Autumn at the Toronto Botanical Garden: An Early Look

Fall Flowers at the TBG

A lull before my many (I hope) fall cleanup jobs gave me a chance to visit one of my favourite places in Toronto during my favourite time of the year: the Toronto Botanical Garden in autumn. While it wasn't a classic crisp and sunny fall day when I recently dropped by the TBG (more overcast and humid), I nevertheless happily spent an hour or so taking many pictures of fall blooming perennials hardy to zone 5 Toronto (and a few to-be-discarded annuals). It's still a little early for many of the shrubs and trees to show off their vibrant fall foliage colours so I focused on the autumn bloomers. 

Anemone tomentosa ‘Robustissima’
(Grape Leaf Anemone) at the
Toronto Botanical Garden's
Entry Garden Walk 

Anemone tomentosa ‘Robustissima’
(Grape Leaf Anemone) fall flowers
at the Toronto Botanical Garden's
Garden Hall Courtyard 

Autumn Crocus (Colchicum autumnale)
fall flowers at the Toronto Botanical Garden's
Entry Garden Walk

Autumn Fountain Grass and
New England Asters
at the Toronto Botanical Garden's
Perennial Borders 

Autumn Goldenrods at the
Toronto Botanical Garden's
Perennial Borders 

Autumn New England Asters and
Fountain Grass at Toronto Botanical
Garden's Perennial Border 

Autumn New England Asters and
Goldenrod at the Toronto Botanical
Garden's Woodland Walk 

Autumn New England Asters and
Purple Coneflowers at the Toronto
Botanical Garden's Perennial Borders 

Autumn Purple Coneflowers and
New England Asters at the
Toronto Botanical Garden's
Perennial Borders 

Calico Aster (Symphyotrichum lateriflorum)
at the Toronto Botanical Garden Nature

Colchicum autumnale (Autumn Crocus)
fall flowers at the Toronto Botanical
Garden's Entry Garden Walk 

Dahlia 'Knockout' or 'Mystic Illusion'
flower detail at the
Toronto Botanical Garden 

Grape Leaf Anemone
(Anemone tomentosa ‘Robustissima’)
fall flowers at the
Toronto Botanical Garden's
Garden Hall Courtyard 

Phlomis tuberosa 'Amazone' (Jerusalem Sage)
autumn flowers at the Toronto Botanical
Garden's Entry Garden Walk 

Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)
seedheads at the Toronto Botanical Garden's
Entry Garden Walk 

Reblooming Bearded Iris 'Immortality'
fall flowers at the Toronto Botanical
Garden's Entry Garden Walk 

Rosa 'AuSome' (Rose-Marie Modern Shrub Rose)
at the Toronto Botanical Garden's
Floral Hall Courtyard 

Rosa 'AuSome' (Rose-Marie Modern Shrub Rose)
bloom at the Toronto Botanical Garden's
Floral Hall Courtyard 

Rudbeckia subtomentosa 'Henry Eilers'
(Sweet Coneflower) and Tall Verbena
at the Toronto Botanical Garden's
Westview Terrace 

Salvia 'Mystic Spires Blue' and
Lantana camara 'Luscious Bananarama'
flowers at the Toronto Botanical Garden 

Toronto Botanical Garden
Nature's Walk Fall Colours 

Toronto Botanical Garden
Perennial Border Fall Colours 

Verbena bonariensis (Tall Verbena)
at the Toronto Botanical Garden's
Entry Garden Walk 

It's Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend and I'm very thankful for being able to visit the Toronto Botanical Garden. And judging by the crowd milling around during this recent visit, I'm not the only one to feel the same!

Weeding a Leslieville Corner Garden: Better Late Than Never, Part Two

Another (Really) Late Summer Toronto Garden Cleanup

We're into autumn but here's one last post about a summer weeding project I completed in Toronto's Leslieville neighbourhood in August. 

This corner lot faces two very busy streets and has many small odd-shaped garden sections which hadn't been weeded for a long time, as the "before" pictures will show. And, naturally, I had to deal with several large barberry shrubs which haven't seen the blades of clippers in a while. 

And you know by now how much I love working around barberries! (Sarcasm on).

I lived in Leslieville during the mid to late 1970s and passed by this very same house daily going to and from my middle school. And forty years later, I'm working on the same property, which I found amusing, in a circle of life kind of way.

Some of the beds leading to 
the front door (hidden from this angle) 
which were infested with 
foxtail weed (Setaria viridis)

Leslieville Toronto Front Garden Cleanup Before 

More lovely barberries! Why do they follow me?

Toronto Leslieville Front Garden Cleanup Before

 An "inner courtyard" section which 
the clients wish to be used as a dog run. 
This makes sense as the section 
is right outside the back patio door, 
in full shade for most of the day 
and the soil is (or will be literally) crappy.

At the busy corner the weeds are 
thriving in full sun. I also was amazed 
how much trash collected in this area.

 This section is full of one of the worst 
weeds I deal with: perennial rye grass

Proof that simply mulching an exposed 
area is not enough. Some maintenance 
is required eventually.

Afterwards....

Mulch is often a busy homeowner's best friend, 
especially if  she isn't into gardening like this client. 
I suggested that mulch be spread on top of 
all the newly exposed areas like these two above.

Ho hum hostas and hydrangeas. 
There's great potential for explosive 
flower colour and texture in these beds.  

Toronto Leslieville Garden Cleanup After

Toronto Leslieville Front Garden Cleanup After

 Leslieville Garden Cleanup After

 Corners like this one are usually more 
problematic since they seem to attract 
all sorts of weed seeds and garbage.
Mulch, mulch, mulch!

 This decrepit juniper needs to be 
shovel pruned, pronto!

Leslieville Front Garden Cleanup After 

Now, let the fall cleanups begin!

Weeding Raised Beds in a Central Toronto Courtyard

Getting Gritty in Downtown Toronto

Working as a gardener in Toronto over the past 15 seasons has given me many opportunities to see various city neighbourhoods. Some areas are enclaves for the extremely wealthy while others are occupied by those barely scraping by. The size, condition and the mere existence of gardens, of course, reflect these differences in income and wealth. I was reminded of this during a recent garden cleanup for a condo located in the downtown Toronto neighbourhood called the Garden District. 

To describe the area as diverse is an understatement: I walked by many renovated million dollar homes and condominiums (although in Toronto's frothy property environment, that dollar value seems not to carry much cachet) located next to garbage-strewn alleys and tired-looking rooming houses and hostels.  And while I don't intend to generalize, some of the folks living in the area are rather...interesting. (If you've ever been in the Moss Park area, you know exactly what I mean.) 

I usually don't work for/around condominiums as our needs normally don't coincide. Most condos have a few containers or shrubs by the front door, that's about it. So it was unusual for me to be contacted by a condo board member named Sheelagh to see if I could do some gardening around the building. We met recently and she showed me around the condominium's interior courtyard which is accessible only to the residents and not visible to the public. The courtyard, more or less, is a series of paths leading to the various homes with many raised beds. There's also a common sitting area nestled among some mature (but declining) Paper Birch trees. 

Looking around the various beds and all those yews (!), I considered such commercial work (maybe that's the wrong word) under the purview of a traditional landscape maintenance company. A crew would come in with their leaf blowers and gas-powered clippers roaring away and be in and out within a hour, tops. Weeding may or may not occur as, for some reason, many companies loathe to pay staff to hand weed: hence, the "mow-blow-go" moniker given to such maintenance companies. I asked Sheelagh if this was the experience in the past and she confirmed that it was but going forward, the board prefers to have a long-term relationship with one gardener. And that gardener, after our initial interview, would be me!

Since there are so many garden beds, I'll show you the "before" and "after" pictures of the same bed. I do like the curvilinear shape of the beds and paths which make the space seem larger than it really is. The plantings (and architecture), though, seem to be stuck in the 1980s: yews and wintercreeper (Euonymus fortunei) of various shapes and sizes are everywhere and a deep love for Fiveleaf Aralia  (Acanthopanax sieboldianus) very evident. I can understand why these plants were chosen since the require very little care but being surrounded by all these yews especially gave me the impression I was visiting a cemetery! The exciting news is that the board is interested in remaking some of the beds and updating the plant selection. And, yes, that means getting rid of some of the beloved yews. This is a spring 2019 project and I'm looking forward in designing with and transplanting new perennials and deciduous shrubs at this location.

Toronto Downtown Garden
District Courtyard Cleanup Before

Toronto Downtown Garden
District Courtyard Cleanup After 

Garden District Toronto
Downtown Courtyard Cleanup Before 

Garden District Toronto
Downtown Courtyard Cleanup After 

Toronto Downtown Courtyard
Cleanup Before

Garden District Toronto Downtown
Cleanup After 

District Toronto Downtown
Cleanup Before

Garden District Toronto
Downtown Cleanup After

Toronto Downtown Courtyard
Cleanup Before

Toronto Downtown Courtyard
Cleanup After

Garden District Toronto
Downtown Cleanup Before

Garden District Toronto
Downtown Cleanup After

Garden District Toronto
Downtown Courtyard Cleanup Before 

A herd of newly shorn Fiveleaf Aralia 

Garden District Toronto
Downtown Cleanup Before 

Clipped meatballs

Garden District Toronto
Downtown Cleanup Before 

Garden District Toronto
Downtown Cleanup After 

Garden District Toronto
Downtown Cleanup Before

Garden District Toronto
Downtown Cleanup After

The weeding and pruning took up the entire day but thankfully the weather was cool and dry. I'm looking forward to the glorious weather coming up later this month and October which means, for you dear reader, many posts about fall cleanups.

I apologize in advance....