25 YEARS OF SPLENDOUR
Open Garden Week celebrates milestone with 84 labours of love and their dedicated hosts.
GARDENERS AND GARDEN lovers, your opportunity to see some gorgeous gardens — and, better still, meet and talk with some wonderful gardeners — is here.
Eighty-four gardens are part of this year’s 25th Anniversary Hamilton Spectator Open Garden Week. There are big gardens and small ones, country gardens and city ones, great gardens and gardens still on their way to greatness. Vegetable gardens, flower gardens, water gardens. Family gardens and empty-nesters’ gardens. There’s something out there to suit every taste.
This year’s event is dedicated, in my mind, to Tony Smerelli, who was one of the loudest supporters of Open Garden Week, a longtime participant, the most genial of garden hosts, and a favourite among hundreds of Open Garden Week visitors. He was also the creator of a magnificent, enchanted garden. Tony died in February and I and many others will feel his absence in this year’s event.
On a happier note, I am absolutely delighted that Rosemary Brown, of Kew Court in Dundas, has come out of Open Garden Week “retirement” to open her garden (D4) for — she says — one last (her 24th) time. Rosemary says she’s “95 and tottery” but her gardens — home to an astounding range of wildlife — belie that. Rosemary is one of the “Original Six” who opened their gardens for the very first incarnation in 1992.
Also “founding hosts” from 1992 are Dave and Cathy Cummins, also of Dundas. Their garden (D1) is a showpiece of plants and design. If you haven’t visited theirs, put it on your list. A trip to their garden is an education in plant selection and imagination.
But to focus on individual hosts would be a mistake: Every garden host has a story to tell, a lesson to impart, a love of gardening to share — and, if you ask nicely, often a plant to swap. That’s what Open Garden Week is all about: A community of gardeners that transcends municipal boundaries to celebrate this passion, even obsession, that keeps our hands in the dirt.
OPEN GARDEN WEEK is an annual celebration of our neighbourhoods and our gardens, of the joy and exuberance our gardens give us, of the growing season (such as it is) in this little corner of Ontario. And this year, of course, the coming together of garden hosts and garden visitors is part of the greater national celebration of Canada’s 150th anniversary. We’re all in this together.
I’ve been doing this for 25 years, and I still never fail to be surprised, pleased and proud to
be part of this event that you make happen. If you didn’t open your gardens, if you didn’t trek around the city and its neighbours to see other people’s gardens, it wouldn’t matter what I wrote. Open Garden Week happens because of you and your enthusiasm.
I have a favour to ask of all of you who plan on visiting some of the gardens listed in this guide: Take someone with you. Take a new Canadian who hasn’t yet seen the fully glory of Canadian gardens. Take a Toronto expat who’s settling into Hamilton and show them what they are becoming part of. Take a neighbour and share some inspiration for your own properties.
And, please, stretch your horizons. Go to the communities and neighbourhoods that are the farthest away from your own. Take a trip to the great gardens south of Binbrook and into Haldimand and discover the great countryside on our own doorstep. If you’re in Stoney Creek, explore Dundas. If you’re in central Hamilton, explore the gardens of Flamborough. And by all means, from wherever you call home, visit some of the gardens in “old” Hamilton’s neighbourhoods.
The Flamborough Horticultural Society is a big part of this 25th Anniversary Open Garden Week. It’s leadership has organized a Waterdown Garden Walk on July 1 and 2 that will see 22 properties in old Waterdown showing off their gardens to visitors. Arie Vanspronsen and Tina Coverly made this happen and are also responsible for a real revitalization of the horticultural society there.
I must also acknowledge the enthusiastic participation of the Mount Hamilton Horticultural Society (MHHS), which is marking its 90th anniversary this year with a range of special events — and by encouraging its members to be Open Garden Week participants.
You’ll see eight gardens made by MHHS members in these listings. Enjoy their gardens — and then pick their brains about plants, gardening or the MHHS. (Full disclosure: I’m a member of the MHHS. You should consider joining a horticultural society or garden club, too.) Many of those MHHS gardens are on the well-represented Hamilton Mountain, where there is a richness of terrific gardens to explore.
ALL OF HAMILTON’S communities are well represented this year, with some wonderful gardens open (I know, because I’ve been to some of them) in Dundas, Ancaster, Stoney Creek and Flamborough. In the Winona neighbourhood of “The Creek” you can find the garden (SC6) of Pat and Bob Disher, who won 2016’s coveted Red Trillium for their front and side gardens. In Dundas, you really should visit the eclectic, no-space-wasted garden of Dana and Catherine Robbins which has several features I want to copy, including a vertical vegetable garden.
There are lots of first-time hosts this year, which I think speaks well of the appeal of Open Garden Week and of the new generations of gardeners in this area. As well, there are returning gardens, some from years back, some perennial (pun intended) participants. If you haven’t been to a garden for a couple of years of more, you will likely be surprised how much gardens can change even over a short period of time.
To all the hosts of our 84 gardens, I say thank you. As, as I say each year, if it’s your first time, relax. It’s going to be a blast. To visitors: There are no tickets. It’s all free. Just show up at the address on the days and at the times listed. Wander, look, compliment the owner, take photos (ask first) and ... always ... have fun. (D7),