Got Leaves?

A Fall Cleanup in Toronto's Greenwood-Coxwell Neighbourhood

What happens when your backyard is surrounded by several huge mature Silver Maples (Acer saccharinum) and you go away on vacation for most of the autumn? Well, you likely will see this upon your return:

Monarch Park Toronto Fall Cleanup Before 

The homeowners scheduled me for a fall cleanup many weeks ago in anticipation of these leaves. I worked for them last year and profiled that autumn visit in a blog post titled "Another Toronto Fall Garden Cleanup in the Coxwell-Danforth Area; Putting A Garden To Rest (With This Gardener To Follow!)" so I knew what to expect, more or less, of the amount of work involved. Still, I marvelled at the amount of leaves covering their small east end Toronto backyard when I arrived and took these pictures:

Coxwell-Danforth Toronto Fall Cleanup Before 

Greenwood-Coxwell Toronto Fall Cleanup Before 

Coxwell-Danforth Toronto Fall Cleanup Before 

Monarch Park Backyard Toronto Fall Cleanup Before 

Greenwood-Coxwell Toronto Fall Cleanup Before 

Monarch Park Toronto Fall Cleanup Before

Greenwood-Coxwell Toronto Fall Cleanup Before

The small front yard wasn't covered by nearly as many leaves as the back but required some tidying up like cutting off the old Siberian Iris and herbaceous peony leaves:

Coxwell-Danforth Toronto Fall Cleanup Front Yard Before

Greenwood-Coxwell Toronto Fall Cleanup Front Yard Before 

Monarch Park Toronto Fall Cleanup Front Yard Before

And afterwards, with the excellent help of an electric leaf blower...

Greenwood-Coxwell Toronto Fall Cleanup After

Coxwell-Danforth Toronto Fall Cleanup After 

Greenwood-Coxwell Toronto Fall Cleanup Before 

Coxwell-Danforth Toronto Fall Cleanup After 

Greenwood-Coxwell Toronto Fall Cleanup After

Monarch Park Backyard Toronto Fall Cleanup 

Monarch Park Toronto Fall Cleanup After 

Monarch Park Toronto Fall Cleanup After 

And to the front...

Coxwell-Danforth Toronto Fall Cleanup Front Yard After 

Greenwood-Coxwell Toronto Fall Cleanup Front Yard After 

Monarch Park Toronto Fall Cleanup Front Yard After 

A Fall Front Garden Cleanup in Riverdale

Toronto Gardening Before the Snow Falls

The fall cleanup jobs are coming fast and furious with another two weeks before I close up shop.

This post brings us back to the east end Toronto neighbourhood of Riverdale, in which many of my clients reside. Christine is one such client and I tend to her very small front garden about three times a season. 

Riverdale Fall Cleanup Front Garden Before

The small front yard has several mature shrubs and a small weeping "Crimson Queen" Japanese maple so, from a garden maintenance aspect, it's lower maintenance. At this time of the year, I look after raking leaves out of the garden and off the sidewalk and some light pruning where needed. Nothing drastic, just tidying up the front for the winter.

Riverdale Toronto Fall Cleanup Front Garden Before 

Toronto Fall Cleanup Riverdale Front Garden Before 

Toronto Fall Cleanup Riverdale Front Garden Before 

Riverdale Fall Cleanup Front Garden Before 

Toronto Fall Cleanup Riverdale Front Garden Before

Afterwards....

Riverdale Fall Cleanup Front Garden After 

Riverdale Toronto Fall Cleanup Front Garden After

Toronto Fall Cleanup Riverdale Front Garden After

Toronto Fall Cleanup Riverdale Front Garden After

Riverdale Fall Cleanup Front Garden After

Toronto Fall Cleanup Riverdale Front Garden After

It snowed a few inches last night but the snow will melt in a day or so. Raking leaves mixed with snow isn't "effective" and the leaves are darn heavy! The joys of gardening in November in Toronto...

Hasta la Vista, Hostas!

A Fall Cleanup in a Downtown Toronto Courtyard

If you grow hostas in Toronto (and who doesn't, it seems), you knew this day would come. Your clumps of slug bait prized perennials have finally collapsed and on their way to becoming a slimy mess. What to do? Cut them down now or deal with the mess next spring? A perennial question, indeed.

Hostas have their virtues, don't get me wrong: they are practically indestructible in most soils with decent drainage, there are hundreds of varieties in the market and are useful in garden designs as specimens or "filler". I like to consider hostas as "perennials with training wheels" for newbies as they are often found for sale in the same places you'd pick up a can of paint or drywall, forgiving of abuse and relatively inexpensive. I certainly bought more than a few when I first started planting in my current garden decades ago.

So it's no surprise that I see hostas in many of the gardens I work in and, at this time of the year, I've been dealing with them almost daily during my fall cleanup sessions for clients. This post will yet again show hostas "melting" into winter dormancy which kind of describes my physical condition at the end of another work season!

If you like hostas and yews, you're in for a treat (sarcasm inserted). This condo courtyard profiled in this post (and in another post titled "Weeding Raised Beds in a Central Toronto Courtyard: Getting Gritty in Downtown Toronto") has a dozen or so curvilinear raised beds full of hostas and yews. The look of overall garden is firmly stuck in the mid 1980s:

Toronto Garden District 
Fall Cleanup Before

Toronto Garden District 
Fall Cleanup Before

Garden District Courtyard Toronto 
Fall Cleanup Before

Toronto Garden District 
Courtyard Fall Cleanup Before 

Garden District Toronto 
Fall Cleanup Before 

Garden District Toronto 
Fall Cleanup Before 

Toronto Garden District 
Courtyard Fall Cleanup Before 

Garden District Courtyard 
Toronto Fall Cleanup Before 

It's a "mow-blow-go" landscape maintenance contractor's Nirvana (even better,  there's no grass therefore no "mow" so you can "go" even quicker.) The work would simply consist of coming in with a few worker bees and shearing these yew meatballs and UFOs with gas-powered clippers, blowing away debris from the paths and getting back to the truck to check their phones and scoot on to their next job. 

I was confused as to why the condo board would want to hire me to look after the courtyard area, given the monoculture of shorn evergreens and hostas, but apparently the board members wanted to update the plantings circa the late 1900s and are even considering removing some of the more contorted yews and replacing them with a greater variety of deciduous shrubs and perennials. And so they called me for this spring 2019 project.

But between now and warmer times in 5 months, a fall cleanup was booked and completed, as the pictures below show:

Toronto Garden District 
Fall Cleanup After

Toronto Garden District 
Fall Cleanup After

Garden District Courtyard 
Toronto Fall Cleanup After 

Toronto Garden District 
Courtyard Fall Cleanup After

Garden District Toronto 
Fall Cleanup After

No, these are not yews surprisingly. 
A "grove" of Fiveleaf Aralia (Eleutherococcus 
( syn. Acanthopanax) sieboldianus).

Toronto Garden District 
Courtyard Fall Cleanup After 

Garden District Courtyard 
Toronto Fall Cleanup After 

On a positive and hopeful note, someone did plant this small clump of "Goldsturm" coneflower (Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm’) below. I left it alone for the winter, an "oasis" for hungry overwintering birds within the barren yew-dominated courtyard.

Garden District Courtyard Fall 
Rudbeckia (Black Eye Susans) 

A Fall Garden Cleanup in Leslieville

Getting Ready For the Winter

As November quickly rolls on, the fall cleanups just keep coming for me. The crisp and dry weather I enjoyed in early October seems a distant memory as November's rain and near freezing temperatures are making it a tough go for me working outside. 

Just another few weeks, I keep telling myself, before my annual sabbatical!

This post brings us back to Leslieville, an east-end Toronto neighbourhood I'm very familiar with as I grew up and now work often in it.

I worked for John, the client here, this past summer and profiled my efforts in a recent post titled "Ummm, We Know A Gardener Who Can Help...: A Leslieville Summer Garden Cleanup That Keeps the Neighbours Happy"   A few months later, John called me back to tidy up his backyard before winter really arrives. 

This fall cleanup involved more weeding than the usual leaf raking and pruning perennials. I asked him to buy some mulch a few months ago but this didn't happen; consequently, weeds emerged quickly again for me to tackle.

Leslieville Toronto Fall Garden Cleanup Before

Leslieville Toronto Fall Garden Cleanup After

A clump of yellowing Solomon's Seal (left) 
and hostas (right) to cut down and 
a persistent Tree of Heaven sucker to 
excavate in the upper right corner. 
And yes, lots of weeds between the flagstone... 

Leslieville Toronto Fall Garden Cleanup After 

Leslieville Fall Cleanup Before 

Leslieville Fall Cleanup After

The mellow-yellow hosta fall 
foliage colour is actually nice!  

Leslieville Toronto Fall Cleanup After 

Toronto Leslieville Fall Garden Cleanup Before

Leslieville Toronto Fall Cleanup After 

Leslieville Fall Cleanup Before 

This bed will have "Annabelle" Smooth 
Hydrangeas and "Patriot" hostas 
massed planted next spring. 

Leslieville Toronto Fall Cleanup After

Toronto Leslieville Fall Garden Cleanup After