Whey Good Yogurt

White Cow Dairy was the highlight of the Buffalo Garden Walk.  The store sells yogurt products and other drinks that use the milk that is normally discarded in whey when factories make greek-style yogurt.  The owner is Patrick Lango and was in the store (on Fridays and Saturdays), so was there to tell me about his farm and products. Here's the Facebook page and information about the farm on the website. He thought I should highlight the entertaining light fixtures, so here they are.

Garden Etiquette

There are a lot of rules on the internet about  garden behaviour. Public botanic gardens have rules about staying on the paths, collecting seeds, photography, picnics, weddings, etc. I am attentive to the rules about photography as there are public gardens that disallow posting photographs of the gardens and others that encourage it.  One of the best known enforcers is the National Trust in Britain with a 'take down' policy that goes after any photographs of National Trust properties by anyone, amateur or professional, for sale or not for sale. So back to a regular garden visitor.  There is often a sign that says 'don't throw coins in the water'.  It's there because copper makes fish sick.  In public water gardens, there is regular scooping out of coins where the water features have Koi. There is also the temptation to touch things - flowers, leaves, statues, etc.  Here's an example of a statue that CAN be touched - a French satirical character that is meant for good luck.  It is at Lotusland in Santa Monica, CA.  Of course, bronze statues are often meant to be rubbed, so that there is some shiny portion.  This was the case with this bonze boar in Kansas City.  Its shiny nose is a testament to the success of the invitation. There's a greater temptation to point out or remove weeds and hand them to the garden owner.  I remember a visitor to my garden pulling out a 'weed' they thought was creeping charlie.  It was Kenilworth Ivy, something I'd been nurturing carefully.  In that vein, here's a piece written by Michael King on garden visitors: "My garden visitors are doomed to failure as they seem to fall into one of only two categories; which is worse I cannot say. One type is more common than I would expect as a well-brought-up Englishman. These are the ones who start pointing out insect damage, faded blooms and enormous weeds that I seem to have been able to ignore for far too long. Perhaps they expect something better and need to vent their frustrations. Are the second group even worse? These are keen and knowledgeable gardeners who eagerly ask to visit, but on arrival take a seat, engage in a warm conversation, but never really bother to get up and have a good look at anything. “Why are they here”, I wonder to myself, convinced that a quick look was enough to reveal that there is really nothing much for them to get over excited about – or are they shy and feel embarrassed to plunge into the rest of the garden? Should I take the lead?"

Bicycles in the Garden

Redbubble is an art site that provides printing and shipping of art work.  It 's an Australian company so has a most interesting personality and attracts artists from all over the world to sell their work here.  It started as a fine art site, but has shifted to a graphic art site, and there are many more young people who sell t-shirts, stickers, etc.  Recently they have added tote bags, pillows and duvet covers for sale.  

The site provides community functions in the form of creating Groups based on themes and interests.  I host two groups - All Glorious Gardens and All Glorious Lilies.  This picture today is from the latest All Glorious Gardens challenge.  The Group features images on the home page and offers challenges to submit entries and vote for their favourite image.

I ran the bicycle challenge recently as there are many uses of bicycles in garden decoration all over the world.  You can see here for the top ten that the gardens range from Niagara, to France, England and Australia.  

I enter the challenge to keep track of the time - there's a little clock on one's entry when voting starts - it shows the number of votes and the relative amount of time left on the clock.  There's no alert for the host, and I've found that I've run challenges and then forgotten about them until days later.  

You can see the challenge by going here:

http://www.redbubble.com/groups/all-glorious-gardens/challenges/60824-all-glorious-gardens-bicycles-in-the-garden

My image, The Bike Stops Here - Niagara, was the winning image.  It was taken 2 years ago while on the St. Catharines Garden Tour.  

Lakeside Living

This house was on the Grimsby Garden Tour (July 5th 2014) and the Hamilton Garden Week…it is on Lakeside Drive in Grimsby.  Wouldn't that be a wonderful experience in the bunkie overlooking the lake at sunrise...

St. Catharines Garden Tour today

Hi everyone,
Today's the day for the St. Catharines garden tour.  It runs from 10:00 - 4:00 and covers a wide range of gardens in terms of location and type - e.g. rural vs city, and landscaping vs. plantings.  I hope you have time to visit these great gardens and enjoy the gardeners' creations.  Here are a few images from the tour gardens:

Niagara-on-the-Lake Garden Tour

Yes, the N-O-T-L Shaw Tour was a great success.  There was a variety of gardens - from large to small - but all shared the beautiful treed setting on the lake that this pretty town offers. Here's our first house on Queen Street (that's the main street) on a corner lot.  It featured a beautiful perennial border against the street side facing the house.

Niagara-on-the-Lake Shaw Festival Garden Tour today

It's a perfect day and it's the NOTL Shaw Festival Garden tour.  It's always great…here are a few pictures from last year's trip and some of these weren't on the tour.  Niagara-on-the-Lake is home to many Romantic gardens, so it's always enjoyable being there.

A Water Garden of Wonder

Niagara seems to be home to some wonderful homes, and this is a special one with a water garden outside the living room window that is on display all year. We were on a garden tour recently (July 2013), and had a great experience at the garden of Terri and Wayne Rubel.  

The garden has been featured in magazines and blogs - Wayne's creative water garden feature is the source of the curiosity.  He has set  a vase filled with water upside-down vase above the pond water line. When he puts some fish food in the vase, the fish swim 'up' to get it.   Here's the wonderful combination of water feature and special feature. 

St. Catharines Gardens on Tour 2013

The St. Catharines Horticultural Society had its Garden Tour this past Sunday, July 7th 2013.  I had the privilege of photographing the 8 gardens prior to the tour.  It was wonderful to meet the gardeners and to experience their gardens.  Then I also got to go on the tour on Sunday and have the garden tour experience.

Garden tours are wonderful when there is a thoughtful selection of gardens - each distinctive and all are different, so the experience is inviting and inspiring - this is what made the St. Catharines tour an achievement. 

Congratulations to the St. Catharines Horticultural Society for making a difference to gardeners and appreciators.

Here's the Summary with 2 images from each garden.

And here's the Society's website: http://www.gardenontario.org/site.php/stcatherhs

Niagara's Garden Tours Galore

Hi everyone,

It is the start of the garden tour season - well it already started, didn't it?  The Niagara Region has some great events that to add to the tour list.

This week (June 24th 2013) is the Hamilton Open Garden Week organized by the Hamilton Spectator - here's the link:

http://www.thespec.com/living-story/2201037-open-garden-week-your-spectator-guide/

Dundurn Castle (Now Dundurn National Historic Site)  in Hamilton is having an 1812 celebration with quite a few tours and events:

http://www2.hamilton.ca/CultureandRecreation/Arts_Culture_And_Museums/HamiltonCivicMuseums/Events/Dundurn.asp?site=DUNDURN

The Buffalo Garden Walk is part of a garden festival that lasts more than a month.  Here are the 2 links:

Here's the Buffalo Garden Walk:

http://www.gardenwalkbuffalo.com

Here's the National Buffalo Garden Festival - this is what has grown out of the 2 day Garden Walk

http://www.nationalgardenfestival.com

Here's one of my favourite garden elements from the St. Catharines Garden Tour July 7th.  I've done photographs of each garden this week, so have a preview of the highlights.

This is a willow twig sculpture.  The twigs are placed in a pot in a woven pattern. The willow sprouts leaves at the top to form this living sculpture.