Not the Toronto Botanical Garden

Yesterday we toured the Toronto Botanical Garden. I mentioned a couple of times how small the garden is, but when you're there you might not realize it. Why? Because the garden sits adjacent to Edwards Gardens, a former estate garden now part of the parks system. You can't really tell where one ends and the other begins. On the left of the lady with the blue vest (that's Julie Hill I believe) is Edwards Gardens. On the right, where the man in the blue plaid shirt is, TBG.

So that means the green house is not part of the botanical garden...

Nor is this lovely planting.

Looking at the leaves I would have called this a Sansevieria, but in my limited experience the bloom doesn't look right. Anybody?

I loved that all my Garden Blogging friends checked in with me to make sure I'd spotted this bit of Agave goodness. They seemed to know I was suffering from Agave-withdrawal, on this - our 4th day in Toronto.

I'd forgotten all about this stunning combination of blue Agave and purple Tradescantia until I started editing my photos earlier this week. Perhaps it had a stronger influence on me than I realized though, since I repeated the combination in my garden this summer.

There was much discussion in our group about whether or not these plants were freshly planted out or had spent time in place. The pups around the base of this Agave americana 'Variegata' seem to say "I've been here awhile" - but there is no way it would have survived the Toronto winter without a heat source. Me thinks the greenhouse we saw earlier came into play.