Sandria's Garden

Columbine

"You should come and see this garden on my postal route", my hubby said to me one day when we met for lunch, "I think you'd like it." I thought of the neighbourhood of primarily small, post-war houses that I had only ever seen in the depth of winter and tried to imagine which house he could possibly mean. 

Though I didn't recall a place with anything more than a rudimentary garden, hubby seemed so confident I agreed to let him take me there when he finished his afternoon's work. 

The gardener was not home when we showed up completely unannounced. Just her husband was there to give me permission to take pictures. 

Red Coral Bells

It is interesting that you can get an immediate sense of a person you have never had the chance to meet when you wander through their garden. Right away, I could tell that this was a person who really knew something about plants and had a knack for mixing colors and textures. I wasn't surprised when her husband told us that she had studied horticulture at Humber College and had graduated with honours. "She laid most of the stonework herself.", he told us proudly.

Sandria and I caught up a few days later by phone. Sandria brought her love of flowers to Canada with her from her native Barbados. Though she works as a nurse by day, gardening is one of her true passions. 

Let's take a wonder through Sandria's little gem of a garden. 

This is the planting along the front of the property leading into the back gate. 

(That's a tricolor Beech on the right, a Japanese Maple in the middle and a Viburnum trilobum by the back gate. Below the trees and shrubs are Lady's Mantle in the centre and a few patches of Creeping Jenny.)

The gate opens to a pathway that leads into the back garden.

Just inside the gate.

A small island obstructs your view of the main part of the garden 

making what comes next a bit of a surprise.

This is the garden in a nutshell. To the left behind the hedge there is a swimming pool. Though my picture makes it look vast, the garden is really quite modest in size. 

Columbine

Geranium cantabrigiense 'Biockovo'

Viburnum trilobum has lovely red berries as a bonus after the flowers are finished.

Sandria has a really nice assortment of Japanese Maples throughout her garden. She named Vineland Nurseries as one of her sources.

Cinnamon Fern, Osmunda cinnamomea

A big thank you to my husband for spotting this pretty little garden and to 

Sandria and her husband for allowing me to photograph it. 

Creating a Sense of Privacy

It is not that you necessarily dislike your neighbours; they may well be among your closest friends, it is just that your garden is a place of refuge from the world at large and that sometimes even includes friends. You want it to be private. A garden is a place to sit and read, enjoy a meal or do nothing beyond watch the bees flit from flower to flower.

A garden is also the last place you want to think about what you're wearing. Who gets dressed up to dig around in the dirt? You want to roll out that back door in your grubbiest clothes without a moment's thought to what other people might think if they happened to see you!

Private Garden, Mississauga ON

Creating a sense of privacy can be as simple as surrounding your self with a cocoon of greenery.

Private Garden, Mississauga ON

The problem is that trees and shrubs take years to fill in and mature. Most homeowners end up resorting to a structure or fencing of some kind. 

To keep this back deck area feeling secluded, a set of benches, a planter and an overhanging structure for vines and hanging baskets were added.

Private Garden, Toronto ON

In this garden in the Forest Hill area of Toronto, there was nothing to block the view from the street. A wall of evergreens was planted then a decorative metal screen was added.

Private Garden, Toronto ON

Private Garden, Toronto ON

Of course, the surest way to make your yard secluded is to add fencing of some kind. Even fencing can have its drawbacks though. Tall fences can be costly and most municipalities have some restrictions on fence height. 

Of course there are always clever ways to get around those height restrictions:

Private Garden, Toronto ON

Good luck trying to peak into this backyard! 

Climbing hydrangea obliterates the low fence, while a solid wall of cedars stretches up toward the home's roof line.

Private Garden, Ward Island

Evergreens are useful for providing year round privacy, but it is actually the summer months that you really care about creating that quiet sense of seclusion. 

The garden above is a nice example making use of a deciduous screening. The trees selected are upright and conceal the view of the patio area without adding dense shade.

Private Garden, Brampton ON

You can also keep the fence tall without making it a solid wall.

Private Garden, Toronto ON

In this example, the backyard slopes gently upward toward the back of the property. The fence has been stepped according to the elevation.

Private Garden, Toronto ON

Lush greenery softens the line of fencing.

Private Garden, Toronto ON

At the very back of the yard, an extra height of fencing was added to keep this area around the pond intimate and serene. 

Private Garden, Toronto ON

Private Garden, Mississauga ON

Of course no one wants to feel fenced-in just to escape prying eyes. Isn't this a nice way to disguise some of that solid line of fencing?

Private Garden, Mississauga ON

Private Garden, Mississauga ON

There is even a little pond to mask traffic noises.

Private Garden, Mississauga ON

In this particular property, there was only a chain link fence between neighbours and so a coordinating screen was added along the property line.

Private Garden, Toronto ON

In this final example, a lattice was added in front of the fence and a pergola was then constructed. 

What a nice quiet place to sit and do absolutely nothing at all!

A Weekend Trip to the Islands, Part 2

Recently a commenter asked why I liked to show gardens other than my own on this blog. There are lots of reasons; chief among them is keeping things interesting for both myself and for blog visitors.  And I learn so much from other gardeners! 

Take this garden for instance.

The gate to the backyard was closed, and as we peered over the top of it, my husband and I found ourselves wondering if only the front garden was included in the Toronto Islands Garden Tour. We were about to turn away when a middle aged woman poked her head out the front door, and apologizing profusely that the wind off the lake had accidentally closed the back gate, invited us in to see her garden.

It was getting towards the end of the afternoon and the visitors to the gardens on the tour had thinned out considerably making it easy to strike up a conversation. The gardener and I got to talking about plants and the challenges on gardening on an island-sized sandbar. 

An attractive umbrella-shaped leaf in a flowerbed by the back door caught my attention and I asked her about it. I was totally surprised when she told me it was a Hellebore. The leaf in front of me was nothing like the leathery leaves of the two young Hellebores in my own garden. 

The island gardener ushered me to the other side of the garden where she showed yet another Hellebore whose leaf bore no resemblance to either the one I had just admired or the ones I had at home. Obviously I still have something to learn about Hellebores.

I like using alliums as a bridge between tulips and summer perennials, but they are rather like mums in the fall: you see them absolutely everywhere and possibly to the point of overkill. I thought these Camassia bulbs, which I saw in a number of gardens on the island, were a nice alternative.

They also come in a darker, purply-blue color and white. 

These are definitely going on my fall wish list.

This is another garden in the afternoon part of our island tour. 

I have this very primrose in my garden, but I have never thought to mass it in exactly the same way. I tend to think of primroses as English cottage garden flowers and yet here they are used in combination with a Japanese garden ornament. Oddly it works.

The use of texture in this garden was not a lesson; just a gentle reminder of how beautiful a mix of foliage and flowers can be. 

My own garden feels wild and a bit chaotic in comparison. This feels calm and serene. 

A flagstone path leads to the entrance of the back garden.

 A closer view of the plantings around the garden's back shed.

Like the front garden, the backyard has Japanese influences, but isn't a Japanese garden.

 

This was our final stop on the tour. You can see from this picture that the shadows are long and the afternoon sunlight is fading. 

By this point in our wanderings on Ward Island, we were pretty beat. We plunked ourselves down on the steps that you can see on the upper left with the convenient excuse that they provided the perfect vantage point from which to admire the large Asian inspired pond. 

 

Seeing and photographing other gardens keeps things fresh for me. I almost always come away feeling inspired and that it what I hope to pass on to you.

Have a wonderful weekend!