This columnist has a confession to make. He remembers when history and geography were taught in schools as separate subjects. Now it appears that despite the very best efforts of educational authorities, there are many of a like mind. History, and in particular local history, is enjoying a renaissance. Doubtless, this will be to the well-deserved delight of those such as Leonard Wise and Allan Gould, authors of the newly Published Toronto Street Names (Toronto: Firefly: $24.95). 

Now no gardener can forsake history, unlike social studies instructors, politicians and others of their ilk.  Horticultural history books being somewhat scarce on the ground, to learn some it is necessary to dig into such volumes as that of Wise and Gould.  Fortunately they are not loathe to throw us is not a few bones, then at least satisfying amounts of bonemeal 

Rosedale was originally a house so-named by Mary Powell in 1827. That year she married William Jarvis and moved into the house he had purchased from John Small three years previously. An adjoining Hillside was covered with wild roses, hence Mary's inspiration. Just north of Rosedale is Moore Park, also a place of homage for local rosarians. Named, of course, after developer John Thomas Moore who purchased the area in 1884. Although his own plans came to naught, he built a home, Avoca Villa, at Rose Park and Inglewood. In his garden there he established magnificent rose beds. Many of his bushes were imported direct from England and he went on to found the Rose Society of Toronto. 

           Trees have always formed an important part of life in Toronto.  Almost as much in fact as the considerable quantities of alcoholic beverages produced and served by numerous founding fathers of "Toronto the Good."  One such was Thomas Steeles who ran the inn that bore his name at today's northwest corner of Yonge Street and Steeles Avenue. But for some time at least, according to Wise and Gould, it was named Green Bush Inn, "after a fine balsam tree that grew in front of it." Another fine tree, a venerable elm, blocked the construction of tile new University College in the 1850s, at least from facing east as the Governor General desired. Grumpily, he conceded that the elm should not be sacrificed and to this day University College faces south. 

           Orchards, too, formed an important part of the early city. John Scudding, one of the first settlers in the Don Valley, planted orchards.  As well, it is claimed, he introduced the first rhubarb to Toronto. Unfortunately, he met his demise thanks to a tree being cut on his property that fell on him. A surprising number of fruit trees from these pioneer orchards are still around.  Those of John Sheldrake Stibbard, for example, in gardens on Sheldrake Blvd, his mother's maiden name being Sheldrake. James Lesslie, an early city printer and contemporary of the fiery Mackenzie, also planted fruit trees at a house called the Willows in the Oriole Parkway and Eglinton area. These trees are believed to be the inspiration for the name of Orchardview Blvd. Lesslie, incidentally, also kept peacocks roaming his grounds, as unusual as the spelling of his name. 

           Many of the fruit trees for these orchards must have come from the 200-acre nurseries of George Leslie in the Queen Street East and Eastern Avenue area of today. He was also the first to open a seed store in Toronto, back in 1837 and later was elected to city council. The area north of his nursery became known as Leslieville along with one of Toronto's major north-south streets. 

           George Leslie sold ornamental plants as well. There was an excellent market for them. One such enthusiastic grower of exotic ornamentals was Samuel Harrison who lived in Foxly Grove on Dundas Street where he had a conservatory as well in the 1850s. Further north, off Yonge at Woodlawn, lawyer Joseph Curran Morrison had a 40-by-50-foot combined greenhouse and conservatory.  His house but not, alas, the conservatory, still stands in part today. Morrison was married to Elizabeth Bloore, daughter of the famous brewer who lent his name, minus the 'e' to today's Bloor Street. 

            Not everybody was impressed with Toronto, gardening or otherwise. Anna Brownell Jameson spent a few months of 1836 in Toronto and didn't enjoy what she found.  “It is a little, ill-built town” she records in Winter Studies and Summer Rambles, “on low land, at the bottom of a frozen bay, with one very ugly church, without tower of steeple, some government offices, built of staring red brick, in the most tasteless, vulgar style imaginable, three feet of snow all around, and the gray, sullen, uninviting lake and the dank gloom of the pine forest bounding the prospect." Toronto Street Names shows how short sighted she was. But then she has excellent company in modern social studies advocates.