Gardening – Cynthia Reyes

A Different World

October 19, 2024February 20, 2025 Cynthia Reyes

it’s a different world, becoming a fairly new grandparent.

Spending time with my “grandgirls” is one of the most important things I do in my personal time. It makes for a very different life.

I sometimes get exhausted with the more physical activities. Where do they get so much energy? I keep asking myself.

But what joy!

In addition to the more boisterous playtime activities – climbing, sliding, running around, etcetera – both girls love reading and writing, and the older one is crazy about math and problem solving. Luckily for grandpa and me, they like our help.

Luckier still, older granddaughter is also crazy about gardening. Fairy gardens in her playhouse and indoors. Outdoor gardening in spring and fall.

Recently, with a little help from us, she planted daffodils in her family’s backyard.

But she’s probably proudest of what she did last spring and the 2 springs before – when she was just a toddler. She is quick to remind us that she helped her parents plant their front and side gardens.

Time spent with 2 young children is a source of joy and wonder.

Because they’re little, the grandgirls see things I don’t, or things I take for granted. Like the worm wriggling in the soil. The ant carrying a dry leaf. A wildflower in the lawn.

For me, it’s a chance to watch and admire my daughter and son-in-law parent. They do some things very differently than the way we did. And it often works.

It’s also a chance to inhabit the world of small children again. To really see a smaller world up close. To rediscover the beauty in a leaf, a small stone, a tiny flower.

I often think about the future – their future. As they grow, their world will get bigger and bigger. What kind of world will it be? I try to not worry, to return to the present.

Luckily, as I watch my grandchildren explore their worlds, life consists of small moments in which they are totally present. It’s something I could do more of.

A Good Home

SHE HAS TWIGS IN HER HAIR

June 24, 2020 Cynthia Reyes

I simply love this review by Toronto writer Lionel Gayle:

Blog Photo - Lionel Gayle and Bookcase - Header Image

SHE HAS TWIGS IN HER HAIR

Plants flourishing in the garden—such a colourful scene. Perhaps it stirred up envy or stoked admiration in a few visitors and passers-by. Everything seemed hunky-dory, they probably said. And the gardener just had to sow the seeds, or plant the seedlings, or stick the cuttings in fertile soil. Plus, adding water if it didn’t rain. A few months later, jackpot! Pretty flowers ready for the vase, and fresh vegetables for the steamer.

Growing a garden from roots to shoots—or by any method—is not so simple.

Ask Cynthia Reyes. The “passionate gardener” shares a piece of her horticultural world in her latest gardening memoir, “Twigs in my Hair” (2019).

She’ll tell you, “Gardening is much more than growing pretty flowers and nutritious vegetables.”

And, let’s say you decided to garden outside of Toronto as she does, prepare yourselves to wage a helluva war—or wars—with wild creatures, including rabbits and squirrels.

People will say gardening is hard work. But you don’t have to be interested in gardening per se to appreciate this book—157 pages of fun reading, and colourful photographs. Take the chance to snoop into Cynthia’s family life, and find out which member prefers to grow vegetables than flowers.

Just promise you won’t whine because the pictures have no captions. And, don’t liken the images to children without names

“Twigs in my Hair” is a synopsis of Cynthia Reyes’ life journey. A journey that includes her dream of becoming a gardener when she became an adult and acquired her own home. From rural Jamaica, where the failure of her first childhood garden broke her heart, she’s managed to forge a symbiosis with nature, on the outskirts of Toronto.

This little book has lots of real-life gems. As you hide indoors from Covid-19, just use the gardening landscape as a backdrop to some of Cynthia’s lifetime activities. And hide your surprise when she talks frankly about her “days and nights of sin” that turned her into “a dirty old woman.”

What she describes as the “conflict of horticultural proportions” resulted in a bangarang with her husband Hamlin Grange (who supplied the photos in this book). But what was the fight all about? And did they ever learn to garden together?

Did Cynthia ever find out why her gardening teacher refused to see her in his last days? And what was she doing in South Africa when the said tall, white-haired gardener died?

And while you hunt for those juicy bits, find out how the mother and wife, who styled herself as “a fierce gardener” reacted when her gardener friend, Les, pulled a prank on her. And see who saved her from the gigantic humiliation.

Twigs in my Hair: A Gardening Memoir

A Good Home, Gardening, Gardens and Wildlife

Bees on Snowdrops

April 2, 2020 Cynthia Reyes

The pollinators are out and buzzing around! Blog Photo - snowdrops bunches

And since snowdrops are the only flowers blooming right now, the bees are to be found there.

Blog Photo - snowdrop bunch 3

I didn’t know snowdrops were attractive to bees and other pollinators, but there they were!

They will have many more blooms to choose from soon, as milder temperatures have arrived in this part of Ontario.

Blog Photo - Bee on snowdrop 2

Mindful of pollinators over-wintering in the leaves and dried stems of last year’s plants, we kept the leaves on the garden beds until this week when my husband got to work with his trusty rake. I helped a little, but he said he enjoyed doing this alone, so I left him to it.