as any real estate agent will tell you, curb appeal is important. for those of us that live in one of the city’s many townhouses it is our gardens that allow us to express some individuality on this frontier. we are lucky to have several neighbours that sport green thumbs and i really like how different one person’s style is from my own. case-and-point is our neighbours and friends d and p - their garden couldn’t be more different than my own. full of ferns and other shade loving plants, their garden is a cool oasis at anytime of day. with d away on business p is free to play with the garden at his own pace and recently has begun some experimenting with new plants and ideas - i love how a few new plants can completely change a garden. in front a window sees its fair share of light he planted this lovely passion flower, training it to climb a 5′ obelisk. sitting outside the other day i clicked this photo is the day’s waning sunlight.

last year at this time i was still living in toronto’s downtown core. we decided that the backyard really needed some help and decided to have it totally redone so we could enjoy it for the summer. i designed the decking and fencing to both provide privacy from neighbouring houses and allow us to spend time outside enjoying the relatively short lived, hot sultry summers that toronto is famous for. as with most homes in the area the yards are incredibly small so i decided against any built in planters and focused on giving us as much space as possible for whatever we (or future owners) wanted from this space.

despite being only a block from the constantly busy bloor street our backyard is remarkably quiet. adding this buddha fountain removes any trace of living so close to the action.

the ‘coffee table’ is actually an outdoor dining table that m shortened the legs with a hack saw. it provides plenty of room for food, drinks and an arrangement of plants.

eventually the pergola above the back fence will be covered with vines and provide more privacy and greenery.

while the past few days have not been what i would call warm, they have been sunny and my plants have been thrilled. everywhere i look in my garden there is new leaves, buds and shoots are reaching for the sky. the giant cane bamboo that i planted in the back planter boxes has sprung forth from the ground with quite the exuberance. in the past 10 days or so it has grown almost 4 feet and shows no signs of stopping. the dryer weather has also allowed me to work on my gardening here at home and p’s shade garden in kits. i will post some pictures of her garden once it is further along.

i like having lights in the garden - i want to enjoy my plants whether or not the sun is in the sky. i snapped this the other night looking down on the garden.

if you’re like me a sunny day can erase the memories of days worth of overcast rainy ones. today was no different - if the next few days stay this way it might just be enough to carry me through the rest of the month. luckily i spent the afternoon with a friend planning her kitsilano garden that i will be working on this summer and when i came home i found my front walk flooded in this warm sun. i just had to snap some more shots.

driving our son j to school in the morning isn’t really much of a chore for me. the biggest traffic snaggle is coming around pacific avenue through yaletown but to be honest, it rarely takes me 20 minutes to travel from downtown to point grey. on the drive i am continually on the look out for what is going on in the gardens on the small city lots found throughout the westside and how i could translate that to my even smaller slice of garden-able limited common property. despite what one famed vancouver gardener/plant design guru might say, there are many examples of beautiful gardens throughout the city and plenty to draw inspiration from.

our pug pedro can be seen coming out the front door of the townhouse checking on why j and i hadn’t come inside yet. this ever growing line-up of pots leads up to the front door and gets plenty of sun to grow whatever i like.

i realise that i have been absent from my relatively new post in the blogging world so i thought i would just check in. there has been plenty of action at our townhouse since i last wrote. the small back patio underwent some changes with the addition of a cedar deck, more planter boxes and a built in bench. the weather really has not been nice enough to treat it yet, so you will have to wait for less abstract photos of it until it fines up.

in the house there have also been some things that have come together recently. the spare room/office/den is a few steps closer to being ‘finished’ with some new shelves and computer desk as well a fresh coat of paint. it will be a while until any artwork (which still lives on the walls of our toronto house) comes west - but i can live for a while longer without it. the kitchen pantry also went through a bit of a mini face-lift by adding more usable shelving, a bulletin board and a small desk to store the laptop, cell phones and the dreaded catch-all bowl - all behind closed doors, but completely accessible to the main floor. a few more tweaks and i will be able to post some more pictures.

other than building, i have actually been gardening. with the last frost FINALLY out of the way i have had the chance to bring out some more tender succulents and bedding plants - though to be honest i lost a few when i jumped the gun a little in april. the warmer days have also allowed the banana plants to start to unfurl their first leaves of 2008 without the risk of being punished by the frost.

almost time to pick-up j from school. enjoy the moments.

despite the temperature in vancouver being below the norms for this time of year i for one really cannot complain. after 4 years of toronto’s long winters, i welcome this comparatively early warmth, flowers reaching skyward and the ability to spend more and more of my time outside and, more specifically, in the garden. as i write this entry m is taking off from a snowy and rainy toronto and heading westward to spend 10 days with little j (who is on march break now until 26 mar) and me. i didn’t think that i would be post anything today - i have been waiting to do some more work in the garden - but when the sun hit this red star cordyline in my front entrance i couldn’t help wanting to snap a pic.

j’s hyacinths have slowly showing themselves to us over the past few days. both j and i were surprised when they turned out to be pink instead of purple - but they look fun beside the nz flax with its pink stripe.

i awoke to a sun beam streaming through a misaligned horizontal blind this morning at 8:30. i could hear that justin was already taking his shower and i thought how lucky we were that little j’s classes didn’t start until a civilized 9:30. when i got downstairs i could see that the north facing planter in the back garden was bathed in early morning sun so after putting on the kettle for tea i grabbed my camera and took some snaps of my dewy japanese aralia in the only sun it ever sees.

m is in town (escaping the snow in the east) for a few days and we have been planning and drawing another planter box for the back garden as i am already running out of space! i look forward to seeing how that project progresses.