A Bedford Park Fall Cleanup

Putting the Backyard Pool Garden "to Rest"

A handful of my clients have outdoor pools and I find it's always a bit tricky working around them. It wouldn't be a disaster falling in by accident (I can swim) when it's hot and sticky in August but during a November fall cleanup, exposure to these standing pockets of water is...well, gross, as some pictures below will suggest.

The homeowner of this Bedford Park property in mid-north Toronto hires me in the spring and fall to weed, prune, rake leaves, etc. It's a rental property so the tenants, as usual, do nothing when it comes to maintaining the outside and when I return after a five month hiatus, there's usually a lot of pruning and weeding required.

Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Backyard Before

I usually leave ornamental grasses like this group of Maiden Grass (Miscanthus) alone over winter as they look nice; however, since the client asked me to cut them down and the tenants are oblivious, I reduced them to stubs. I suggest you don't do this for your own garden as these hardy grasses do double duty over winter.

Unless you like the look below...

Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Backyard After 

Bedford Park Toronto Fall Cleanup Backyard Before

This area around the flagstone path connecting the house side and backyard patio is always infested with weeds. Either I deal with them now or next spring so I dug them out before they really take hold.

Bedford Park Toronto Fall Cleanup Backyard After 

Fall Cleanup Bedford Park Backyard Before 

Fall Cleanup Bedford Park Backyard After 

Fall Cleanup Bedford Park Backyard Before 

Standing water enriched by decomposing leaves isn't very attractive as the pictures above and below show. I had to work carefully in that three foot wide bed at the base of the fence. Falling into that cold and dirty water when the air temperature is hovering around zero Celsius (32 F) wasn't part of the fall cleanup!

Fall Cleanup Bedford Park Backyard After 

Toronto Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Backyard Before

Toronto Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Backyard After 

I usually prune the spireas, hydrangeas and peonies "hard" every fall to control their size in this narrow strip of a garden bed.

Toronto Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Backyard Before 

Toronto Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Backyard After 

And a bit of work in the front garden bed and driveway...

Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Front Yard Before

Lots of hostas to take down and, yes, Halloween was the night before I visited this property!

Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Front Yard After 

Fall Cleanup Bedford Park Front Yard Before 

Fall Cleanup Bedford Park Front Yard After 

Fall Cleanup Bedford Park Front Yard Before 

Fall Cleanup Bedford Park Front Yard After 

In case you're wondering, those paper bags in the upper left corner of the picture above hold all the leaves, twigs, etc. I collected and will be picked up by the City every two weeks until December for municipal composting. 

Toronto Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Front Before 

Toronto Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Front After 

More fall cleanups to come, lucky you!

A Cabbagetown Spring Cleanup

Cutting Down a Few Ornamental Grasses in Spring

The weather so far this May has been mediocre with lower than average temperatures and plenty of rain. I'd say right now we're about two weeks behind a "normal" Toronto spring when it comes to bloom times. Usually the forsythias are finished blooming by now but I see many still with lots of yellow flowers.

But come rain or shine, I'm receiving many requests for spring cleanups. This post bring us back to the downtown Toronto neighbourhood of Cabbagetown for another client visit.

The front yard is very small, typical for this area. I left the ornamental grasses (Miscanthus sp.)  alone last fall when I did the fall cleanup so now have to deal with them. All they require is to have the old stalks cut down to about 6 inches from the ground. Miscanthus (maiden grass) is a warm season grass so new shoots will emerge by late May (if it ever warms up!)

The greener sedges at the brick edging (likely Gold Fountains Sedge or Carex dolichostachya 'Kaga Nishiki') just need a bit of the trim to cut away the brown tips. New bight green leaves are already emerging with this beautiful sedge.

Cabbagetown Toronto Spring Garden
Cleanup Front Yard Before

Cabbagetown Toronto Spring Garden
Cleanup Front Yard After 

Cabbagetown Toronto Spring Garden
Cleanup Front Yard Before 

Cabbagetown Toronto Spring Garden
Cleanup Front Yard After

And in the backyard...

The bulk of the work was done last fall when I raked and swept up most of Paper Birch leaves from the garden bed and patio. As in the front, the yellow ornamental grasses (Japanese Forest Grass now emerging) were left alone last autumn. They just need some tidying up as well by pulling away the old leaves.

Typical for Cabbagetown's small lots, there is no lawn or turf grown. On the maintenance scale, this garden is around a 2, which suits the busy homeowners fine.

Cabbagetown Spring Garden
Cleanup Back Yard Before

Cabbagetown Spring Garden
Cleanup Back Yard After

Toronto Cabbagetown Spring Garden
Cleanup Back Yard  Before 

Toronto Cabbagetown Spring Garden
Cleanup Back Yard After 

Toronto Cabbagetown Spring
Cleanup Back Yard  Before 

Toronto Cabbagetown Spring
Cleanup Back Yard After 

Mid Toronto new front garden installation

Another Toronto Front Garden Makeover

Once in a while I'm asked to revamp/makeover/redo a Toronto garden that is located on a rental property. The landlord/s usually want to invest as little as possible (upfront and future maintenance dollars) in order to maximize their return on investment. If I can get them (the homeowner) away from the "low maintenance" conventional wisdom of laying down sheets of black landscape fabric and then dumping a tonne of pea gravel or river rock (which over time, by the way, does not work in keeping weeds from popping up, through or on top of the gravel), we may ideally consider transplanting a mixture of perennials, shrubs and trees to make the site look better than an enlarged municipal drainage swale.

This rental property's front area in midtown Toronto is ignored by the tenants except when the weeds invade every spring and summer. The mulch certainly helps by reducing the amount of weeds sprouting up but since the garden receives full sun until afternoon and gets rainwater from two downspouts, well, weeds aren't going to ignore such inviting conditions! 

Alex, one of the homeowners and my client here, usually gets a call (or several) from a tenant or two complaining of the pasture-like conditions come June. The landscaping company he hires to prune the boxwood and privet hedges, of course, ignores weeding anything that can't be accomplished with a string trimmer or hedge clipper. (The idea of hand pulling weeds is naturally ridiculous for most landscape maintenance crews, I believe, almost to the point of insulting. But I digress as usual...)

Midtown Toronto before new full sun perennial garden 

As you might see above in the "before" picture, large clumps of weeds are establishing themselves happily by late May. The main culprits are creeping bellflower (Campanula rapunculoides) which is an absolute nightmare in a garden bed and a few lesser burdock (Arctium minus) trying to establish a beach-head against a hapless gardener in the future. And things will only get wilder as summer progresses...

In my discussions with Alex, he was open to the idea of creating a space that required very little maintenance with some colourful flowers. We came up with a list of perennials which preferred full sun (the garden faces east and gets full sun until afternoon) and some winter interest so, of course, I suggested ornamental grasses. In fact, half of the new plants is comprised of three types of ornamental grasses in keeping with the "low maintenance" directive and taking advantage of the open and windy area.

After weeding, transplanting and watering, here's the result:

Midtown Toronto after new full sun perennial garden

Showing the "after" pictures is a little underwhelming as the new perennials are usually one gallon container sized so the garden owner has to take a leap of faith to imagine how the plants will establish and fill in over the next few years.

Midtown Toronto new low maintenance 
perennial garden before

Above is the "before" view from the sidewalk. We have a few stones, a boxwood hedge at the front of the house and two boxwood balls "guarding" said hedge. The small tree is a dying Rose of Sharon standard that likely will need to be removed soon. And the weeds...

Midtown Toronto new low 
maintenance perennial garden after 

Midtown Toronto new low maintenance 
perennial garden before 

Midtown Toronto new low maintenance 
perennial garden after 

Midtown Toronto new full sun perennial garden before 

Above is a "before" view from the front door landing before the stairs leading down to the interlocking brick path, Yes, it's uninspiring!

Midtown Toronto new full sun perennial garden after 

And here's the "after" view. I think some tenants will be a little more interested with the front garden instead of covering their eyes going to and from work.

(The hose is connected to a timer programmed to irrigate the area every morning for 30 minutes). 

What's the plant list? Here you go:

• Blazing Star (Liatris spicata ‘Kobold’)
• Hameln Fountain Grass (Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Hameln’)
• Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa)
• "Magnus" Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea "Magnus")
• "Red Satin" Threadleaf Coreopsis (Coreopsis ‘Red Satin’)
• Flame Grass (Miscanthus sinensis "Purpurascens")
• Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium)

And not one piece of pea gravel was sacrificed for this new garden!

Roncesvalles Village raised bed garden makeover

A small Toronto front raised garden re-design in Roncesvalles

I love these kinds of projects:  The client knows exactly what plants to buy given how much maintenance will be committed, I transplant them with a design in mind and get paid right away!

The client, Tanya, was fed up with the front raised bed she inherited when she moved in. There is an existing medium sized crabapple, a small weeping red cut-leaf Japanese maple, some clumps of grape hyacinths and an old rose that she hated.

Here's a picture showing what I mean:

Roncesvalles Village Toronto
new garden installation before 

She wanted a more contemporary look so advised me to remove the rose (and the few large weeds) and to come up with a lower maintenance garden design. The combination of full sun, contemporary look and lower maintenance automatically suggests, to me, ornamental grasses and, with regular watering, some sedges ( Carex cultivars).

We came up with a plant list which includes Feather Reed Grass (Calamagrostis × acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’),  Japanese Blood Grass (Imperata cylindrica ‘Red Baron’)  and  Variegated sedge (Carex "Ice Dance").  Originally I suggested using my favourite grass, Japanese Forest Grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’) but she decided on the Blood Grass instead. This was a brilliant move as the tips of the Blood Grass relate to the Japanese maple's burgundy leaves.

A few hours later...

Roncesvalles Village Toronto
new garden installation after 

I decided to reuse the grape hyacinths since the bed would have no early spring colour otherwise and recommended to Tanya to plant several dozen daffodils this fall to boost the garden's early spring curb appeal.

I applied a 3" layer of black (dyed) mulch to reduce the amount of weeds germinating and lessen the need for regular watering (after the perennials become established.)

Here are more "before" and "after" pictures of the garden from various viewpoints:

Roncesvalles Village Toronto
new garden installation before 

Roncesvalles Village Toronto
new garden installation after

Toronto new garden installation
Roncesvalles Village before 

Toronto new garden installation
Roncesvalles Village after 

Toronto new garden installation
Roncesvalles Village before

Roncesvalles Village Toronto
new garden installation after

Tanya was very happy with the new cleaner look, in no small part due to removing the previous homeowner's prized rose. I was delighted with her lack of remorse!

Toronto spring garden cleanup in North York

Dealing with ornamental grasses in a Toronto spring garden cleanup

The biggest tasks in this North York, Toronto garden at this time of the year is cutting back and dealing with the dried ornamental grass leaves that were left on over the past winter. It was a little tough dealing with the woody-like dried stems but my sharp loppers made steady and efficient progress. Being warm season grasses, these Miscanthus sinensis (Maiden grass) cultivars will start pushing new leaves when the temperatures increase a little more in another month.

North York Toronto spring garden cleanup
before by Paul Jung Gardening Services

North York Toronto spring garden cleanup
after by Paul Jung Gardening Services

North York Toronto spring garden clean up
before by Paul Jung Gardening Services

North York Toronto spring garden clean up
after by Paul Jung Gardening Services

North York Toronto spring garden cleanup
before by Paul Jung Gardening Services Inc

North York Toronto spring garden cleanup
after by Paul Jung Gardening Services Inc

These two small beds just had a few perennials like lavender and Japanese Forest Grass that needed a little tidying up.

North York spring garden clean up before
by Paul Jung Gardening Services Toronto

North York spring garden clean up after
by Paul Jung Gardening Services Toronto

North York spring garden cleanup before
by Paul Jung Gardening Services Toronto

North York spring garden cleanup after
by Paul Jung Gardening Services Toronto