Dear Spectator Readers, Mayday! Mayday! I send up this distress call from the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey (a Celtic-knot of history, myth, magic and legend; a place of long-lost glory) in a ‘United’ Kingdom rapidly losing structural and social integrity. In much of the world, today — May Day —Read More

The hook for this edition of “A Word from Your Planet” is not just weak, it’s downright imaginary — I’m hanging it on Sydney Harbour Investment Partners (SHIP)’s grand plans for our port, which I referenced this week in the Cossitt Heights article. In fact, I’m hanging it on aRead More

What to do this week Michelle Smith is away this week, but don’t worry, she’s got your back as far as early-May gardening is concerned. Back on 3 May 2017, she was urging you to get off your couch and plant some trees: The old saying about it being betterRead More

Note:  Climate change is freaking me out. More to the point: our general refusal to acknowledge the threat of climate change is freaking me out. This province is cutting down trees and digging up coal and threatening the health of rivers like it was 1819, not 2019, so I’ve decidedRead More

What to do this week There may not be any garden insect pests in view just yet but they are still there. They’re slumbering in the soil or the half-rotten dropped fruit you didn’t get a chance to rake up last fall — all waiting for that first warm dayRead More

What to do this week With the prolonged cold weather, there was some serious pouting going on in my house. I wasn’t sure there even should be a column this week and maybe I’m still not certain. But if, like me, you are greatly cheered by a few days ofRead More

What to do this week These days, I mark time, waiting for my leeks and onions to sprout and it’s time to start my early spring greens next month. It is a good time to pay attention to the indoor garden and other small tasks. Houseplants, particularly those that spendRead More

What to do this week Back in the day, when I got ready to start my transplants, it meant rummaging through my collection of old flower pots, cell packs and cut-down milk cartons. Like all good gardeners I tried to recycle and my Scotch soul hated to buy new plasticRead More

What to do this week This week we need to have a talk. Yes, it’s advice I find hard to follow myself, but just between you and me, we’re going to have to suck it up. It’s for our own good. The advice? Don’t take on more than you canRead More

What to do this week Looking at some of the better seed catalogs can be a bit confusing for the uninitiated. A well-written catalog is full of useful technical information, but that’s not much use if you don’t know what any of it means. This week, we’ll take a tourRead More