Gardening Life articles from March 2003

Gardening Life archives from March 2003

What's new (Aquilegia `Sweet Rainbows').
March 1, 2003... Making its debut in Canadian seed catalogues this year, the stunning AQUILEGIA `SWEET RAINBOWS' is a columbine of a different colour--actually, many different colours. As well as its paintbox palette, it has a honeysuckle-like scent and makes...

Hot stuff (designer Nicole Fleur van der Oord's purses).
March 1, 2003... Since 1997, Toronto designer Nicole Fleur van der Oord has given new meaning to the idea of flower power with her FLEURTJE line of hip yet durable flap purses, bucket bags and totes. Hand-crafted from vintage vinyls and other upholstery...

Gardener's palette: creating color in the garden.
March 1, 2003... Are you "colour-cowardly" when it comes to selecting plants and blooms? Then Sydney Eddison's

How to plant a strawberry pot.
March 1, 2003... Often used for herbs, these popular terra-cotta pots were first designed for strawberries. While the pots provide good drainage, which strawberries appreciate, make a watering tube for even water distribution by cutting a piece of two-inch...

Good bug: centipede.
March 1, 2003... CENTIPEDES ( PROFILE Often confused with millipedes, centipedes are long, slender creatures with many segments. However, centipedes have only one pair of legs on each body segment, whereas millipedes have two pairs of legs on each...

(Large merrybells).
March 1, 2003... Commonly kwon as large merrybells, Uvularia grandiflora is a magnificent eastern North American native that does surprisingly well in gardens. (Just make sure the Uvularia you purchase has been grown for garden culture and wasn't taken from...

Ask Marjorie.
March 1, 2003... A SITE FOR SORE EYES Q WHAT TALL PLANT MATERIAL could you suggest for a Muskoka garden with two levels of upward-sloping rock? I have already created two beds, providing extra soil and fertilizer. I would like something colourful...

Spring fever: raise the temperature a notch with this season's hottest blooms, orange tulips.
March 1, 2003... THIS SPRING, ORANGE tulips are the hot blooms, adorning everything from the trendiest gardens to a recent 48-cent stamp. Happily, they're also among the most accessible--as close at hand in cut form as the nearest flower shop. To keep cut...

Back splash: set the stage for your garden stars with a vibrantly painted backdrop.
March 1, 2003... GARDENERS COULD LEARN a thing or two from interior designers, who understand the importance of background colour in creating mood and atmosphere. They know that the right choice of paint really sets the tone in a room, providing the perfect...

Great sensations: Jen Reynolds packs colour, taste, texture and fragrance into four bountiful containers.
March 1, 2003... Richly hued and scented, pots filled with herbs and edible flowers deserve a place near a doorway, on a balcony or by a sitting area, where their sensory appeal can appreciated at close hand--and harvesting is made easy. ALL HERBS need...

Getting in gear.
March 1, 2003... GARDENING GLOVES $14 Mid West cotton and leather gloves. Reinforced leather fingertips. Come in a variety of cheerful colours. At Home Depot. $25 Touchstone topiary gloves. Thorn-resistant and form-fitting, with Dirt Seal wrist...

To do (for) march and april.
March 1, 2003... GL'S CROSS-COUNTRY CHECKLIST WEST * THIS is a great time to shop for new rosebushes at the garden centre. Selection should be at its best right now. Plant them in a sunny spot, amending the area with lots of compost or well-rotted...

Greener thumb.
March 1, 2003... TIPS FROM A PRO WHEN you're in the business of retailing plants as I am, you get a good early indication of which ones are going to take off each season. And while trends don't develop overnight, a plant that starts getting noticed and...

Shipshape shed: neatness counts in a gardener's hq.
March 1, 2003... WHILE IT'S IMPORTANT to store your garden tools in a place where they'll be protected from the weather, rust and other damage, a toolshed isn't just a storage area. It's also the gardener's head office and workplace, so organization--a place...

A to zinnia: what's not to like about this zippy flower?
March 1, 2003... annuals in Canada, zinnias are old-fashioned favourites that, with their zingy colours, intriguing shapes, stiff stems that refuse to flop and long-lasting blooms, are finding new fans every year. The principal garden varieties are Z. elegans...

Seeing red: there's more to using colour in the garden than meets the eye.
March 1, 2003... IT'S AMAZING to realize that colour is simply light until it hits our eyes and is interpreted in the brain. Even more amazing is that we can perceive at least seven million colours to which we are constantly reacting physiologically,...

Pleasure dome: ... the glass house at Toronto's Allan Gardens is an instant ticket to the tropics.
March 1, 2003... WHEN I'M CAUGHT in the grip of Toronto's gloomy late winters, I often daydream about retreating to a villa in, say, Costa Rica, where the healing powers of St. John's wort tablets or ginseng tea (just two of the weapons in my arsenal of...

Living colour: a bold B.C. couple (Elaine Whitehead, Dave Whitehead) moves heaven and (tons of) earth to create a vivid and dramatic oasis.
March 1, 2003... Nothing--absolutely nothing--prepares a visitor for Elaine and Dave Whitehead's garden on Vancouver Island. In a winter climate that can be depressingly dull and grey, it is an earthly paradise seemingly bathed in brilliant sunshine. The...

One for the rhodo: Captain Dick Steele, Nova Scotia's famed plantsman, has travelled the world in pursuit of rhododendrons.
March 1, 2003... IT'S A COLOUR PASSION PLAY that Captain Dick Steele has eagerly awaited for nearly all of his 87 springs. The first act comes in February, when the deep winter green leaves of the Hinoki false cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa) yield the stage to...

Into the woods: a sylvan garden in downtown Toronto provides a green, leafy retreat for its musician owner (Luke Metcalf).
March 1, 2003... When Luke Metcalf bought his house in downtown Toronto five years ago, he knew he would be renovating the kitchen or glitzing up the bathrooms--the large but rather undistinguished late-Victorian building was just fine the way it was....

$1,500 makeover: four weeks and a tight budget were the challenges when neophyte gardener Tralee Pearce set out to turn an empty plot into an urban retreat.
March 1, 2003... Who says no to a garden makeover by Canadian gardening maven Marjorie Harris? Not me. When Marjorie tracked me down, having heard that I had a typical downtown Toronto back garden, I had just one concern: I really didn't have much to make...

Mint condition.
March 1, 2003... If a pantheon of herbs were ever to exist, mint--along with parsley, thyme, maybe sage--would surely be entitled to pride of place. As far back as the Roman age, Pliny the Elder was extolling its virtues, claiming that "the very smell of it...

Douglas Coupland.
March 1, 2003... One of Canada's best-known writers and furniture designers, Douglas Coupland first caught the gardening bug as an art student in Japan, where, among other things, he learned about ikebana, the centuries-old art of flower arrangement. Two...