MARILYN CORNWELL: Mairlyn's Photos - Cot 20 2025

The Pumpkin Festival is on at the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG). I was there yesterday with the Lily Society’s bulb sale. The entrance to the RBG had a display of over a thousand pumpkins, set on the ground in mosaic display patterns. And there are so many colours and kinds of pumpkins now. Is pumpkin hybridization recent or are we getting access to ancient varieties that haven’t travelled the world?

o be sure, tThe light gray and cream colours are very stylish now. The gray ones are the Jarrahdale pumpkin - an ancient eating variety. And what about the Peanut pumpkins with the warts on their skins - caused by sugar crystalizing within the pumpkin’s flesh. They are considered exceptional flavourful and are a French heirloom variety.

Farytale and Cinderella pumpkins are the deeply lobelled and squat shapes - again a French heirloom variety. I wonder if the French are the pumpkin hybridizing masters. Pumpkin varieties have wonderful names: Porcelain Doll, Casper (like the ghost), Goosebumps, Mint Prince, Batwing, Cotton Candy, and that wonderful Turk’s Turban.

Here’s a partial stroll through the Pumpkin Trail Festival yesterday. starting at the entrance, then into the Mediterranean Greenhouse, through to the Pumpkin Trail in the Rose Garden, with the giant pumpkin and the wonderful pumpkin house.