A Shade Garden Makeover in North High Park

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 

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

Toronto High Park North New Front Yard Makeover After 

High Park North Spring Cleanup and Makeover After

Channelling Hokusai in Summerhill

A New Toronto Garden Installation in Shady Summerhill

The project seemed straight-forward: the client, Dawn, wanted a new shade garden facing the street. I first visited the site in April 2019 so most of the existing perennials were dormant and the garden was visually a blank slate as shown below:

Summerhill Toronto New Front
Shade Garden Makeover Before

Summerhill Toronto New Front
Shade Garden Makeover Before 

Toronto Summerhill New Front
Shade Garden Makeover Before

Summerhill Toronto New Front
Garden Makeover Before

New Summerhill Toronto Front
Shade Garden Renovation Before 

Summerhill Toronto New Front
Garden Makeover Before

Summerhill Toronto New Front
Perennial Garden Makeover Before

I came up with a list of perennials and small shrubs for the partly sunny-shady site. My choices offered multi-season floral and foliage interest. Dawn didn't go over the list with a fine toothed comb so everything I suggested was ordered and delivered for "transplanting day." 

Then things became interesting...

When I arrived, Dawn was out walking her dog so she left a note advising me of her imminent return. The note also had this very well-known picture printed on it:

The Great Wave off Kanagawa

She wrote instructions that she wanted the new garden to give her a similar sense of energy as depicted by the famous wave (I'm paraphrasing.)

(I'll copy and paste these notes from Wikipedia about "The Great Wave off Kanagawa":

"The Great Wave off Kanagawa (神奈川沖浪裏 かながわおきなみうら Kanagawa-oki nami ura, lit. "Under a wave off Kanagawa"), also known as The Great Wave or simply The Wave, is a woodblock print by the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai. It was published sometime between 1829 and 1833[1] in the late Edo period as the first print in Hokusai's series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. It is Hokusai's most famous work, and one of the most recognizable works of Japanese art in the world."

(Source: The Great Wave off Kanagawa))

The Fine Art and Science of Digging Holes

Hmmmm...

There is a science behind transplanting correctly but where to dig these darn holes relies more on the gardener's aesthetic sensibilities. Dawn's "instructions" were nebulous and fluid in meaning (pun intended). She didn't show me a picture of a Japanese garden (or any garden) and said "copy this, or approximate it anyway."  Just this picture, albeit very well-known, from Edo-period Japan and words about "feeling the energy from the new garden similar to what the wave emits" or something to that effect.

Hokusai's famous print shows a huge wave about to devour three fishing boats--its pent up energy is about destroy the hapless fishermen below the towering crest. It is both terrifying and beautiful, dwarfing revered Mount Fuji in the background.

I'd like the new garden to be beautiful over time (not so much terrifying) with a sense of energy, movement and flow; consequently, I placed the perennials and a few shrubs to emulate streams, rivulets, eddies and minimized the appearance of straight lines.

After a full day of transplanting, I showed Dawn my three dimensional living interpretation of Hokusai's woodblock print. I wasn't exactly sure how she would react (and, to be honest, I don't think she even knew what to expect) but she loved the results as shown below:

Summerhill Toronto New Front
Shade Garden Makeover After

Summerhill Toronto New Front
Shade Garden Makeover After

Toronto Summerhill New Front
Shade Garden Makeover After 

Summerhill Toronto New Front
Garden Makeover After 

New Summerhill Toronto Front
Shade Garden Renovation After

Summerhill Toronto New Front
Garden Makeover After

Summerhill Toronto New Front
Perennial Garden Makeover After

As a bonus (and a first for me), Dawn invited me to take this picture from the second floor deck, giving us a birds-eye view of the garden's overall shape and plant placement.

Summerhill New Front Garden Makeover After 

This will be an amazing garden (I can be immodest here) in a few years if watered and weeded regularly. The perennials should easily double or triple in size once established and the black mulch will be mostly hidden by foliage.

I'm eagerly waiting for my next garden installation to emulate Mona Lisa's wry smile.

A Riverdale Backyard New Garden Installation

Bye Bye Boxwood!

From initial meeting to cleanup to garden bed preparation to transplanting...for me, garden-making is relatively straightforward. After doing this for 15 years, I have a good idea of what plants "work" based on the site realities, client preferences and, not unimportantly, budget constraints.  I thought there would be few, if any, obstacles from start to finish with this Riverdale, Toronto garden renovation. Easy peasy, as it were. 

I assumed that the soil in the rectangular garden bed would be easy to dig into, making transplanting not painful and maybe even fun. It wasn't meant to be, of course. I started to dig a few preliminary holes and sure enough, I was hitting lots of surface roots from a spruce tree nearby. There was also a decent patch of lily of the valley to contend with.

So much for easy peasy...

I've profiled this backyard in an earlier post titled "A Riverdale Spring Cleanup in Preparation for New Plantings: An Old Boxwood Facing Its Final Days... " which showed some "before" and "after" pictures from the spring cleanup occurring in April 2019. 

After said cleanup, I provided the client with a list of plants to buy for the garden makeover. She politely arranged delivery and things were set.

Finally, I could put this old and unpruned boxwood out of its misery:

Riverdale Backyard Garden Makeover Before 

What does a boxwood look like if it's ignored for many years? As the picture above shows, not very nice. This broadleaf evergreen hardly qualifies as a specimen unless it's clipped into a topiary (and regularly clipped). But this is what draws your eyes when looking down the path to the parking area and from the deck: a diseased and, well, ugly boxwood. A perfect focal point in the garden, for all the wrong reasons.

Riverdale Backyard Garden Makeover Before 

The above view towards the deck and back of the house isn't much more inspiring. A half-alive euonymus/winter creeper and a shrub next to the deck is about it for visual interest.

Toronto Riverdale Backyard Garden Makeover Before

There's also this small bed on the other side of the stairs. In part/full shade for most of the day, the peony on the right side will never thrive so out it comes.

Toronto Riverdale Backyard Garden Makeover Before 

Here's the view from the top of the stairs and the deck looking down. Sorry that it's a bit out of focus but you see the general picture.

And afterwards...

Riverdale Backyard Garden Makeover After 

Above is the view looking down the back half of the bed towards the gate and parking area. I replaced the decrepit boxwood with a fresh Serviceberry, placed a row of dogwood shrubs along the horizontal fence and planted an assortment of shade tolerant perennials like ferns, hostas and Japanese Forest Grass.

Riverdale Backyard Garden Makeover After 

Toronto Riverdale Backyard Garden Makeover After 

This small serviceberry should get to 15-20 feet tall if all things go well.

Riverdale New Backyard Garden Makeover After 

When the homeowners open the gate after parking the car, they'll see a mass of perennials and shrubs as they walk into the house. New transplants always look puny and underwhelming so let's be charitable and give them a few years to get established and really fill in.

Toronto Riverdale Backyard Garden Makeover After

Looking down about 6 feet from the deck railing. I misjudged the number of Hakone grasses as we're about two short in order to fully form a border next to the interlocking brick path. 

The grasses can be planted anytime, easy peasy.

A New Shade Garden in Mount Pleasant East-Davisville

Improving Curb Appeal, One Root-Filled Front Garden at a Time

Gardening under or near Norway Maples always requires some planning or, when it comes to dealing with clients who want to do this, "managing expectations." When even weeds are reluctant to grow in these dry and shady spots, you know that some challenges await.

 Mount Pleasant East Davisville
New Front Shade Garden Before

Jennifer, my client in this post, has had enough of this front bed and who can blame her? I won't comment on the rock placement (ahem) but the three boxwoods are ailing in this dry bed about 50 feet away from the maple's trunk. Even at this distance, the maple's shallow roots are greedily taking in as much moisture as it can. The boxwoods, like many across Toronto, are afflicted with their most serious pest, the Boxwood leafminer and have never been pruned so I'll take them out of their misery.

Mount Pleasant East Davisville
New Front Shade Garden Before

This small bed is next to the path leading to the front door. As the "before" pictures show, there isn't much visual interest--essentially three unpruned and scraggly boxwoods and that's it. And the rocks...

Davisville Mount Pleasant East
New Front Shade Garden Before 

Afterwards....

 Mount Pleasant East Davisville
New Front Shade Garden After

I chose shade-tolerant perennials like bleeding heart, barrenwort, Carex, hostas and hellebores. These shady characters are very common and easy to find at most garden centers. The maple will always compete for moisture and nutrients with the new perennials but the client was willing to "give it a shot" and promised me to regularly water this bed.

Mount Pleasant East Davisville
New Front Shade Garden After 

I forget there were even boxwoods here! Maybe it's the black mulch...

No, I didn't bother putting the boulders back into this bed since they were too small to have any significant visual interest.

This was a cute little project although, for me, a challenge was digging through the "rooty" soil.The shallow maple surface roots were more of a nuisance than an outright obstacle luckily.

Davisville Mount Pleasant East
New Front Shade Garden After