A Little Italy-Palmerston Backyard Garden Cleanup

Revealing Potential for a Toronto Pollinator Garden?

It seems that with every garden cleanup ("rescue" is a better word for this post as you'll see later) I complete, that question comes to mind. It was certainly the case with this project I finished for a client in the central Toronto area of Little Italy/Palmerston. The backyard garden bed was hidden by weeds, Virginia Creeper and an overgrown rose but once I tidied up things, I easily imagined the garden full of colour and life.

But here are some "before" pictures showing the overgrown garden bed and lawn:

Little Italy Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup Before

Little Italy Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup Before

Palmerston Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup Before

Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup Before in Little Italy 

Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup Before in Little Italy 

Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup Before in Palmerston 

Afterwards....

And here are some "after" pictures, post weeding and pruning:

Little Italy Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup After 

Little Italy Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup After 

Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup After in Little Italy

Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup After in Little Italy 

Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup After in Little Italy 

Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup After in Palmerston

The bed is quite deep in certain areas so there's potential (that word again) to fill this bed with many flower-bearing native and non-native perennials and shrubs, given it faces south and east and receives full sun for part of the day.

Alas, it's a rental property (which may explain the state of things before I was hired) and the odds that weeds will reappear and re-establish are high. But I've given the owner and tenants a blank slate so the ball is in their court, to mix metaphors.

A Backyard Garden Cleanup in Sherwood Park

A Season's Worth (At Least) of Weeds

October's weather here in Toronto has been unusually warm and dry, making working outside for a person like me very enjoyable. Even weeding two large garden beds, as shown in this post, was almost enjoyable.

It was a straightforward project: The clients who live in the mid-town Toronto area called Sherwood Park hired me to tidy up the two backyard garden beds they inherited by having them weeded and mulched. Being tenants, they have no interest in buying new plants but instead the directive was to make things look respectable (I paraphrase but that was the underlying message.)

And who can blame them? If you were looking at the beds as shown in these "before" pictures all summer, you'd likely feel the same:

Sherwood Park Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup Before

Sherwood Park Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup Before 

Sherwood Park Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup Before

Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup in Sherwood Park Before

Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup in Sherwood Park Before 

Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup in Sherwood Park Before

Afterwards...

The clients chose the black-dyed shredded wood mulch that's commonly seen in many neighbourhoods. It is a relatively inexpensive product found in most home improvement stores and like any mulch, by spreading a 3 inch layer on the bare soil surface, it should suppress weed seeds from germinating.  This is an important function as these clients lead very busy lives.

So if you're ready to see a lot (a sea?) of black mulch, here you go...

Sherwood Park Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup After

Sherwood Park Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup After

Sherwood Park Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup After
 

Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup in Sherwood Park After

Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup in Sherwood Park After 

Toronto Backyard Garden Cleanup in Sherwood Park After

Not a spectacular garden makeover, I agree, but this post shows you what I usually do throughout the working season.

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.

Peek A Boo, I See You!

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

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