by Sara Begg, Executive Editor

I've been off my blog for some time now, mostly because I've been travelling and been away from my computer. I've been up in Toronto for a family wedding and was there for what feels like the better part of November. And it was great. Hard, but great. In Toronto, all the streets are familiar, even if I've never been down them. Everyone I've known all my life lives there. It makes it hard to visit, because I miss it both as a city and as my former home. I was also amazed at how many gardeners  are living in the city. In any given neighborhood, most of the front yards are planted up with interesting plants---cool trees with good texture and size, unusual shrubs and perennials, not to mention vegetables and fruit trees poking out of every possible pocket of soil. It seems to me that gardening is a bigger part of the culture there than it is here in Boston. I don't know why, but it just is. I don't think I've ever really noticed that before, perhaps because I usually spend the bulk of my time north of the city.

On another note, if you do not have Acer japonicum 'Aconitifolium' in your garden, you must go out and get it now. I put it in my garden in the summer of 2006 and it has quietly been holding its place in the garden since. Quiet until now. It is simply on fire. A shockingly bright orange in late November, when everything else is turning brown, beige, or at best, muted yellow. The stem of each leaf is scarlet red and the rest of the leaf is brillant orange.  I gather from other gardeners that it is not always orange, in fact, it can be an amazing blend of red, orange, and yellow in its best years.

Read Meg Lynch's blog

Read Nan Sinton's blog

Photo courtesy Great Hill Horticultural Foundation

Wednesday, November 21, 2007 1:23:59 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [1]