Copyright 2007 Sharon Crawford

By workday Carlo Catenazzi is a photographer at the Art Gallery of Ontario - documenting acquisitions for records and catalogues. But come evening and weekends - spring, summer, fall and this winter's warm beginning - he's outside changing the medley and texture of his garden. He can't keep his plants still and constantly moves a tree or perennial or tries out a new dazzler.

"Gardening is a lifestyle," says Carlo. On this winter evening he flaunts a new addition - a putting green, 30 ft. by 25 ft., in the front area of the side yard, lit from white lights spread on the bare branches of the surrounding trees.

The turf is the garden's only artificial element. Carlo and his wife Lynn love golf, but he hates mowing the lawn. Grass flourished in this busy 150-ft. by 45-ft. corner lot in Toronto's East York when the family, including daughter Nicole, moved there 18 years ago. The only other nod to gardening was a willow tree, a blue spruce, a row of cedars and weeds. Another daughter, Oriana, came along. As the girls grew, Carlo used the grass for soccer practice in summer - he coached their soccer team for six years - and as a skating rink in winter. Eight years ago, gardening became a serious affair.

His gardening passion stems from his childhood in Switzerland where he spent summers on his uncle's farm. His grandmother grew dahlias, still his favourite flower.

"Dahlias are beautiful and fairly low maintenance if they like the place they're growing," he says. Last year he grew his own. The blooms lasted into November. On a dry, sunny day, he dug them up and "let them dry out. Then I bagged them, put them in a shoebox and I put them in the cellar and hoped for the best." If the worst happens, he'll buy more. Carlo calls himself an "optimistic gardener" who "hopes things will grow." He thrives with each new gardening challenge, although admitting he likes some control.

Challenge is what he gets. The willow tree went because not even grass would grow in its vicinity. Then the grass had to go - bit by bit. Carlo thought his first replacements were native plants. They were weeds.

"I spent the next five years pulling them out." They have since migrated to his neighbour's property.

He was one of his neighbourhood's first to plant Echinacea. He doesn't mind that this purple coneflower has spread. Over the years he's planted bleeding hearts, rose bushes (including a 50-year-old from his father-in-law), holly, day lilies, rudbeckia, peonies, crocuses, tulips, lily-of-the valley, jasmine, hostas, artemesia, silverlace, feverfew, rosemary, and tomatoes. Two years ago the lamb's ears threatened to monopolize the busy front corner. He reined them in and the self-seeding calendula took over until 2 a.m. one night last June when two mischief makers ripped some out and dumped them on the sidewalk.

Carlo dismisses the incident as nothing worth sweating over. To him, gardening is "a constant renewal of adding things and moving things." Even with unexpected "help."

Once the willow tree went, Carlo needed replacements. "I love trees," he says, mentally counting how many. "Twenty-five." That includes the cedars and the spruce.

He calls one tree a four-way pear because it's a graft of four different kinds of pears - Anjou, Bosc, Red Bosc and ... he can't recall the fourth.

"I'm not into gardening for knowing the Latin word and sometimes I forget the English. I'm just there to add beauty and colour to my plants." He does read garden magazines and saves plant IDs.

And he likes variety. He moved the pear tree across the yard. It paid off last summer - for the squirrels. "I liked the location. It had a lot of fruit. One by one, the squirrels got to it first." They left 10 pears for the Catenazzi family.

He has a katsura and a 20-foot ginkgo tree grown from a seedling donated by a friend, and another ginkgo, seven feet and flourishing. The silver maple matured too much and too fast, so he trimmed it "left and right."

He wanted a shade tree to replace the willow so obtained a weeping birch. Since planting, he's moved it and severed its crooked top so it resembles a large mushroom. But the katu doesn't look healthy.

"If I have to start over again I'll get a tall tree."

Then there's the comeback tree - a sunburst locust that Carlo was sure he'd lost to aphids. But in mid-July last summer yellow-green leaves spurted out.

Amidst the joy of colour and fragrance, Carlo has added some creature comforts to drown out the often-noisy St. Clair Avenue, for privacy, and for pure enjoyment. "I'm an outdoors person by nature. I always wanted to bring the outdoors into my yard."

From the nearby cushy swing set, Carlo absorbs the serenity of his 2002 addition - the pond and waterfall fronting those majestic cedars in the back corner. Around this now self-sustaining pond (no chemicals and no algae), containing goldfish, grasses, iris and a yellow and white water lily, Carlo created a rock garden, planting cactus, camillian, hydrangea and Edelweiss.

Lattices were built at different times. Carlo hires professionals to do these structural jobs, although for the putting green, he removed the topsoil before the contractors arrived with their equipment. Last year also saw a glass enclosure attached to the house, off the family room and leading down to the garden. He calls it his "jazz room" because the radio inside is always tuned to FM-91. This year's projects include more grass and a gate.

He also looks forward to seeing the white and blood-red poppies pop up. Last year a friend at work gave him the seeds, which he started in margarine containers. They grew frail, so he pampered them. In autumn, he planted the seedlings outside.

"You just never know," he says. "A lot of the stuff was done because the time was right. You get yourself lost in what you're doing. It's very meditating."