My Garden Featured in National Magazine

By Larry Hodgson

Would you believe my garden—my personal gardening space around my home in Quebec City—has been featured in the latest edition of the garden magazine Canada’s Local Gardener? And under the heading “Beautiful Gardens” at that! 

I’d never really designed my garden for public viewing or even for beauty per se. It’s very much a collector’s garden, where I plant cool and often unusual plants. I do try and maintain a reasonable appearance in the front yard so as not to upset my neighbors (although when I took out the lawn, entirely, that must have been a shock!), but otherwise … anything goes. So, when Dorothy Dobbie, the magazine’s president and publisher, contacted me about doing an interview to talk about my garden for her magazine, I was caught off guard. I didn’t think my garden was worth featuring in a magazine. Well, looking at the article, maybe I was wrong! 

And I had few photos. I mean, I take photos of other people’s gardens all the time, as I’m there to visit, so photographing memories is what I do, but when in my own garden, it’s different. Then I’m gardening, with the dirty hands that come with it, it’s not a situation where I’m likely to want to handle a camera or, these days, a smartphone. I had to run out and take some shots, just at that awkward in-between season when the tulips were mostly gone, but the perennials were not yet in bloom, although I did manage to find a few photos from past seasons. It struck me as I did this that I’d never even taken a photo of my fountain before, although it’s right out in the front of the lot, by the street, and it’s been there for 24 years! 

The interview for the article was painless. Over the phone, of course, COVID oblige. Dorothy asked questions, I answered. I love to talk about my garden, so that was easy enough. And barely a month later, the magazine arrived. Yes, it was that fast!

Dorothy covered everything: my own story, from learning to garden at  my father’s side to my becoming a garden writer, the history of the garden, now in its 27^th year, and a description of its various sections (flowering lawn, flower beds, raised bed vegetable garden, deck with integrated planters, etc.), plus its special features, indoors and out, including the green wall in the bathroom, the fireplace garden in my office, the cold frame with year-round accessibility, the greenhouse (my pride and joy!) and the mossy fountain the birds and the neighbors so love. 

If you want to read the entire article, Canadian readers can pick up a copy of Volume 2, Issue 4 of Canada’s Local Gardener in a magazine store. But of course, anyone can subscribe to either the print or the digital edition (or both) or order a copy from anywhere in the world. You’ll find the necessary information here: https://localgardener.ca/index.php/subscriptions.

Maybe Your Garden Too?

And, if you live in Canada, why not submit photos of your own garden? I know the magazine is looking for beautiful gardens all over Canada to feature in upcoming issues and maybe yours could be one of them. Just send the photos and pertinent information to ian.leatt@pegasuspublications.net. 

It’s funny: I’ve written for so many garden magazines over the years—over twenty! —, yet I never thought my own garden would ever appear in one. I feel so honored!