a great choice are sunflower seeds and nasturtiums. These both have the added benefit that they will germinate and mature quickly to encourage their enthusiasm - instant gratification helps a lot.
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Here’s what I’ve learned about gardening with my kids:
Include your child when choosing where to put their garden. This is also the time to talk about what plants need to grow healthy and strong. Accessible locations where it can be easily admired by others will keep them coming back. Giving it clear boundaries also makes it easier for them to manage.
Gardens don’t just have to be squares or rectangles, try a ‘pizza garden’: a circle with four or more ‘slices’ radiating out from the centre.
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Adding vegetables to your garden is a great way to get kids to eat things they might otherwise never walk into the same room with. Radishes, carrots, even broccoli can be harvested by them when they’re ready for the table. Or pick, wash and eat them like Peter Rabbit right in the garden.
Colour is vital, and bigger is better, so, again, sunflowers rock! If you have the space, you can plant a ‘sunflower house’, a circle of plants with an opening for the door. Tie the tops of the plants together and lay an old bit of carpet inside and you’ve got a terrific fort.
Be sure all plants are non-toxic. A list of toxic plants is readily available from Sick Kids Hospital.
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When you bring your kids into the garden, more than just plants will grow. Children gain a sense of responsibility, of accomplishment, and, slowly, of appreciation for the environment and the relationship between plants and people.
When we spend time together as a family in our garden, I see rewards far beyond petals and leaves, I see that we’re cultivating our children’s minds, hearts and spirits as well. |
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Craig's cottage plant picks
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Here’s my advice to clients who ask me what flowers to plant up at their cottages. Cottage properties generally have two very distinct planting areas: the shoreline with its thin, acidic soil and exposure to the wind and weather, and the woodland with its rich, loamy soil and dense shade. Both have challenges for getting flowers to bloom.
Let’s start with the water’s edge: to begin
with, when you look around, you’ll see
that there’s very little that blooms
naturally in these conditions. I suggest
trying one or two of the invasive
ground covers, like periwinkle and/or
sweet woodruff. For drama, there
are the wonderfully hardy and reliable
daylilies which, with the great new
award-winning repeat blooming
varieties, have become even better.
Look for these under the Trophy Taker
name: Varieties like “Rosy Returns” and
“Justin Lee” will give you bold, longer lasting
colours
and excellent durability. Still, when it comes to these challenging shoreline conditions, I always emphasize the old adage: if it does well, plant more of it, if it doesn’t, try something else - or retreat to the hammock and let nature take its own course. |
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Now for the woodlands: my three favourite native Ontario woodland flowers are Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum), yellow ladyslipper (Crypripedium calceolaus), and the classic great white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum). Jack-in-the-pulpit grow from tubers planted in partial shade in autumn or early spring. Ladyslipper are native orchids now rare in Ontario cottage country, but do well when planted in rich, loamy soil in partial shade. Both these flowers are especially fascinating to kids - of all ages. Trilliums bloom white and fade to pink
and are
unbeatable for
adding
drifts
of early
spring colour to the woodland
floor.
When they bloom in May it always
reminds me of the ability of white
flowers to illuminate shady corners of
our gardens and to sparkle in twilight.
Finally, plant blueberries, They grow
great in
the moist,
well-drained, acidic
soils of
cottage country.
Wild blueberries
grow in
clusters on the
plant and don’t all
ripen
at the same time;
sometimes the fruit on the
bottom of the cluster will be ripe when those on the top are still green. It takes about two to five weeks for blueberries to ripen on the bush when you can pick them to add to your morning cereal. By the way, one of the key pollinators of our blueberries is the blackfly. I’m still trying to decide if this redeems them. |
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