Garden Muses: A Small Toronto Gardening Services Company Blog: Beach Hill

Tidying Up in Beach Hill

After a brief September lull, I'm in full "fall cleanup" mode until the end of November. It's true that I'm not dealing with summer's heat, humidity and bugs but the challenge now is to stay warm!

This post brings us to the east-end Toronto area called "Upper Beaches" or "Beach Hill" and covers a fall cleanup for a property owned by an out-of-town landlord. Since tenants usually don't bother or worry about garden maintenance, I anticipated that the back and front gardens would be "weedy" and, of course, they were. Luckily, the area wasn't too large for me to handle.

Here are some "before" and "after" pictures of the backyard cleanup performed on this blustery and cold fall day:

Upper Beaches Toronto Fall Garden Cleanup Before

Upper Beaches Toronto Fall Garden Cleanup After

Toronto Beach Hill Fall Garden Cleanup Before

Toronto Beach Hill Fall Garden Cleanup After

Toronto Upper Beaches Fall Cleanup Before

Toronto Upper Beaches Fall Cleanup After

Toronto Beach Hill Fall Garden Cleanup Before

Toronto Beach Hill Fall Garden Cleanup After

Upper Beaches Toronto Fall Cleanup Before

Upper Beaches Toronto Fall Cleanup After

And the front....

Toronto Beach Hill Fall Cleanup Before

Toronto Beach Hill Fall Cleanup After

Upper Beaches Toronto Fall Cleanup Before

Upper Beaches Toronto Fall Cleanup After

Toronto Beach Hill Fall Garden Cleanup Before

Toronto Beach Hill Fall Garden Cleanup After

The shrub with the red foliage in the front yard pictures above is a doublefile viburnum (Viburnum plicatum f. tomentosum "Mariesii'). While it does get quite wide (easily 15 feet), it has excellent fall colour and its horizontal branches are covered with white flowers in the spring. If you have the space in full sun, this type of viburnum can be useful.

The trio of "failing" shrubs with yellow fall foliage are Fiveleaf Aralias (Acanthopanax sieboldianus). They are usually very tough plants and can handle a wide range of conditions. I suspect that they are hating it under the huge maple tree!

Don't get distracted by those pesky weeds near the BBQ

In mid-summer, my work is usually mundane: on my hands and knees pulling out the many weeds gracing us in Toronto. If my alma mater ever asked me to return to offer advice to budding (excuse the pun) gardeners-as-employees, I'd offer these four words: "you'd better like weeding." Actually, I'd amend that to "you'd better love weeding" because that is a task all customers would rather hire you (me) to do.

Sure, everyone in "hort school" class believes he or she will be the next celebrity garden duhsigner (no, there's no degree in garden design so I can be snarky. I'd never use that occupational label since it's rather meaningless and, consequently, anyone and everyone can call and advertise himself or herself as one.) But the cold reality is that when you graduate, most landscaping companies will hire you on your ability to push a mower, dig a hole or lift a wheelbarrow rather than create a design.

Anyway, I'll stop this mini-rant and get back to the main message in this post: how I helped save a birthday party!

Occasionally, I get this type of work request: Clients have some sort of get-together in their yards and given the current weedy conditions, need me to tidy up the public areas, lest party guests gossip on their way home after the event, along the lines of "did you see that train wreck of a backyard?" or "I know Bill threw out his back earlier this year but, darn, he's gotta hire a kid to pull out those weeds!"

Does a weedy garden equate to moral turpitude? Hey, it's not for me to debate. I get the call to "deal with the garden before the guests come over this weekend", book the appointment, and do the work. Which is, more or less, how I helped Daniel and his family recently who live in Toronto's Upper Beaches or Beach Hill area.

Here are some pictures of the front and back yards, before the big get-together: