Garden Muses: Not Another Toronto Gardening Blog

A Toronto Garden Makeover in Dufferin Grove

2020-10-18T10:07:00.000-04:00

From Messy and Overgrown To....

Heading into October, I usually don't get requests to transplant new perennials and shrubs. Many homeowners are entering "fall cleanup" mode and garden centres and nurseries understandably don't offer a large selection of plants anyway. But recently I was introduced to a new client (I'll call her Joanne) through another Toronto gardening blogger (Helen Battersby, no need to give her an alias!). Joanne wasn't happy with the state of her backyard in central Toronto's Dufferin Grove neighbourhood so she asked for my advice in "renovating" the garden beds.

Here are some "before" pictures showing the small garden areas flanking the path to and from the back deck to the garage:

Dufferin Grove Toronto new garden renovation before

Toronto Dufferin Grove New Garden Renovation Before

Toronto Dufferin Grove New Garden Makeover Before

Dufferin Grove Toronto Garden Makeover Before

Dufferin Grove Toronto Garden Renovation before

And on the other side of the yard:

Dufferin Grove Toronto Garden Renovation Before

Toronto Dufferin Grove New Garden Makeover Before

I usually encounter the following in many of the garden makeovers I do:

beds not weeded
beds not edged or have unattractive plastic edging
shrubs haven't been pruned in many years
plants aren't in scale with the size of the yard (as they haven't been pruned or simply too large and are the wrong plants in the wrong site)
existing perennials are not grouped together, leading to a weak design

The above pictures should hopefully show that most of these points were in play.

Where to start?

I suppose after many years of thinking and implementing small-scaled garden design, I intuitively think about the functions of the various garden spaces in relation to the site realities, namely, the amount of direct sunlight the garden gets, the presence of large trees, shrubs, hedges, the type and condition of the soil, etc.. In Joanne's case, I considered the low back deck and mature Kentucky Coffee tree as the dominant factors. The tree's shadow does allow for direct sunlight for a few hours around late morning into mid afternoon. The low deck that has no railing means that it was important to have low growing perennials around the seating (and main garden viewing) area. I had the opportunity to introduce shorter plants that flowered for most of summer into fall around the deck.

There are often "prized locations" in many gardens due to favourable sight lines, micro climates, or simply areas which receive more direct sunlight than others. The small area in front of (or immediately below if you prefer) the deck was prime real estate that was wasted due to presence of four old purple leaf sandcherry shrubs previously cut down to the stumps. Of course, such hard pruning doesn't usually kill them so new shoots soon emerged. There were also four small "Emerald Gaiety" Euonymus shrubs growing unchecked. The appearance was very messy looking to be honest. A neighbouring dwarf Korean lilac which hadn't been pruned in years added to the chaos. So with Joanne's blessing, I dug out all the sandcherries and Euonymus and pruned the lilac hard.

Here are some "after" pictures, showing this prominent section of the garden with new perennials. I also planted hundreds of species tulips, alliums and other bulbs to give early spring colour. The new perennials won't add colour until summer so we needed some interest in April and May.

Dufferin Grove Toronto Garden Makeover After

Dufferin Grove Toronto new garden renovation after

Toronto Dufferin Grove New Garden Renovation After

Toronto Dufferin Grove New Garden Makeover After

Dufferin Grove Toronto Garden Renovation After

The bed on the opposite side has mature shrubs like a P.G. hydrangea standard, an "Emperor One" Japanese maple, a Korean dogwood and two large tree peonies. They all need some pruning in order to re-establish the correct scale which should exist in this garden. The hydrangea standard currently doesn't look like a standard, the maple looks like a multi-stem shrub, the tree peonies have many dead stems and the dogwood should not have planted in the tight corner as it will get tall and wide, even for a medium sized tree. But I'll do the corrective pruning next spring. For now, I weeded all the beds, removed the unattractive black plastic edging that was popping up in many places, dug a new "trench" using an edger around the beds, planted more daffodils, tulips and crocuses and placed back the mulch.

Dufferin Grove Toronto Garden Renovation After

Toronto Dufferin Grove New Garden Makeover After

This small project took about 10 hours from my initial meeting with Joanne to what you see above. I may do 3-5 similar micro garden (re)designs a season which keep the creative juices going in tandem with the more mundane weeding and deadheading.

Speaking of mundane, the fall cleanups will keep me busy right until the end of November!

Peek A Boo, I See You!

2020-08-27T08:43:00.001-04:00

A Beaconsfield Village Front Garden Reveals Itself (With My Help)

Garden Rescue Hero (trademark, just kidding) comes to save the day! Luckily for me, the size of this central Toronto garden in the Beaconsfield Village neighbourhood is very small. Let's just say, my heavy duty loppers came in very handy with this cleanup.

Beaconsfield Village Toronto front yard
summer garden cleanup before

All the various shrubs were unpruned for several seasons and gave the homeowners, neighbours and pedestrians that unintended wild Amazonian look.

Beaconsfield Village Toronto front yard
summer garden cleanup before

The picture below wonderfully shows a type of grape vine (wild or cultivated) that is using the large burning bush as some sort of arbour. The grape was also growing up into the small-sized maple which is the dominant tree in this tiny space.

Toronto Beaconsfield Village front
yard garden cleanup before

A closeup below of the "forest floor" showing a mixture of annual weeds and Siberian Elm saplings.

Toronto Beaconsfield Village front
yard summer garden cleanup before

A type of wild rose (perhaps a shrub rose) which obviously hasn't been pruned for several seasons and menacing the neighbours enjoying their bench. But this is Toronto, no one ever sits this close to the sidewalk!

Toronto Beaconsfield Village front
yard summer garden cleanup before

Order and scale have been restored!

Beaconsfield Village Toronto front
yard summer garden cleanup after

Besides weeding, I pruned the two rear burning bushes by about two or three feet down so that they didn't look so monstrous. I also cut off one or two small side branches of the maple (you can see its trunk in the middle of the picture above) which were blocking access to the front door and the along the sidewalk).

Beaconsfield Village Toronto front
yard summer garden cleanup after

I cut back the grape vine and wild rose to about three feet. The entire garden gave a big sigh of relief after this cleanup. I know the clients did!

Toronto Beaconsfield Village front
yard garden cleanup after

Now we have space to grow nice things or, at least, to have a layer of cedar mulch or wood chips laid down to reduce weeding tasks.

Beaconsfield Village front yard
Toronto garden cleanup after

I knew there was a garden in there somewhere!

A Backyard Cleanup in East York: the Unglamorous Side of Gardening

2020-08-16T14:28:00.004-04:00

Fine Gardening? Well....

I come across all sorts of definitions of what customers believe gardening encompasses. For the most part, it means weeding, pruning and planting. You know, the horticultural stuff you'd expect. But occasionally, I'm hired for more mundane "property maintenance" tasks which may cover garbage pickup. I don't mind. as long as things are not hazardous to retrieve. And I don't deal with pet poo!

This short post covers weeding part of a small property in East York. No roses here, unfortunately, but if I'm solving a client's problem, the lack of flowers or shrubs isn't a big deal. Her back "yard" is more driveway and patio than actual garden beds (there are two raised beds but nothing in them.)

As the "before" pictures immediately below show, a general cleanup was in order.

East York Backyard Summer
Garden Cleanup Before

East York Toronto Backyard
Summer Garden Cleanup Before

Toronto Backyard Summer
Garden Cleanup in East York Before

Toronto East York Backyard
Summer Garden Cleanup Before

Afterwards.........

The client has no intentions of planting anything in the raised beds although they do receive a fair amount of direct sunlight. She prefers to spend her money in keeping the front gardens respectable but, eventually, the sight of tall weeds and garbage out of her back window was too much for her; hence, I was contacted.

My biggest challenge here was trying to no twist an ankle navigating the pile of old bricks to get to the clumps of mature Dog Strangling Vines. And there were many nails, broken pieces of tiles and other construction debris to avoid as I was weeding the patio.

As you can tell, I rarely work in pastoral estates. And that's fine. All that turf is unnerving!

East York Backyard Summer
Garden Cleanup After

East York Toronto Backyard
Summer Garden Cleanup After

Toronto Backyard Summer
Garden Cleanup in East York After

Toronto East York Backyard
Summer Garden Cleanup After

A Koreatown Front Garden Cleanup and Installation

2020-07-23T06:38:00.001-04:00

A New Front Garden on a Slope

Gardening on a slope can be difficult if retaining walls and tiers are not constructed but not impossible. In this post, I'm returning back to a sloped "garden" in the Toronto neighbourhood of Koreatown.

My first visit in September 2019, profiled in a post titled "A Front Garden Cleanup in Koreatown: Labouring on Labour Day" , involved heavy duty weeding. It became apparent quickly during my second and most recent visit that no maintenance occurred between visits, as the "before" photos show:

Koreatown Toronto Front Slope
Weeding and New Installation Before

Koreatown Toronto New Front
Garden Installation Before

Toronto Koreatown Front
Garden Installation Before

Toronto Koreatown Front Garden
Weeding and New Installation Before

Toronto Koreatown Front Slope
Weeding and New Installation Before

The client requested a new garden with some sort of groundcover, with the aims of filling in the exposed slope surface (and reduce future weeding), retaining the soil that naturally wants to spill to the bottom with every heavy rainstorm, and creating some curb appeal. Simply throwing a layer of mulch on top of the slope just means a nice big mound at the bottom over time.

The slope has no retaining elements (e.g., boulders) and the client does not wish to pay for the construction of tiered beds. The area faces west so receives full sun all afternoon.

After removing the wonderful thistle and other large weeds, my plan was to create a rock garden look, without the rocks. Unfortunately, she couldn't find my suggested plants like moss phlox and rock cress but was able to purchase other "alpine" type of perennials.

And afterwards....

Koreatown Toronto Front Slope
Weeding and New Installation After

Admittedly, new "baby" perennial transplants seem puny (they are) but with regular watering during the first season, they should fill in over time.

Koreatown Toronto New Front
Garden Installation After

Toronto Koreatown Front
Garden Installation After

Toronto Koreatown Front Garden
Weeding and New Installation After

The new garden is prone to heavy weed infestation with all the freshly exposed soil so I advised the client to keep on top of the weeding and watering. It will be interesting to see if these maintenance tasks were actually done!

A Riverdale 2020 Spring Cleanup

2020-07-11T08:27:00.000-04:00

There's a Patio and Garden Somewhere Under All these Leaves!

We all lead busy lives and for many homeowners (lucky for me), cleaning up the various garden areas isn't a priority. I just think of it as job security!

This post goes over a recent spring cleanup in Toronto's Riverdale neighbourhood. Or, rather, a delayed fall 2019 tidy up since the bulk of the work involved raking up last autumn's leaves.

Here are some pictures from the backyard: As you can see, nothing intricate, most of the job involved scraping up the wet and matted maple leaves which were becoming nice leaf compost.

Riverdale Back Garden Spring Cleanup Before

Toronto 2020 Back Garden Spring
Cleanup Before in Riverdale

Toronto Back Garden Spring
Cleanup Before in Riverdale

Toronto Riverdale Back Garden
Spring Cleanup Before

This back raised garden area was full of weed tree saplings which germinated from nearby Tree of Heaven and maple trees.

Toronto Riverdale Back Garden Spring Cleanup Before

The front area shown below had a few weeds but pruning the overgrown spirea and yew shrubs near the front steps was the priority:

Toronto Riverdale Front Garden
Spring Cleanup Before

Riverdale Front Garden
Spring Cleanup Before

Afterwards...

Riverdale Back Garden Spring Cleanup After

My cordless electric leaf blower came in very handy in cleaning up the newly exposed flagstone.

Toronto 2020 Garden Spring
Cleanup After in Riverdale

Toronto 2020 Back Garden Spring
Cleanup After in Riverdale

Toronto Back Garden Spring
Cleanup After in Riverdale

Toronto Riverdale Back Garden
Spring Cleanup After

And, again, in the front afterwards. Clear access of the paths and front steps ensured.

Toronto Riverdale Front Garden
Spring Cleanup After

A Shade Garden Makeover in North High Park

2020-07-07T12:45:00.000-04:00

Under An Ancient Oak, A New Garden Emerges

Surprised to hear from me? I haven't posted anything in a while so I'll apologize now and get that out of the way.

It's been a very strange 2020 so far due to COVID-19: I wasn't allowed to work by the provincial government until early May and my clients had a very difficult time finding plants in general at the garden centres. Still, after all of this, one of my iron laws of garden maintenance is in effect: weeds continue to grow and my clients would prefer going to the dentist than being in their gardens weeding. Job security, I guess.

Today's post goes over one of my early May garden makeovers in the High Park North area of Toronto. The clients, a busy young couple with children, requested a new front garden under a very large and mature oak tree. They didn't want to spend too much on plants so I suggested about 15 shade tolerant perennials under the oak's high canopy.

Here are some "before" and "after" pictures of the shade garden around the oak:

High Park North New Front Yard Makeover Before

High Park North Toronto New Front Yard Makeover Before

High Park North Spring Cleanup and Makeover Before

Toronto High Park North New Front Yard Makeover Before

High Park North Spring Cleanup and Makeover Before

Afterwards...

High Park North New Front Yard Makeover After

The front garden looks very sparse but the homeowners now can add spring bulbs and more perennials if they wish.

High Park North Toronto New Front Yard Makeover After

High Park North Spring Cleanup and Makeover After

Toronto High Park North New Front Yard Makeover After

High Park North Spring Cleanup and Makeover After

A New Pollinator-Friendly Garden in Toronto's Garden District, Part Two

2020-02-16T08:49:00.000-05:00

Let's Amp up the Insect Activity and Seasonal Interest, Shall We?

Another two months (hopefully) and I'll start my work season again. Perhaps I'll even execute this small project below which is the topic of this post.

We're continuing from the last post and looking at three raised beds located in a condo courtyard somewhere in downtown Toronto. Here are bed number two's "before" picture and my proposal to makeover the small area to attract insects and birds while providing multi-seasonal visual interest for the condo owners who share the common paths and garden beds.

A New Toronto Pollinator Garden Design Before

The bed above contains many run-of-the-mill hostas so besides the one week in May the existing serviceberry (Amelanchier) shrub (small tree) blooms, there's very little nectar to attract bees and butterflies on a consistent basis from May to October. (It is true, though, that the serviceberry provides highly desirable berries in the summer. It's the best thing going on in this bed!)

Other things to note, if you're keeping notes, is that the bed faces west, receives full sun until late afternoon and is irrigated automatically. Zero manual maintenance occurs, besides the custodian occasionally shearing the evergreen yew macaron.

Here's my quick drawing below suggesting native species of perennials (besides the Coreopsis cultivar) which provide food energy for wildlife, look attractive to our eyes and require relatively fewer maintenance dollars (this last point is always important to a condo board.)

Here's the list of perennials:

A New Toronto Pollinator Garden Design After

I realize that not all the perennials will bloom at the same time as the drawing suggests but this is only a quick mock up for illustration purposes and to make it easier for these clients to visualize what the bed could look like, more or less, at any time during the growing season.

And, yes, that yew would be removed!

A New Pollinator-Friendly Raised Bed Garden in Toronto, Part One

2020-01-28T15:50:00.001-05:00

We Won't Be Missing Yew(s)

It's almost half way through my winter hiatus or hibernation and while "spring thoughts" shouldn't be in our minds yet, I am being inspired by some gardening books I'm reading now. I haven't posted anything in over a month and wonder why you, dear reader, even stick around this ghost town of a blog. But someone is reading so...onwards and upwards in 2020!

Combing through my 2019 pictures, I realized I never wrote about a few design proposals for a courtyard complex I "maintain" (well, visit in the spring and fall only). I've posted some "before" and "after" pictures of the cleanups I've done for this condo board before. For example, here's a post titled Weeding Raised Beds in a Central Toronto Courtyard: Getting Gritty in Downtown Toronto that shows the beds before and after I work my magic!

There are about a dozen raised beds inside the private courtyard of various sizes and shapes. They all have yews (Taxus sp.), pruned into balls, ovals, alien spacecraft, etc. and most have hostas, that overused workhorse among perennials. That's more or less it. Lots of green.

Automatic irrigation is in place but no one looks after the plants' maintenance (i.e., no weeding or pruning occurs in the summer).

Some of the condo board members expressed an interest to modernize some of the beds as the feeling in the courtyard is definitely circa 1983. They asked me to come up with three drawings for three small beds as a start. In this post (and two future ones), I'll show the existing bed and my rendered sketch showing new perennial possibilities.

Here's "Bed A", for lack of a more scintillating description:

A New Toronto Pollinator Garden Design Before

It faces west but will be shaded by early afternoon due to a large tree located nearby. For this and the other raised beds,the clients wanted more plants that offer seasonal interest and encourage more wildlife (pollinators and birds especially) to visit.

My proposal...

A New Toronto Pollinator Garden Design After

The yews, I suggest, would be removed but the existing native serviceberry kept. Four types of shade tolerant native species would fill in the small bed:

What do you think of my plant selection?

The 2019 Allan Gardens Conservatory Winter Flower Show

2019-12-16T16:45:00.004-05:00

Masses of (unpainted) poinsettias, Hallelujah!

A disconcerting sight I've seen over the past few Christmas seasons is the spray-painting of poinsettias to give them a "glittering sheen". They don't need this embellishment which is literally gilding the poinsettia. I find it extremely tacky.

Luckily, the folks who design and plant the hundreds (thousands?) of poinsettias every December inside Toronto's Allan Gardens Conservatory for its annual Winter (formerly "Christmas") Flower Show forego using shiny poinsettias.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a lover of poinsettias as they truly deserve to be chucked out on January 1 (ever seen a leggy Poinsettia in July that's kept alive by an owner who couldn't bear to part with it after the holidays were over?) but the idea of painting plants, dead or alive, doesn't sit well with me.

Now that the Christmas Curmudgeon has vented a little, let's enjoy the winter flowers and arrangements at this year's Winter Flower Show which runs until January 12, 2020 here in downtown Toronto.