Ideas for Beautiful Container Gardening

Habourfront, Toronto

I love gardening! It is my most favourite activity to do.
In my younger days, I would spend days and hours planting flowers in our backyard when springs come and the danger of frost was over.

I often saw flower containers but never really appreciate them before.  Now that my energy is limited, I have come to appreciate and enjoy the convenience and beauty of what container gardening can add to gardens.

Distillery District, Toronto

I enjoy taking pictures of container flowers in my travel so that I can learn how to plant my own in my garden.

Assisi, Italy

Italy

For those who are looking for ideas for container flowers, I hope these pictures will give you some ideas.

Harbourfront, Toronto, Canada

Downtown Toronto

 Distillery District, Toronto, Ontario

Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada

Birch trees are quite popular in Canada. Even after they are cut down, the branches are used in many ways to make beautiful decorations for homes and gardens.

Using birch branches and twigs, the native people in Canada make beautiful garden decorations.

Birch branches are also used often in container gardens such as this one.

Plants in containers decorated this church arches in Assisi,  Italy

Cacti Container, Phoenix, USA

For drier and less maintenance containers,
this cacti container we saw at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, USA, will do a fine job!

The Annex, Toronto

This ever green container with impatients still looked strong and healthy during our mild Canadian autumn in downtown Toronto.

Edwards Garden, Toronto

This autumn container with colourful fall flowers and ornamental cabbages welcome visitors to Edwards Garden in Toronto!

St. Jacobs, Waterloo region, Ontario

R.T.
Toronto
 Ontario

Remembering Shirley Cheatley - My Neighbour With a Spectacular Garden

I love gardening!   Our garden is my pride and joy!

It was a glorious spring day in Toronto! I was basking in the warm sun, caressed by gentle breezes while doing one of my most favourite and enjoying activities in the world: gardening in the backyard of our Toronto home!

There is nothing I enjoy more than puttering around in our garden, digging up overgrown perennials and moving them around like furniture and finding them new homes in various corners among our other plants and shrubs.

Cut flowers from our garden

Gardening is a de-stressor for me ; nothing calms me down and lower my blood pressure than admiring the greenery in my garden. With a coffee mug in my hands, every morning during the warm spring /summer days,  I take a princely walk and survey my royal subjects that bring so much pleasure in my life, I feel like I am the Queen in my own castle.  It is a heavenly experience for me!

I was singing and enjoying myself, immersed in  weeding and pulling up some perennials unknown to me. Umm,, I 'd better ask Shirley about these unknown perennial before I kill them all. Shirley, my neighbor since the early 1980\s, and whose spectacular garden was featured in the Home and Garden magazine,  had been my volunteered plant consultant for the past thirty year.

 

Shirley and I used to talk a lot over this fence

" Hi, Shirley, good morning! How are you? How are you plants and flowers doing this year?" I yelled over the fence to my neighbour, eagerly awaiting for our usual little exchange about our gardens, our husbands and what was going on with our families.

I waited. There was no answer. I waited again. It was complete silence.

She 's gone! I was brought back to the reality. She's gone forever from her garden and the house next to ours.

How I have missed our exchanges over the fence! I have missed that lovely smiling face that no loner peeked over our wooden fence covered with well grown shrubs that we planted more than twenty years ago. I've missed her friendliness, kindness, welcoming warm hello every time when I was in our  garden, her smart planting tips and wisdom on flowers, plants and all my questions on gardening, her spirit of generosity, her hospitality for the neighbours, the sing-along in the basement of her home during the Christmas party....

My neighbour taught me about growing perennials in our garden

We moved into our house in the early 1980's and Shirley and her husband moved in six months later. She was in her fifty's while I was in my late twenty's.

 She reached out to us, a young couple with our first born at the time. I distinctly remembered how she had a lengthy conversation with E.who had just turned three at the time. She had such an endearing way with little kids and showed genuine interest in everyone she met including very young children.

The following Christmas, she  brought over two boxes of gifts for our two boys - It was beautiful kids' clothes form Ellen Henderson, her own company. We loved how smart these clothes looked on our boys! Since then, we had established the tradition of exchanging gifts between our two families and our friendship began.

Shirley and I had a lot in common. We were career women; hardworking, determined to do well in our profession. She loved gardening which has been a hobby of mine. Therefore, we could easily talk for half an hour on our sidewalk whenever we saw each other. I did not have a lot of time for tea at her house saved for our annual visit of Christmas gift exchange. I would usually bring our gifts over and we sat and drank teas for sometime and caught up with our news.

Shirley and I spent some wonderful time in our gardens

I retired in 2009 and was looking forward to more frequent visits with Shirley. I did go over and had tea and cookies a couple of times and we  shared our photos in a leisurely manner for the first time in over thirty years!  I even had time to go down to her basement and saw what she was working on in her retirement years.

I noticed that Shirley's health was failing. I saw her less and less in her beloved garden. The last time I saw her was at the Bridgepoint Health Centre in the Riverdale area in 2010. Shortly after our visit, she passed away in the fall of 2010. The spring after her death, the house was sold and her husband - our neighbour for over thirty years moved into a senior condo.

The flowers are still here but Shirley is gone.

Still working in my garden and thinking of Shirley, I had tears in my eyes. I regret that I did not spend more time with my lovely neighbour because I was so busy with my life.

Shirley was my cheerleader; she was happy for me whenever I told her about the promotions I had in my career. As a woman entrepreneur, she encouraged me to achieve my career goals and shared her own challenges with me.   I thought she would always be there and that we could spend more time together in our gardens after I retired.

 I am here every morning in my lovely garden, but Shirley is gone forever.

Shirley, I have really missed you! I will always miss you. You are gone, but you will always be in my heart!

R.T., Your neighbour in Don Mills
Toronto

Elora Gorge, Elora, Ontario

Mill Street, Elora, Ontario

I was speaking in Waterloo on Sunday, so we invited my brother and Jenny to come with us.

Elora is about a twenty minutes ride from Waterloo.

Shops are housed in century old buildings in Elora

 We visited Elora on Sunday afternoon  after the Sunday Service.

Mill Street is the main street of Elora - where pretty stores and boutiques housed in century-old buildings lined the street.
 
Following the street sign, we went to the Conservation area where Elora Gorge is located.

We used our GPS but it took us round and round before we could get to the Gorge.

You may want to get the exact address from the website at:

www.grandriver.ca/parks
or call 519-846-9742

There was a charge of  $ 5.75 per person for admission to the Conservation area where one could easily spent at least half a  day hiking the trails, having a picnic and enjoying the outdoors.

With the current admission receipt from Elora Gorge, visitors could swim at the Elora Quarry Conservation area for free as well.
 

Elora Gorge is part of the Grand River Valley system. It offers serviced and unserviced campsites. There are park amenities such as a Splashpad, fishing and tubing, lookout points, and plenty of picnic benches for rest.

In fact, Elora Gorge, this part of the Grand River, has  a reputation as one of the best brown trout fisheries in North America as over 500,000 brown trouts have been stocked in the area since 1989.

Stairs leading down to a closer look of the Gorge

The scenery is beautiful with hiking trails and stone steps leading to the gorge below.

When we descended the steps we felt as if we were entering into a cave leading us to a different world.

Beautiful scenery inside the Conservation area

Once we descended to the lookout point, the scenery opened up to  us.














The Grand River rushes through the gorge which has 22 meter high cliffs.

Only less than a thirty minutes drive from Waterloo, one
can easily escape city life and be surrounded by forest of trees and soothed by the sound of water of the Elora Gorge.

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Visors  could drive right up to the trails and start hiking.  Bringing a picnic basket, people could easily spend a whole day exploring the trails, taking breaks and enjoying the park.

On our drive back to the city, we passed by many farmers' green fields with their soil ready for planting.

R.T.
Village of  Elora
Ontario

Toronto's Music Garden and Harbour Front - A Beautiful Place to Visit with No Charge

Toronto's  Harbour Front

After we visited the Distillery District, we continued our walk south towards the lake.
















We reached the Harbour Front after about thirty minutes as it was such a nice day and an enjoyable pleasant stroll.

It would have been a different story if it was in the middle of winter.

Boardwalk at Harbour Front

Harbour Front is a great place for people to sit and relax on the broad walk and watch the world go by.

CN Tower and Rogers Centre - seen by the Toronto waterfront

Of all the places there are in Toronto, the Toronto Harbour Front is my most favourte place to visit.

There are always things to do for al ages such as canoeing in the pond.

During the warmer months, very often there are entertainments of all kinds especially during the weekends or special holidays.

Art Exhibition inside the Harbourfront building

We were there on the long weekend a week ago; there were free concerts in the outdoor stage, free crafts activity as well as shows for kids on the open stage






Very often, there are arts exhibitions inside the Harbourfront buildings.

Observing wildlife by the water

People can take their time and walk through these displays and most of the time, there are no admission charges.







Or they can just take time to observe the wildlife by the water.












There is even a man made beach where one can just enjoy and sunbath to their hearts' content.

A man made beach where you can sit and sunbath!

While we are down at the HarboruFront, we always make a point to walk through the Music Garden which is located a little west of the Harbourfront Centre.

Ample places to rest and relax at the Music Garden

Performing Stage at the Toronto Music Garden

There are scheduled  free musical performances at stage of the Music Garden throughout the summer for visitors.


At times, there could also be impromptu performance like the one we saw when we were there.

An Impromptu Performance by an ndividual group

This group was singing native songs accompanied by native drumming.













 We rounded up our day and enjoyed a Thai dinner at the local restaurant. It was a little pricy but the food was not too bad.

A nice introduction for Jenny
 ( who is visiting from overseas) to our lovely summer in Toronto.


R.T.
Harbour Front/ Music Garden
Toronto

Sculpture Garden, Toronto

Though we have been living in this wonderful city of Toronto for close to four decades, there are always something new to see.



 There are so many great places to visit and explore that I don't think we could ever see everything within the city.

A restaurant at the Sculpture Garden

 We watch the news everyday and do pay attention to the different festivals and events that happen in the city on a regular basis.

But for some reason, we were not aware of this interesting urban garden until we played tourists in our own city

 During the Doors Open Toronto last weekend, we went downtown to visit a few places. One place we discovered was the Toronto Sculpture Garden!


We saw an unusual sculpture made out of the shells of cars painted all white and stacked together.

An interesting sculpture in the Sculpture Garden

A nice urban garden. It was an unexpected but a very pleasant discovery!  

R.T.
Toronto Sculpture Garden
Doors Open Toronto
Toronto, Ontario