Trust Me: I'm a Professional Landscaper

When did yews become checker pieces? 

King me! That's what came to mind when I saw these guys. Nearly choked on my sub sandwich.

Now I'll be the first one to give the guys and gals (mostly guys) in the commercial landscape maintenance biz some slack when it comes to mow, blow and go pruning but what follows is, umm...

Maybe stepping stones across a zen ocean,
with cigarette butts thrown in?

My son trying to blend in, albeit unsuccessfully.

When did the front of a coffee shop become a checker board?
It is now.

Someone really, really loves his level.

Hockey pucks? Cheese rounds? Who the *&%! knows?

That's me making sure that this
wasn't some stage for
a performance art installation.

To paraphrase the immortal from Syracuse, "Give me a place to stand and with a gas-powered shears I will move the whole world.” I was definitely moved.

Sex and manure: the missing link now revealed

Why this Toronto gardener won't think about composting the same way

File this post under, literally, scatalogical humour or simply, WTF, but this is a gardening blog after all and an irreverent one at that. (There are way too many how-to-grow-this-plant blogs out there. I refuse to add to the tedium.) Anyway, I can't make this stuff up.

I'm a big fan of composting: either doing it yourself in your backyard with some sort of contraption (bin, pit, pile, whatever you have handy) or diverting your organic green waste via the municipality's recycling program (if offered in your area.) So it was with a tinge of curiosity, disapproval and arousal that I re-discovered about the benefits of composting offered in the calendar (and video!) below:

Apparently, the Fertile Earth Foundation in Miami wondered aloud

How many people think about their poop as often as we do? How often do you ponder your #2? It tells us a lot about our health and what we need to eat, if we are dehydrated and so on. Plus, did you know there are safe ways to turn even our waste into Humanure? Yes, that is composted human poop! Your poop could be turned into to super rich black gold! Ok, maybe we're grossing you out. Let's change the subject. How often do you think about sex? Or beautiful women? This project is a tasteful synergy of those 2 things: The Ladies of Manure  2013 Calendar.

Now, don't start flaming me for bringing this non-profit organization's eco-friendly message to your collective conscience (something about not shooting the messenger.) I think we can all agree that while the goal of composting your coffee grounds and apple cores is noble, using sex to sell the message is cynical and unsettling to most people. (One can't say unsuccessful though as the Foundation has raised over $5 000 to date.)

Which got me thinking about sex and gardening, off the top of my head. There's always been an uncomfortable association in the West between the two topics, going all the way back (for believers) to Adam and Eve. To add human waste in the mix, metaphorically, is really too much for some tender gardeners. Since I'm from the East (China) where fertilizing with human manure is still common and not taboo, the concept isn't gag-me gross or mind-blowing.

I didn't think someone had the "vision" to incorporate three human needs (to excrete, to pro-create and to garden) in a calendar so either kudos or arrows to the creator.


By the way, this is what our fair city's recycling and waste containers look like if you're curious:

Source: Source: insidetoronto.com

A little less sexy, I'd say!







By Paul Jung, author of "garden muses: a Toronto gardening blog"

Google Google Find us on Google+ Find us on Google+

Do cacti need viagra?

Or: Why we keep plants

Limp cactus is not the name of a punk band, yet...

The garden muses took me to my dad's place today. Going near his crumbling front stoop I noticed this cactus propped up, trying to achieve horticultural turgidity.

I didn't bother asking him why he's keeping and nurturing this guy (it has to be a guy!) as I doubt dear dad sees any irony with the composition.

My father's an interesting fellow, a bit of a well-educated hoarder. Why is he keeping the cactus?  Maybe it could be as simple as not being willing to throw away something living and "perfectly fine." I see variations of this affection among my clients as well: grandma's monster forsythia overtaking the front porch, the row of bridal wreath spiraea last pruned in 1978, the decrepit juniper bought as a baby 1 gallon plant now threatening to block out the second floor windows.

I always ask my customers before pruning if there's any sentiment attached to said-to-be-pruned shrub. New  homeowners who inherit a garden are often perplexed. "Why would we be possibly attached to this overgrown green blob?" is often communicated verbatim. Older garden-owners appreciate the question.

As I get older, I'm starting to understand the reluctance of letting go of objects which have meaning and significance. I need to remind myself that it's easy enough for me to say that "it's only a plant", let's shovel prune it and put something newer and cooler in. A plant can be a symbol of better days and of family and friends no longer here.

By Paul Jung, author of "garden muses: a Toronto gardening blog"Google Google Find us on Google+ Find us on Google+

The March of the Emerald Cedars

A sign of spring in Toronto: the annual migration begins

(Cue the background soundtrack of the moans of howling winds)

An unusual and curious migration occurs every April in Toronto. This is the first documented report, that I know of, in recorded history of this strange phenomenon. With temperatures rising slowly above freezing and winter's snow slowly melting, these event are worthy of being on the Discovery Channel and, in the past, HGTV before the "G" was removed. After months of sub-zero conditions, biting winds, and mounds of snow (except this year), the Emerald Cedar (Thuja occidentalis "Smaragd") has returned from months of feeding and gorging itself on 20-20-20 in greenhouses all over southern Ontario to return to its breeding  selling grounds outside of big box stores and nurseries.

Huddled together to preserve warmth against April's cruel winds

Some already claiming preferred nesting sites on strange wooden objects

Patiently waiting for their right mates to appear

Highly territorial at this time of the year, these cedars have staked out their sites and will vigorously defend them

Emerald cedars all over Toronto are waiting on large asphalt landing areas for their respective mate, Newhomeowner torontus "Cheap and Oblivious", to bring them to their rightful spots to form stalwart hedges between acrimonious neighbours, among the massive boulders one sees near newly-built McMansions, and jammed adjacent to tiny front stoops all over suburban Toronto.

Unfortunately, the migration from the retail grounds is one way and more often than not, these majestic and brave Emerald cedars die slow and painful deaths in deep shade or wind-swept vistas. Still, for millenia (or at least the past 20 years), their migration faithfully occurs with the change in seasons, without fail or fanfare.

(Can somebody get Morgan Freeman on the phone?)

By Paul Jung, author of "garden muses: a Toronto gardening blog"Google Google Find us on Google+ Find us on Google+