From Weedy to Wonderful?

A Front Garden Renovation in East York

Performing garden makeovers (miracles?) seem to be my specialty as I've done more than a few this season. Although the actual weeding can be tiring, it's very gratifying to see order emerging out of the chaos due to my two hands (and strong back, for now.) 

I recently was invited to renovate a small front garden in the Toronto neighbourhood of East York.  Take a look at this "before" picture of the main central bed in front of the house, looking down from the porch:

East York Toronto Front Garden Renovation Before 

As the saying goes, the space has "a lot of potential" which is a euphemism for "a lot of physical work is involved"  in getting the garden back to a clean slate. Given the amount of weeds which have grown unimpeded all season, this means methodical hand digging in order to remove all the weeds by their roots. (I don't use herbicides so weeding for me involves a long handled shovel.)

Our immediate goals (after discussing with the client) were to make the main front street bed presentable by removing the weeds, planting a few dozen daffodil, grape hyacinth and allium bulbs for next spring and laying down some cedar mulch.

After a long day, both beds next to the path leading to the front door were weed-free and ready to accept the new bulbs and future perennials. Lastly, I spread a layer of mulch in order to reduce weeding and watering requirements. 

Here are more before and after pictures of the small project from various angles around the sidewalk and front porch:

East York Toronto Front Garden Renovation After 

By the way, I left the bulb packaging on the beds so that the client can take some pictures or notes and have an idea what bulbs will emerge in what locations next April.

 Toronto Front Garden Makeover in East York Before 

 Toronto Front Garden Makeover in East York After

 Toronto Front Garden Renovation East York Before 

 Toronto Front Garden Renovation East York After 

 Toronto Front Garden Renovation East York Before 

 Toronto Front Garden Renovation East York After 

East York Toronto Front Garden Renovation Before 

East York Toronto Front Garden Renovation After

East York Toronto Front Garden Makeover Before 

East York Toronto Front Garden Makeover After 

I'll provide the homeowner a plant shopping list so that during next spring, she can get the perennials and fill up this prominently visible garden with lots of colour and form. So, yes, I'm hopeful that we can go from weedy to wonderful in a few seasons, now that the mundane but necessary task of clearing out the gardens of mature weeds is out of the way.

Bye Bye Spireas! A Moore Park, Toronto Front Garden Partial Renovation

Creating a Pollinator-Friendly Patch in the Front: It's a Start

I loathe to call myself as a garden designer since the term can mean anything, at least here in Toronto. (But for those reading who are licensed and accredited as such, kudos.) I rarely create a new garden from scaled blueprints with details for hardscaping, lighting, etc. as this is much too complex for me and I'm busy as it is with more mundane tasks like weeding.

I prefer the term "plant editor" as I'm often hired to tweak an existing (small) garden, suggest plants to add and remove and move things around for better visual impact. Thus, I edited this established Moore Park, Toronto front garden and limited the scope of work to a relatively small but visually prominent area.

The client approached me and asked what could be done with this space right at the street (there is no sidewalk):

Moore Park Toronto Pollinator Friendly Garden Makeover Before

We have an older P.G. hydrangea standard to the upper left, emerging ornamental grasses in the lower right and several Spirea (a.k.a. Spiraea) shrubs. The tangled mess at ground level is made up of periwinkle (Vinca minor), which, on a positive note, is suppressing weeds from germinating.

The client asked me what we should do in this area. I thought about it, briefly, and suggested we dig out all the spirea shrubs and the periwinkle up to the hydrangea. In this cleared out space, I would plant many native species of perennials to encourage more insect and bird activity. And, yes, we may even have flowers this summer!

I didn't know if she was receptive to this idea (some homeowners can be sentimental about shrubs, even spireas) but luckily she was. Here are more "before" pictures of this small area being edited:

Moore Park Pollinator Friendly Garden Makeover Before 

Moore Park Pollinator Friendly Toronto Garden Makeover Before

Moore Park Toronto Pollinator Friendly Garden Makeover Before

Toronto Pollinator Friendly Moore Park Garden Makeover Before

And afterwards....

Moore Park Pollinator Friendly Garden Makeover After

Moore Park Pollinator Friendly Toronto Garden Makeover After

Moore Park Toronto Pollinator Friendly Garden Makeover After

Toronto Pollinator Friendly Moore Park Garden Makeover After 

Toronto Pollinator Friendly Moore Park Garden Makeover After

I doubt the client misses the spireas one bit!

 

A New Harbord Village, Toronto Pollinator-Friendly Garden

A Central Toronto Front Garden Makeover with Pollinators in Mind

I find that the catalyst to renovate or "re-invent" a garden occasionally has nothing to do with plants. In this post, for example, the homeowner planned to have new stairs and a path leading to the house's front door installed and felt having a lackluster garden would detract from the beauty (and dollars) of the new hardscaping.

I first met the client way back in March this year on a cold morning as she wanted to get the process of putting in new perennials and shrubs going. She was open to the idea of pollinator-friendly perennials planted so I came up with a list of native and non-native hybrids. 

I finally had time for her project recently so here are some "before' pictures of the front garden to give you an idea of what I mean by "lackluster". 

Perhaps "underwhelming" is a better word.

Harbord Village Toronto pollinator garden makeover before

Harbord Village Toronto pollinator garden renovation before 

Harbord Village Toronto pollinator-friendly garden makeover before 

Harbord Village Toronto pollinator-friendly garden renovation before 

Toronto Harbord Village pollinator garden makeover before

Toronto Harbord Village pollinator garden renovation before 

I dug out all the old shrubs, weed tree saplings and perennials but, of course, left the healthy and thriving "Bloodgood" Japanese maple. With a new blank slate, I transplanted many pollinator-friendly perennials like Echinace, Liatris and Rudbeckia. The client wanted some new shrubs so she also bought a shrub rose and rhododendron.

A few hours later, here are the results of the new front garden, freshly transplanted and mulched!

Harbord Village Toronto pollinator garden makeover after

Harbord Village Toronto pollinator garden renovation after 

Harbord Village Toronto pollinator-friendly garden makeover after

Harbord Village Toronto pollinator-friendly garden renovation after 

Toronto Harbord Village pollinator garden makeover after

Toronto Harbord Village pollinator garden renovation after 

The homeowner should see, for the first time in many years, signs of insect and bird activity in this front garden. We're both very hopeful!

A Bloordale garden cleanup with new perennials and shrubs

A Bloordale Village front garden renovation and new plantings

This front yard garden is located near Bloor and Dufferin in the Bloordale Village (or simply Bloordale) neighbourhood of Toronto. I say it is roughly 15' by 30', faces south and receives full sun for the entire day. Weeds seem to thrive here!

Garden clean up Bloordale before

Other than a few hosta clumps, the raised bed is entirely infested (the best word I can think of) with creeping bellflower (Campanula rapunculoides).   After a long day digging out the fleshy bellflower roots, adding 8 bags of composted sheep manure, transplanting and mulching, I was able to transform the above weed field into this:

Garden clean up Bloordale after 

Sure, these baby perennials (1 gallon containers) look small but give them 3 years and we should have nice clumps. New additions include  Liatris, "Autumn Joy" sedum, "May Night" perennial sage, purple coneflower, "Ruby Glow" barberry, "Franz Schubert" summer phlox, Agastache rugosa, and "Raspberry Ice" Heuchera, All love full sun and most attract pollinators.

Did I say I hated creeping bellflower?

Here are more before and after pictures:

Garden cleanup Bloordale before 

Garden cleanup Bloordale after 

Bloordale garden cleanup before

Bloordale garden clean up 

Bloordale garden cleanup before

Bloordale garden cleanup after

Bloordale garden clean up 

Bloordale garden clean up 

Bloordale garden cleanup before 

Bloordale garden cleanup after 

Garden cleanup and renovation in Toronto's "The Pocket" neighbourhood

Raised bed garden cleanup: weeds replaced with Carex "Ice Dance" sedges

"The Pocket" is a neighbourhood in east-end Toronto near Jones and Danforth Avenues. I did work for this client's mother in Cabbagetown and she asked me to help with the front raised bed and backyard bed. 

The Pocket garden renovation before 

The front raised bed is about 4 feet wide by 20 feet long. It's made from 4" x 4" pressure-treated lumber and only about a foot high. The plants receive full sun for most of the morning until mid-afternoon. The client wanted to keep the existing ornamental pear and boxwood but everything else removed.

What was "everything else?" Here are the culprits:

• variegated goutweed
• mint
• goldenrod
• remnants of a honeysuckle shrub
• a large patch of Siberian Iris

Fortunately, the area wasn't too large. The tricky part was removing as much of the goutweeds' roots that burrowed between the lumber cracks.

So with a long handled shovel and no herbicides, I dug out the weeds. (As a funny story, the client mentioned that she received many of these weeds as "gifts" from neighbours and friends. She didn't know any better and this weed-choked bed is the result. She had the good humour to laugh about it!)

The clients are not gardeners, in their own words, and prefer not to fuss over perennials and annuals. They just want a cleaner look with lower maintenance so I suggested various ornamental grasses. They chose the Carex "Ice Dance" sedge,  mass-planted. Aside from regular watering the first year until they get established and a trim every early spring, the Carex doesn't require a lot of care.

Here is the result of the cleanup and "rehab":

The Pocket garden renovation after 

The Carex should grow large enough to touch each other and form a groundcover of sorts. The mulch will reduce weeding and watering.

The Pocket front garden renovation before 

The Pocket front garden renovation after  

The Pocket front raised garden renovation 

The boxwood suffered winter damage like many broadleaved evergreens across the city. The clients are trying to nurse it back.

The Pocket front raised garden renovation 

The back "garden" is just a small corner area with a water feature in medium shade. It's non-descript except for the fact that the client is keeping two areas of Japanese knotweed (!) I don't how this small area hasn't been over-run by the knotweed but he likes the bamboo-like stems.

This is something I certainly do not recommend! The knotweed is one of the worst weeds to have and very hard to remove. Yet, here, it works with the homeowner. (I'm still shaking my head!)

The smaller patches of green at ground level, however, is another weedy thug. The front raised bed was filled with variegated goutweed while this back garden has the regular goutweed!

Ravina Crescent back garden renovation before 

Again, I dug out the goutweed and removed as much roots as possible. We chose Japanese Forest Grass (Hakonechloa macra "Aureola") to brighten up this shady corner. It will take a few years, at least, for the grass to form bigger clumps but the Hakone grass complements the water feature.

Ravina Crescent back garden renovation after

Ravina Crescent back garden renovation before 

Ravina Crescent back garden renovation after