A Valentine's Giveaway: The Romantic Language of Flowers

When words fail to express our deepest feelings of love, appreciation or sympathy, 

flowers speak for us.

 Today, in honour of Valentine's Day, I have a small giveaway. 

With charming watercolor illustrations drawn from The Book of Memory by artist Fanny Robinson (1802-1872), this little book called The Romantic Language of Flowers is full of interesting facts, quotations and a dictionary of floral meanings.

Have a wonderful and romantic Valentine's Day! 

P.S. To enter the draw for a copy of The Romantic Language of  Flowers, please leave a comment below. I also ask entrants to make sure there is some kind of link available to their email address. I need to have a way to get hold of you should you be a winner. 

I am still looking to contact Mary B., who won the copy of book The Layered Garden. Mary, if you are still out there, can you please drop me a note by email. I want to get the book off to you in the mail!

I will leave this draw open through the weekend and will announce a winner sometime next week.

Women's Work

In most marriages, the division of labour along gender lines is most likely to be as unique and individual as each relationship.

There are however, old fashioned gender stereotypes that still persist which suggest that men take care of things like the finances and the maintenance on the family car. They put garbage out and they mow the lawn.

Women supposedly do most of the rest of the daily household tasks.

In my marriage, the division of labour has never exactly been "traditional".

For instance, I have always managed our finances. I assume that my role is not completely typical because, anytime we have ever sat down with a bank manager or financial advisor, they make initial eye contact with us both, and then proceed to address my husband directly and me in a much more token way.

It doesn't seem to matter whether there is a man or a woman on the other side of the desk.

They all seem to assume that my husband is the principal decision maker. In reality, my husband takes no interest in money matters. If you were to call him up right now, and ask him when our mortgage was up for renewal, he probably tell you to phone me instead.

Maybe because there isn't as much of a precedent, I often take a more novel approach to certain stereotypically male-oriented tasks. The last time we bought a car, I shopped all the local dealerships online and picked out two used cars that were exactly what I was looking for.

I then proceeded to go into the first dealership and make a low-ball offer on the car I wanted site unseen. The sales guy was completely caught off-guard. He kept insisting we go out into the lot and review the features of the car in question. I kept telling him I wasn't willing to waste my time looking at the car until the price was more in line with what I wanted to pay.

Most recently, the bulk of my free time has been devoted to shopping for a new boiler (we have antiquated radiators in our 100 year old house).

I can just imagine what you are probably thinking. Wow Jennifer! Boiler hunting! Life doesn't get much exciting!

All I can say is that someone had to do it, and the job fell to me.

Searching for a boiler is not nearly as easy a task as buying a more popular forced-air furnace. Boilers are rarer these days (in Ontario, at any rate), and finding someone reliable to service and repair our old boiler has been an ongoing challenge since we moved in to our house over 10 years ago.

Late last year, the principal pump on the boiler failed and we have had partial heat ever since. Dreading the whole business, I put off finding a replacement. Then a cold snap motivated me into action.

I have made lots and lots of phone calls in the last few weeks.

The first company that came out to see the job left, and was almost never heard from again. Then late last week, I got a formal letter from them saying that they were "too busy" to quote on the job.

Too busy in the middle of a recession to make thousands of dollars in sales? Good riddance to them!

Another company was reluctant to send out a salesman unless my husband was home. When I insisted that I would be making a decision on a new boiler by the end of the week, they relented and sent a saleswoman out to meet with me.

Though I am no expert, I could tell that this woman didn't have a clue about gas-fired boilers.

Still more calls!

Then finally a week and a half ago I found someone who seemed to know what he was talking about and was even willing to give me a bit of a break on the price.

They are coming out to install the boiler today, and with any luck, we will have real heat in the house by nightfall.

Oh the pure luxury of it! I can hardly wait.

To illustrate ramblings, I am using the colors pink and blue. Are there any other colors that come with more gender baggage?

The Back Garden

In my last post, we looked at Karen's front garden. Now, let's head around to the back of the house.

As we stroll down the walkway, we pass under a vine covered arbor.

Just outside the side entrance to the house, there is a bench that gets used 

when summer meals are prepared on the adjacent barbecue.

Looking back the way we have come.

The pathway continues right around to the back of the house. 

As you can see here, Karen faced a number of big challenges when it came to her back garden. For one thing, the land slopes fairly steeply away from the house. 

To compensate, a set of steps were installed to lead visitors down the hill and into the main part of the woodland garden.

Rather than struggling the property's attributes, Karen took advantage of the hillside and had Clearwater Ponds install a waterfall and small pond.

Mature trees also meant Karen had to contend with full shade when it came to selecting plants and shrubs for the backyard. 

A series of stepping stones invite you to explore the cool, more shaded pockets of the garden on hot summer days.

 At the foot of waterfall and small goldfish pond, there is a nice area for summer meals.

The yard is entirely open with no fencing along the garden's perimeter. This helps the backyard to feel expansive, but it also means that there isn't a lot of privacy.  

To make the dining area feel a bit more secluded, a square lattice was built, and then covered with clematis (I am not meaning to suggest that clematis are shade-loving, because generally, they aren't. A chance break in the canopy of trees makes the clematis possible here.)

The far end of the garden opens up again into sunlight.

Astrantia in half-shade at the edge of the woodland garden.

Here, Karen created a circular potager with flowers, herbs, a few vegetables and rhubarb. 

(Pink Astilbe on the right.)

I hope you have enjoyed this little tour. What I think we can all take away from Karen's garden is the inspiration to truly embrace your property's attributes and turn any negatives into positives.

Have a great weekend everyone!

A School Teacher's Pretty Front Garden

Front gardens can be a challenge. How do you keep them lush and colorful, but tidy and presentable at the same time?

Today, I want to share with you a front garden, on a typical suburban lot, that manages to be all those things.

A sweeping path leads from the driveway to the front door of Karen's house.

If we come a bit closer, you can see that Karen has done a wonderful job of mixing shrubs, evergreens (which are going to look great year-round) with perennials such as sedum, lady's mantel, some low-growing ornamental grasses, heuchera, coreopsis and hosta.

Hanging over the pathway leading up to the door there are a climbing hydrangea, pink rose, 

rhododendron and purple clematis.

I took these pictures in mid-June, when there was a mix of soft yellow, pink 

and purple flowers in bloom.

This birdbath-turned-planter was my favourite garden ornament. I love the way that Karen has used a mix of hostas, with some chartreuse-colored creeping jenny that spills beautifully over the edge of the planter. 

Did you notice that she has used a low-growing evergreen at the base of the planter? 

It adds understated textural interest that supports, but doesn't compete with the container planting. 

Pink astilbe with a Rose of Sharon (to the left) and a backdrop of euonymus on the brick wall behind.

Now, let's take a closer look at the plantings leading to the door.

What a glorious soft pink rose!

Up next, we'll head into Karen back garden.

Modern Industrial Garden & a few Highlights from IDS 2013

On Sunday, I spent part of the afternoon at the big Interior Design Show in Toronto. The show is primarily dedicated to indoor spaces, but there was the odd booth with a garden theme. Take a quick look:

Outdoor beachy-coastal theme at Andrew Richard Designs.

Wasabi green accessories from Urban Barn. 

Owls continue to be a popular decorating motif and below there is a coastal-themed grouping of accessories, again from Urban Barn.

I thought this display booth by Earth Inc. was really interesting. 

With old bricks, wire pendent lights, huge metal beams and rusted pipes lashed together to make the enclosed courtyard, it is a modern industrial take on a natural outdoor space.

For the first post with highlights from IDS 2013 for interiors spaces, please click this link.

Seen, Noted and Photographed

I am smitten. 

This is not a love affair that my husband of twenty-odd years has to worry about though. I have fallen head over heals in love with native plants.

I must admit that, in the past, I have always taken native plants somewhat for granted. 

Sure, I admired them along the roadside and in fields of summer blooms, but I never gave them much thought... 

or considered them as serious candidates worthy of inclusion in my garden. 

Generally speaking, they were the plants I pulled out of the garden, not anything I would ever want to put in it.

So what changed?

I opened up my mind, and my eyes, and really took a look at what was there all along, just waiting for me to notice.

For this I have other bloggers to thank, in particularly Janet, Rose, Lona and Marguerite. I admired their sense of discovery and their enthusiasm for native plants.

I began to wonder what was out there just beyond my own garden. And so I spent the spring, summer and fall really looking for the first time.

I sloshed through spring muck. 

I wadded into tall grass (with a minor degree of trepidation I might add). 

I got down on my hands and knees and was amazed and charmed by what I found.

Last summer, when the grass had all but packed it in this tiny little yellow flower (above) dotted the landscape with islands of green and yellow sunshine.

The blooms were often delicate, but make no mistake, these were plants were tough; growing in the worst types of soil, and often with very little water.

I am almost ashamed to admit that I don't know half their names, or if they are annuals or perennials. 

Sadly, I know more about plants from Europe or Asia, than I do about the plants native to my own country.

After I spent the summer and fall admiring them, I found that I wanted to know more about native plants, so I started reading.

I also began to wonder what a garden composed primarily of native plants would look like. 

Would it be untidy? Not necessarily. Not if it was done well.

I have more to say about native plants and lots of pictures to share, but for today I will content myself with passing on what has been given to me: a remarkable sense of wonder and a fresh sense of appreciation for all native plants.