Garden Muses | Toronto Gardening Blog
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Paul Jung is a professional gardener and owns a small Toronto gardening services company that uses organic and ecological horticultural techniques. While this blog is apparently about gardening in Toronto, it is and it isn't.
Garden Muses | Toronto Gardening Blog
3y ago
From Messy and Overgrown To....
Heading into October, I usually don't get requests to transplant new perennials and shrubs. Many homeowners are entering "fall cleanup" mode and garden centres and nurseries understandably don't offer a large selection of plants anyway. But recently I was introduced to a new client (I'll call her Joanne) through another Toronto gardening blogger (Helen Battersby, no need to give her an alias!). Joanne wasn't happy with the state of her backyard in central Toronto's Dufferin Grove neighbourhood so she asked for my advice in "renovating" the garden beds.
H ..read more
Garden Muses | Toronto Gardening Blog
3y ago
A Beaconsfield Village Front Garden Reveals Itself (With My Help)
Garden Rescue Hero (trademark, just kidding) comes to save the day! Luckily for me, the size of this central Toronto garden in the Beaconsfield Village neighbourhood is very small. Let's just say, my heavy duty loppers came in very handy with this cleanup.
Beaconsfield Village Toronto front yard
summer garden cleanup before
All the various shrubs were unpruned for several seasons and gave the homeowners, neighbours and pedestrians that unintended wild Amazonian look.
Beaconsfield Village Toronto front ..read more
Garden Muses | Toronto Gardening Blog
3y ago
Fine Gardening? Well....
I come across all sorts of definitions of what customers believe gardening encompasses. For the most part, it means weeding, pruning and planting. You know, the horticultural stuff you'd expect. But occasionally, I'm hired for more mundane "property maintenance" tasks which may cover garbage pickup. I don't mind. as long as things are not hazardous to retrieve. And I don't deal with pet poo!
This short post covers weeding part of a small property in East York. No roses here, unfortunately, but if I'm solving a client's problem, the lack of flowers or shrubs isn't a bi ..read more
Garden Muses | Toronto Gardening Blog
4y ago
A New Front Garden on a Slope
Gardening on a slope can be difficult if retaining walls and tiers are not constructed but not impossible. In this post, I'm returning back to a sloped "garden" in the Toronto neighbourhood of Koreatown.
My first visit in September 2019, profiled in a post titled "A Front Garden Cleanup in Koreatown: Labouring on Labour Day" , involved heavy duty weeding. It became apparent quickly during my second and most recent visit that no maintenance occurred between visits, as the "before" photos show:
Koreatown Toronto Front Slope
Weeding and New Installa ..read more
Garden Muses | Toronto Gardening Blog
4y ago
There's a Patio and Garden Somewhere Under All these Leaves!
We all lead busy lives and for many homeowners (lucky for me), cleaning up the various garden areas isn't a priority. I just think of it as job security!
This post goes over a recent spring cleanup in Toronto's Riverdale neighbourhood. Or, rather, a delayed fall 2019 tidy up since the bulk of the work involved raking up last autumn's leaves.
Here are some pictures from the backyard: As you can see, nothing intricate, most of the job involved scraping up the wet and matted maple leaves which were becoming nice leaf compost ..read more
Garden Muses | Toronto Gardening Blog
4y ago
Under An Ancient Oak, A New Garden Emerges
Surprised to hear from me? I haven't posted anything in a while so I'll apologize now and get that out of the way.
It's been a very strange 2020 so far due to COVID-19: I wasn't allowed to work by the provincial government until early May and my clients had a very difficult time finding plants in general at the garden centres. Still, after all of this, one of my iron laws of garden maintenance is in effect: weeds continue to grow and my clients would prefer going to the dentist than being in their gardens weeding. Job security, I guess.
Today's pos ..read more
Garden Muses | Toronto Gardening Blog
4y ago
Let's Amp up the Insect Activity and Seasonal Interest, Shall We?
Another two months (hopefully) and I'll start my work season again. Perhaps I'll even execute this small project below which is the topic of this post.
We're continuing from the last post and looking at three raised beds located in a condo courtyard somewhere in downtown Toronto. Here are bed number two's "before" picture and my proposal to makeover the small area to attract insects and birds while providing multi-seasonal visual interest for the condo owners who share the common paths and garden beds.
A New Toronto Po ..read more
Garden Muses | Toronto Gardening Blog
4y ago
We Won't Be Missing Yew(s)
It's almost half way through my winter hiatus or hibernation and while "spring thoughts" shouldn't be in our minds yet, I am being inspired by some gardening books I'm reading now. I haven't posted anything in over a month and wonder why you, dear reader, even stick around this ghost town of a blog. But someone is reading so...onwards and upwards in 2020! Combing through my 2019 pictures, I realized I never wrote about a few design proposals for a courtyard complex I "maintain" (well, visit in the spring and fall only). I've posted some "before" and "after" pictur ..read more
Garden Muses | Toronto Gardening Blog
4y ago
Masses of (unpainted) poinsettias, Hallelujah!
A disconcerting sight I've seen over the past few Christmas seasons is the spray-painting of poinsettias to give them a "glittering sheen". They don't need this embellishment which is literally gilding the poinsettia. I find it extremely tacky. Luckily, the folks who design and plant the hundreds (thousands?) of poinsettias every December inside Toronto's Allan Gardens Conservatory for its annual Winter (formerly "Christmas") Flower Show forego using shiny poinsettias. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a lover of poinsettias as they truly deserve to ..read more
Garden Muses | Toronto Gardening Blog
4y ago
A Final Fall Cleanup in Cabbagetown
Better late than never: that's my attitude with getting my autumn work completed before a big snowfall occurs and in posting these garden cleanup examples. This will be my last one this year, I promise! I have quite a few clients in the downtown neighbourhood of Cabbagetown, The size and location of these gardens fit well with my capabilities (one person company who travels by public transit). The properties tend to be small and I often consider the gardens like jewel boxes: tiny but filled with glittering objects. Many mature trees line the streets and ..read more