HOME & GARDEN
On July 16-17, the Friends of Summerland Ornamental Gardens will be celebrating the Gardens’ Centenary.
Inspired by the historic template of the annual Farm picnics that took place onsite starting in 1919, the Friends will be hosting a series of free, weekend long celebration events.
The festivities will include Garden tours, heritage arts and crafts exhibits, and 1890’s botanical drawing display. Children’s activities will include face painting, games and planting seedlings in the potting shed.
Brodo Kitchen will provide food onsite and Gorgeous Georgia’s home made ice-cream will keep us all cool. Musical entertainment will include Cod Gone Wild and the South Okanagan Big Band.
To give context to why the Friends have been harking back to the events of yesteryear to craft their community centennial celebrations here is the historical background.
Summerland’s “Farm Picnics”, at the Research Station, were some of the community’s largest and best attended community events. The origin of these events was Summerland’s Fall Fair. The Fair began in 1909 but within 10 years, more space are needed and the Research Station site was chosen.
The first year of the Farm Picnics, 1919, attracted 1500 people. For 20 years, the attendance ranged from 1500 to 3500 people. Even with travel assistance (Red Line taxis) as many as 651 cars would park on the Research Station lands.
These farm picnics took place on the grounds surrounding the Superintendent’s house at Summerland’s Dominion Experimental Research Station.
The date of the picnics was June 3 : the celebration of the King’s birthday. Each farm picnic had featured speakers. Twice the province’s Lieutenant Governor (Randolph Bruce in 1926 and Fordham Johnson in 1935) attended the event.
Often the local MLA spoke at the Picnics. The Premier of B.C., Simon F. Tolmie gave a speech to a crowd of over 3,000 citizens in 1930. The Federal Ministers of Agriculture was also a frequent guest.
A central theme of the Farm Picnics was agriculture. This included the latest agricultural trends recommended by the Research Station. In the 1920s and 1930s, Jersey cows were extensively studied at the Station and most Farm Picnics had a “Jersey Parish Show” competition. Flower shows, which were so popular with the earlier Fall Fairs, were continued with these picnics.
With respect to sports, most Farm Picnics had Okanagan Valley wide baseball tournaments.
These games took place at Summerland’s Crescent beach. The 1930 Farm Picnic introduced “golf putting” which became an annual contest.
The 1931 Farm Picnic’s featured lawn bowling and it also became a very popular annual Okanagan competition. A crowd favourite event was the ladies nail driving contest. That contest continued as a Summerland event until the 1980s.
One of the Research Stations most prominent scientists was Ted Atkinson. Atkinson was also president of Summerland’s Board of Trade. By 1940, the Board of Trade felt that the Farm Picnic activities should be moved back to Summerland to promote local businesses.
The two day event took place in the B.C. Fruit Shippers building in West Summerland. This became the Spring Fair and the Farm Picnics, slowly became less popular.
The Friends are now re-invigorating the spirit of the Farm Picnic and are encouraging one and all to join the party celebrating the 100th Birthday of this enduring community touchstone – the South Okanagan’s oldest and most beautiful Garden.
For more information see the Friends website: www.summerlandgardens.org