Tag Archives: Toronto Botanical Garden

Raindrops

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Have I told you lately that I love you?  Oh, never mind. That’s a different Van Morrison song. Just thought I’d throw it in here, for all the folks who’ve patiently travelled this  #mysongscapes road with me thus far.  And it’s not a ‘Van the Man’ song today like my last two blogs, but an older guy who’s no longer with us. We’ll get to him later.  In the meantime, can we talk about rain?  As in….

Let’s talk about rain and photography!  Because depending on how you look at rain, your glass is either half-empty or half-full. And I’m definitely in the latter camp, as you can see by my smiling face as I stride down the High Line under my umbrella. (Thanks to my photographer pal Ginny Weiler for the photo.)

Unless it’s pouring down (and I’ve been in some of those rains carrying three cameras in a big garden far from shelter), an overcast sky and drizzle is far easier to deal with than the bright sunshine of mid-day. Look at the beautiful Magnolia ashei I photographed that May day on the High Line….

….. and the prairie smoke (Geum triflorum) beside the rain-spattered sign….

….. and the pretty heuchera leaf turned over under raindrops to show its lovely purple reverse.

Apart from the gentle light for photography, in a place like the High Line there are far fewer visitors when it’s drizzling.

When I visit Vancouver, I make sure I take an umbrella to photograph plants at my two favourite haunts, the University of British Columbia Botanical Garden and Van Dusen Botanical Garden. In fact, the wettest I’ve ever been in was at UBC on May 29, 2013 – and the raindrops in the pond below just got more serious as I moved through the garden.

But when I’ve got the day booked for plant photography, I hate to give up because of a little downpour…..

…. especially when the Himalayan poppies, below, are in perfect bloom in the David Lam Asian Garden.  The raindrops just add to the enchantment – and I have never sprayed a blossom with water to make it more “picturesque”, when nature does it for me for free!  (By the way, I wrote a blog on the exquisite David Lam garden in May.)

The redvein enkianthus (E. campanulatus) looked lovely in the drizzle……

….. and across Marine Drive, the Garry Oak Meadow was gorgeous that rainy day. Imagine how terrible this tapestry would have looked in full sun!

In UBC’s herb garden, bees were still foraging on the Angelica archangelica, despite the weather.

The downward-facing flowers of Sicilian honey lily (Allium siculum) acted like umbrellas for this bumble bee, though her fur-like hairs were beginning to mat down in the rain.

Though it hails from the hot, dry Drakensberg Range in South Africa, the Moraea robusta in UBC’s wonderful rock garden wore its sunshine yellow with raindrops that day.

A few weeks later in early June, I was back at my “home garden”, the Toronto Botanical Garden (TBG) on a rainy June morning with no one else around. Though the paving stones were wet on the Westview Terrace where the Indigofera kirolowii was in full flower….

….. and at the entrance to the Floral Hall Courtyard where the Bowman’s root (Porteranthus trifoliatus previously Gillenia) was a cloud of white…..

…..my raindrop close-ups from that day, like the Euphorbia griffithii ‘Fireglow’, below, were lovely.

Peonies were just opening that day in June, too…..

…. and the lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis) wore its many rain-spattered, folded capes.

Even the eastern columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) sported its raindrops nicely.

Though I’m usually alone at the TBG on a rainy day, I occasionally catch sight of a pretty umbrella held by another intrepid garden visitor.

On June 8, 2015, I visited the Royal Botanical Garden in Burlington Ontario with a group of fellow bloggers. We drove there through a massive rainstorm, so when we arrived at the famous Iris Collection….

….. all the bearded irises were delightfully adorned with raindrops. This is ‘Florentine Silk’.

There were so many, I wanted to capture them in one gorgeous photographic memory.

In Manhattan one hot, humid August afternoon, I braved an uptown subway train with no air-conditioning and waited out a thunderstorm and all the people running out of the beautiful Conservatory Garden at Central Park so I could be almost all alone there.

But it didn’t take long for a few people with umbrellas to return to enjoy the spectacular, Lynden Miller-designed borders. I blogged about that August afternoon in the garden.

When I visited Monet’s garden at Giverny in France in April 2008, a spring shower meant the other visitors carried their umbrellas over his famous Japanese bridge on the lily pond…..

…. but all the flowers enjoyed the rain. I blogged about the spring lessons from Giverny as well.

The majority of my rainy photo shoots were in spring, as you might expect “when April showers bring May flowers”.  But May has its share of rainy flowers too. This was on May 5, 2014 at the Horticultural Centre of the Pacific just outside Victoria, B.C.  Bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica) and Tulipa bakeri ‘Lilac Wonder’ looked enchanting to me…..

…. and the trumpets of the little gentians were laden with raindrops.

The skunk cabbage (Lysichiton americanus) was happy to be in its preferred damp state that day.

And of course spring at Vancouver’s wonderful Van Dusen Botanical Garden means there will be lots of west coast rain to make the various Himalayan poppies (Meconopsis)….

….. in the Himalayan Dell just that much lovelier.

While staying with friends in Sun Valley, Idaho in September 2016, we took a walk through a wild meadow just as big rainclouds appeared behind the mountains.

Though we didn’t make it home before getting soaked, I was happy to have had my camera with me to capture the intricacy of the rain drops on the meadow grass seedheads. (And I will refrain from mentioning the irony of rain in Sun Valley….)

More recently, if you read my massive blog about Botanizing Greece with Liberto in November 2019, you might recall the day we stopped at a serpentine outcrop near Smokovo in the pouring rain…..

….. to look for tiny Crocus cancellatus subsp. mazziaricus, which we did find, but they were as soaked as I was.

We also found our first Sternbergia lutea that morning, but they refused to open in the inclement weather (which is an obvious evolutionary adaptation to keep the reproductive parts dry).

A few redbud (Cercis siliquastrum) flowers still hung on to the trees and they did look pretty in the rain….

….. as did the wild flowers in the meadow (even as my shoes were squishing in the grasses).

In the fall of 2015, I visited Costa Rica with my hiking group. Though we did manage some hiking, that particular one-week period had more rain than the Osa Peninsula had seen in the entire rainy season. I blogged about my time at El Remanso Lodge, but here’s a little video of what real rain is like in a tropical rainforest…..

In my own Ontario gardens, as you might expect, my camera is never far away when the rain stops. At the cottage on Lake Muskoka one June, I found my wild lupines spangled with raindrops…..

…. and the palmate leaves with their small hairs seemed to trap perfect raindrops like mercury quicksilver.

When a big rainstorm hits the cottage on a summer day, it’s often so spectacular in its onset that I grab my camera and set it to video. Have a look (and try to pick up the distant thunder in the first few seconds) ……

At home in Toronto, rainy May days are welcomed because summer is often hot and dry and our urban tree canopy needs all the help it can get. Especially lovely are spring bulbs – this is Tulipa ‘Ballade’, one of my favourites…

….. and this is ‘Angelique’ looking like ballerina tutus hung on a line to dry.

A few years ago, I stood under my umbrella photographing my grandson Oliver doing a little jaunt on the stepping-stone path through the spring bulbs in my front yard while rain poured down and thunder boomed in the distance. Doesn’t he look proud of himself?  I snapped a still photo at the end.

But since this is #mysongscapes, we do need a song to finish up this blog, so let’s take a rainy day tour of my entire Toronto garden, as I found it under my umbrella on June 24, 2018.  And we’ll be serenaded by Dee Clark with his famous Raindrops song from 1961.

*******

This is the tenth blog in #mysongscapes series of winter 2020 that combine music I love with my photography. If you enjoyed reading, have a look at the others beginning with

  1. Joni Mitchell’s ‘Night in the City’;
  2. Paul Simon’s ‘Kodachrome’ and my life in photography;
  3. Vietnam and Songs of Protest;
  4. Galway Bay and memories of my grandfather and Ireland;
  5. Simon and Garfunkel’s Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme;
  6. The John Denver lullaby I sang to my first grandchild, Today While the Blossoms Still Cling to the Vine.
  7. Gordon Lightfoot for a Snow Day
  8. Madame George by Van Morrison – my favourite song in the world
  9. Brown Eyed Girl(s) – Van Morrison’s classic and my black-eyed susans

And please do feel free to leave a comment below. I love to read them.

Designing with Peonies

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It’s June, lovely June and gardens are filled with the romantic perennials of late spring and early summer. The weeds are still manageable (sort of) and the heat hasn’t yet arrived to fry the blossoms. And there are peonies…. the sentimental favourites of a lot of gardeners, especially beginners, who long to grow the perennials they remember from a grandmother’s garden or a farmhouse field. And who doesn’t love peonies, in all their luscious hues from white to deepest red….

….. with many in coral and salmon.

Throw in the Itoh hybrids, and you’ve got beautiful yellows too!

And who doesn’t love peonies in vases?  I made this dinner party arrangement with snowball viburnums.

For my daughter’s wedding shower, I added lupines, which tend to swoon curvaceously.

But mostly, we love them in our gardens. Peonies are beautiful in single-plant collections, of course, but they are wonderful actors in ensemble casts, too. Over the years, I’ve photographed peonies in countless gardens; these are some of my favourite combinations.  Where I have a cultivar name, I’ve added it – but mostly it’s to get a sense of the design possibilities for pairing plants with peonies. Let’s start with some compositions from the Toronto Botanical Garden (TBG). This is the yellow hybrid Baptisia ‘Solar Flare’ with pink and white peonies.

Native Baptisia australis, blue false indigo, is a classic June peony partner.

This is a nice, crisp combination in the Piet Oudolf-designed entry border: Paeonia ‘Krinkled White’ with willowleaf bluestar (Amsonia tabernaomantana var. salicifolia).

In another garden at the TBG, Paeonia ‘Krinkled White’ looks beautiful with catminit (Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’) and Allium cristophii.

This is Paeonia lactiflora ‘Edulis Superba’ with Ozark bluestar (Amsonia illustris).

I loved this combination of the Itoh Hybrid peony ‘Morning Lilac’ with catmint (Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’).

Sicilian honey lily (Allium siculum) made a nice statement with white-and-green Paeonia lactiflora ‘Green Halo’.

Allium siculum is a great pollinator plant, too!

Isn’t this the perfect June vignette? It features Salvia  x sylvestris ‘Summer Snow’ and camint (Nepeta sp.) with a pink peony.

Foxglove penstemon (Penstemon digitalis), is one of my favourite perennenials. A June-blooming native that is drought-tolerant and adaptable to so many soil situations (at my cottage, it grows in gravel), it also makes a charming companion to peonies, especially a glamour star like ‘Bowl of Beauty’, below.

A single-petaled peony (possibly ‘Sea Shell’?) pairs with the spiderwort Tradescantia ‘Concord Grape’.

I’ve always loved this bold combination in the Oudolf entry border: Paeonia ‘Buckeye Bell’ with meadow sage, Salvia nemorosa ‘Mainacht’ (‘May Night’).

Salvia nemorosa ‘Mainacht’ also looks wonderful with the unusually-coloured Itoh Hybrid ‘Kopper Kettle’.

Along the entry driveway at the TBG, the Oudolf border features Paeonia ‘Bowl of Beauty’ with graceful llittle flowers of the white form of mourning widow cranesbill (Geranium phaeum ‘Album’), backed by the lilac-purple spires of Phlomis tuberosa ‘Amazone’.

Geranium ’Rozanne’ looks great with everything, but is especially effective with the Itoh Hybrid peony ‘Sequestered Sunshine’.

Let’s head further south in Toronto to the lovely four-square potager of Spadina House Museum. This is what you can expect on a perfect morning in June: a romantic melange of Russell Hybrid lupines, heritage bearded irises and peonies, among other June-bloomers.

Here’s a beautiful and classic combination: pink and purple Russell Hybrid lupines with peonies.

The heirloom French peony Jules Elie’ teams up boldly with old-fashioned yellow loosestrife (Lysimachia punctata) here.

And ‘Jules Elie’ also looks great nestled into variegated maiden grass (Miscanthus sinensis ‘Variegatus’).

Spadina House contrasts the shimmering white flowers of Paeonia ‘Duchess de Nemours’ against a sober backdrop of blue false indigo (Baptisia australis).

Beside the vegetable garden, mauve Allium cristophii makes an airy companion to pink and white peonies.

Later-flowering alliums, of course, are perfect companions for peonies. Out west at Vancouver’s Van Dusen Botanical Garden, Allium ‘Globemaster’ combines with a late-season single pink peony.

I’ve made notes of effective peony combinations on various garden tours through the years, too. In a beautiful country garden north of Toronto, I found fern-leaved dropwort (Filipendula vulgaris) consorting with a pink peony.

Another classic peony partner is Oriental poppy; this is Papaver orientale ‘Victoria Louse’.

To finish, I give you the prettiest street garden ever, a generous gesture from a Toronto gardener on one of the TBG’s annual tours years ago: yellow flag iris (Iris pseudacorus) with a dark purple bearded iris and luscious pink Paeonia ‘Jules Elie’.

And for all you gardeners who wouldn’t dream of planting something that pollinators don’t enjoy, rest easy. Provided you plant single or semi-double peonies with lots of pollen-rich stamens exposed, you can usually have your peonies and let bees eat ‘em too!

Early Spring Blossoms at the Toronto Botanical Garden

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I popped by the Toronto Botanical Garden this morning for a quick look at what’s in bloom. It’s been such a long, cold winter and reluctant spring, an hour in the garden was just the therapy I needed. So what did I see?  Well, in all the years I’ve been photographing at the TBG, I’ve never spied the cornelian cherry (Cornus mas) in the hedge cages in flower. With the ‘marcescent’ foliage (persisting through winter) of the beeches (Fagus sylvatica), it made a unique and lovely entrance to the George and Kathy Dembroski Centre for Horticulture, the main building.

There were loads of hellebores doing their thing. Helleborus ‘Red Lady’ is a long-time performer and has multiplied beautifully beside the stone wall of the building. I loved the sober backdrop it made for flamboyant Narcissus ‘Tiritomba’.

I found a nice assortment of hellebores under the ‘Merrill’ magnolia just opening. This is Helleborus x ericsmithii HGC Merlin (‘Coseh 810’). Isn’t it lovely?

Helleborus x ballardiae HGC Cinnamon Snow (‘Coseh 700’) was spicing things up.

And Helleborus x ballardiae HGC Ice Breaker Prelude (‘Coseh 830’) was meltingly gorgeous.

In a protected corner of the Westview Terrace, Magnolia x loebneri ‘Leonard Messel’ was in full flower.

I could photograph magnolias all day.

Containers of spring bulbs brought a welcome note of colour.

Nearby was a little reticulated iris still in flower. Though it was labelled differently, I think its the McMurtrie cultivar Iris reticulata ‘Velvet Smile’.

On the bank where donkey tail spurge (Euphorbia myrsinites) scrambles, the variegated Tulipa praestans ‘Unicum’ was in flower.

Incidentally, the tulip season at the Toronto Botanical Garden is very long and beautiful. I wrote a long blog last year about TBG’s tulip stunning combinations.

Hyacinths (Hyacinthus orientalis) just need a little warmth to emit their perfume……

….. and even graced the path to the TBG’s big compost piles, along with daffodils.

Speaking of daffodils, I thought this one in the Entrance Courtyard was pretty spectacular. Meet Narcissus ‘British Gamble’.

The small bulbs were mostly finished, but glory-of-the-snow Scillia luciliae ‘Pink Giant’ (formerly Chionodoxa) was fading but still beautiful.

As I walked along the Piet Oudolf-designed entry border toward my car, I saw a favourite tulip, T. kaufmanniana ‘Ice Stick’ looking slender and lovely beside emerging perennials that will soon fill the garden with blossoms that will charm visitors until autumn. And I thought how wonderful each and every spring seems, to the winter-weary gardener.

PS – I will very soon get back to New Zealand… and the Argentina part of our wine tour. Promise! (Unless spring keeps beguiling me……..)

 

Blossom Party 2018 at the Toronto Botanical Garden

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It was another perfect spring day for this year’s edition of the Blossom Party, one of the TBG’s major fundraising events.  Its lovely new name (it was formerly called the Woman to Woman Party) makes it more welcoming for all the men who like to attend this happy party, and I saw quite a few in the crowd yesterday.

But it’s also about friendship and celebrating spring and the gardening season after a long, cold winter. There were friends at tables on the Westview Terrace….

…..and TBG supporters like Jim Mosher of Landscape Plus Ltd., a Blossom Party sponsor, here with family members of his company…..

….. and Mary Gore, centre, with members of her accounting firm. She owns one of Toronto’s finest gardens out in the Beaches.

There were friends at tables in the tent…..

…. and friends in deep conversation under the warm sun (but fortunately not the blazing-hot sun of the day before!)……

…. and friends checking out the TBG’s Edibles Garden, still planted with spring bulbs (hello Janet & Patsy!).

I found Kathy Dembroski, founding patron of the Blossom Party Committee, at a table with her friends.

You might know her name from the TBG’s principal building.  This is what generosity in Toronto looks like, as I saw it after a lecture late one night! Thanks to George and Kathy, as always.

And speaking of sponsorship, flowery hats off to TD Wealth for providing the major sponsorship for this lovely event!

Some of my own garden writing pals were wearing their finest. This is Aldona Satterthwaite, who was the editor of Canadian Gardening Magazine for eight years, before becoming the TBG’s Executive Director for three years. She’s now happily retired and travelling the world and enjoying her garden and grandbabies.

Garden writers Tara Nolan and Sonia Day found a spot in the shade to trade stories. And Sonia later won the Monica van Maris Green Professionals Woman of Influence Award from Landscape Ontario!

I handed my camera to the TBG’s beautiful head gardener Sandra Pella (thanks Sandra!), to capture a moment with some of my long-time garden friends and colleagues. At left is Susan Dyer, a wonderful gardener and part of a dynamic TBG support team with husband Geoffrey, former chair of the garden’s board of directors. (They were also good friends with the late Christopher Lloyd, and Geoffrey Dyer set up the charitable trust for Great Dixter Garden in East Sussex, UK). Next is Bayla Gross, with whom I helped organize out-of-city garden tours for the old Civic Garden Centre (the TBG’s predecessor). In fabulous yellow is urban planner Lindsay Dale-Harris, former board member of the Civic Garden Centre and chief fundraiser a decade ago for the development of the new Toronto Botanical Garden. Then there’s a very warm garden blogger with a floral hat that’s drooping, but still quite perfumed. To my left is artist Susanne Drinkwater. Beside her is former Ryerson University School of Landscape Architecture professor Sue Macaulay.

I found horticultural gurus Owen Reeves and the TBG’s own Paul Zammit chatting under a Japanese maple.

It was the Blossom Party – so NATURALLY there were flowers, not just in the lovely gardens, where willowleaf amsonia, lilacs and alliums were putting on a show….

…. but all over the party venue. This was the spectacular mannequin under the marquee, courtesy of Fleurs de Villes.

And this was a lovely windowbox display inside the new-this-year Spa Room.

Of course, there were flowers in the main tent, at the bar…..

…. and at each table, courtesy of a dozen of the city’s most fabulous floral designers.  Here are just a few; it would be hard for me to pick a favourite, but peonies are perfect for this time of year…..

….. and more peonies (what great vases!)…..

….. and chic calla lilies…

…… and luscious ranunculus with lily-of-the-valley and freesias (this was my fave.)

There were dancing ‘flowers’ in the garden as well, featuring a trio from Hit & Run Dance Productions, from left Järvi Raudsepp, Minami Suzuki and Elizabeth Gagnon.

To the envy of many of us with feet squeezed into high heels, they took to the water channel on the Westview Terrace barefoot to perform one ballet…..

…. and greeted visitors as they arrived, along with fetching aerial artist Jamie Holmes.

Here’s a taste of some of their performance:

Are you thirsty yet?  We could have a glass of rosé….

…. or we could sip one of the hottest-coolest new drinks, a botanical treat whose eponymous…uh, pea-forward… garden won a Gold Award at this years’s Chelsea Flower Show. Meet Seedlip, which, though it’s non-alcoholic, would certainly make a nice pairing with gin, in my humble opinion. And since I’ve had the good fortune of sampling this fizzy herbal on two occasions this week (the first time featured an opened pea pod as garnish), I can tell you it’s a unique and delicious treat.

As always, the food was delicious and showed off the talents of some of Toronto’s finest caterers.  These little crudité flowerpots were courtesy of Yorkshire Pudding Catering (who might make the best wedding cake I’ve ever tasted, anywhere….)  The veggies are ‘planted’ in edible soil over green-goddess dip. Very gardenesque!

10tation Event Catering offered yummy bowls of vegan salad.

Encore Catering served up these delicate, mouthwatering morsels, “salmon poke taro taco”.

And Daniel et Daniel sweetened our palates with delectable desserts…

…. along with Eatertainment, who crafted these vegan chocolate terrariums with “edible soil”, sponge toffee and raspberries.

New this year in the Garden Hall was the Spa, with Murale providing make-up…..

…. and soothing hand massages.

Mindham Jewelry was there, too, and party-goers were seen trying on some of the bijoux.  And isn’t that fascinator wonderful?

Yes, let’s face it. The Blossom Party is all about THE HATS! There were tall confections in yellow tulle….

…. and magnificent magenta with feathers!

I saw pussy willows…..

…. and scads of blossoms…..

…. and loads of pollinators.

Bees were well-represented….

…. as were butterflies!

TBG Executive Director Harry Jongerden, with Lorna McKay at left, was wearing his expansion hardhat!

Because, if you don’t know by now, the TBG is about to embark upon a massive expansion that will see it go from 4 to 35 acres and encompass Edwards Gardens.

Back to the party!  There were baseball caps attached to floral balloons….

…. and hats that went perfectly with flowery frocks….

…including some that highlighted passionate purple….

….and azure-blue (hello Marjorie!)….

…..and shimmering white.

So many blossoms – fascinators, hats, dresses – what a lovely time of year in Toronto!

A few of us tried our hands at ‘fresh flower flourishes’. I compared notes with Barbara Fleming of the Garden Club of Toronto, who favoured roses, geraniums and hydrangea leaves….

…. while I wove a hat-band of Meyer dwarf lilacs and lily-of-the-valley from my garden for my own flowery chapeau.  (For a how-to from 2016, read my lily-of-the-valley hat blog.)

CBC reporter Tashauna Reid was on hand to emcee.

Harry Jongerden made a few, brief comments and the Monica van Maris Green Professionals Woman of Influence Award co-sponsored by Landscape Ontario Horticultural Trades Association and Toronto Botanical Garden was presented to Sonia Day.

Then it was time for the winners of the hat competition, judged by some of Toronto’s most fashionable femmes. Sylvie Hatch was runner-up, with her perfectly accessorized, veiled, yellow-and-black chapeau.

And the top prize? It went to vivacious Tenny Nigoghossian, left, one of Toronto’s powerhouse fundraisers – pictured here with the TBG’s own powerhouse fundraiser, Claudia Zuccato Ria.  Tenny told me she found her dramatic, bejeweled headpiece at an end-of-season costume sale at Canadian Stage Company Ltd., when she was Executive Director of Advancement there. “It was sitting unwanted on a table, going for $5 or $10, and no one wanted it. So I bought it.”  It appears Tenny, who was sparkling all the way down to her stilettos (which was noted by the judges), knew a very good thing when she saw it.

There were a pair of great door prizes – a trip to the Arctic, courtesy of Adventure Canada (I’ve been on one of their spectacular cruises through Nunavut and Greenland, lucky winner!), and one that included air fare and accommodation to see the gardens of Pennsylvania, including gorgeous Chanticleer Garden in Wayne (here’s my double blog on that stunning garden, my very favourite public garden in the United States).

So ended another lovely Blossom Party, all proceeds going to benefit the good work of the Toronto Botanical Garden.  May it thrive and grow for generations to come!

Design With Tulips Like the (Soon-to-be-Much Bigger) Toronto Botanical Garden

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In the past week, a few tidbits of information came across my desk. One was that the National Garden Bureau declared 2018 to be “The Year of the Tulip”. Well…. yawn. I tend to be a bit jaded on “The Year of”…. anything. I suppose it’s my nature to be cynical (ha!), but sometimes these public relation campaigns seem to be more about pumping sales (see those “Buy Now” links in the NGB’s right hand column? they lead to a Pennsylvania bulb dealer) than recognizing a true standout plant – or, as they say at the National Garden Bureau, a “bulb crop”.  Anyway, it is spring, and I love tulips (that’s my front garden last spring from a previous blog, below), so okay, I’ll dial back my cynicism. YAY tulips! It’s your year! Party like it’s 1999!

The other tidbit that crossed my desk was a press release from the Toronto Botanical Garden, below.

This was BIG NEWS and more than 3 years in the making, thanks to the inspiration and impetus from Executive Director Harry Jongerden and the design and consulting skills of Forrec Ltd., W. Gary Smith and Lord Cultural Resources. From the initial meeting I attended in January 2015, when the TBG unveiled its “Integrated Conceptual Proposals”, to the three community input meetings hosted by the TBG and its consultants and landscape architects and the City of Toronto, below, to May 2018’s announcement, it represents a massive leap for our little jewel of a botanical garden.

My sincere wish is that this brave new parks/not-for-profit partnership gets all the financial resources it needs to create a magnificent, world-class garden in the fourth largest metropolitan city in North America!

So, given how prone I am to dubiously connecting one thing with another – and given that it IS spring – here  are some fabulous ideas for tulips courtesy of the Toronto Botanical Garden and my 10-year archive of photos there, since the year it renamed itself and gave us so much inspiration on its 4 acres, soon to be 35 acres!

Plant them with daffodils!

This should be obvious, but it’s amazing that more people don’t interplant and underplant tulips with daffodils. The TBG is all over this idea, and here are some of the prettiest examples, starting with tiny daffodils (I’m going to guess ‘Tête à Tête‘) under the Darwin Hybrid tulip ‘World Peace’.

What about Tulipa ‘Orange Emperor’ with Narcissus ‘Thalia’?

If you like butterfly or split corona daffodils, try Narcissus ‘Printal’ with ‘Orange Emperor’.

Speaking of the Fosteriana tulip ‘Orange Emperor’, it plays a big spring role at the TBG. Here it is at the start of the Piet Oudolf-designed Entry Border with Narcissus ‘Professor Einstein’. So sturdy!

And this charming duo is Tulipa ‘Tom Pouce’ and Narcissus ‘Golden Echo’.

Plant them with grape hyacinths & real hyacinths!

If you’ve been to Holland’s Keukenhof Gardens in springtime, you’ll be familiar with those “rivers of blue” grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum). You can do that in your own garden, you know.  When you’re planting your tulips, give them little rivers or lakes or even puddles of blue companions, like this.  The light pink tulip here is ‘Ollioules’, the purple is ‘Passionale’, and the double narcissus is ‘Cheerfulness’.

Years ago, I found this duo at the TBG: Tulipa saxatilis ‘Lilac Wonder’ and Muscari armeniacum. Nice, right?

And look at this sumptuous vignette: Tulipa ‘Fire Queen’ with blue grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum and the emerging chartreuse foliage of golden tansy (Tanacetum vulgare ‘Isla Gold’).

I wish I had a name for the early tulip planted under the ‘Crimson Queen’ Japanese maple with its deep-red emerging leaves, below. But given that it’s interplanted with early-season hyacinths, it’s bound to be a single early tulip like ‘Couleur Cardinal’.

This little species tulip T. turkestanica seems right at home with fragrant hyacinths….

….as does the species T. humilis var. violacea.

Plant them with summer snowflake!

I don’t see a lot of summer snowflake (Leucojum aestivum) – which, despite its name, blooms in mid-spring, not summer – used in gardens, but it can be very pretty as a tulip companion. Here is L. aestivum ‘Gravetye Giant’ with ‘Daydream’…..

…. and in a more shaded position enhancing Tulipa sylvestris, the woodland tulip.

Pair them with emerging shrubs!

Why waste the drama of dark-leaved shrubs like Weigela ‘Wine & Roses’, when you can surround it with Tulipa ‘Queen of Night’? The peach tulip here is ‘Menton’, the white is ‘White Triumphator’.

Fothergilla gardenii is a spring-flowering native northeastern shrub that’s wonderful in combination with mid to late-season tulips. Here it is at Toronto Botanical Garden this spring.

Don’t forget that colourful coniferous shrubs can pair up nicely with tulips, like Tulipa ‘Purple Dream’ with the lime-gold foliage of dwarf golden arborvitae (Platycladus orientalis ‘Aurea Nana’).

Combine them with spring-flowering perennials!

Like Anthriscus syvlestris ‘Ravenswing’. Yes, it’s quite invasive, but isn’t it lovely?

Then there’s Bergenia or ‘pigsqueak’ (why? I don’t know). This cultivar is ‘Eden’s Dark Margin’ and it’s been paired with Tulipa ‘Ice Stick’ and a dusky purple hellebore.

As an aside to ‘Ice Stick’, I found this little Kaufmanniana hybrid to be quite attractive to bees at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

The amsonias flower early and look great with late tulips. This is Amsonia orientalis with a white-edged tulip I believe is the triumph tulip ‘Kung Fu’ and the blowsy double early tulip ‘Monte Orange’.

And I love this serene combination of blue Siberian bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla) with Tulipa ‘Spring Green’.

…. and variegated Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum x hybridum ‘Striatum’) with Tulipa ‘Exotic Emperor’.

Cushion spurge (Euphorbia polychroma) is one of the earliest perennials and combines nicely with tulips of all colours. Shown below is pink ‘Ollioules’.

Combine them with Ornamental Grasses!

I adored this soft Tulipa ‘Silverstream’ and Carex combo from 2009, and some of those, variegated, colour-variable tulips still pop up, though the carex is long gone. But that’s the funny thing with carex. The brown New Zealand species like C. buchananii and C. comans often look pretty much the same in spring even when they’ve died in winter, so they make good tulip companions.

This is Deschampsia caespitosa with the burgundy-yellow, late tulip ‘Gavota’ and dark ‘Queen of Night’.  I think this is stunning.

And you can weave tulips like a colourful river through grasses, as was done with these double-flowered tulips ‘Pink Star’ and ‘Monte Orange’ through emerging Calamagrostis brachytricha.

Fill their dance cards with pretty cousins!

Sometimes, certain tulips just seem to go well together, and the TBG has created some lovely combinations over the years. This pair is tulip royalty ‘Fire Queen’ and ‘Pretty Princess’.

In the same bed along Lawrence Avenue is a delicate pairing of purple Tulipa ‘Rem’s Favourite’ with pink ‘Playgirl‘.

Those romantic hues are used to lovely effect in Nature’s Garden, in the combination below of the triumph tulip ‘Synaeada Blue’ with two luscious parrot tulips, ‘Negrita Parrot’ and ‘Pink Vision’.

Playing a double striped against a single striped with similar colouring works with the double late tulip ‘Cartouche’ and the triumph tulip ‘Carnaval de Rio’ (aka ‘Canada 150’).

I thought this was a very clever combination of fringed tulips, with one colour reversing the other. The red is ‘Flamenco’; the yellow is ‘Davenport’.

And sometimes you have a tulip so beautiful, like luminous, yellow ‘Akebono’ (a double sport of the Darwin Hybrid ‘Jewel of Spring’), below, that anything looks good with it, including ‘Orange Emperor’ and ‘Purple Dream’.

You can riff on a cultivar name and get pretty combinations, like ‘Apricot Delight’ with ‘Apricot Impression‘ (both Darwin Hybrids).

I am very fond of pink and yellow combinations in spring, and this vignette from 2016 was one of my favourites: ‘Rosy Delight’, ‘Design Impression’, ‘Jenny’ and yellow ‘West Point’. (It should be noted that spring weather will often accelerate certain tulip types or delay others, and what combines one spring might be sequential the following spring – the luck of the draw.)

I may be a subtle meadow girl the rest of the year, but I don’t mind a boisterous spring garden party. How about this double-flowered tulip duo: yellow-orange-red ‘Sun Lover’ and ‘Double Negrita’?

Or this sunny party act: ‘Fire Wings‘and the late double ‘Sundowner’, with its changing sunset hues.

In truth, I love all tulips. After 5 months of winter, we all want a little party of colour, I think, and tulips offer an easy way to celebrate. Here’s a multicolour party, courtesy of the TBG.

Many of these tulips are in plantings donated by my friends Mary Fisher (the Mary Fisher Spring Garden near the shop) and Bob & Anne Fisher and other family members (the Ruby Fisher garden) near the fence in the Oudolf entry border.  Hurray to them!  And, on that cheerful note, I’d like to raise a glass – a tulip glass with a long stem – to Sandra Pella and Paul Zammit and the gardening staff of the Toronto Botanical Garden on its lovely tulip displays. And also a toast to Harry Jongerden and a much-expanded garden with a much-expanded vision (and hopefully, a much-expanded gardening staff)!

Finally, I would like to send out a little shout to the woman who supplies many of the Toronto Botanical Garden’s spring bulbs, my friend Caroline de Vries. If you’re Canadian and looking to buy excellent-quality bulbs at a very good price, check out Caroline’s company  https://flowerbulbsrus.com/.  It’s where I buy my bulbs!