Approaching Christmas

The Holiday season is filled with tradition. At this time of year, we hold fast to our cultural tradition and practices that are ages-old or are family rituals.   At times we broaden the tradition by adding our own touches.  A few years ago a friend and I began the tradition of getting our Christmas shopping underway by taking time to go to lunch and later shop for the rest of the afternoon.  I’ve always enjoyed this special day.

We started off with lunch at a special café.  Later, we enjoyed viewing the beautifully designed Christmas displays.

I caught a glimpse inside Holt Renfrew.

The William Ashley Christmas tree is resplendent.

Tiffany's is decorated with fir and cedar.

Everyone could use a Louis Vuitton bag. I can't get enough of seeing the colour orange this year. It's warming in the cold.

For lasting pleasure, nothing is better than a diamond tennis bracelet from Birks.

Spadina House Garden in October

The Pergola, 1909.  The begonias and clematis terniflora are still in bloom

The garden surrounding the stately Spadina House goes back to 1818 when the Baldwin family first lived at Spadina and lives on, as it has beautifully aged through the Victorian and Edwardian periods to the present day.  The design and plantings were enhanced by James Austin's family and descendants from 1866 to 1978.  It is divided into a large lawn area with flower beds, a perennial garden including a kitchen garden, and an orchard with berry bushes and grapes.


The grand Victorian house we know as Spadina was built by James Austin in 1866 on the foundation of the Baldwins' house.  Between 1897 and 1913, James' son Albert and his wife added late-Victorian and Edwardian extensions to the house, including the Carrère and Hastings glass and wrought iron porte-cochère in 1905.  A better view of the porte-cochère is in my March 2011 blog post Spadina House.   
  

A glimpse of the front door, and the porte-cochère, 1905

I visited in early October before the first frost and entered the garden through the stone pergola toward the front of the house where the deep red dahlias were dazzling and in full bloom.

                 


I took time to enjoy the majesty and detail of the urns dating from 1912 on the terrace balustrade. 

The large lawn area with its carefully placed trees gave me a sense of peace, and invited me to stay for a while.  This is where the family and their friends played lawn tennis and croquet.

Looking toward the edge of the escarpment

The old oak trees date from prior to 1866

  

The land lies on the Davenport escarpment to the south where through the trees, it overlooks the old city of Toronto and Lake Ontario in the distance.  It was from the edge of the escarpment that James Austin and his family watched the fireworks celebrating Canada's Confederation on July 1, 1867. In 1905, Albert Austin built a low semi-circular red brick crenellated wall around the concrete platform where the family sat to enjoy the view, and called it The Battery.

The Battery ca. 1905

Seeing the European beech reminded me again of the Austins' impeccable taste.  Its magnificent crown is fitting for this grand garden.

The back of Spadina House looked imposing as I walked toward the perennial border and kitchen garden. .

Spadina House, eastern façade

The kitchen garden of perennials, cutting garden, and vegetables was in the final stages of the growing season before the imminent autumnal frost.

The red cabbages were ready for harvesting.

Beyond the cedar hedge north of the kitchen garden, I found the orchard filled with many varieties of apples. Many have had to be replaced over the years, but some of the existing apple trees were planted in 1900.

Looking back from the orchard at the dignified Victorian house, I was impressed by the superb harmonious garden design, even in this utilitarian part of the garden.  

The grape arbour is on the right

When you visit Spadina House, take time to enjoy the romantic old garden.  Spadina is a jewel in the city, and has become my very favourite museum.

The Facebook page Save Spadina House was created to build awareness of preserving this important museum, an historical treasure.  I hope you will like the page.   

Espalier at Royal Botanical Gardens

Pergola in Hendrie Park, Royal Botanical Gardens

When I walked along the pergola in Hendrie Park, Royal Botanical Gardens, I was thrilled to see that the walls of the pergola were made up of vines and trees trained in espalier form.  Espalier is a way of training a tree or shrub on an independent trellis, or forced flat against a wall.

  

Hendrie Park pergola, Royal Botanical Gardens

The formal design used here is known as palmette horizentale where symmetrical branches are forced straight out in horizontal form.

Hendrie Park pergola, Royal Botanical Gardens

The people in the Middle Ages first used espalier to grow fruit trees within the confines of town walls in order to maximize fruit production in a small space using as little space as possible.

Climbing hydrangea, Hendrie Park, Royal Botanical Gardens

The pergola in Hendrie Park shows that many non-fruiting plants plants can be espaliered for decorative reasons, including magnolias, service berries, and climbing hydrangeas.

Whenever I see espaliers, it makes me nostalgic for my childhood home where my father trained dwarf apple trees flat against the south wall of our house in a formal design known as palmette verrier.  Palmette verrier has the branches symmetrically forced straight horizontally, and then bent straight up vertically to form a design resembling a candelabra or Jewish menorah.  Our trees produced an abundance of fruit, were decorative, and enhanced the wall in all four seasons.  

Formal Gardens

Royal Botanical Gardens, Burlington ON

My favourite style of garden is a formal garden. I’m also partial to a structured garden with a mix of predominately formal elements and some informal elements. A formal garden gives a sense of calm and serenity. With its symmetry, balance, rhythm in repetition, straight lines, clipped hedging, and geometrical precision, it is attractive in all seasons. In northern regions, a formal garden is stunning during the winter season.


Casa Loma, Toronto ON

The look of a formal garden is controlled. It is a tamed landscape not found in nature. It has bones and structure made up of walls, hedges, paths and possibly statuary, all of which are more important than the plants. Form is most important and plants are secondary. Most often the plants chosen for a formal garden are those easiest to handle. The plants are arranged following rigid guidelines and only a limited number of species are planted in large quantities to add a uniform look.

Parkwood, Oshawa ON

We think of formal gardens being large but even small home gardens can be formal using a dwarf boxwood or yew hedge to enclose flowers, vegetables or herbs. To achieve a formal ambience in a small home garden, it works best to have a structured garden with a mix of formal and informal elements. This can be achieved by having clipped hedges and less formal plantings as part of the overall design.

Royal Botanical Gardens, Burlington ON

Royal Botanical Gardens

Recently I visited Hendrie Park, one of the large display gardens within Royal Botanical Gardens not far from Toronto. Hendrie Park contains several formal, informal and natural gardens. I always enjoy visiting formal gardens because of their design elements.

The infinity edge reflecting pools are stunning and pick up the reflection of the gardens on each side. In June, when the roses are in full bloom the reflections on the water are full of colour.

I was there at the end of July when the full rose bloom had passed and found serenity in the reflecting pools when the jewel-toned water lilies take precedence showing their chiseled stalks and flowers softened by their round lily pads below, skimming the water.

Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG) began as a work project during the Great Depression when it was given formal permission in 1930 from King George V to call the gardens “Royal Botanical Gardens”.

Patterned after Kew Gardens in England, RBG was created as both a tourism destination and as a regional environmental agency for the development of Conservation, Education, Horticulture and Science. RBG is an ecological treasure of 2300 acres of varied ecosystems connecting the Niagara escarpment to the western tip of Lake Ontario including land within the cities of Burlington and Hamilton, Ontario.

RBG is known all over the world for its wide-ranging display gardens of over 400 acres. Royal Botanical Gardens is one of the largest institutions of its kind in North America.

Happy Canada Day

Parliament Buildings

Today we celebrate Canada Day. July first was known as Dominion Day until 1982 when a law was passed to change the name to Canada Day. The name is controversial because a quorum was not present in parliament when the law was passed.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

The Dominion of Canada was created by an Act of British Parliament in 1867. It united four British provinces in North America, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, creating a new country within the British Commonwealth. The six other provinces and three territories later joined.

The birth of the Dominion of Canada is not without controversy. For example, Halifax on July 1, 1867 draped major downtown buildings in black to signify mourning.

Changing of the Guard at Rideau Hall

Despite an inauspicious beginning, the country has not only survived, it has thrived. It is now among the eight largest industrial world economies.

Norton Museum of Art - Street Scenes

Maurice de Vlaminck 1876-1958 Street in Epernon, Winter, 1927

When I visited the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, I was delighted to find street scenes painted by two French painters of the early 20^th century whose work I admire.  I’ve always been drawn to Utrillo and Vlaminck street scenes because of their structure and because they have the contradictory effect of being both calming, and at the same time stimulating to the imagination.

Maurice de Vlaminck 1876-1958 - this painting is an example of his Blue Period 1908-1914

Maurice de Vlaminck 1876-1958 was greatly influenced by Van Gogh and is known more for his earlier Fauvism period 1904-1908, which lasted only about five years, when he associated with Derain and Matisse.  Later Vlaminck continued painting with boldness and thick textured impasto, but developed a darker toned-down palette.

Maurice Utrillo 1883-1955 Rue de Montmartre 1916/1918

Maurice Utrillo 1883-1955 was encouraged and taught to paint by his mother, Suzanne Valadon, who was an accomplished artist. He showed he had a definite artistic talent and began to paint in 1904 after a bout of mental illness.  He painted what he saw in the Paris neighbourhoods, primarily Montmartre and its suburbs.  By the 1920s his work received international attention.  The period from 1911 to 1918 when Utrillo painted street scenes is considered his best and is called his “White Period”.


Maurice Utrillo 1883-1955 Village Church 1918/1920

The works of Utrillo and Vlaminck appeal to a nostalgia for pre-industrial simplicity.

The Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach is an important cultural attraction in Florida. It houses a noteworthy permanent collection of 19th century and 20th century painting. When you go, it is worth eating at the café which offers excellent food in an inviting setting.

Vizcaya – the Gardens in March



The East Façade

While I was Florida last month, I took the time to visit Vizcaya in Miami.  As with many visitors before me, I was thoroughly enchanted.

Stone Barge and Tea House

James Deering built Vizcaya in 1916 in the style of Italian Renaissance and Baroque villas.  He adapted it to Florida’s sub-tropical climate, and made sure to install all the modern conveniences of the early 20th century. Assisted by interior designer Paul Chalfin, architect F. Burrall Hoffman, and landscape designer Diego Suarez, he wanted the house to look as if it had been there for 400 years and furnished by succeeding generations of the same family.

Centre Island surrounded by a Reflecting Pool

When James’ family eventually sold Vizcaya to Miami in the 1950s, they also donated most of its interior furnishings that James had purchased to fill the house with the help of Paul Chalfin on their many trips to Europe.  He had amassed what resulted in an important collection of 16th century to 19th century decorative arts, and antiquities.

Water Stairway

My photos are of the outside of the house and the Italian style garden with its sub-tropical Florida plantings. The taking of photos inside the house is not currently allowed.

The Casino

The casino pictured above gave guests a chance to get away from the formality of the house.  The loggia offered views of the house and gardens.  It contains two rooms decorated in the 18th century style, where guests could have tea.
 

View of the Formal Garden

Vizcaya is a combination of the validity and permanence of the Old World combined with the innovative brilliance of New World.  I am now under the spell of Vizcaya, and I will return and visit it again and again.