Welcome to my home garden website. First, here's a little background info. For almost 20 years, I have been the garden columnist for The Vancouver Sun in British Columbia, Canada. My full-colour In the Garden page appears every Friday in the At Home section. Stories are often reprinted in other papers in the Canwest chain across Canada.  I am also the author of five books -  The Vancouver Sun's Best Plant Picks, 100 Best Plants for Coastal Gardens,The Blooming Great Gardening Book, and 100 Best Plants for Ontario Gardens. The first four were all No. 1 bestsellers in B.C.

My wife, Loraine, and I have three children, now all in their 20s and 30s. At our home in Burnaby, we have an English-style garden, comprising a mix of trees, shrubs, vines, roses and perennials.  In 1999, I was the first recipient of the Communicator of the Year Award, given by B.C. Landscape and Nursery Assocation.   Before coming to Canada in 1975, I worked for various newspapers in the U.K. including the London Evening News, Bristol Post and Nottingham Evening Post.   Click here to see more images of my garden through the seasons.   You can contact me at swhysall@hotmail.com

BLOG and PODCASTS BLOG: Go to my In the Garden blog for a comprehensive A to Z guide to the best trees for coastal gardens plus much more seasonal gardening information on everything from bulb plantings to indoor gardening ideas. PODCASTS: Download my In the Garden podcasts either from The Vancouver Sun website or through iTunes for guides tours of some of the best public gardens in Metro Vancouver plus how-to information on a wide range of gardening topics. MICRO SITE: For more garden stories plus my weekly question and answer column and list of recently published stories go to the In the Garden micro-webpage.

INSIDE WORDS FOR GARDENERS : If you're new to gardening, you're probably still working on a few basics. You can tell a pansy from a petunia, but you still haven't quite figured out what the three numbers on the side of a bag of fertilizer stand for, or what mulch is, or what exactly people mean when they say they have been deadheading.

PLANT NAMES: Why is it important know a plant’s correct botanical name? Well, most people who use botanical names are not trying to impress you. It's simply a way to make sure you get the right plant. THE BARD’S YARD: What kind of garden would Shakespeare have had? Well, here are some of the plants he knew well and referred to in some of his plays and other works.

MARVELLOUS MAPLES: There are many fine maples suitable for growing in small- and medium-sized gardens, but you won’t go wrong if you pick a cultivar of Acer palmatum.  QUEEN OF THE SHADE: There was a time when I did not know astilbe. Now I could not imagine my garden without it. It is a plain with many outstanding qualities - lovely plumes of white, pink or red flowers; one of the first perennials to reappear in the spring, and disease and bug resistant. Discover more about this special plant. FOR THE LOVE OF LILIES: There are almost as many different lilies as there are roses. The secret is to pick some from all the key categories to create a seamless sequence of colour from spring to fall.

BULB BOUNTY: Good gardeners are always thinking in terms of effective flowering sequences. It takes some skill to get this right, using bulbs. It is possible with careful selection to plant a scheme that will provide a continual and seamless sequence of blooms from early sprin THE ALLURE OF ALLIUMS: No gardens should be without alliums in spring and summer. They have attractive flowers in shades of purple, blue, yellow and pink. Here’s a guide to all the most useful species and cultivars for creating an impressive display.

THE KINDEST CUT OF ALL: There is much more to pruning than simply lopping dead and diseased branches off trees and shrubs.  It's a much more subtle art. INTELLIGENT DESIGN: It is always helpful to consult some books on garden design when thinking about improving the basic structure or layout of your garden. The books listed here are all first-class and chock full of neat ideas. GREAT TREES: There are almost a dozen trees in my garden. Here's a closer look at some of them.

MY BOOKS: More information about each of the five books I have had published over the last 10 years - The Vancouver Sun's Best Plant Picks (2008), 100 Best Plants for Coastal Gardens, 2nd edition (2005), The Blooming Great Gardening Book (2000), 100 Best Plants for Ontario Gardens (1999), and 100 Best Plants for Coastal Gardens (1998). Four of the books were No. 1 bestsellers in B.C. WHY WE GARDEN: A look at how gardening satisfies each of the four aspects of personality - the physical, the emotional, the intellectual and the spiritual.

GREAT ITALIAN GARDENS: A look at two lovely Italians gardens - Giardino Corsini al Prato in Florence and Villa Gamberaia in the village of Settignano, outside of Florence. AUTUMN WALK:Photographs of Century Garden in Burnaby and the lovely walk along the banks of Deer Lake as it looks in late September. MY GARDEN IN WINTER: Few flowers, but lovely foliage give the garden plenty of colour in November through to December. TREES IN WINTER: Three exceptionally beautiful images of leafless trees in winter - elms along a snow-covered street in Winnipeg and two images takes in the Czech Republic.