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The Brick Works – nature in the heart of the city

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Last weekend we went to The Brick Works. It’s an old brick factory that’s been turned into an eco-preserve and I suppose tourist attraction. Likely the bricks that make up my 1927 Triple Brick house were made at this old now defunct factory.

The quarry where the company dug into the earth to get the clay to make the bricks has been turned into hiking paths, ponds and is surrounded by forest. All in the heart of the city (BTW Toronto is the 5th or 6th largest city in North America). It’s gorgeous!

Native plants grow at the Brickworks and you can find flora and fauna that are rarely seen elsewhere in the province thanks to the protective nature of this eco-preserve.

I took close to 200 photos during our few hours at the Brickworks last Saturday. It’s taken me two days to go over them, crop them and upload them to my Flickr account. That’s why my GTS posts are more than a little late today!

The first photo is a blue dragonfly (I don’t think that’s it’s main name, that’s just what I’m calling it). Apparently there are 11 species of dragonflies that make their home at the Brickworks. Dragonflies are losing their nesting grounds so this area is one of the few places in Ontario where you can see so many different types of dragonflies (and other creatures).

This is native Malva. I grow some of this in my front boulevard garden as well. It’s very pretty and under the right condition spreads moderately.

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I used to know the name of this plant, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it’s called at this moment. It’s lovely, especially when it spreads throughout a field and mixes with other wild flowers.

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I’m not sure what this lovely yellow flowered plant is either. It stands about two feet tall and is covered in tiny yellow flowers – at least at the beginning of July it is. Any ideas?

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This is Sumac. It’s a small tree that can be seen all over Ontario. It’s leaves turn red in the fall and it’s fruit (the reddish spike) grows fuller and turns a bright red. It puts on quite a spectacular show.

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I’ll have more flowers from The Brickworks on two of my other blogs – Tricia’s Musings and You are in My World Now in a few minutes if you’d like to see some more great nature photos. You can also see the whole series of “Brickwork” photos by visiting my Flickr account.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!






My replacement roses are doing great this year

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Welcome to all the new Green Thumb Sunday members that I finally got around to adding yesterday! I hope you enjoy our little group.

Earlier this week I went out into the garden with my camera and I took a number of great photos of the plants that were blooming and new ones that were growing, but I’ve had such a busy week I didn’t get around to transferring them from my camera to my computer yet. That’s the trouble with photos, especially if you take a lot of them at once – it takes time to prepare them for posting.

Anyway … I do have some photos to share that I took two weeks ago. Just imagine the plants being bigger or having more leaves now. 😉

This is the Climbing Iceberg Rose that I bought last summer to replace Antique ’89. Antique ’89 must have had too much winter damage in 2007 and died in late spring. Well as you can see Climbing iceberg is doing great:

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This rose is over 4 feet high already and I’m sure it will only get bigger in the next month. I have a standard iceberg rose shrub at the front of the house and once it gets going it’s covered in blooms all season so I expect that the climbing version will do the same.

I had replaced a few roses last year and all of the replacements seem to be doing well. The majority of the established roses (2 to 5 years in the ground) all have long green stems and seem to be ahead of themselves in growth compared to other years.

The Astilbe is also growing well. I have several clumps of it in shady areas of my garden. I think I’m currently growing three different types.

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Basically everything in my garden seems to be doing well this year with the exception of one rose – Dr. J H Nicholas – it’s struggling. Hopefully it makes it, but if it doesn’t I guess I’ll just replace it with a hardier rose.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

Perfect Beauties

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I’m jonesing for Spring …

Purple fringed tulips

Can you tell?

In just three or so months, sometime in April or early May, these absolutely lovely fringed tulips will bloom in my garden. I can’t wait.

I adore these purple beauties.

I also enjoy photographing them. I think almost every picture I’ve taken of any of my fringed tulips has turned out quite well. They are just very photogenic flowers.

Unlike some of the other hybrid tulips I’ve planted in my garden, Angelique for example – which have all but disappeared or reverted back to standard tulips, these ones seem to have naturalized in my garden. The clumps are growing and spreading.

I think I have three or four areas in my garden where these lovelies bloom their pretty little heads off. I must remember to dig up the tulips when they are finished bloom this spring and plant some of the new bulbs in other areas so I’ll have even more clumps of fringed tulips. I meant to do that last year, but didn’t.

If I’m smart I’ll dig up some of my other spring flowers and tulips and move th new bulbs and corms to other areas of the garden as well.

BTW please read the post above this one as I’ve made a suggestion that GTS members check in here each week when they’ve made a new Green thumb post. I’d like to know if you like the idea or not.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

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