Woman to Woman at the Toronto Botanical Garden

Posted on June 2, 2016 by Janet

Every spring, the Toronto Botanical Garden rolls out the carpet (literally) for a bevy of beautiful women and a growing gaggle of gorgeous gentlemen for their annual fundraiser Woman to Woman Lunch in the Garden. It’s a chance for us all to dress up in our flowery finery…..

… while supporting the initiatives of the most beautiful little 4-acre garden in North America, surrounded by spectacular blossoms…..

… as we sip white wine and pink champagne….

….and sample the most amazing tiny plates of savoury delights from the TBG’s approved Toronto catering vendors. (You can designate any of these great caterers for a wedding, party or other event at the TBG!) And there are delish little desserts served in the most creative ways….

…. such as these gorgeous spoonfuls mounted on a funhouse mirror from Eatertainment Catering. And may I just say that their petite Bananas Foster is like a mini-trip to savour the original at the famous Brennan’s in New Orleans! And I’ve been to Brennan’s!

But let’s not stop there. What about these darling floral cupcakes and rainbow-hued French macarons from Daniel et Daniel Catering?

Or these beautiful little shot-glass mousses from A La Carte Kitchen Inc.?

I sampled these sweet treats from A La Carte. Yum. Hungry yet?

But for most of us, Woman to Woman is all about the hats, which are judged very seriously with awards to the winners. (I was a judge one year – such fun!) Hats like this bird-friendly design….

….and this elegant homage to monarch butterflies…..

…and this luscious English country garden!

Toronto Star gardening columnist Sonia Day was there wearing a vegetable garden with allium seedheads (her specialty out in the country).

It came complete with seed packages!

And urban planner and former TBG Fundraising Chair Lindsay Dale-Harris was rightfully proud of her custom design! Love the pussy willow touch.

And as I wrote in my last blog, I came decked out in perfumed lily-of-the-valley.

It was a great opportunity for old friends to catch up in a gorgeous setting on a couldn’t-be-more-perfect last day of May.

Later, the woman in the middle, above, demonstrated her hat’s built-in lighting. How cool is that?

Meanwhile, in one of the two tents set up in the garden, friends at sponsored tables enjoyed chatting and dining together…..

….while listening to TBG Executive Director Harry Jongerden talk about the plans for the garden’s big expansion. And the city is now moving forward with consultant plants on this exciting prospect! Go Harry!

Canada Blooms doyenne Kathy Dembroski was there looking cool as vanilla ice cream on a hot May day. She and her husband were the generous lead donors of the beautiful LEED-certified George and Kathy Dembroski Centre for Horticulture that is the flagship building of the ‘new’ (2005) Toronto Botanical Garden.

Oh! Would you like to see that gorgeous building? Here’s a leafy view from the side…..

…and one from the back showing the green roof and the lovely Westview Terrace. (And look at those little kids climbing the Spiral Garden!)

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Back to our Woman to Woman lunch. Society photographer Aline Sandler was there snapping her shutter and dressed to the nines with a whimsical fascinator and trademark fingernails bearing little flowers!

And behind Aline was fabulous floral designer Nicholas Smith of Opening Night Flowers. His luscious designs could be seen at the courtyard of lead luncheon sponsor Tiffany & Co.

Incidentally, the highest silent auction bid of the day was for “breakfast at Tiffany’s” for a lucky bidder and her friends — even Holly Golightly would have opened her chequebook for that one! And here, have a “little blue box” – they’re delicious!

Another of Nicholas’s elegant creations for Tiffany.

It was fun to see women enjoying each other’s company all over the gardens, like these lovely bluebirds…

…and this stylish pair…

There were comfy tables set up for dining on the Westview Terrace.

And leather sofas to relax on under the marquee in the perennial garden.

It was fun to meet Carol Rhodenizer, below, the mother of the TBG’s hardworking communications director Jenny Rhodenizer!

I absolutely loved this little vintage cloche…

…and this was pure classical elegance with the perfect, upswept coiffure.

I was very impressed that this guest matched her lipstick to her fascinator orchids!

And though the hat creations were mostly the stuff of fantasy, I couldn’t help thinking this one might have been inspired by love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena).

All in all, a wonderful afternoon with happy, fun people supporting a fabulous little garden .that should be just the intimate heart of a much bigger botanical garden for our fair city, the 4th largest in North America. As in 1) Mexico City (8.85 million), 2) New York (8.55 million), 3) Los Angeles (3.97 million), 4) Toronto (2.82 million), 5) Chicago (2.72 million). Something that might look a little like the sketch below. What an exciting time for us, as plans move forward.

Here are a few of my June images of the garden from past years. Peonies, lilac, meadow sage, catmint & amsonias in the Piet Oudolf-designed entry border.

More peonies with alliums, Phlomis tuberosa ‘Amazone’ & the white form of Geranium phaeum along the driveway.

Billowy Bowman’s root (Porteranthus trifoliatus) in front of the Garden Hall courtyard.

Paul Zammit’s fabulous windowboxes and pots at the base of the Spiral Garden. (And if you like this, have a peek at the blog I wrote on Paul’s container wizardry!)

And one of Paul’s brilliant urns in the Perennial Garden.

The Westview Terrace looking stunning, with Indigofera kirilowii in full bloom.

And the Beryl Ivey Knot Garden with its formal parterres, as seen from the top of the Spiral Garden. Beyond is the hot, sunny Terraced Garden and the Perennial Garden, upper right.

And that’s just a very small taste. Onward and upward, our lovely TBG!

How to be a Lily-of-the-Valley Mad Hatter!

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Janet

Do you love the perfume of lily-of-the-valley? Do you wish you could wear it? Well, you can! I just made a lily-of-the-valley hat to wear to the Woman to Woman garden party at the Toronto Botanical Garden. It was easy and fun and I didn’t need to wear perfume, believe me! My hat and I just wafted around in the late May sunshine.

In case you’re so inclined, this is how I did it:

Step 1 – Have a garden in which hordes of lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis) have run roughshod over all their neighbours. (Don’t worry – in the spring-season fresh-floral hat business, this is a very good thing, not a dastardly invasion by a… well, never mind. It’s called “inventory”).

My front garden used to have patches of bare soil between the emerging perennials. Now it’s gorgeous and green by the time the late cottage tulips bloom. That’s the good news. The bad news is I cannot possibly get rid of this invader, since each little lily-of-the-valley ‘pip’ missed in a cleanup sends up shoots and begins merrily again.

Despite trying to be artful with this little European invader….there will always be millions left over.

And DO keep in mind that lily-of-the-valley is highly poisonous, so keep it away from any animals or kids for whom it might look like salad.

Step 2 – Go into your garden just as the lily-of-the-valley (LOTV from now on) has reached its peak, i.e. when flowers are still pure white. Do this in early morning before the day heats up to keep the flowers fresher.

Pick as many stems (they pull out easily) as you can manage, placing them with some of the leaves into cold water in a small vase or large jam jar.

Step 3 – Place the jam jars in the fridge. We have an old beer fridge in the basement (which was actually old when we moved in 33 years ago) and I found room for the jars beside the beer. Now leave your LOTV to stay cool and hydrate until you wish to make your hat or flowery crown (in the floral design world, this is called conditioning). Mine were refrigerated for about one week, but I’ve kept them as long as 2 weeks budded up for a wedding that was happening after their normal flowering time. In that case, I removed them from the fridge to open at room temperature two days before the wedding.

Step 4 – If making a hat rather than a crown, find a likely candidate. Mine was an Ecuadorian-made straw hat in a good colour, creamy-white (from my closet hatboxes of barely-worn straw hats from past decades). You will also need a circular form for making the garland. I cut a flexible but strong whip from one of the many ash seedlings that remain as devil spawn reminders of the white ash we lost to emerald ash borer a few years ago. After removing the small shoots and leaves, I shaped the branch into a circle that fit loosely over the hat crown, wiring it together at the ends when I’d determined the right circumference length. I could have fastened the flowers to the ash branch as it was, but I decided to cover it with tape to make sure it stayed firm. Since I had no green florist’s tape, I used white fabric tape that was left over from some kid’s fracture dressing. The point is: it worked.
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Step 5 – Remove the LOTV from the jars — you should have a very big bouquet….

….and shake them a little to dry them off. Then place them on a work surface on top of newspaper or paper towel. Separate the flowers from the leaves.

Step 6 – Make little bouquets using mostly flowers and a few leaves for greenery. I needed 8 to circle my form. Holding them tightly, cut the stems to about 6 inches (15 cm). Then wrap your tape around the stems fairly close to where the flowers start, before trimming the stems off below the tape.

Step 7 – Now it’s time to fasten the bouquets to the form, using the tape. Arrange them so they overlap and the taped stems are not visible. Don’t worry if some show, because you’re going to be covering them with ribboning later.

Step 8 – Wind a length of gauzy ribbon (or any kind of wide ribbon, e.g. grosgrain) through the little bouquets on the garland, covering up the taped ends as best you can. Tie a bow at the end or tuck under the bouquets.

Step 9 – Place your garland on your hat! Isn’t that gorgeous? And oh so fragrant!

Step 10 – The weight of the garland will probably be enough to keep it down, but I used one hat pin to secure it in place.

Step 11 – Shower, dress, add pearls and head out to your garden party. And when people say, “Oh…. are those real?”, just bend your head and ask them to sniff.

A Beverly Hills Garden Party

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Janet

Before heading to California in late March, we contacted a Los Angeles friend to arrange to have dinner together on our only night in LA, before driving north to Santa Barbara.

“By the way,” she said. “A neighbour is having a garden party Sunday afternoon. Would you like to be our guests? She grows beautiful tulips.”

Uh… Beverly Hills? Tulips? Garden party? Yes, thank you!

So it was that I wandered off the plane, into the washroom at LAX where I changed into garden party-ish attire, into the rental car, and just 6 hours after leaving wintery, ice-shrouded Toronto, onto a flower-filled patio a few blocks from Wilshire Boulevard. The bartender (a handsome, ponytailed dancer who’d done some hip-hop in Toronto), poured me a glass of white wine and I wandered out onto the patio, where I was relieved to note that the beautiful California people all wore sensible walking shoes and looked like us.

The flowers were lovely – spring bulbs and early perennials filling myriad terracotta pots on the patio, and purple and mauve cineraria in the raised beds that surrounded it.

The hostess apologized, mentioning the 90-degree heat wave the previous week that caused the tulips to open too quickly. I didn’t mind – it felt lovely just being outdoors in the sunshine after four months of the hardest winter in decades. And I could smell the sweet perfume of the daffodils sitting on a side table.

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Our hostess was an enthusiastic, long-time gardener, and this event was an annual fundraiser that raised money for a family cause near and dear to her heart. On the dining room table around a tureen filled with flowers, she had arranged several delicious, homemade cakes. I had three kinds. It was lunchtime in California, after all.

I wandered amongst the chatting guests in the house and past a vignette in the hallway that recalled a visit I’d made to California in November 2008. It was the very night that Obama became president, and I fell asleep in my San Francisco hotel room to the sound of young people walking below my window chanting “O-BA-MA, O-BA-MA!” It seemed like such a long time ago.

Back out on the patio I found my first honey bees of the year nectaring in the purple Canterbury bells. What a thrill it was to watch them buzzing contentedly – I hadn’t seen honey bees since October when they visited my autumn monkshoods.

As I was following the bees from flower to flower snapping photos, a man came up beside me and we began chatting. I learned that he was the hostess’s garden designer, Jon Shepodd, Seattle-based, but with a Los Angeles client list. In the small world department we compared notes and found we knew some of the same garden industry people.

Soon it was time to leave; I’d been awake since before dawn and the hotel beckoned for an afternoon nap. But the best part? I’d spent my first afternoon in California in an actual garden, tended lovingly by an actual gardener. It was going to be a great garden-touring trip, I could feel it.

Janet Davis Explores Colour

In the garden & the world

Tag Archives: garden party

Woman to Woman at the Toronto Botanical Garden

How to be a Lily-of-the-Valley Mad Hatter!

A Beverly Hills Garden Party

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