Category Archives: Gardens

Inventing Interventions

Posted on September 19, 2010 by Francois Lachance

Alex Wilson The Culture of Nature: North American Landscape from Disney to the Exxon Valdez (1991) My own notes to a passage align on one side terms from my then current interests and on the other side keywords from a … Continue reading →

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The True Sharing Economy Embraces Decadence

Posted on September 8, 2010 by Francois Lachance

Inspired by the work of Gilles Clément, I am attuned to not just recycling but the decadence of rot, an embracing of decay. From L’homme symbiotique , commentaire de six dessins (La Vallée le 1er juin 2009) En tant qu’êtres … Continue reading →

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Diagnosing Tree Death

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Francois Lachance

I walked regularly by them when they first graced the street. They would give cachet to the street. They didn’t. They died. At first they thought the trees along Toronto’s Mink Mile died because they were planted at the wrong … Continue reading →

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Prognostication

Posted on July 2, 2010 by Francois Lachance

From an old journal entry, copied in letters to friends, a fascination meteorological. Cool Weather Ahead. Slowly with the cool weather signs of spring unfold. Very happy to see the tips of tulips but sad that the snowdrops, those hardy … Continue reading →

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Parsing Transcriptions

Posted on June 4, 2010 by Francois Lachance

“Last Day” Timothy Liu in Say Goodnight Empty vases left in every room of the house. Those backyard bulbs releasing a company of spears — each tulip’s guarded flame a color only the gardener knows. A company of spears / … Continue reading →

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Disposing of Dispersal

Posted on March 28, 2010 by Francois Lachance

Margaret Atwood (playing out the thematics of Victory Gardens) in the forward to A Breath of Fresh Air: Celebrating Nature and School Gardens (having cultivated the ground of morals and food production) snaps from the vine this set of observations … Continue reading →

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Wit, Plots and Vegetative Results

Posted on March 19, 2010 by Francois Lachance

Jay Macpherson in The Boatman and Other Poems presents a memorable tale of of one-upmanship and just deserts in “The Gardeners” where the poetic voice reports on a contrast. One gardener, a neighbour, “Worked herself to bone / Raising prize … Continue reading →

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Through Stonyground

Posted on January 16, 2010 by Francois Lachance

In Slow Curve Out, Maureen Scott Harris has as one of the opening poems an elegy to Alex Wilson, landscape restorer and author. She concludes the poem with the recollection of first hearing of Alex’s illness at Stonyground. The location … Continue reading →

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Bouquet

Posted on October 2, 2009 by Francois Lachance

Seemingly intimate with the ways of gardeners, Earle Birney in a poem about visiting for the first time Al Purdy’s Ameliasburg (collected in Rag and Boneshop) supplies a horticultural image in touch with the growing process: horsecrap-fattened peonies And Mark … Continue reading →

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Learning Patience

Posted on August 17, 2009 by Francois Lachance

I want to be a FARMER by Carla Greene, illustrated by Irma and George Wilde (Childrens Press, 1959). The beginning sets out the mindset of the young protagonist: Jim did not like to make a garden. Dig, dig, dig. Work, … Continue reading →

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