In April my husband and I went off on a 10-day holiday to Portugal. No holiday would be complete if I didn’t visit a few gardens! The grandest and best preserved garden I saw was the 19^th century Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra, which is 24 km (15 miles) NW of Lisbon. 

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Spring. The start of the gardening season, and gardeners are raring to go. Which is a good thing because there is a ton of work to do. But before rushing off, I always remind myself about warming up, using proper gardening form and then stretching afterwards…it is so easy to get injured! 

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 With winter continuing on and on, I had to find creative ways to get my green fix. Canada Blooms has come and gone, and there is only so many times I can go to Centennial Gardens Conservatory to keep my spirits up.

In desperation I started looking through past photos…and I came across the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Gardens photos.  What a great pick-me-up!  And I hadn’t shared them yet. So without further ado, I present…

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If you want vibrant colours to uplift your week, visit Canada Blooms’ The Magic of Spring. This year, the displays have pumped up the colour volume. Perfect to balance the neutral grey days of early spring.

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Last Saturday I volunteered for my first Seedy Saturday. It was the first Seedy Saturday for the City of Brampton, too. I assumed it would be a low-key event with a small attendance. I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

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For many of us still been battered by winter storms, it feels like spring will never come. I have a remedy. Visit your local greenhouse conservatory! Here are some of the great images of spring bulbs at Centennial Park Conservatory, Toronto, Canada.

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Pumpkin questions caught my attention at the Master Gardeners plant clinic this year. Pumpkin flowers, pollination and fruit set. 

Pumpkins at the Dallas Arboretum

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Twenty years ago I decided to start a garden maintenance company. I was fresh out of university, and had worked at low-paying jobs in garden centres, seed companies, and landscaping and garden maintenance companies.  I had very little money to buy garden equipment, so could buy only the most essential equipment.

Corona secateurs, one of the 11 essential gardening maintenance tools.

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I don’t usually grow orchids.  Many growers and gardeners advocate precise lighting, nutrition, water, temperature and soil conditions. Way too finicky for me! But since the mini-orchid was given to me, I thought I would give it a try.

I was in for a big surprise. 

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It’s a small comfort that most groundhogs -- Wiarton Willie (Ontario), Winnipeg Willow (Manitoba) and Balzac Billy (Alberta) and Punxsutawney Phil (Pennsylvania) -- predicted an early spring on Groundhog day.

With snow on the ground and minus 10 Celsius, it’s hard to wait and also read “first signs of spring” tweets from southern gardeners. But they are ways to cope…

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