Winter Magic Indoors & Out at the Toronto Botanical Garden

Posted on December 23, 2024 by Janet

I needed a few stocking stuffers today, so I headed to the gift shop at the Toronto Botanical Garden, my favourite spot for last minute treasures of all kinds. But I treated myself to a little garden therapy as well — and this year, the TBG has outdone itself with a special project indoors. Come along with me, but bundle up, it’s snowing out there! Let’s start at the west end of the Piet Oudolf-designed Entry border. I always love looking at those paperbark maples (Acer griseum)…..

…. with their peeling, coppery bark.

On the other side of the walkway is a little garden featuring Astilbe chinensis var. tacquetii ‘Purpurlanz’ – now handsome mahogany seedheads. Four season interest, of course, is what Piet Oudolf intended when he designed this garden – his aim for all his gardens around the world.

Dense blazing star (Liatris spicata) shows off its fuzzy cylindrical seedheads along the path.

Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Cassian’ is a handsome grass with lovely winter presence.

The button-like seedheads of beebalm (Monarda fistulosa) hold up well in winter. Beyond is Korean feathergrass (Calamagrostis brachytricha).

The tawny foliage of willowleaf bluestar (Amsonia tabernaemontana var. salicifolia) is a third act, after the ice-blue June flowers and the brilliant yellow-gold fall colour.

Foxglove penstemon (P. digitalis) seized a little territory this year, as it does (in my meadows, too). The bees don’t mind – and those dark-brown seedheads are so beautiful.

Even on a snowy December day, the tall, airy stems of ‘Transparent’ purple moor grass (Molinia caerulea subsp. arundinacea) screen the border in an artful way.

I love the fluffy seedheads of autumn asters, topped with a dusting of snow.

Probably the tallest, most statuesque perennial in the Entry Border, ‘Gateway’ Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium maculatum Atropurpureum Group) is popular with bees and butterflies in summer.

The bristly, spherical seedheads of rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium) stand out at the east end of the Entry Border.

I take a walk along Lawrence Avenue. This is the face that Toronto Botanical Garden presents to drivers passing by.

Grasses and hydrangeas provide interest for a long time in winter.

Around the corner heading back into the gardens, I enjoy the snow-white trunks of the Himalayan birches.

I could have spent a while watching the wind whip the seedheads of the maiden grass (Miscanthus sinensis) – but the snow was blowing at me too!

I remember way back in 2008 when the beech frames still showed their inner metal infrastructure.

Now it’s all beech (Fagus sylvatica ‘Cuprea’).

Winter snow shows off the swirling patterns of the clipped Korean boxwood hedges in the Beryl Ivey Knot Garden.

This one is kept clipped as a spiral.

How gorgeous is this? Dwarf papyrus (Cyperus papyrus) and dusty Miller strutting their winter stuff in the raised windowbox planters near the Spiral Garden.

Walking west, I come upon some of the colourful conifers that add a little pizazz to winter – like this ‘Vintage Gold’ false cypress (Chamaecyparis pisifera).

And winter is when visitors notice the bright stems of ‘Midwinter Fire’ dogwood (Cornus sanguinea).

The perennial garden, intended as a Sunken Garden when originally designed, is a quiet expanse of lawn.

As I circle towards the Terrace Garden, I can’t resist peeking through the pendulous boughs of weeping larch (Larix decidua), still holding onto their autumn-gold needled leaves.

With its irises, roses, coreopsis and lavender, the sunny Terrace Garden is full of colour in summer. Now it shows off its curving metal retaining walls. In the background is the George & Kathy Dembroski Centre for Horticulture.

I circle around to the northern entrance to what was once the Edibles Garden, now a garden used to showcase new varieties of annuals.

The evergreen leaves of Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium) turn red in winter.

The copper beech hedge at the base of the Spiral Garden shows off a dainty skirt of Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’). Grasses and persistent leaves (botanically, they’re known as “marcescent” leaves) are important elements in a winter garden.

A birch arbour! What a wonderful way to celebrate winter stems! Now all we need is a winter bride & groom! (My daughter and son-in-law were married at the TBG in 2012 and I love looking at their photos made in this part of the garden.)

And it wouldn’t be winter without some attractive pots filled with colourful branches, conifers and berries.

THE FLOATING GARDEN!

But all the magic isn’t outdoors at the TBG this winter. Beginning at the door to the TBG’s wonderful library and extending all the way down the hall to the Floral Hall is an installation designed and made by the horticultural team and volunteers called The Floating Garden. Using hanging, dried flowers, it celebrates summer’s harvest from the gardens.

How much fun is this?

Roses, hydrangeas, gomphrena – little bouquets that banish the cold winds of winter and recall warm days of July and August.

I’ve made bouquets from my golden yarrow – but this takes “dried flowers” to a new level!

It’s wonderful to contemplate the delicate bracts of a hydrangea….

… or the shiny, seedpod of honey locust (with a fresh coat of blue paint?).

Gomphrena globosa ‘Fireworks’ with hydrangea.

The distinctive fuzzy inflorence of amaranthus.

A little bit of indoor garden fantasy for our long Toronto winter.

I asked dad if I could photograph him walking through the floral gauntlet.

Then it was time to take my stocking stuffers home. One last look along the Entry Border – here showing a big drift of the Perennial Plant Association’s (PPA) 2024 ‘Plant of the Year’, clustered mountain mint, Pycnanthemum muticum.

Here’s what it looked like on August 22nd.

But now it’s making its presence known in the snow. And, as Piet Oudolf has always said, “brown is a colour too.”

I have spent a few decades chronicling the plants, bees and brilliant designs of the Toronto Botanical Garden. What a joy it has been.

My best wishes for a brilliant holiday season – however you celebrate it!

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Are you curious about how the Entry Border was designed? Read my 2-part blog titled ‘Piet Oudolf – Meadow Maker’.

Fairy Crown #28-Muskoka Winter Flora

Posted on December 29, 2022 by Janet

This blog celebrates my final fairy crown – and winter on Lake Muskoka. I am wearing what I found on our property near Torrance, Ontario, a village between Gravenhurst and Bala on the lake’s south shore. There’s white pine (Pinus strobus), eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), common juniper (Juniperus communis), winterberry (Ilex verticillata), red oak (Quercus rubra) and seedheads of showy goldenrod (Solidago speciosa) and wild beebalm (Monarda fistulosa).

To get to our cottage (when the snow isn’t as deep as it is this week), we leave the township roads and travel the last mile or so on a dirt road weaving its way through a snowy winter forest. Most of our neighbours have closed up for the season, but a few are winterized, i.e. keep some heat going so pipes don’t have to be emptied and liquids removed in autumn.

We chip in for a private plow guy and have a very kind neighbour who lets us park at their place after they’ve closed up and gone home. Everything we need for our stay must come from that point via the toboggans we drag behind us! Sometimes that involves snowshoes, too.

The reason for the walk is that our cottage, i.e. lakeside home, is considered “water access only”, being on a peninsula that juts out into a small bay of the very large Lake Muskoka. It’s actually an “isthmus”, as my husband always clarifies, because it’s a peninsula that curves around and continues as another peninsula across a narrow bay behind us. Bays and coves and islands are typical of the three big lakes up here: Muskoka, Rosseau and Joseph.

In early winter, the lake is usually in the process of trying to freeze, as you see here near our swim ladder. Since autumn was quite mild, it will take a while to cool the water enough to form a skim of ice that thickens….

…… and doesn’t break into shards with wind and currents. This is a fascinating and dynamic process, with lots of moans and groans and cracks as the ice forms, melts, re-forms and thickens.

Sometimes, clouds in the sky and trees at the shore are reflected in the calm lake surface while ice is forming around it – and that is always fun to capture with my camera.

With the lake half frozen, a winter sunrise finds steam fog emanating from the still unfrozen portion of the lake in our bay.

If there’s enough humidity in the winter air – or if there’s been a stretch of freezing rain – you might see the white pine needles coated in ice.

Speaking of white pines, I gathered those in my bag to make my final fairy crown, along with the seedheads and berries I found on the property. Those brown buttons are wild beebalm (Monarda fistulosa) and the fluffy seedheads are showy goldenrod (Solidago speciosa), without question the two best bumble bee forage plants in my meadows. They are also very good at spreading themselves around!

I like seeing the standing stems of summer perennials in the snow – or at least, I tell myself that in years like this one where I didn’t get the timing right to cut down my meadows in autumn.

After a fresh snow, the path running along the front of the cottage looks pristine.

‘Heavy Metal’ switch grass (Panicum virgatum) always looks festive near the rusty sign at the top of the stairs to the dock.

Showy goldenrod (Solidago speciosa) stays erect with its snowy cap for a long time in winter.

A glimpse past red oak boughs over my newest hillside meadow onto the slowly freezing lake.

The botanical trait that sees oak and beech leaves persist through much of winter is called “marcescence”. According to Wikipedia, “Marcescent leaves may be retained indefinitely and do not break off until mechanical forces (wind for instance) cause the dry and brittle petioles to snap The evolutionary reasons for marcescence are not clear, theories include: protection of leaf buds from winter desiccation, and as a delayed source of nutrients or moisture-conserving mulch when the leaves finally fall and decompose in spring.”

The view from inside the cottage is of my sundeck covered with snow. Those pots are where I grow the salvias and agastaches that attract the local ruby-throated hummingbirds in summer. But now, most of the birds have flown south, with the exception of the occasional raven or black-capped chickadee….

…. which relishes the fruit of staghorn sumac.

Depending on the kind of early winter we have, Lake Muskoka is usually frozen by late January or February. Deep snow might cover the surface, which actually serves as an insulator, making the ice thickness less reliable, so we wait until we hear the thickness from reliable sources before walking on it.

And sometime in the next few months, that’s what I’ll be doing!

This has been a fun year of creating and blogging about my fairy crowns, but all good things come to an end. Nevertheless, I decided to commemorate the project with a little something for my kitchen wall. Here it is!

A most Happy New Year to all my friends who travelled this far with me in the magical world of fairies!

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This is my final fairy crown blog: If you missed one – or just want to be reminded of flowery spring or summer – here are the rest in chronological order:

#1 – Spring Awakening
#2 – Little Blossoms for Easter
#3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths
#4 – Spring Bulb Extravaganza
#5 – A Crabapple Requiem
#6 – Shady Lady
#7 – Columbines & Wild Strawberries on Lake Muskoka
#8 – Lilac, Dogwood & Alliums
#9 – Borrowed Scenery & an Azalea for Mom
#10 – June Blues on Lake Muskoka
#11 – Sage & Catmint for the Bees
#12 – Penstemons & Coreopsis in Muskoka
#13 – Ditch Lilies & Serviceberries
#14 – Golden Yarrow & Orange Milkweed
#15 – Echinacea & Clematis
#16 – A Czech-German-All American Blackeyed Susan
#17- Beebalm & Yellow Daisies at the Lake
#18- Russian Sage & Blazing Stars
#19-My Fruitful Life
#20-Cup Plant, Joe Pye & Ironweed
#21-Helianthus & Hummingbirds
#22-Grasses, Asters & Goldenrod
#23-Sedums, Pass-Along Plants & Fruit for the Birds
#24-Fall Asters & Showy Goldenrod for Thanksgiving
#25-Autumn Monkshood & Snakeroot
#26-Fall Finery
#27-Winter in the City

Fairy Crown #27-Winter in the City

Posted on December 15, 2022 by Janet

In this festive season, my 27^th fairy crown celebrates a few stalwart plants that give some structure and life to my garden for the four-to-six months when the soil is completely frozen. I see red hawthorn fruit, aka “haws”, from my beloved Washington thorn tree (Crataegus phaenopyrum). Hanging down over my right shoulder is a bough from one of my gangly hemlock trees (Tsuga canadensis), complete with four sweet little cones. The dark-green prickly needles come from my yew blobs, i.e. the balls of Taxus x media ‘Hicksii’ in my pond garden. Over my left shoulder are bits of lacy arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis), aka “white cedar”, from the very long hedge separating my garden from my neighbour’s. The broadleaf evergreen is wintercreeper (Euonymus fortunei). Finally, the seedheads are purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) and snakeroot (Actaea racemosa) sticking out on my right side.

When you garden in Toronto, you learn not to expect too much – aesthetically – from “the winter garden”. Unlike those exquisite December scenes from England, France and the Netherlands of silvery hoar frost delicately coating each leaf and seedhead, December in the northeast is often more like a thick blanket of snow that not only buries all the plants in the garden, but the car in the driveway too! Yes, this was our car on January 17, 2022.

It broke a daily record with a total of slightly more than 21 inches (55 cm).

And it was a very hard slog with the snow shovel for my husband Doug! But I added a little muscle and together we cleared a path to the door.

As I write this, there’s a big red weather warning on The Weather Network. “Rain, transitioning to freezing rain, transitioning to snow with expected accumulations of 10-15 centimetres.” That’s 4-6 inches for Americans, not a lot, but in the course of a normal Toronto winter, we can see deep snowfalls, then complete thaws, then sub-freezing temperatures that hit certain plants very hard. Those vagaries are more challenging than a nice, cozy, insulating snow blanket that stays in place until March, like the one in the photo below taken in my garden a few winters back after a less dramatic snowfall than this year’s. Nevertheless, it’s what we have – and why books were invented, i.e. to while away these months before the earliest spring bulbs come into bloom.

If I stand on my verandah after a normal snowfall, this is my view of the pollinator island. Most of the seedheads of the perennials – echinacea, sedum, perovskia – stand up well through winter, until I cut them all down in March in anticipation of the crocuses.

This is dense blazing star (Liatris spicata) that fed so many bumble bees in summer.

Purple coneflower seedheads were foraged by loads of goldfinches in the autumn and now clearly show off the “cone” of the capitulum.

I love the brown “shaving brush” seedheads of New York ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis).

Every year I fill a big pot near my front steps with pine boughs, Magnolia grandiflora boughs with their rich copper-brown leaf reverses and bright-red winterberry boughs (Ilex verticillata). Usually it’s covered by snow within a few weeks, but with melt-and-thaw cycles in winter it does add a little festive touch to the garden.

And when we get the Christmas lights up on the Japanese maple and around our front door, the plant silhouettes in the pollinator garden add a natural touch.

My old garden gate lost its sentry boxwood shrubs this June as we resurfaced the driveway. There was no way to move the whiskey barrels I’d planted them in way back around 1990, since the barrel staves had finally started to break and the 30-year-old boxwoods had begun to suffer.

From the back yard deck, my garden always looks lovely in winter…..

…..even somewhat nicely maintained, which is the miracle disguise of snow! That’s my frozen lily pond in front of the lantern. The shrubs are the Hicks’ yews and that golden grass is Molinia caerulea subsp. arundinacea ‘Skyracer’. Sadly, the crabapple tree was also removed this year, the victim of one of the many blights that hit certain Malus cultivars. I am giving some thought to what its replacement could be, but I do want it to be bird-friendly!

Speaking of birds, they do love the hemlock trees (Tsuga canadensis). I often see “my cardinals” against the green boughs, but it’s black-capped chickadees that make most use of the cones.

However, the most popular plant in my garden for birds is not actually in my garden, though I pay each year to have a lovely young man come by to shear it, below, once the border perennials have finished for the year and been cut down. It’s my neighbour Claudette’s long arborvitae hedge (Thuja occidentalis), aka “white cedar”. As I’ve written before in my blog about designing a garden for birds, a tall, thick evergreen hedge affords wonderful habitat for birds – and it’s where “my” cardinal family resides, as well as unknown numbers of house sparrows in their own nests.

The other tree that shines in winter – and provides those red fruit for my fairy crown – is my Washington thorn (Crataegus phaenopyrum). Birds of all kinds love the berries – and occasionally leave some on the branches so I can photograph the clusters with snowy little caps.

But winter arrives on the calendar in 6 days – even though it always looks like winter long before that here. And like good old Saint Nick, I plan to do a little napping, plus a little reading, and a lot of photo-editing through the long months of winter that stretch ahead! After all, that view from inside the house through the witches’ balls is very inviting!

Merry Christmas to you all, and I’ll return before New Year with my final fairy crown celebrating winter in my meadows on Lake Muskoka!

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Did you miss a fairy crown blog in 2022? Here they are:

April Snow

Posted on April 21, 2021 by Janet

Winter. It’s never really over until the fat robin sings… at least 50 times.

We’re always reminded of that in April when mother nature says, “Here, have another helping!”

We had snow last night in Toronto, quite a lot for mid-April. I went out with my camera as I often do early in the morning after an ice storm or dusting of snow leaves the spring flowers shocked but photogenic. My Tulipa fosteriana ‘Orange Emperor’ bowed down – humiliating for an emperor.

Tulipa praestans ‘Shogun’ seemed less martial arts this morning, more ‘shivering’.

Sweet little Iris aucheri ‘Ocean Magic’ looked like Arctic Ocean magic….

…. and Muscari latifolium wore a tiny white toque.

Hyacinthus ‘Gipsy Queen’ looked like she wanted to move her caravan somewhere warmer.

Lovely Narcissus ‘Golden Echo’, my new favourite daffodil whose virtues I extolled here last year, hung her head sadly.

Snakeshead fritillaries (Fritillaria meleagris) seemed less than impressed.

Miss ‘Beth Evans’ (Corydalis solida) swooned. I’m not sure why, her kin come from northern Europe – she should be used to this spring trickery!

In the back garden, the resident cardinals were quiet – why sing when you can stay warm in the cedar hedge?

But out on the street, the sparrows kept up their spirits, and reminded me to keep mine up, too. After all, April snow showers bring (back) spring flowers, right?

Allan Gardens – Christmas 2017

Posted on November 22, 2017 by Janet

It’s beginning to look a lot like…..peacocks? That’s right. At Toronto’s Allan Gardens, it’s beginning to look a lot like a beautiful peacock feathered with colourful succulents will be ready to strut his stuff well in advance of the Christmas Season. I was there yesterday and got a sneak peek from gardener Mikkel Schafer, who is the designer of this year’s feature topiary (see my video below) Made of colourful flowers of Kalanchoe blossfeldiana and various echeverias…..

…. the big bird is preening himself amongst the alocasias and bananas in the grand Palm House, the glass-domed centre of the five-glasshouse structure.

Mikkel was still working on the peacock’s neck, which is made from pine cone scales and leaves of silver dollar plant (Xerosicyos danguyi).

I loved the kalanchoe ‘eyes’ in his tailfeathers, below.

In the Tropical House, below, the succulent Christmas tree was already finished and standing in its place of honour amidst the bromeliads. It will greet many visitors when this year’s edition of the Allan Gardens Christmas Flower show opens on Sunday December 3^rd, with seasonal music from noon to 4 pm. The floral displays will be in place through the holiday season daily from 10 am to 5 pm until January 7, 2018.

Look at the detailed work here…..

Mikkel posed with his topiary moose in the Temperate House. Its antlers are encrusted with mosses and lichens.

This mossy tree in the Temperate house…..

….is hung with decorations, like these cool silvery ornaments made from the velvety leaves of lambs’ ears (Stachys byzantina).

This one is fashioned from the dark seedheads of blackeyed susans (Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’).

Spiced orange pomander balls deck this topiary tree made from the leaves of red oak (Quercus rubra).

The pool in the Temperate House is a favourite destination for many, especially little kids counting the goldfish. It’s edged with azaleas this week.

Head down into the Tropical Landscape House where…..

….. apart from the usual gorgeous blossoms like hibiscus….

….. there is a trio of Cryptanthus-adorned topiary trees under the magnificent cycad.

The Arid House will look like a sparkly yuletide desert by early December, when the lights are in place amidst the spectacular collection of succulents and cacti. (This photo is from a previous Christmas).

I made a short video to whet your appetite for a seasonal visit to Toronto’s wonderful Allan Gardens this holiday season. Please note, the show runs from December 3 to January 7th.

But rest assured, if you miss seeing all the beautiful Christmas touches, like this lovely wreath in the Tropical House…..

…Allan Gardens Conservatory is a cozy, leafy oasis throughout Toronto’s long winter months when a parade of flowering bulbs, tropical blossoms and spring bulb flowers beckons. Do make a date to go!

Janet Davis Explores Colour

In the garden & the world

Category Archives: Winter Gardening

Winter Magic Indoors & Out at the Toronto Botanical Garden

Fairy Crown #28-Muskoka Winter Flora

Fairy Crown #27-Winter in the City

April Snow

Allan Gardens – Christmas 2017

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