Podcast

April 11, 2019 Yearlong Care of the Garden, Luther Burbank , Yogi Yogananda, Elsie Elizabeth Esterhuysen, John Paulus Lotsy, Ogden Nash, Barbara Kingsolver, Mary Treat, A New Garden Tote, and the Clark Botanic Garden

How much do you care for your garden? Do your time and attention stay pretty constant throughout the season? If not, why not? What would your garden look like in August if you loved it then as much as you do now? What do you need to do to sustain a high level of care for your garden all season long? Fewer tomato or pepper plants? More raised beds? Getting regular garden time committed on the calendar? Removing high maintenance…

April 10, 2018 Mary Hiester Reid, George Reid, Onteora, Duncan Sutherland Macorquodale, Mary Reynolds, Pruning Grapevines, and the First Arbor Day

Just when you thought you had winter beat… You thought wrong. Surprise. Unpredictable weather. Dicey temperatures. Gardeners need resilience. If Spring’s arrival is dashing your hope, start to look for the survivors in your garden. In your neighborhood. In your city. On your social media feed. Every Spring – no matter the conditions, there are successes. Hardy Daffodils. Forsythia. Lungwort. Snowdrops. Magnolias. Look for the plants that survive and thrive despite the challenges of Spring. Plant more of those plants.…

April 9, 2019 Phebe Lankester, James Sowerby, Joseph Trimble Rothrock, Asa Gray, Louis Agassiz, Gardeners Question Time, Charles Baudelaire, Katie Daisy, the Toronto Archives, and Joseph Sauriol

Today’s thought is exactly that: How we think when we garden. Emerson wrote: Blame me not, laborious band, For the idle flowers I brought; Every aster in my hand Comes back laden with a thought. How wonderful our gardens are for thinking. Creatively. Therapeutically. Soulfully. Every bloom can be a vessel for an idea, a hurt, a solution. I had a fight with my daughter the other day. We were getting nowhere. Exasperated and just plain tired, I had her…

April 8, 2019 John Claudius Loudon, Mary Pickford, Katie Melua, Hugo von Mohl, William Watson, Jackie Bennett, and the Duke of Wellington

Have you given much thought to the layout or shape of your garden beds? Do they follow the natural lines and slopes of the landscape? Are they geometric? Long beds with corners? Maybe you’ve tried a circle garden. If you’re just beginning – border beds – beds anchored by a backdrop (like a house or a fence) are the easiest to plan and execute. Often overlooked, one thing to consider in border beds is to add some stepping stones or…

April 5, 2019 Garden Dreams, Birkenhead Park, Lord Viscount Morpeth, Matthias Schleiden, Algernon Swinburne, Joseph Paxton, Garden Picture Day, and Edward Kemp

It’s decision time in the garden. What will your projects be this year? Often, we have no idea if our dreams for our gardens will come true. Gardeners may dream bigger dreams than emperors, but we can often get stuck, too. We put plants in the wrong spot. We buy the wrong thing. We buy the wrong plant. We overdo it. But, every now and then we get it completely right. I waited for years to put paths in around…