RBG Rock Garden

I finally got to the Royal Botanical Garden's newly renovated Rock Garden yesterday on a beautiful November day with the sun lowering in the afternoon sky. It took a few years, and quite a bit of money to renovate the gardens.  It boasts a grand modern entrance building, and accessible walkways down to the rock garden.  It is significantly revamped.  As I looked at various areas, I could see how different it is now.  Even with the mature trees still in their places, the renovation is profound.   The water was emptied from the ponds so the full effect is missing in the late fall.  Still the autumn colours are showing in the Japanese maples, dogwoods, viburnums and the grasses. The landscape architect firm was Janet Rosenberg Studio.  I looked for reviews by the professional trade to see what the verdict is.  I found one article in Canadian Architecture covering the basic overview of what was accomplished. Nothing else so far.  I wanted to know if the result has elevated the rock garden to star status. A sunken garden has the potential to be pure magic. So it was great to see the re-do of the ponds and paths as they were in poor shape.  The new ponds and waterways are the major features and they are empty now, so I may have to wait till spring to get the full effect of the fountains, waterfalls and bridges.  It might be possible to capture some snow images - I checked to see if the Rock Garden is open in winter and daily hours are posted, so we'll see what happens.

Join Me April 10 at RBG!

Join Me! Next Sunday I will be the speaker at the annual meeting of the Lily Society.  This is a free event open to the public.  And this is one of my favourite topics and activities - finding 'public' gardens within easy reach.  I would be so pleased if you can be there. April 10, 2016 2:00pm - Ontario Regional Lily Society (at the Royal Botanical Gardens, 680 Plains Road West. Burlington, Rooms 1 & 2)  Great Public Gardens in Your Own Backyard If you live within the Golden Horseshoe and surrounding Toronto area, you can visit more than 30 public gardens within easy driving distance. Some will be new to you and others will be familiar.  You'll see them all at their best.   Get your schedules out because you'll want to get to these glorious gardens so close to home and easy to visit.

Garden Etiquette # 3

The good garden etiquette guide now has three entries - I found this in my Butchart garden images.  It is the ceiling of one of the Japanese garden structures.  As there are approximately 1 million visitors a year, this could make for the accumulation of a lot of signatures.  Can you see the date at the bottom left?  I think it is 1976, and there's another further right that looks like 1963.  How many dates do you see? Butchart has the best recognized garden path in North America.  It is an amazing sight to experience, and everyone who steps to the edge of the rock quarry takes this signature view of the sunken rock quarry garden with the curving path leading into the distance.

The Garden Traveller: Exploring Public Gardens

I am preparing a new garden presentation for garden clubs and horticultural associations.  You can see from the title that it's going to be a bonanza of some great public gardens, and on a theme that is interesting and wonderful.  Everyone wants their own garden to have magic and mystery, and when we visit public gardens, that's one of the prime experiences we are after.  So I'll start to keep you posted on this theme.