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09.01.2024 - 18:44 / theprovince.com / Helen Chesnut
Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
Q. Like so many households these days, our budget for holiday gift giving is thin. We and most of our family and friends enjoy our gardens. Any ideas for cost-free or inexpensive gift giving with that in mind?
A. If you have a gardening skill that you know would benefit a family member or friend, offer it in writing on a holiday card. This might be pruning an overgrown shrub, or growing a few gift transplants of a favourite flower or vegetable.
Create gifts from home-grown items. I’m making lavender sachets. In other years I’ve made raffia-tied swags from fragrant greens such as sweet bay. Part of the kiwi fruit harvest is transformed into gift packages. Other offerings could include packets of seeds saved from the garden’s plants, or jars of jam, jelly, pickles or relishes made from the garden’s produce.
Food gardeners are known to enjoy cooking. An attractive or amusing tea towel would be a welcome gift. I have some with a bee theme. Another says: “Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.”
In times like these, anything with the power to create delight or elicit a smile has value beyond measure. Knowing the person to receive the gift will be the guide to just the right thing.
I’m thinking of objects like the “Garden Angel” on a stake stuck into a planter at the front of my house, and a concrete napping elf and a grinning pig in the back garden. A laughing Buddha, whimsical garden fairies, an eccentric planter or bird house are all possibilities.
Treat yourself to a festive amble through a local garden centre, where you might just light upon a perfect
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Are you looking for garden ideas for a difficult part of your garden?
We all have ‘difficult garden areas‘ or spaces we want to revamp without re-designing the whole garden.
When you go to the Philadelphia Flower Show, it helps to take along the right attitude. If seeing gorgeous, high concept gardens full of the most fashionable flowers makes you feel insecure, then take yourself elsewhere. If you need a massive dose of color, fragrance, humidity, and horticultural inspiration, then the Philadelphia Flower Show will be perfect for you. On my calendar, it officially marks the end of winter. It also reminds me of everything that a garden can be—provided you have a forklift, a crew of ten, at least $20,000 and the ability to make crocuses, roses and hydrangeas all bloom simultaneously.
Clipped all-green shrubs look chic, but for seasonal cheer fill them with pastel shades: think primroses, pulmonaria and wallflowers, and even potted supermarket bulbs such as hyacinths and narcissi.
Kathy Sandel has shared her gardens with us before (More of Kathy’s Calabasas Garden, Kathy’s Garden Transformation in Sacramento), but today she’s sharing the garden she created for her daughter in Sacramento, California.
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I have given up indoor seed starting completely on several occasions. The first time it happened I was a novice gardener. I had ordered seeds of just about every plant that I saw in the garden catalogs without thinking about such practical things as gallons of potting soil, hours of daily watering, and square feet of windowsill space. It also did not occur to me to determine whether or not I had room in my garden for even a fraction of my seedlings. My chaotic efforts eventually produced some wonderful plants, but the process was so exhausting that I said: “Never again.”
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Away from the Show Gardens on Main Avenue, the Sanctuary Gardens offer plenty of inspiration and often on a more achievable scale. A garden that honours 200 years of the National Gallery, a family space that can bounce back from heavy rainfall, and a sensory haven that supports the emotional wellbeing for children undergoing cancer treatment, feature in 2024’s line up.
Lately, I have noticed that the mail-order garden supply catalogs are full of Asian-themed garden accessories such as pots, traditional bamboo fences, and stone lanterns. This seems to go along with the trend toward Asian-inspired minimalism in home décor. In California and the Pacific Northwest, traditional Asian and Asian-inspired gardens have been popular for years. Can a national vogue for Chinese and Japanese gardens be far behind?
Hardy perennial and annual plants of varying heights which bloom in June and July chiefly; the original species or wild types from which the modern beautiful varieties are descended are natives of California, Siberia, Syria, India and other countries. Delphinium Ajacis, originally from eastern Europe is one of the plants from which the annual Larkspurs have been raised. Delphinium belongs to the Buttercup family, Ranunculaceae. The name is an old Greek one.